Racing Manhattan

by Terence Blacker

  Marius may look good, but he’s no hero. My waving arm and my crazy battle-cry spook him for a moment. He checks his stride, ears pricked in alarm. Michaela tries to get him going again but, by the time she does, it is too late. I flash past the winning post, a winner by half a length.

  We did it, Dusty.

  I pull up, patting my pony’s neck as Michaela canters past me. Her shaded goggles are around her neck.

  ‘What were you doing?’ she shouts. ‘You scared Marius. You stopped us winning.’

  I shake my head and shrug, as if I have no idea what she is talking about.

  But I do. The fire within me is dying fast now, becoming no more than the warm glow of victory. In my heart, I know that what I have just done wasn’t exactly fair – maybe I was even a bit out of control for a moment – but there is nothing in the rules about a jockey waving an arm and shouting a bit.

  I hear mutterings as I trot past the spectators. It seems that no one had their money on Dusty and me. For the first time since I pulled up after the race, I’m aware that my left foot is throbbing with pain from where the wooden poles banged against my trainers.

  Uncle Bill appears from out of nowhere. His face and neck are flushed a dark, dangerous red. He grabs the reins so sharply that Dusty throws his head up in alarm.

  ‘Get off,’ he says to me.

  I slide out of the saddle. My left foot hurts so much as I touch the ground that I almost fall over.

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  I shake my head, looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘I said, don’t get in her way, right?’

  A large man in a sheepskin coat wanders up and lays a hand on Uncle Bill’s shoulder. ‘Well done, mate,’ he says. ‘Your daughter rode a blinder.’

  ‘Daughter? You’re joking.’ The words are sharp, angry, like the crack of a whip.

  Taken aback, the man holds up two hands in mock surrender, and walks off.

  ‘So.’ Uncle Bill drops his voice. ‘Did you forget or what?’

  ‘I was riding a finish, that’s all.’

  ‘Waving your arm and shouting. That’s just … cheating.’

  I dart him a look. Uncle Bill worrying about cheating? I’ve heard it all now.

  ‘I got six to one on Michaela,’ he hisses. ‘I could have bought another pony with my winnings.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He says the word between gritted teeth, his face close to mine. I can smell the sweat on him. ‘After everything I’ve done for you, the money I’ve spent on ponies, you’re sorry? You little—’

  Without a word, I take the reins from his hand and hobble off with Dusty. My pony needs a drink. The fire has gone now. To tell the truth, I’m beginning to feel a twinge of guilt about what I’ve done – I never wanted to upset Michaela.

  ‘You said you understood,’ he calls after me.

  And I did, I think to myself.

  I understood that I was going to do whatever it took to win.

  I understood that, if you’re second, you’re just the best loser.

  I understood that no one was going to stop me doing my best.

  We drive home in the black and gold horsebox. There’s silence in the cab – Michaela upset, Uncle Bill steaming, me a little bit frightened about what I’ve just done. My left little toe seems to be swelling up in my trainers, but somehow it doesn’t seem the moment to talk about a pain in my foot.

  It is as we reach the village of Coddington, about a mile from the hall, that Michaela, sitting on the middle seat between her dad and me, murmurs something to her father about giving me some of the prize money.

  Uncle Bill gives an angry little laugh. ‘You’re joking, I hope.’

  ‘I don’t want any money, Uncle Bill,’ I say. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ says Michaela. ‘It was a hundred pounds first prize.’

  ‘I lost a hell of a lot more than that betting on you.’

  Michaela looks away. ‘Jay didn’t know that.’

  Uncle Bill shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you,’ he says. ‘You’re actually sticking up for the person who beat you.’

  ‘Please, Dad. For me.’

  Uncle Bill sets his face, jaw clenched, and stares ahead. I watch him for a few moments, suddenly feeling sad at the distance he keeps from me. I used to wonder what it was like being Michaela and having a dad to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in your life, helping you, making decisions. When I was younger, I even tried to pretend to myself that my uncle was a sort of father to me, that he filled the great dad-gap in my life, but it never really worked. Uncle Bill made sure of that.

