by Daisy White
“You going somewhere nice, love?” Catherine asks him, straightening his tie in a motherly fashion.
Johnnie grins, turquoise eyes narrowing like a naughty cat. “Oh, just meeting a friend for a drink.”
“Well, you behave yourself,” Eve tells him with a stern little nod.
“Of course. Bye, ladies!” He strides out into the road, crosses quickly and turns uphill. About halfway up the hill, a very nice dark green Aston Martin is parked, and it’s no real surprise that Johnnie, after a quick glance up and down the road, gets in and is driven swiftly away.
We realise that we’re all staring instead of locking up, and Mary gets the giggles. “How nosy are we? Poor Johnnie.”
“I didn’t see the driver,” Eve says, frowning. “I hope our Johnnie isn’t going to get himself into trouble again. He needs to start thinking about settling down with a nice girl.”
I can never work out whether Eve and Catherine know that Johnnie’s queer, or if they are just determined to ignore it. Perhaps they think it’s just a ‘phase.’ Every time one of their older children is especially naughty they always say calmly, ‘It’s just a phase they’re going through.’ Anyway, it’s not the kind of subject you can bring up over tea and a biscuit, and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that we all adore him.
“When are you going to tell everyone about your engagement?” I ask Mary, quickly applying make-up in our dusty mirror upstairs. I’m dead on my feet after the busy day, but looking forward to a night out. I’ve only met Pearl’s new chap, Donovan, a handful of times. He’s tall for a jockey but rake thin, with black curls falling attractively over startling blue eyes. Pearl’s already told me he’s a ‘bit of a player,’ but she doesn’t seem that bothered about it. She likes a challenge.
The racing set doesn’t usually come down into town. They stick to the Black Jug, which is conveniently situated almost exactly halfway between the two rival racing stables. According to Pearl, that means the lads can all have a few pints, and still get home in time to pack in a few hours’ sleep before exercising their horses at the crack of dawn.
“Oh, I expect I’ll tell them next week when we get the ring. We thought perhaps we might get married at the Town Hall, and then have a party on the beach afterwards. Not a proper one, just us and our friends with some beer and a few tunes. What do you think?” Mary is playing with Summer, kneeling in a patch of sunlight that dapples the wooden floorboards.
“I think it sounds like a blast. I’m so happy for you, Mary!” I draw a black ring around my eyes with eyeliner, and snap the top back on my favourite pale pink lipstick. Done. The excitement of going out after a long day is doing a good job of banishing those little tendrils of memory, and I feel almost back to my normal party-loving self.
“Have fun with the horsey lot then, and don’t stay out too late.” Mary grins, wagging a finger. “Perhaps you’ll pick up a handsome jockey, like Pearl!”
I stick my tongue out at her, grab my keys and cigarettes and run downstairs to Kenny’s car. Kenny always seems to have some ancient decrepit car or other, he changes them on a regular basis. This one is a Mini, and it makes an ominous clanking sound whenever he changes gear.
“I can’t believe this car. It cost me fifty pounds and it’s falling apart already.” Kenny shakes his head in disbelief.
“And you’re surprised? I don’t know anything about cars, but even I can tell it isn’t in the best of health.” I laugh at his expression of disgust.
“It belonged to a chap I know . . . Has Mary told you about her and Ted yet?” Ken is winding his way through the late evening traffic towards Dyke Hill Road.
“What do you mean?” Mary definitely said she hadn’t told anyone.
“We dragged it out of Ted yesterday. Lovely idea them getting married, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“And if you ever get lonely, Rubes, I can move in, you just have to say the word.” Kenny grins at me, overtakes a tractor and hay wagon at speed, and clanks up another gear.
“Very funny. I suppose there are two beds, though.”
“No, we’ll share,” he tells me, all mischief and crazy hair in the sunshine.
The Black Jug, an old pub nestled into a curve in the Downs on the west side of Patcham, is Pearl’s current favourite hangout. By the time we arrive, it’s already packed. There’s a strong Irish flavour to the crowd, because of the two racing stables nearby, and the place has a jovial party atmosphere. According to Pearl, the Irish are naturals at everything connected with racing. She is slightly biased, of course. Donovan apparently hails from County Sligo.
