by A. P. McCoy
Was he about to surrender that unbroken beam of light? He thought of the Monk’s face turning to him as he’d galloped past him in the last race. It only had to happen once. Take a fall and you fall for ever. But did it count if your reason for throwing a race was not cash, not corruption, but pure revenge? If it was just one move in a larger plan?
He held his position and Supernatural was jumping beautifully. The mare was enjoying the race. Her ears were pricked forward, waiting for the word, the squeeze, the nudge. Sometimes you could tell a horse knew it was going to streak out in front. You could feel the swell of nerve and muscle. This was a winning race.
But he had to gain trust. He had to worm his way in, to a place where they would begin to rely on him. There was no other way. He had to change his face when he was with them; make them think he was one of them; make them believe he was just like them. He had to deceive them all. This was the price he would have to pay.
George Pleasance had slipped into the pool, all smiles in the golden light of the setting sun. ‘You know what I’m proud of ?’ he’d said. ‘I’ve never once asked a jockey to take a fall for me. Never once said: pull up, don’t try, don’t win. I’ve never had to. I don’t believe in it. I much prefer to give a jockey a win–win. No repercussions. Never.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘There’s a horse I want you to ride. She’s called Supernatural. Good one for you to win on. You’re a future champion, you are, Duncan. Not this year, no, but in the future I see it and I want to be there with you. So there it is. My gift to you. Win on it and there will be more, I promise.
‘But I’m going to have a good bet against you, Duncan. I’m going to lay a bet for Supernatural to lose. I always tell the jockey. Then if he wants to please me, that’s his business. I give a man a choice. But if it’s not a fair choice, a difficult choice, then it’s not a choice, is it, Duncan? There you have it. I’ve taken a shine to you. Win or lose, it’s all right by me, son.’ And with that George Pleasance had hauled himself out of the pool, grabbed a towel and walked away across the warm tiles.
Duncan hadn’t seen Pleasance after that until today’s races.
The front-runners were beginning to tire as they reached the third last. He could hear the swelling cries of the crowd in the grandstand, mostly urging on the favourite.
No, he decided, it was too much to surrender. There was still that beam of light between him and winning the race, and he couldn’t break it. His revenge was going to have find another way. He gave Supernatural a squeeze and the mare responded, picking up the pace now. But in that moment he thought of his father, Charlie, broken by those bastards. Where was their conscience? They hadn’t cared about trampling a good man into the mud. Why should he care if he had to throw a race or two before getting the justice he wanted above everything else?
He was a torn man. He rode inside the bubble of noise kicked up by the hooves of the charging horses. He had two fences left and the last stretch in which to make his call. Supernatural was bursting to go. As the second-last fence came up, he saw a gap on his right and he made for it. But as he did so, he felt a bump as another rider went for exactly the same spot. Their stirrups clashed. The weight of the two animals impacted equally. Supernatural flew the hurdle, but she was on her forehand, and when she cleared it her nose dived and touched the turf.
At first Duncan thought he was going to stay on her back. He flew forward and felt his feet dig into the stirrups. But then the horse stumbled again as she tried to right herself and Duncan was spun off to the left. He was pelted with mud as he flew through the air and he landed heavily on his shoulder. He had his wits about him enough to crouch into a ball as the horses coming up behind him took the jump, landed and then leapt over him. A hoof caught him on the hip. Then the drumming retreated and he was left in the dirt. He looked up but couldn’t see Supernatural anywhere.
He got to his feet, still holding his whip. He pulled off his goggles and walked to the side of the track in a daze. First-aiders were running in his direction. ‘I’m fine,’ he told them. ‘Is the horse all right?’
‘Still running,’ said one of the first-aiders. ‘Here, let’s have you sat down a minute.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Don’t be an arsehole. Sit down!’
‘It was taken out of my hands,’ Duncan said.
‘What was?’
‘Decision.’
‘He’s concussed,’ one of the first-aiders said.
‘No I’m not.’
