The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘And whatsisname’s not like that.’

  ‘Mark’s not at all like that. Mark’s got money, and if you cast your tiny mind back his father won the Derby—’

  ‘I know. With Persian Artefact. I remember,’ Mattie interrupted. ‘Worst horse ever to win a Derby.’

  ‘He still won it, Mattie. So he’s not broke, he’s not socially ambitious—’

  ‘And all he really cares about is little old you.’

  ‘Oh, you can go to hell.’

  Josephine got up and strode off round the lake. Mattie let her go, rolling onto his side to watch a large mirror carp moving slowly an inch beneath the top of the water. A quarter of an hour or so later when she’d walked round the small lake half a dozen times Josephine came back and threw herself down on the grass once more beside her brother.

  ‘I just wish I knew why you don’t like him,’ Josephine wondered. ‘You don’t have any reason not to like him. So what is it? Don’t you trust him or something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mattie said. ‘Yes, maybe that’s it. I don’t know really.’

  ‘You don’t have any reason not to trust him,’ Josephine replied tartly. ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t trust him, Jose. I just said that might be it. It was you who mentioned it so maybe it’s you who doesn’t trust him.’

  ‘Trouble with being a man is you don’t know what it’s like,’ Josephine said, carefully ignoring Mattie’s last comment. ‘You have no idea what it’s like when all people want to do is get you into bed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Mattie replied, poker-faced. ‘It wouldn’t break my heart.’

  ‘It would if you were a woman. Particularly if you were trying to do something other with your life than just getting in and out of bed with a load of men. I really wanted to act, Mattie. You know I did. You know how much I did.’

  ‘Wanted to? How much you did? Sounds like past tense to me, sis.’

  ‘That’s because it is. I can’t tell you what it’s like. Being an actress. It’s not what you do it’s who you do. Same thing if you get to be some sort of social number, except it’s them wanting to screw you to get on instead of vice versa.’

  ‘You heard about the Irish actress, I suppose,’ Mattie said idly.

  ‘Years ago,’ Josephine groaned. ‘She slept with a writer. I told you that. Anyway, I’ve had it. Seriously. I want to get married, and have a home. And kids.’

  ‘And whatsisname’s Mr Right, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Mattie said, and then pretended to yawn. ‘Long as you’re sure.’

  ‘Of course I’m not sure. You know as well as I do there’s no such thing as a racing certainty.’

  ‘If you’re not sure then maybe you shouldn’t be marrying him.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was, did I? Anyway you don’t marry someone because you’re sure. You marry them because you’re not.’

  ‘Pretty good but no way good enough, sveetie,’ Mattie sighed, adopting a terrible German accent as he suddenly turned and grabbed his sister by the waist. ‘You know ve haff vays of making you talk.’

  ‘No don’t!’ Josephine screamed. ‘No don’t you dare tickle me! You tickle me, Matthew Rosse, and I shall be sick! I promise you!’

  ‘First you will tell me vot I vant to know, demn you! First you vill tell me—’

  ‘No!’ Josephine screamed. ‘I’ll never tell you! Never ever ever!’

  Suddenly they were children again, wrestling around the nursery floor, except in those days it had been Josephine who’d had the upper hand. Now she was screaming helplessly for mercy, but the more she begged the less he listened.

  ‘All right!’ she yelled finally, but suddenly sounding more angry than anything. ‘All right just stop and I’ll tell you! Stop it, OK?’

  ‘No! You tell me zen I vill stop it!’ Mattie laughed back.

  ‘All right! All right – I want to get married—’

  ‘Yah?’

  ‘I want to get married! Because!’ Josephine yelled, louder than ever. ‘I want to get married because sometimes! Sometimes I think that if I don’t! I’ll never be able to stand on my own two feet, that’s why!’

  Mattie stopped and sitting back on his heels looked at his sister. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I just feel I’ll never be free of here,’ Josephine said, trying to catch her breath. ‘That I’ll never really be my own person.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Mattie said, brushing back the hair which had fallen in his eyes. ‘What is it? Is it Dad?’