“Rubes! Over here,” I spot my cousin waving from a corner table near the door.
“I’ll get some drinks,” Kenny tells me, and shoves his way into the crowd around the bar.
“Hi, Ruby.” Donovan gives me a quick kiss on the lips, like we’re old friends. He always does this, and for some reason it annoys me a bit. I don’t know him that well, and Pearl has only been seeing him for a month. He’s the same with the other girls, always sliding his arm around waists, and resting his hand on knees.
As with the salon, there is only one topic of conversation, but whereas all our clients were respectful, and expressed their sadness at the tragedy, here it seems to be a source of amusement.
“Isn’t it sad about poor Rita?” one of the other lads says. “I heard she was doing it as a protest because women aren’t allowed to be trainers.”
There are laughs all round, although I really can’t see why that’s funny. Kenny teeters over, juggling too many glasses, and slops them down on the table. There is more chit-chat about the tragedy. I take a gulp of my half of bitter and smile awkwardly at the boy next to me.
The lad who had made the comment about Rita has eyes that are crossing with drink, but he beams happily in my general direction. “What’s your name?”
“Ruby.”
“Thass a pretty name. I’m Simon. Did you know that Rita girl, then?” he asks.
“No. Did you?”
“Oh, not really but I knew her face. She was always at the stables. There are quite a few girls who do that, and if Tommy catches them he sends them off with a flea in their ear for distracting us lads. Tommy’s our trainer. Rita’s been hanging around some of the lads for months, but I know who she was really after . . .” He blinks hard, clearly trying to focus on my face. His brown hair is fluffed out like a duck’s feathers. With his sweaty, round face and dusting of freckles, he looks about ten.
“Who’s that?” Talking like this about the dead girl leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and I find I’m struggling to keep the smile on my face. Again and again, I see glimpses of her still body, the blood spreading across the turf, the smell of sweat and that sick feeling that rose in my stomach when her dress flew out in the breeze. What was going through her mind while the horses thundered up the track towards her?
“I saw her with Joey Castle. He’s our stable jockey, along with Donovan. They clean up at every race. Anyway, Rita and Joey, they were making out in his car behind the yard. But I didn’t tell you that. Wass your name again? You’re a pretty girl too, with your blonde hair . . . I hope you don’t wind up dead like Rita.”
Chapter Four
A sudden chill makes the hairs on my arms stand up, and I turn away from the boy. Next to me, Kenny is laughing at something Donovan has said. He raises his glass as James and a pretty little brunette join the table.
I feel a hand on my arm, and swing round to face the drunk boy. His expression is contrite, but he is clearly struggling to focus on my face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s fine, I’m not upset.”
“You won’t tell anyone I told you, will you? You just look a little bit like her. No wonder all the boys wanted to be with her. She never looked at me. Wass your name again?”
“Ruby.”
“Ruby, you’re a beautiful girl, and . . . Ruby? I think I’m gonna be sick . . .”
“Well go outside and do it in the bushes,” I tell him brusquely, removing his clammy hand from my thigh.
“You alright, Ruby? Must have been a horrible shock, seeing Rita. Everyone I’ve spoken to is really sad, and no one can work out why she’d do it.” James is smiling down at me. “Oh, and this is Joanna. I don’t think you two have met?”
I nod and smile at her. Joanna is small with killer curves, long brown hair and sooty eyes. She looks a bit nervous. James does seem to have a ‘type’ when it comes to girls, and he sticks to it, just changing the model every few months. A bit like Kenny and his cars. He’s very good-looking. He and Kenny have often been mistaken for brothers. But Ken has a weathered, slightly imperfect charm, whereas James is smooth, with well-practised chat-up lines that the girls seem to love.
“Nice to meet you, Joanna. Congratulations on the story, you two,” Pearl says, tearing herself away from her boyfriend. Her long red curls frame her face, and she taps the wooden table with one purple fingernail. “Go on then. Do we know why Rita jumped yet?”