  I turn to Michaela and say out loud the words I have been thinking all the way home. ‘I’m sorry, M. I wasn’t just riding a finish like I said. I knew what I was doing. I spooked Marius on purpose.’

  Michaela looks at her hands, frowning. I know that I have hurt her.

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ she asks quietly.

  ‘I just have to win. It’s in me, like a disease. Even when I know it won’t do me any good, I can’t help myself.’

  Uncle Bill glances across at me. There is a curiosity in his eyes, as if he is seeing me for the first time. ‘And when someone tells you to lose, that just makes you more determined, right?’ he asks quietly. ‘You’ve got the rage. You’re going to show them. You couldn’t lose if you tried.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘How did you know that?’

  He shrugs. ‘Just a guess,’ he mutters as we turn into the long drive of Coddington Hall. ‘All I know is it’s cost me a packet. Your aunt’s right. You’re a money-pit. Everything you do costs us money.’

  ‘I won, Uncle Bill. What more could I do?’

  The horsebox draws up in front of the stables. ‘In this life, doll,’ he says, ‘you can win and still lose.’ He stares at me. I stare back. ‘No need to sort the ponies, Michaela,’ he says, his eyes still fixed on me. ‘Jay will do it.’

  He gets out of the horsebox and walks away, his boots crunching on the gravel.

  ‘That’s not fair, Dad,’ Michaela calls out. ‘She’s got a bad foot.’

  ‘Leave her.’ He speaks the words without turning around.

  With a little wince of apology to me, Michaela follows him.

  I get out, gasping as my foot touches the ground. My toe feels so swollen that I dare not take off my trainer before the ponies have been unloaded, rubbed down, fed and watered for the night.

  I let down the ramp at the back of the horsebox, then the small door at the front. Dusty, mud-spattered but content, is half asleep. Marius is still warm and sweating up.

  There you go, boys. Let’s get you out.

  I back Marius out and lead him to his stable, then turn my attention to Dusty. It will be an hour or so before I can go to the house and bathe my foot, but there is the trace of a smile on my face as Dusty backs down the ramp.

  My.

  First.

  Winner.

  CUCKOO IN THE NEST

  ‘NOW THAT IS the most revolting thing I have seen for a long, long time.’

  We are in the kitchen the following morning. Aunt Elaine and Michaela are inspecting the red and blue mess that used to be my little toe.

  ‘It throbs a bit,’ I say.

  Aunt Elaine gives a weary sigh. I am used to that sound.

  ‘It always happens to you, doesn’t it, Jay?’ She stares down at my foot with an I-think-I’m-going-to-be-sick look on her face. ‘I do worry about you sometimes.’

  That’s my step-aunt for you. The fact that I have won a race means nothing to her. It is my messy toe that she sees. She believes that girls should be soft-skinned and as ladylike as she thinks she is, and that is something I can never quite manage.

  I am small, strong, and wear my dark hair cut short. I can carry a bale of hay on my shoulders as easily as an adult. When I ride the ponies, I like to go fast, jump logs that are around the estate. I am most at home in the stables. Nothing about me is the s
lightest bit ladylike.

  ‘Is it broken?’ Michaela is looking more closely at the toe.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  Aunt Elaine winces. ‘Don’t get too close, darling.’

  Michaela smiles at me. ‘I don’t think you can actually catch broken toes, Elaine,’ she says, but returns to her seat.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  We all know what she means. I’m different from them. What she could catch is me.

  It is as if I am a part of the Barton family’s past which Aunt Elaine would prefer to forget. Michaela’s mother Maria ran off with a Brazilian pop star and now lives in South America. Uncle Bill was what she calls ‘a little rough around the edges’. His sister Debs, my mother, had a life that was full of problems.

  Aunt Elaine had been at Coddington three years when I arrived. Looking back now, I think maybe she believed that the family was just beginning to change thanks to her ladylike ways.

  Then, suddenly and without warning, my mum died and I was there – unrespectable, unable to change, fatherless and now motherless, an everyday reminder of the way the Bartons used to be before she came along.

