But it was getting beyond a joke now, and his da was getting mad because the place was like this and she wasn’t there to clean it. When he was drunk, he kept saying he’d go and find her and drag her back by the hair. Sean had seen her dragged by the hair before and he knew it was best to try and keep his da from going to look for her.
Close to midnight, Sean finally finished cleaning. He stood in the centre of the living room, then moved to make a final adjustment to the one easy chair they had, its cotton covering now so shiny with grime it looked like old canvas. Sean smiled and shook his head, he held his nose and said aloud, ‘It might look better but it still feckin’ stinks!’ and he went into his bedroom and reached under the bed to pull out the last wads of hay from the bale he’d been given by the coalman for helping drive the horse and cart.
As he made his way downstairs, he heard his father coming, recognized the tuneless singing and the way he burped after each hiccup. Sean raced back up and climbed a flight beyond the door. He knew that if he was there when his da got in, he’d just force him to make spaghetti on toast for him then he’d slop half of it on the carpet. If he left him to his own devices, he’d fall asleep in the chair in five minutes. When his father was safely inside, he crept back downstairs with the hay.
In the square of tarmac in the centre of St Joseph’s Mansions that had once been a playground, was Sean’s iron-grey pony, Pegasus. He pricked his ears at the sound and smell of his owner and whinnied lightly as Sean approached saying, ‘Hey, no noise after eleven! That’s the rule. Ye’ll get us thrown out of this fine accommodation so ye will.’ Pegasus was tethered to the rusty railings. On his back was a rug made out of an old carpet and tied round his middle with four tatty elastic snake belts linked together.
The pony butted him, trying to get at the hay. He pulled a handful from the wad. ‘Peg! Where’s yer table manners?’
He stood close to Pegasus, comforted by his munching and warmed by his body on this cold February night. Scratching the grey neck lightly he said, ‘Big race on Saturday, Peg, chance to make a proper name for ourselves.’ He stared at the clear sky then put his hands under the pony’s chewing jaw and tried to force its head up. ‘Look, Peg, stars, that’s where we’re heading.’ The pony butted him again. Stepping back and putting his hands on his hips and said sternly, ‘Pegasus, you have no feckin sense of ambition whatsoever.’
Back upstairs, Sean eased the door open and heard the snores. He tiptoed into the living room and found his father in his usual position, half-sprawled in the chair, mouth open, dead to the world. As ever his jacket lay on the floor and his trousers were open at the waist. Sean scooped up the jacket and searched the pockets. It was the only way to get money out of him. He reached in, felt some paper and, as he pulled it out, he heard his father grunt. Shoving the paper in his pocket, he dropped the jacket and ran to his bedroom. He locked the door. When he felt for the paper he’d just stolen he realized it wasn’t a bank note. He looked at it - some directions and a telephone number. He looked toward the room his father was in and said, ‘You old bollix!’ and threw the paper on top of the battered chest of drawers.
11
After three months living together at her house, Frankie and Kathy were married at Cheltenham racecourse. The reception for a hundred guests was held on the top floor of the grandstand, in the glass-fronted restaurant where they could see in the distance the spot where they’d first met. Frankie’s wedding gift to his wife was a miniature replica of the third-last fence made with black birch cut from the fence itself and mounted in a deep frame of oak.
She gave him a framed gift, too; the shoes they’d worn on their walks in the months after they’d met. His old, crepe-soled brown ones and her tan shoes with the leather laces which had now been tied to Frankie’s laces and mounted in a wood and glass case with the gold-plated inscription, ‘Frankie and Kathy, 100 miles of walks ‘n’ talks’. She gave him a new pair of shoes too, in the softest leather. She’d had them made for him in Italy.
Her secret present to them both was a thatched cottage in Winterfold Woods in Surrey. They’d happened on the cottage when out driving one day and Frankie had taken a wrong turn. They’d thought it beautiful and Kathy had noted the number on the For Sale board. She’d arranged with friends to move all their stuff while she and Frankie were away. Although he wouldn’t know it until she took the ‘wrong’ route on their way back from the airport after the honeymoon, this was where they were going to start their marriage.
The wedding guests were all Kathy’s friends. Frankie’s sister Theresa had written saying that their mother had warned the whole family that anyone attending the wedding would be disowned by her, left out of her will and damned to hell for eternity. Then Theresa said she didn’t care and would do everything she could to be there. But on the day, she didn’t make it, and Frankie sat at the raised table staring at a gathering of strangers. He’d met maybe a dozen or so in the preceding months, and of those, he could recall only three or four names. His ordination, the only other major ceremony he’d been involved in, came to his mind; he couldn’t think of a face in the front rows of the cathedral that he hadn’t known.
But it was a brief sadness on a day that made his heart glad.
They’d head into the future relishing the promise it held. Apart from the joy of being together every day, Frankie felt he had a real contribution to make to the partnership.
He was now officially employed as Kathy’s agent and had established a good relationship with a number of the editors she worked for. He’d also negotiated sponsors for her travels in the shape of a major airline and an international hotel chain. At the start, Frankie had lacked confidence and was almost afraid of calling up these experienced business people. But he’d found most of them behaved like perfectly ordinary, friendly folk and not at all like the hard-edged tyrants he’d imagined they might be. Kathy’s name, of course, opened many doors.