  ‘It’s everything,’ Josephine said, putting her hands behind her on the grass and leaning back. ‘It’s Dad, it’s Mums, it’s the famous horse, it’s Claremore. This place casts a huge shadow, you know, Mattie. Don’t you feel it sometimes? And I just don’t want to go through life being Daughter of Claremore, thanks. Like some sort of story in a pony book. I mean that’s not all I want.’

  ‘Yup,’ Mattie agreed curtly. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘Do you?’ Josephine turned her head to look directly at him. ‘What about you? You’re expected to be some sort of a younger version of the great Tyrone Rosse and you can’t tell me that’s fair.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But I do love my work. You’ve got to remember that.’

  ‘To my way of thinking, Mattie, Mums needs to move on. There are other things in life, I mean there are more things to life, than just memories. Someone really should tell her that.’

  ‘Well, now it’s your turn,’ Mattie said. ‘You try telling her, and let me know when you’re going to do it, because I really have to be there for it.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning you may be her natural daughter, but it sounds to me as if you understand our mother even less than I do,’ Mattie replied, getting to his feet. ‘Now I’m going back because I need a long, cold drink.’

  Mattie strode off down the hill towards Claremore which lay below them, bathed in the evening sun. After a moment Josephine got to her feet and followed him, and soon both of them were down in the rose gardens and lost to sight in the long dark shadows cast by the lovely old house.

  Two days before the King George VI Stakes at Ascot a man who had been specially commissioned by the Sandown Executive to make a statue of The Nightingale to commemorate his already legendary performance in the Eclipse arrived at Claremore to photograph the horse prior to commencing the sculpture. Since there was always a well-regulated stream of visitors to the yard, such as journalists who wanted interviews, photographers who wanted yet another study of the wonder horse at rest and at work, or some of the strictly rationed number of bona fide admirers allowed in, Cassie paid little heed to the arrival of her latest visitor except to note it and ensure that maximum security was in place.

  And most of all, that her precious horse wasn’t fussed.

  ‘How long has Nightie been out of his box, Bridie?’ she demanded when on returning to the yard mid-morning she found Bridie still standing on the grass circle holding her charge’s head.

  ‘Not nearly long enough,’ said a voice from behind her.

  Cassie ignored him and looked at Bridie instead.

  ‘He’s being awful good, Mrs Rosse,’ Bridie said. ‘And he’s not been out the whole time. I had him back inside while your man was changing films and lenses and things.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, Bridie, photographers will go on taking photographs for just as long as you let them,’ Cassie replied firmly, before turning back to face her visitor. ‘Now if you don’t mind, Mr –’

  ‘Benson,’ her visitor prompted. ‘Joel Benson. You gave me permission to come and photograph your horse if you remember.’

  ‘Of course I remember,’ Cassie replied. ‘But not all morning.’

  ‘No,’ Joel Benson agreed, taking another couple of shots. ‘But then I haven’t been here all morning. I’ve been here for precisely three-quarters of an hour and photographing the horse for just
twenty-five minutes.’

  ‘I should imagine that would be quite enough time for anybody,’ Cassie retorted.

  ‘I’m sure you would, Mrs Rosse,’ Joel Benson said, lining up another shot. ‘But then you’re not me.’

  ‘And you’re not me. And this horse has a very important race in two days’ time, so Bridie – if you don’t mind …’ Cassie nodded towards the horse’s box.

  ‘Mrs Rosse.’ Joel Benson took his eyes from the view-finder and turned them on Cassie. He was a tall man, and one of Cassie’s initial impressions was that he was one of those loose-limbed people who give the impression of doing everything at half speed. He wasn’t the remotest bit handsome, having a large aquiline nose and a slightly protruding lower lip which gave him the immediate appearance of wilfulness as well as what seemed to be a permanent frown which deeply creased his forehead and imbued his large, dark brown eyes with an intense look. Neither was he the sharpest of dressers, wearing as he was what looked like a very old cricket shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a pair of lightweight blue cord trousers which were so faded and worn they looked like velvet, and a pair of ancient tennis shoes done up with black laces. His long black hair was as untidy as the rest of him, falling in his eyes whenever he leaned forward to look through the viewfinder of his Hasselbad so that every time he stood up he had to brush it back into place with one long, slender-fingered hand. Finally, as if to emphasize a total commitment to lack of effort as far as appearance went, he was also unshaven.