James shrugs. “I probably know less than anyone here. It would be interesting to get a background on Rita, poor girl. As far as I know, the reason why she jumped is a total mystery. We have lots of wild theories but nothing solid.” He smiles, sipping a drink. Joanna, looking uncomfortable, perches stiffly on a chair next to him.
Everyone at our table leans forward to pitch in their thoughts on the subject, and with much gesticulating and arguing, the conversation turns into a heated but good-natured debate. I half expect Ken and James to get their notebooks out, but they sit back, deceptively calm, taking it all in. They sink their beer and smoke, charming and polite as ever.
“I heard Rita might have had a boyfriend up at Tommy’s yard,” I suggest in a momentary pause, glancing round for the drunk boy who imparted the information, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Probably still being sick outside.
Donovan grins wickedly, blue eyes sparkling, teeth very white. “I heard she had lots of boyfriends up at the yard. She was a goer was Rita. Joey had her for a while, but she’d set her cap a bit higher so they say . . .”
“What do you mean?” James asks.
The jockey shrugs. “Some girls are like that, aren’t they? Trading up all the time.”
“Some boys are like that too,” I tell him crossly.
Donovan waves his cigarette at me. “No offence, my darling, but the easiest way for a woman to get to the top is by lying flat on her back.”
Pearl scowls at him. “What a load of rubbish. Some women are like that, but most of us use our brains to get where we want.”
“Trouble in paradise. This one isn’t going to last long if he carries on spouting that kind of stuff,” Kenny murmurs in my ear.
I gulp down my drink, and give him my glass. “Can you get me another half, please? Here, I’ve got some money . . .” I reach inside my little pink purse and count out some coins, but Kenny waves them away.
There is laughter, and I can’t help saying to the table at large, “She must have been desperate to do what she did, whatever the reason. Aren’t you just a bit sad for her? I mean, you knew her, didn’t you?”
There are a few shamefaced looks, but the general consensus seems to be that Rita was a good-time girl, and her death just provided another titbit of juicy gossip. I think of Aunt Jackie’s friend, who killed herself because her husband had a lover.
“I knew her,” Joanna says quietly to me. She’s been sitting tense and wide-eyed, taking it all in, and occasionally making a quiet remark to James.
“Did you?” Rowdy laughter and yells at a risqué joke cover our conversation. I move a little nearer to her.
“Yes. Rita and I were at school together. We weren’t close, but I live near her, so we stayed in touch. Her best friend is Bev, my cousin. Bev used to go on protests with her. She’s wild.” Joanna smiles suddenly at the memory, although her eyes are bright. “I remember Rita saying she went home wearing Bev’s new jeans with bells along the bottom, and her dad went mad, dragged them off her and burnt them. She was laughing when she told us, so I don’t know if it was true.”
“Did you know she was going out with Joey Castle?” I ask.
Joanna shakes her long curtain of hair, which gleams in the light. “No. I haven’t seen much of her or Bev for months, not since I started working at the bank. Rita was a laugh. She always had these crazy stories about her brothers, or what she’d been getting up to at the weekend . . . I can’t believe she’s gone. She was always so full of life and energy . . .” Her voice trails off, and a small tear escapes. She brushes it quickly away. “Bev came round on Sunday night to tell me what happened. I thought she was having a laugh.”
“Have you told James you knew Rita?” I glance at James, who is laughing at some remark of Pearl’s.
“Yes, and he asked all the same questions you just have. We’ve only been seeing each other for two weeks, and I didn’t know he was a reporter when I met him. But it’s a personal thing, isn’t it? And like I said, I haven’t seen her for ages, and I have no idea why she might kill herself. In fact, I really don’t think she did.” Unsurprisingly, she seems slightly defensive now, eyes still too shiny, mouth clenched shut. She has clearly finished with talking about Rita.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” I say, gently. I’m actually wondering why she is even out tonight, after such a recent tragedy. It’s obviously affected her. James doesn’t seem to have noticed her tears, so I lean back, stretch my arm behind Joanna and poke him in the ribs.
