I Own the Racecourse!

by Patricia Wrightson

  Andy was troubled. ‘I never seen him, mister. I got a lot of good friends here. Are you sure you got the right place?’ He could tell from the pale, stern face that the man was sure, so he went on quickly. ‘I’ll watch out for that feller with the big black car. If I see him I’ll set Bert Hammond on him. He’ll fix him.’

  This promise did not seem to calm the angry man. ‘I’ve warned you, young feller,’ he began. Andy could see there was only one way to end the argument, so he took it at once.

  ‘I got to go, mister,’ he said, and loped heavily away. The black dog with the hairless, leathery back came sniffing after him, and Andy clicked his fingers at it.

  ‘I never seen that chap, the one that takes bread away from kids,’ he told the dog. ‘That other old bloke, he’s got it mixed up somehow. Some other racecourse, that’s what it is.’

  Still, he meant to keep an eye open; but by next afternoon, when he strolled down in search of Bert Hammond, he had forgotten. He went through the open gate with only a secret glance and chuckle at the white benches with their warning sign. He had a sort of hope that no one would notice the fresh paint until Saturday night—and that then they would all notice and be astonished.

  In fact, several people had noticed the benches already, but no one had inspected them closely. Drivers taking trotters round the course for training had seen the white paint as they saw everything about the track; but a patch of white had no importance to horses used to the movement and colour and lights of race-nights. The Secretary of the Committee had noticed with slight irritation, because it seemed to him that old Hammond was using paint and time without authority; but the Secretary was more concerned about last Saturday night, and whether the Committee would want to hear more about it. Why the men should suddenly want to hang streamers on the old stand and threaten to go on strike about it was more than he could explain. Time enough to worry about the unauthorized use of paint when someone asked to be paid for it. Bert Hammond had also noticed the paint with irritation, but Bert too had other things to worry about. If Marsden wanted to pay someone else to do work that Bert could have done in his ordinary time, why should Bert worry? He went on watering the garden while he thought about Andy and the men.

  ‘Made a sort of mascot of him,’ muttered Bert, and wondered what he ought to do if the whole thing was going to get out of hand—until he found himself looking at the open, friendly face, the round blue eyes and the spikes of hair of Andy himself.

  ‘The onion-weed’s dead,’ said Andy, jingling the spanners in his pocket. ‘Will it grow again, Mr Hammond?’

  ‘Sure as fate,’ said Bert gloomily.

  Andy was surprised. ‘Don’t you like onion-weed, Mr Hammond?’

  ‘It’s not the onion-weed bothering me,’ said Bert. ‘No harm in a bit of weed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Andy simply, and began to pull out other, less favoured, weeds. Bert watched him, frowning while he searched for the right words. At last he spoke.

  ‘I reckon you’re too young to own a racecourse, after all.’

  Andy chuckled. Then he saw how sternly Bert was frowning. His eyes slid away and he made clumsy, defiant snatches at the weeds. ‘I got one already,’ he muttered. ‘That’s nothing, about being too young.’

  Bert was brutal. ‘I reckon it’s something. I reckon you’re a lot too young. You can’t look after a racecourse.’

  Andy turned on him stormily, eyebrows drawn down, for he had never expected to be attacked by Bert Hammond. ‘You shut up!’ he raged. ‘You don’t own it! You ask anyone, they’ll tell you if I’m the owner.’

  This was only too true; and while Bert looked for an answer, Andy’s rage faded. ‘See, I bought it,’ he insisted in a hurt, lost voice.

  Bert’s face softened in spite of himself. ‘That’s not enough, just buying it,’ he said. ‘Nobody owns a racecourse all by himself. Nobody owns much all by himself, and that’s a fact. You take a racecourse—what’s the good of it without the trainers bringing their dogs and horses? And the people paying to come and watch? You got to look after it right, or they won’t come—and then what have you got? A bit of land, maybe, and a few old buildings; but you haven’t got a racecourse.’

  ‘They come, don’t they? Gee, a whole lot of them come every time!’

  ‘You go fooling around with coloured streamers, turning the place into a toyshop, and they won’t. They’ll soon get tired of that. A racecourse isn’t meant to be a toyshop.’

  ‘Those streamers, they liked ’em. Everyone liked ’em, you ask anyone.’