  ‘Mrs Rosse,’ he repeated. ‘I take it you are Mrs Rosse?’

  ‘Of course I’m Mrs Rosse,’ Cassie sighed.

  ‘Mrs Rosse,’ Benson continued, ignoring the rebuke. ‘You were kind enough to grant me permission to come and photograph your horse—’

  ‘Photograph him, yes, not paint him. He has a very important race the day after tomorrow and I’m afraid enough is enough.’

  ‘I should have thought it was risk enough to let him be sculpted.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Cassie stared at him deliberately blankly. ‘I can’t see what someone doing a sculpture of my horse has to do with taking any undue risks. The risk surely is letting someone I don’t know into my yard?’

  ‘The risk is, at least according to horse folklore apparently,’ Benson continued, beginning slowly to pack up his equipment, ‘the risk is having any sort of portrait done of a horse while it’s still racing. You didn’t know that?’

  He looked up at her from where he was stooping over his camera boxes and stared at her from behind the mane of hair which had once again fallen in front of his face.

  ‘No,’ Cassie replied, sinking her hands into the side pockets of her jeans. ‘No, I did not know that, and anyway it doesn’t make sense. How could the fact that someone is painting or sculpting or drawing your horse have anything to do with its performance?’

  ‘I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. That horses often die if they are painted or sculpted before they retire. You’re obviously not superstitious.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Yet you have a horseshoe hanging by The Nightingale’s box.’

  ‘That’s always been there.’

  ‘You sound like the famous Danish physicist. I can’t remember his name. Bohr I think it was. Anyway, someone was at his house once and teased the scientist for having a horseshoe on his wall. Fancy you of all people believing a horseshoe brings you luck, the visitor said. To which the atomic physicist replied that he didn’t believe any such thing. But he understood that a horseshoe brought you luck whether you believed in it or not.’

  Cassie said nothing by way of reply. Instead she smiled and looked at her watch by way of a further prompt.

  ‘Maybe if I don’t have everything I need I can come some other time?’ Joel Benson enquired as he began to pack up his tripod. ‘I’m often in Ireland so if it wouldn’t inconvenience you, it won’t inconvenience me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Cassie said. ‘Just ring my secretary if you need another visit. Goodbye.’

  Then she walked into The Nightingale’s box for no other reason than to curtail the conversation, privately hoping that like the horseshoe the old wives’ tale about horses’ portraits did not also come true whether one believed in it or not.

  Six

  Up until the eleventh hour Cassie was still seriously considering withdrawing The Nightingale prior to announcing his retirement to stud. Not that there had been any more threatening messages or ominous deliveries made during the week. It was the brief conversation between herself and her artistic visitor that had upset her far more than she had at first realized. She knew her worry was a ridiculous one, but like so many professed non-believers in superstitions she still avoided walking under ladders, and hated seeing a singleton magpie on her way to the races.

  But the real truth of the matter was that Cassie was feeling the strain of the past few months more than she had dared admit. The one thing she had always been determined to insure was the safety of her family, and now to feel that she was almost wilfully putting them at risk led her to conclude that had she been able to foretell the consequences of keeping The Nightingale in training she would never have done so. She had achieved more than she could ever have hoped for with the horse, and having done so she blamed herself for not being content and retiring him as a three-year-old. So the nearer she got to raceday, the more she was convinced that she must call her vet Niall Brogan and persuade him to sign a certificate saying the horse had been cast in his box so that she could withdraw him and thus put an end to her anxieties.