After the first-aiders were satisfied that he was neither concussed nor had broken any bones, he made his way back to the paddock. Supernatural had already been unsaddled and taken back to her stable.
Osborne was still there. ‘There’s an inquiry,’ he said gruffly.
That would mean Duncan would have to give evidence to the stewards about what had happened. No doubt some of the punters would feel that he’d been unfairly impeded. Not that it would make any difference now to the result as far as he was concerned.
Cadogan was there. He clapped Duncan on the back. He didn’t seem too upset. ‘Jolly bad luck. Glad to see you’re okay.’
Petie and Roisin had come into the paddock. They were just relieved to see that he was unhurt. ‘Not hiding anything, are you?’ Petie said. He always said that. He knew jockeys too well; knew that most of them were not above hiding a cracked rib or two, or worse, just so they could hang in for whatever fixture lay ahead of them.
Still in his silks, Duncan made his way up to the stewards’ room. As was the way, the room was hastily arranged into a makeshift courtroom, even though the ‘inquiry’ was a bit of a joke. The stewards were just finishing talking to the winner, a jockey called Mike Nation. Duncan knew him a little from the Weighing Room. He was a fine fellow. On his way out, he asked Duncan if he was okay.
They asked Duncan a few questions about what had happened at the second-last fence. Duncan said it exactly as he saw it. ‘I saw a gap and I went for it. Mike saw the same gap and went for it at the same time. We clipped each other. My horse stumbled on landing and her nose brushed the grass.’
You didn’t think it was interference?’
‘Mike did nothing wrong. Nothing I could have done, or he could have done differently. He went on to win it fair and square.’
Some papers were shuffled. One of the stewards said the result would stand. The announcement was quickly made over the public address system, echoing round the track. It was all over.
Later, in the owners’ bar, Duncan found Petie, Roisin and Kerry. They were having a drink with Mike and Aaron. George Pleasance was across the other side of the room, drinking with Osborne, Cadogan and a couple of others. Duncan tried to avoid eye contact. Pleasance seemed to be doing the same thing.
‘Well,’ said Aaron at last, ‘that was a bit of bad luck you had there, Duncan.’
‘Right.’
‘But you came through unscathed. So was it a bit of good luck?’
Duncan looked up. The Monk’s face, gazing back at him, was completely unreadable. What did he mean by that? He couldn’t possibly be in with George Pleasance. On the other hand, Mike might have told him that Cadogan had come to him with the ride and that he as an agent hadn’t gone looking for it. The Monk was beginning to unnerve him. It was like he knew everything.
Or maybe he had just meant that it was good luck to fall off without injury. For sure, there were a dozen ways to slow up a horse and lose a race, and falling off wasn’t exactly first choice. You’d have to be an idiot. It was too damned dangerous.
‘Let’s call it good luck,’ said Mike Ruddy. ‘It ain’t been a bad day.’
16
Christie had been calling him. He’d neglected her. His damned conscience had been getting the better of him again. What was it about Lorna that made him want to keep away from other women? Maybe he should talk to a priest or something; find out what the hell was going wrong. Sometimes he wished he were a Catholic like Kerry. T
hat way he could go up to the confessional box and say, Help me out here, Father, I’ve gone right off sinning.
Sandy Sanderson obviously didn’t have a problem. He was as horny as a three-balled rabbit. Any and every Thursday night, you’re safe, Christie had told Duncan. Somehow Sandy had come to an arrangement with his mistress that he would always be with her on a Thursday night, whatever was happening the next day. Christie wasn’t supposed to know. Officially it was his regular boys’ night out, but it had been clear to her for a long time. She wanted to see Duncan that Thursday. That meant lying to Lorna, and he didn’t like doing that.
He was going to have to find a way of extricating himself from Christie. Screwing the Champion Jockey’s wife had limited satisfaction. It had been fun planting tiny clues around the house for Sanderson to find, but it just wasn’t deep-down satisfying. When revenge came, it was going to have to be much more far-reaching.