  ‘In the Leger they might have thought it was a joke, but they didn’t like it in the stand. The Committee didn’t like it.’

  Andy bent over the weeds, yanking them out vigorously. ‘You can’t tell,’ he muttered. ‘That’s what it is.’

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ Bert agreed heartily. ‘You got to be at it for years, like me. You come and ask me, every single time, and I’ll put you right.’ After all, he thought, it was the men who caused the trouble. No use blaming the kid.

  Andy thought uneasily of the band’s seats; but it was too late to ask Bert about those now. Besides, he was still bitterly hurt by Bert’s attack when everyone else had been so pleased with the streamers. He stood up and wandered off by himself along the rails, muttering resentfully. ‘He’s not the owner. He needn’t go for me.’ He walked on, inspecting the rails closely, examining the way they were bolted to their uprights, trying the spanners on the nuts to see if they would fit. One spanner fitted. He tugged at it, tightening nuts that were already tight.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ shouted Bert nervously. He was winding up the hose and keeping an eye on Andy.

  ‘Nothing,’ shouted Andy, tugging at another nut.

  ‘That can’t hurt,’ muttered Bert. Mumbling to himself, Andy dodged under the rail and across the track, out of sight.

  Beyond the inner rail lay the grass track where the greyhounds ran, and here were the rails along which, like a train on its lines, ran the bogey that drew the mechanical hare. There were nuts here too, and Andy tugged at one or two. Suddenly he was tired of being here, angry and hurt. He went back through the rails and started to go home.

  He looked at the benches as he passed. ‘That’ll be all right,’ he muttered. ‘Those seats, they were white before.’ Then he paused in the gateway, shoulders humped and hands in pockets, jingling his spanners. Bert Hammond was putting the rolled-up hose away in a shed. Andy went loping quickly to the benches.

  The fresh paint stared at him accusingly. It had wrinkled a little here and there, but he touched it with his finger and it felt quite dry. Stealthily, he crushed the cardboard sign into a small, crumpled bundle and slipped away with it, out of the gate.

  He didn’t go back to Beecham Park until Saturday night, for he was truly offended with Bert. Instead, he spent his spare time watching his friends fly Joe’s model plane. He was fascinated by the plane, so alive and tricky, attacking the air so fiercely and coming down so dangerously; but on Saturday night, when the drone of bigger motors sounded in the street and the giant voice from Beecham Park spoke into the room, he remembered Bert Hammond frowning at him, and the band’s seats. He slipped quietly away, going by the alley and the vacant ground where the stray cats lived.

  There were two men there, standing near the stairs in the glow of the sunset and gazing down at the walls and gateways of the racecourse. Andy tried to pass quietly behind them, but they must have heard him. They swung round.

  ‘Here’s the kid,’ said one of them sharply. Then he spoke to Andy in a hearty, friendly voice. ‘Here’s the owner himself. You are the owner, aren’t you, mate?’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Andy, shuffling his feet. The two sharp faces, smiling so widely, made him feel uncomfortable, but they were standing between him and the stairs. ‘I gotta go now,’ he said tentatively; but the men didn’t move.

  ‘Fancy that, now, Tom,’ said one of them to the other. ‘The owner himself, a young chap like
this. Of course I’d heard about it; but I’d never have believed it, would you?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Tom. ‘Going down to keep an eye on the place, are you, mate?’ Andy shuffled his feet again.

  The first man laughed. ‘Of course he is, Tom, he has to! Can’t run a place like this without keeping an eye on it. Grounds, track, kennels, stables, feedstalls—he’s into everything, this young chap. That’s right, son?’ When Andy only stared at him, he repeated the question sharply. ‘Go where you like down there, don’t you?’

  ‘I can if I like,’ said Andy. He didn’t like these two smiling men.

  ‘I bet you can. Know all the horses, too, I bet. Now I wonder if you know Fair Lady? I’ve got a special interest in her—known her since a filly—friend of her owner.’