Joanna smiles. “It’s alright, Ruby. You stood up to this lot, and you didn’t even know her. You’re right about one thing though, they don’t give a toss that she’s dead.”
Dragging himself away from the gossip, James offers us both cigarettes. Joanna refuses, muttering that she’s just going to the toilet. Once she’s gone, I lower my voice slightly. “She just told me she knew Rita. Why did you bring her here tonight? She’s really upset.”
He shrugs. “I did say she shouldn’t come. She said she wanted to get out, and just forget about what happened. And I needed to come up here. The editor will be nagging me for the next story tomorrow, and I need anything I can get. Rubes, don’t look at me like that . . . Actually do look like that, it’s quite sexy.”
“James!”
“Alright, sorry, but I told her not to come and I did say it might upset her, but she still wanted to.” He smiles at me. “Are we still friends?”
“Maybe. But only if you take her home as soon as she wants to go, and don’t hang around waiting for more story threads.”
“Ruby, you’re really bossy . . . and really pretty.” The inebriated boy, Simon, is back, peering squint-eyed over another pint glass.
“You already said that,” I tell him, turning back to James, who is laughing.
I lower my voice. “Joanna was saying she can’t believe Rita would have killed herself. But if she and Joey Castle had a row, and she was really upset, might that be why she did it? Rather than all that stuff Ken was saying about it being a protest against the horse’s owners.”
James nods, and I feel his breath on my cheek as he moves closer to be heard above the noise. “It seems to be true that Rita was seeing Joey Castle, who wasn’t due to ride in the Derby Trial. Tommy’s stable were running Basil’s Pride, but for some reason the owner wanted Alex Davies up. Alex is Moses’s stable jockey, but I get the impression that whatever the owners want, they get. Then Love Me Do’s regular rider got food poisoning the night before the race, so Moses put in an emergency call to Joey and offered him the ride.”
“Who’s Moses? I thought the racehorse trainer was called Tommy O’Mara?” I’m getting really confused with all these names, and I’m not usually stupid.
“That’s at Tegdown Stables. The other yard, Freers Farm, is further down towards Pyecombe, and it’s owned by Moses Arkwright. Anyway, it was a last minute switch of jockeys, and not many people knew about it until the
morning of the race. But I suppose if Rita was Joey’s girlfriend, she would’ve known he was riding. He would probably have been delighted to get the chance. She might even have been up at the yard the night before the race. Maybe that’s when they argued?”
“If that was why she did it, then it must have been quite a row.”
Chapter Five
Kenny, just back with more drinks, jumps into the conversation. “If they had a row. That’s just a theory, and I haven’t spoken to anyone who actually saw them. The horses were going so fast, with six leaders all in a bunch, so if she wanted to fling herself out in front of Joey she had no choice but to do it in front of all six. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to kill herself, but thought she might bring the horse down and kill Joey? If it wasn’t about Joey, then it might be worth checking out some of Rita’s protest friends. From what we’ve heard, she would protest about anything, from CND to women’s rights, to the desecration of the countryside.” He shakes his head.
“Yet from what this lot are saying about her, you’d think she was just some ditsy tart hanging around the yard,” I say disdainfully, trying to shove away another wave of darkness that threatens to ruin my evening. I haven’t thought about Mum for ages. I know she’s alive and healthy, and my siblings are too. That’s really all we can ever know, and I’ve understood that ever since the night I escaped from my childhood home.
Aware that the boys are watching me with expressions of concern mixed with interest, I haul myself together. “What was that joke about women trainers, by the way?” I square my shoulders, and flick my dead match onto the floor.
Ken is still watching me carefully, but he answers casually enough. “There are lots of women trainers, but the license has to be held in a man’s name. It’s a standard racing joke, and no, it’s not very funny unless you’re part of the racing crowd. Not funny at all if you happen to be a woman trainer, doing all the work without ever getting the credit. Anyway, Rita clearly wasn’t training any racehorses.”