Christie opened the door. She wore something that made her look like a Greek goddess. It was a loose-fitting, low-cut pleated white minidress. It revealed the beautiful curve of her elegant shoulders and her long, long legs. There was a gold sash at her waist and she wore high-heeled gold-leaf sandals with wraparound strands climbing up her tanned calves.
‘Are we fancy dress?’ Duncan said.
‘Get in here,’ she said, pulling him in and closing the door behind him. She grabbed his belt buckle and led him through the house towards the kitchen, where as before she had champagne chilling. As she led him, he noticed the light was on in the dedicated snooker room.
She poured champagne. ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ she said.
‘No. I’ve been very busy. You should know that, with Cheltenham coming up.’
The Cheltenham Festival, with its Gold Cup and other landmark races, was just a couple of weeks away. A kind of fever started to take over all major stables in the build-up to the Festival.
‘I know that. But I told you: Thursdays are always clear. Where were you last week?’
‘I do have a girlfriend, you know.’
‘You’re not telling me it’s serious. I thought you were just after getting a few races.’
‘Think what you want.’
‘Let’s not fight.’
Duncan felt a little sorry for Christie. She was surely one of the most stunningly beautiful women he’d ever met in his life. And yet here she was on a Thursday evening playing second fiddle to Sanderson’s mistress, whoever that was; and having to complain about playing second fiddle to her lover’s girlfriend, namely Lorna. She had wealth and beauty in great store and yet she was desperately lonely for company.
‘Kiss me, Duncan,’ she said.
‘Wait. Have you been playing snooker?’
‘Yes. While I was waiting for you.’
‘Can you play?’
‘I could wipe the floor with you. Before I married Sandy, I went out with Tony Swinton.’
‘Tony the Terminator? You’re joking.’
She shook her head. ‘Want to try me?’
They spent the next hour not having sex but playing snooker. She took a frame; he took a frame. Then, with Christie poised to win the third, Duncan broke the rules. It was the sight of her bent across the table, the green baize shining under the overhead lamp and the catchlight winking on the snooker balls. He reached around her waist and slid her knickers down to her ankles.
‘This means I win,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
He stuck three fingers inside her and she gasped and rocked against the table. She drew herself erect and let her snooker cue rattle to the floor. Then she slipped off her sandals, one after the other, before climbing on to the snooker table itself. She got on her hands and knees on the green baize and spread her buttocks open, swaying slightly, waiting for him to join her.
He undressed quickly and climbed up on the snooker table with her. He was already aching hard but he knew how he wanted her. He pushed her so she was belly down on the baize and spread her arms and legs towards the corner pockets of the table. Then he kneeled astride her legs, pulling her ankles up either side of his hips and rocking her back on to him, pushing deep inside her.
She groaned and clawed at the baize, threatening to tear it as he rocked back and forth on her. In turn he raked her tanned back. Her fingers found her way around a pair of the Crystalite snooker balls and she hung on to them as if they were a way of staying attached to the table. At last he lifted up her buttocks and she raised herself to her hands and knees so that he could push deeper and deeper inside her.
He felt her flood. He turned her over so that she was lying on her back, now blinking at him, her eyes seeming to dissolve in the light from the overhead lamp. When he was beyond the point of no return, he shouted out her name. Just as he was coming, she grabbed his balls a little too enthusiastically. Duncan shot up in the air like a rocket. He hit the fringed canopy lamp overhead so hard that it shattered and, fittings and all, tumbled down around them on to the baize of the snooker table.
The excitement was growing at Petie’s yard as they counted down the days to the Cheltenham Festival. The Festival was the pinnacle of jump racing, three days in which a year’s preparation, anticipation, hope and action was played out at a superb venue. It was a mix of showground and sporting event in which the very best horses and the bravest jockeys got to compete. Here you needed that little bit of extra luck and that little bit of extra heart. It was a place where reputations were forged in the heat of the race and where owners, trainers, jockeys, stable hands, bookies and punters came together in a carnival atmosphere that also dragged in with it crooks, freaks, con men and fortune-hunters. There was music and shopping tents and pageantry aplenty.