  Andy did know Fair Lady. ‘Reg Watson drives her,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right, that’s her. My word, you might be able to do me a little favour if you’ve got a minute to spare. I’m in a bit of a rush myself, got to go off to the country, so I’m just a bit squeezed for time. Now, I always go and see Fair Lady before a race and take her a little snack—aniseed, that’s what she likes, mixed in a bit of mash. Well, being a bit rushed tonight, I just can’t make it, and I’m afraid it might put her off her race if she doesn’t get her aniseed. She looks forward to it, see? Well, I know a lot of people wouldn’t worry about a thing like that, but that’s not me. I do worry. Wouldn’t be fair if she lost her race on my account, would it? Now, if you could take it down for me—I’ve got it here—and just put it in her feedstall—would you do that?’ The man held out a small package.

  Andy stared at it. ‘I dunno,’ he said.

  ‘Well, of course,’ said the man, smiling still more widely, ‘I wouldn’t expect an important bloke like you to waste your valuable time for nothing. I’d have to make that up to you, wouldn’t I. Two dollars? Is that fair?’ Andy was astonished to see a note in the man’s other hand, and to find package and note thrust firmly into his own hands. He went on staring. ‘It’s worth that to me,’ the man was saying, ‘if it’s worth it to you, to see that the little mare gets a fair chance. Only I wouldn’t mention it to anyone, if I were you. There’s those that might like to see her lose. Good night to you. We’ll get on our way.’

  The two men hurried down the stairs and into a car that was waiting in the street below. Though they were in such a hurry, the car didn’t drive off at once. Andy saw that it was black and shining. Then he knew who the men must be.

  ‘The evil fellers!’ he muttered. ‘Those ones that take bread from kids!’ He went loping down the stairs, past the coloured lights of the hotel, and across the street to the open gate of the racecourse.

  The grandstand rose before him, dressed in its lights. The band was playing, the same mixed lot in their dark blue uniforms with various trimmings, marching forward along the track. The crowd on the rails craned after them, listening and staring. Andy had no time to listen. He turned his eyes away from the lights to the shadows by the gate, looking for the tall, quiet form of Bert Hammond.

  Bert was there. Andy thrust the package and the two-dollar note at him urgently. ‘Two fellers gave me this for Fair Lady. They’re in a big black car. What’ll I do?’

  ‘Where’s the car?’ snapped Bert.

  ‘That one—see, it’s turning round—it’s going up the hill. Are they bad men, Mr Hammond?’

  ‘Got the number,’ said Bert with satisfaction, fishing with his free hand for a pencil and scribbling on the package that was meant for Fair Lady. Then he looked at Andy, and his square mouth stretched into a smile. ‘Bad men, all right. You know what, son? You’ll make a pretty good owner after all, I shouldn’t wonder. You did the right thing that time.’

  Warm little trickles of relief and pleasure flowed through Andy’s body. He chuckled happily and stared at the track. Then—his mouth fell open in frozen horror.

  The band had turned and was marching away down the track, swinging proudly to the rhythm of their own music while their instruments shone under the floodlights: two very short men, two very old men, some with red stripes and some with gold braid; but all with patches of white paint and strips of wrinkled scum clinging to the seats of their navy-blue trousers.

  Andy turned and went running away.

  12

  The Hare Wins a Race

  ‘You understand, I had to tell ’em,’ said Bert Hammond, his jaw square and stern. ‘The row—I never saw such a to-do. Talk of the police, and all.’ He pressed a hand against his forehead. ‘I told Marsden the whole thing—couldn’t do different.’

  He was talking, not to Andy, but to Andy’s four friends. Andy himself was sunk in shame and misery, and had taken to haunting lonely lanes and avoiding people’s eyes. His friends had found him that dreadful night running down a dark street and moaning softly to himself. Full of alarm, they ran after him.

  ‘Andy! Andy, old boy, what’s up? Come on, boy, tell us what it is.’

  ‘The band,’ moaned Andy. ‘Their pants—the paint—I done it. Gee, I should’ve asked Bert.’

  They got the story out of him bit by bit, and none of them felt like laughing. They were horrified, but they had to try to comfort Andy.

  ‘Never mind, old boy, don’t you worry. A bit of paint? Dry-cleaning’ll take that off.’

  They even tried to make a joke of it, though they knew it was really a crisis. The white paint on the band’s trousers was a sort of earthquake rocking Andy’s frail castle. They could see that he wasn’t worried about this, but they couldn’t make him laugh either. He was simply horrified at what he had done to the band. They kept him with them in the workshop for over two hours, and when he was calmer they took him home.