  These days, she likes to describe Uncle Bill as ‘an entrepreneur’, while Michaela is becoming ‘quite the young lady’. They all live at ‘the hall’, which has ‘a bit of land’ and ‘just a few horses’.

  But there is nothing she can do about me. When my mother’s name comes up in conversation, my step-aunt quickly changes the subject. My father is never mentioned.

  Two years ago, when Michaela and I finished primary school, it was decided that Michaela would be sent off to a private weekly boarding school while I would go to the local high school. According to Aunt Elaine, Michaela had been picking up ‘unfortunate habits’ from the ‘kids’ (she used the word as if she was picking up something unpleasant with tongs). It was time for her to become ‘motivated’, to learn how to be a lady.

  And what about me? It was never spelled out because it never had to be. I was one of the kids. My unfortunate habits were just part of me. There was nothing to be done about them.

  These days I feel like an outsider at Coddington, a cuckoo in the nest. If it were not for the ponies and for Michaela, who is a real friend and always sticks up for me, I don’t know what I would have done.

  I finish my breakfast and hobble out of the kitchen. Behind me, I hear murmuring voices.

  ‘One has to make allowances, I suppose,’ Aunt Elaine is saying. ‘Given the circumstances.’

  I do my chores. Feed the hens, collect the eggs, brush the small yard in front of the stable, feed and water the five ponies and Elaine’s horse, Humphrey. A constant refrain over the past year is how much looking after me has cost. Without being asked to, I have begun to do more work in the stables and around the fields. I try to earn my keep.

  There was a time when Michaela and I did these things together. We both loved riding and going to the local shows and gymkhanas with Ted. Looking after the animals wasn’t work. It was fun.

  For a while we had quite a name in these parts, competing in pairs events in hunter trials. We were the Bartons – same age, same height, same surname but very different in every other way. Michaela used to ride Lysander, a brilliant half-Arab bay, while I was on Tinker, slower, less fancy but reliable. We were a good team.

  There are photographs in the house of us receiving prizes – Michaela, blonde, neat, smiling at the camera, and me, dark-haired, scruffy and straight-faced.

  It has changed a bit since then. These days Michaela rides with her new school friends over the weekend. She says she prefers to ride round the fields to competing in shows. She has already told me that she will never race again. ‘It’s so rough,’ is the way she put it this morning. I laughed, but felt sad. We used to do so much together.

  I muck out Dusty, Marius, Humphrey, Cardsharp, Lucky and Bantry Bay as they look out of their stables. As I brush the yard, I wonder if Michaela has begun to think of riding in the same way as Aunt Elaine does. Something to dress up for, to be seen doing by one’s friends, to talk about at smart parties.

  ‘No stopping the jockey, eh?’

  I turn to see Uncle Bill watching me as he leans on the gate which leads from the garden to the stables. The first cigar of the day is in his hand. After what happened yesterday, I am surprised to see him.

  ‘I can’t exercise them today,’ I say. ‘My toe—’

  ‘Never mind that.’ Uncle Bill sounds impatient, but then, as if remembering his manners, he smiles at me.

  Now I know he is up to no good.

  ‘D’you mind doing this stuff?’ He nods at the brush in my hand. ‘Looking after the animals?’

  ‘Of course not. I love being with the ponies. It gets me out of the house.’

  Uncle Bill raises his eyebrows. ‘It’s that bad, eh?’

  ‘I mean, I like being in the house, but—’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ Uncle Bill opens the gate and wanders towards me. ‘I wanted to apologise to you, girl,’ he says. ‘Spoke out of turn yesterday. Said stuff. Lost it for a moment. Sometimes I get a bit carried away.’

  ‘I know how that feels.’

  He laughs. ‘We noticed.’

  ‘I’m sorry I upset Michaela.’

  Uncle Bill shrugs. ‘You’re a winner. Found the best ground. Took your chance. That little pony had no right to win.’

  ‘He’s faster than you think.’

  ‘Nah.’ Uncle Bill takes a long pull at his cigar. ‘I was an idiot. I should have put my money on you. You would have won on any of the ponies in that race.’

  ‘D’you really think that?’ I look away and start brushing the concrete so that he won’t notice the smile on my face.