It was a theatre of dreams. For those centrally involved in the sport it could provide glory of the kind that would last a lifetime in the memory. It was the thing Charlie Claymore was aiming for before his dreams were shattered by the conspiracies of Duke Cadogan, Sandy Sanderson and William Osborne. Duncan could taste glory weeks ahead of the event. He wanted it for himself; but most of all he wanted it for Charlie.
Three great days; every race momentous. The Festival kicked off with Champion Hurdle Day. The second day, the one on which Petie was planning to make his mark, was Champion Chase Day. The final day saw competition for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a long and punishing race over three miles, two and a half furlongs, on a track gone heavy.
It was time for the big boys to show their muscles. Though Petie was not quite in the same league as trainers like William Osborne, Alan Bonsor or Dick Sommers at Penderton, he was bubbling under. He was thereabouts. Unlike those others, he wasn’t anywhere near Champion Trainer capacity, but his presence was a threatening one. He’d proved he could pull off surprises and upset the big-time boys on more than one occasion.
Mandy Gleeson had persuaded Duncan to set up an interview with the shy Irishman for a journalist friend. The newspapers had identified Quinn’s stable as a presence to watch for at the Festival. They’d assembled a photograph in which Petie, scruffy as ever, peered into the camera flanked by Duncan and Kerry in their brilliant silks.
‘Talk about crucified between two thieves,’ Petie had said, scowling at the newspaper.
‘Bit of attention won’t hurt, Daddy,’ Roisin had said.
It was true. The Cheltenham Festival was all about glamour, and the news boys wanted their stories. They wanted Davids and Goliaths; they wanted fairy tales; they wanted talk of dark horses and piebald ponies. The punter running his eye down a page of form might let his finger come to rest at Quinn’s name a little more often.
Meanwhile, the training at Petie’s yard was becoming intense. Fitness, health and diet. Petie was a revolutionary in thinking about horses and how they raced. Of course everyone knew you had to have a fit horse, but they hadn’t quite figured out the fine tuning for a super-healthy animal that would lead to maximum fitness. He experimented with their diet all the time. He had a food scientist set up a kind of laboratory
in the grounds. The scientist wore a white coat around the stables. He took samples of the horses’ blood. Some people thought Petie was crazy, that he was going over the top.
‘Listen,’ Petie said to Duncan one day. ‘If you’re not feeling well, you can tell me. But that horse over there can’t tell me, can she? She can’t say: look here, Petie, I’m feelin’ a bit under the weather, you know? But if we look at her blood, we can see if she’s right, and if she’s not right we can try to get her right.’
But as well as these modern ideas, he was old-school, too. He was still inviting Charlie down to see the set-up and Charlie was still refusing. So Petie went to him and consulted him about using a tongue-tie on a horse that had been doing well but occasionally when tongue-tied would give up and lose heart. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Charlie asked what he was using for the tongue-tie and when Petie said leather, Charlie said: to hell with that, make a new one out of an old pair of tights. Petie scratched his head and said he’d give it a go. Duncan thought he was just humouring the old man.
Petie told Charlie he had a box at Cheltenham and wanted him to be his guest. Charlie declined again, and Petie told him, well, the place was there anyway.
Gifts continued to arrive from an appreciative George Pleasance. A crate of champagne. A box of Havana cigars. A pair of tickets to watch Nottingham Forest in the quarter-finals of the European Cup. As far as George Pleasance was concerned, Duncan had taken the fall. Duncan wanted him to keep thinking that.
There were some repercussions. Mandy Gleeson invited him to have lunch with her in Soho.
‘Is that all you’re going to eat?’ she said to him when his lunch arrived. He was fretting about his weight and taking pee pills in the run-up to Cheltenham. ‘We could have made it a picnic on the banks of the Thames. I could have brought you a lettuce leaf in my handbag.’