  He didn’t help with the sweeping in the morning, but crept miserably to Bert Hammond’s front gate and waited there until Bert came out. ‘Gee, I’m sorry, Mr Hammond,’ he whispered. ‘Gee, I never meant it to be like that. I’ll always ask you after this, so you can put me straight.’

  ‘You mightn’t have much chance, son,’ said Bert, trying to warn him for his own sake. ‘I’ll do my best for you, but the Committee won’t be pleased. There’ll be a row.’

  ‘Will I have to buy new pants with stripes on ’em? I got no money, see.’

  ‘You can’t buy ’em, then, can you? I reckon the Committee’ll look after that side of it.’

  ‘They’re the ones that get the money,’ said Andy, working it out. ‘That’s fair, I reckon.’

  ‘The Committee won’t think it’s very fair,’ said Bert sharply. ‘I got to warn you, boy, there’ll be a row. It wasn’t the Committee that smothered those benches with old paint.’

  ‘Gee, I know that, Mr Hammond. Not their fault those seats was all black and rusty. I’m the owner, I got to look after them.’ This point of view silenced Bert for a moment. Andy whispered, ‘But I never meant—the band—the pants…’ He slunk quickly away.

  Bert was not really surprised that his warning had failed to get through. He was worried about Andy, and glad to see Andy’s four friends when they came to ask, rather nervously, what was likely to happen.

  ‘You understand, I had no choice but to tell ’em,’ he said. ‘The Committee’s meeting tomorrow night. They’ll have the whole story from Marsden.’

  The boys were silent for a moment, awed by the thought of a number of expensively dressed gentlemen in bowler hats sitting round a table and discussing Andy Hoddel, the rival owner of their racecourse. Mike said, ‘Where do they meet?’

  ‘Committee Room down there,’ said Bert absently, waving towards the grandstand at Beecham Park. ‘Poor kid…I blame the men for leading him on, but it’s mostly my fault…Still and all, there wasn’t much anyone could do. He’s got this idea so firm in his head you can’t get it out, and you don’t know the harm you might do trying.’

  ‘We know,’ agreed Joe heartily. ‘Well—if only his mother doesn’t have to hear, that’s the best we can look for now.’

  ‘I’
ll do my best for him,’ Bert promised. ‘That business with Fair Lady ought to help.’ He told them about it. ‘Saved a bit of a rumpus, that did; they can’t help but be pleased about that. I’ll do my best with it.’ His eyes slid away, looking downhill and across the racecourse. ‘I’ve been with it for a long time…’

  The boys crept away. They were shaken to realize that other people—Bert Hammond, the men who worked in the grounds, Marsden the Secretary—were being drawn into Andy’s troubles. They were glad that Bert was going to do his best; and secretly, unreasonably, they were full of a new hope.

  ‘Those crooks that were trying to dope the horse,’ said Terry tensely; ‘I bet that makes a big difference!’

  Matt’s eyes danced. ‘He said so himself—it can’t help but make a difference! My sainted aunt—fancy old Andy nabbing them!’

  ‘All the same,’ said Joe, looking sideways at Mike, ‘you were wrong. He doesn’t really own the place. If he did, we wouldn’t be wondering what’s going to happen. It couldn’t crash.’

  ‘Couldn’t it?’ retorted Mike. ‘We used to have a big garden in front of our place, but they took it off us to make the street wider. There’s my uncle, too. He’s a tanner, and they made him shift his business because people didn’t like the smell. He owned his yard and sheds all right, but they made him shift out, all the same.’

  Terry curled his lip. ‘You mean Andy owns Beecham Park, but not the band’s trousers.’

  Matt gave a snort of laughter. Suddenly they were all leaning against the wall and laughing till it hurt.

  ‘I wish I’d seen them!’

  ‘Poor old Andy!’

  ‘Marching along—oomp-ah, oomp-ah…’

  ‘…and all that white paint on their pants!’

  They were still there, leaning weakly against the wall, when Andy found them. They took him up to the traffic lights to buy him a drink. He followed quietly, but they thought he seemed less miserable than he had been; and once they heard his voice from behind.