  But Mattie as always was there first, reading his mother’s thoughts long before she even considered expressing them. He told her he knew what she was contemplating, said that it would be no way to end such a triumphant career and then asked her to imagine the disappointment such a sudden retirement would cause.

  ‘I know he doesn’t need to establish himself as one of the best horses ever because everyone knows he is,’ Mattie argued on the Friday morning as they hacked back together after watching the gallops. ‘But you yourself have always said that if you train horses to race and they’re fit and sound then they should be raced.’

  ‘You have to admit there are mitigating circumstances surrounding this particular horse, Mattie.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mattie agreed, ‘but you’ve taken every precaution possible. And as far as this particular horse goes, I can’t imagine one who’s ever had better security. So we’ve got to go to Ascot. They’re all saying it’s the race of the century, with the dual winner of this year’s English and Irish Derbies—’

  ‘I know what’s entered, thank you very much.’

  ‘You couldn’t imagine a better race,’ Mattie continued. ‘With not only this year’s English and Irish Derby winner Changement taking Nightie on, but the French Derby winner Concise as well, and Thirtynine Steps the winner of the King Edward VII Stakes, and the 2000 Guineas winner Which Way Now, and Mrs Mopper – I mean, come on – what a field!’

  ‘You’ve forgotten Mot Cambron.’

  ‘Probably because on the way it ran behind us at Sandown I would say that Leonora’s horse hasn’t got a chance.’

  ‘And how do you rate the chances of the others?’

  ‘Nightie’s the only four-year-old colt. Except for the mare all the others are three-year-olds, so weight for age we have to give them a stone—’

  ‘And the mare seven pounds. She won our Oaks in record time, remember.’

  ‘Come on, Ma. You know as well as I do we could give them all two stone and still wallop them. They’re billing it as the Dream Race which it just has to be, and then if you want to retire him you can do so after the race. You can’t retire him now, not when you’ve come this far. Just twenty-four hours more and honestly, after he’s obliterated one of the best fields ever assembled everyone will understand if you say that’s enough. And then of course there’s Jose.’

  And then of course there was Josephine. Josephine had persuaded Mark’s father to let her
ride one of his horses in the De Beers Diamond Stakes, the prestigious race for Lady Riders which opens the racecard on King George VI day. To qualify for that privilege it seemed she had been diligently riding work every day at Newmarket where under Major Carter-James’ tutelage she had been deemed more than adequate for the job ahead. Josephine was a brilliant horsewoman, and although the only seriously competitive races in which she had ever ridden had been pony races on various Irish beaches, no-one who had ever seen her ride in those contests would ever doubt her ability, or more importantly her competitiveness. As Cassie had said herself many times, had her daughter not chosen to go into the theatre she could have gone right to the top as an equestrian.

  ‘She won’t win for a minute,’ Mattie said, taking a quick draw on his inhaler as he and his mother walked their horses back into the yard. ‘But she’ll go damn’ close, and it would well and truly take the edge off her day let alone everyone else’s if we were to pull Himself out of the race now.’

  But Cassie’s mind was now elsewhere so she hardly heard the rest of what Mattie had to say as they walked their horses down the hill. Of course it was perfectly normal to want to ride for your fiancé’s stable, but for some illogical reason it appeared to Cassie as an act of disloyalty. She couldn’t help it. She wanted Josephine by their side in the Claremore party on The Nightingale’s big day, not dividing her loyalties between her family and the Carter-Jameses.

  Mattie coughing beside her brought her back to earth.

  ‘You don’t sound too hot,’ Cassie said as they slipped down from their horses in the yard. ‘I noticed you were on the Ventolin early on as well.’

  ‘It’s nothing, really,’ Mattie said, flicking his irons up over his saddle. ‘The pollen count’s a bit high at the moment, that’s all. So do we go tomorrow or do we not?’

  ‘Sometimes I really wish I’d chucked it all in years ago and taken up growing roses,’ Cassie sighed, pulling the saddle off her horse.