  ‘You showed the older kids how it’s done.’

  ‘Thanks, Uncle Bill.’

  I wait. There is something else coming, I know. My uncle has never been one to stand around, handing out compliments for no reason.

  ‘There are other race meetings like that.’ He speaks casually. ‘Little pop-up events all year round, organised outside the system.’

  ‘Are there?’

  ‘I think you could do well in them. I’ll get you a few rides. Drive you there. You’d have to bunk off school now and then. Is that a problem?’

  It’s my turn to shrug.

  ‘We could make a bit of money between us.’ He makes a chirpy little clicking noise with his teeth. ‘What d’you think, Jay? Are you in?’

  Just.

  Try.

  To.

  Stop.

  Me.

  A GHOST ON THE RACETRACK

  FOR THE NEXT eighteen months, my life changes. I enter the world of what Uncle Bill calls ‘unofficial’ pony races.

  By ‘unofficial’, he means illegal.

  Some of the most interesting hobbies are unofficial, Uncle Bill tells me. Hares are hunted by greyhounds. Men wrestle and fight. Ponies race. People gamble.

  I go along with it, but the truth is, I don’t like the men and sometimes the children I meet at the unofficial pony races. They have a wild, dangerous look to them. When they get together, on some big field or disused airfield, it is as if they have stepped out of normal everyday life for a few hours into a world where there is only one rule.

  Winning. Making money.

  They make jokes, slap each other on the back, but there is always that scary, hard look in their eyes.

  Uncle Bill actually becomes more Uncle Bill-like when he is racing. Away from Aunt Elaine, he is louder, ruder, swearier. He seems more alive. His light-blue eyes flash with pleasure.

  ‘You know what I like about pony-racing?’ We’re in the car, driving home one day after I’ve ridden a wall-eyed piebald to victory on a disused greyhound track in deepest Essex. My uncle has the smile on his face which tells me his back pocket is bulging with twenty-pound notes.

  ‘The money?’

  He laughs. ‘More than that. It takes me back to when I was young, getting on in t
he world. Before life became all respectable and boring.’

  I decide that it’s best to say nothing.

  ‘I like it when you know where you stand.’ He speaks as if he has forgotten I am there. ‘No messing about. No nannies. No rules about this and that. It’s – cleaner.’

  ‘What were you doing then?’ I ask the question that many people have wondered, but very few have the nerve to ask.

  ‘Hm?’ He looks at me, as if surprised to hear my voice.

  ‘You said you were getting on in the world. What were you doing?’

  He shrugs. ‘Usual stuff. Import, export. Development. Bit of buying and selling. Same as anyone else, really. Only better.’ He laughs again.

  ‘And unofficial,’ I say.

  He gives an Uncle-Bill wink. ‘Attagirl,’ he says, and switches on the sound system in the car. He likes disco tunes from the 1980s. Sometimes he sings along. He sounds like a performing seal.

  Maybe, I think to myself now and then, this is what a gangster looks like. He’s not like in the films – wearing dark glasses, with a big hat over his eyes and a pistol in his belt. In real life, a gangster might wear a sheepskin coat and like disco music, and have a big house in the country, with stables and ponies out the back.

  He seems to make a good living, but he worries about money all the time. On his way to and from race meetings, he makes calls on his car phone.

  He has his own way of talking on the telephone. It mainly involves long, threatening silences. Sometimes I hear the other person squawking away until he runs out of words or finally gets interrupted by Uncle Bill – just a few words, delivered in a low, angry tone like a punch to the stomach.

  He never seems to lose these conversations. He talks about ‘merchandise’, and ‘satisfactory financial arrangements’. When the squawking dies down, he’ll ask, ‘So do we have a deal?’ And he always does.

  After the call ends, the cold look on his face remains for a few seconds, then slowly he remembers that I am there and that today is a race day.

  ‘Goodnight, nurse,’ he’ll say.

  Or: ‘Game over.’

  Or: ‘Another one bites the dust.’

  When Uncle Bill and I set off to the day’s race meeting, there are no ponies with us. They will be supplied by their trainers.