Their honeymoon was to last three months. During the first year they’d known each other, when Frankie had been battling his demons and Kathy had been simply waiting in hope and getting on with her life, she had promised herself that if they ever were to marry, she’d take Frankie to all the wonderful places she’d been to.
So they wandered the globe for twelve weeks, climbing in the foothills of the Himalayas, parascending in Jamaica, rounding up cattle in Montana, diving in the Seychelles, sailing a yacht round the Western Isles of Scotland, travelling in a camel train in the Kalahari desert, white-water rafting on the Amazon, driving a husky team in Alaska, abseiling in the Grand Canyon…
On the flight home, they discussed future projects. Frankie made a list of all the things Kathy had already done and written about, pencilling tiny doodles against each as they both suggested new ideas. Frankie seemed enthusiastic and Kathy played along. She thought it best not to mention that she didn’t want to go on with her career much longer. She wanted to have a baby. The growing urge over the past few weeks to get pregnant had surprised her with its force. The unspoken plan had been to wait a couple of years, although Kathy was now thinking that one year would be long enough. But she knew how much Frankie was enjoying his role in the partnership; she needed to wait for the best opportunity to start discussing her retirement with him. Here, halfway across the Atlantic, his mind spinning with ideas and hopes, wasn’t the best time.
She looked at his list. He said ‘What do you think?’
‘Know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to ride in a race again.’
‘Would you?’
‘Win a race. I’d like to win one. Although I’d settle for completing the course this time.’
Frankie thought for a while then said, ‘D’ye think we’d sell the idea again? You’ve already done it once.’
Playfully, she nudged his elbow. ‘We could do it for fun this time.’
He smiled. ‘You really want to?’
‘I do.’
He closed his notepad with an air of decisiveness. ‘Let�
��s do it!’
12
Sean Gleeson loved that Saturday morning feeling of not knowing what the day promised, what adventure was laid out on that highway from dawn until dusk. Today he knew exactly what the afternoon held; something he loved even more than Saturdays…pony racing.
Sean had raced Pegasus against other kids and their ponies whenever he got the chance. Sometimes they’d race along dual carriageways just after dawn on Saturdays or Sundays. Occasionally they’d stage races in the streets of the city’s deprived areas. Wild-eyed kids, some as young as nine, riding and roaring like Cossacks on the backs of piebalds and skewbalds, bays and greys, galloping along past cars and bus-stops, shops and houses, the click-clacking of the hooves sending echoes through the blocks of flats, drawing the dwellers to their windows to scream abuse or encouragement, to see some ponies slip and slide and fall, rolling their tiny jockeys along the road to collect high-speed cuts and grazes and the occasional broken bone.
People began betting on the outcome of these unofficial races. With money at stake, it was inevitable that one man would try to get an advantage over his fellows and some began helping with the training of the ponies. Boys were watched closely to see who had the gifts of balance and good hands, rhythm, calmness and a spark of fearlessness - boys who’d have the making of a proper jockey. And of the hundreds riding their street ponies, Sean Gleeson was recognized by the shrewd punters as being among the top handful.
Today Sean was to ride in his biggest race so far; down on the beach at Laytown. Mr Patrick Cosgrave, no less, a fine trainer of ponies, had booked him to come and have his first ride in this class of event, way above anything he’d ridden in before.
In loose silks of lemon and cerise, Sean sat on the back of a little bay pony called Shelley’s Shebeen and circled quietly with the other runners for the third race at Laytown, where the only grass in sight grew in a few tufts on the dunes. Laytown races took place on the beach, and the most crucial aspect of organizing the meeting was ensuring the times coincided with the ebb tide.
Official horseracing at Laytown was a summer sport. Cosgrave, the trainer who’d booked Sean, had arranged this special racemeeting for ponies only. He’d paid for vets and a doctor to attend and had marketed the day much better than horseracing officials sold their days.
Sean felt the wind on his face and tasted the salt spray. The ponies tasted it too, chomping away, bridles clinking over searching tongues.
He wished his father was there to see him and be proud of him. His da loved the horses, but Sean had been too nervous to tell him about today. Besides, he hadn’t been properly sober for weeks so Sean doubted he’d have remembered to come anyway.
The race was over six furlongs and Sean drove the filly along at a steady gallop at a speed he judged she could just stay in front, then perhaps she could quicken by ten per cent or so in the last furlong to hold them off. Sean concentrated on pumping rhythmically with hands and heels and he couldn’t stop himself smiling. On the outside edges of his conscious mind, he was vaguely aware of the commentary over the PA and the blur of changing colours as he raced past the crowds on the dunes, but he felt completely at one with this speeding pony and it was the best feeling he’d ever known.
Sean and Shelley’s Shebeen won their first-ever race together. Cosgrave threw his hat in the air, almost hitting a big herring gull. The crowds were glad, for the filly had been well-enough backed. And Sean, laughing with nerves and delight and wonderment at this feeling of triumph that he’d never known, rode the filly at a walk into the little makeshift winners’ enclosure and everyone clapped and cheered. Clapped and cheered Sean Gleeson, making the first step on the ladder of his dreams feel like the top step.
On that Saturday afternoon, at around the same time as Sean was steering Shelley’s Shebeen across the winning line, Kathy Houlihan, aboard the big bay gelding, Sauceboat, was being led by her lad around the paddock at Stratford in the English Midlands. Frankie walked quickly alongside. The horse was jogging, zigzagging on the strip of tarmac, ducking his head then raising it quickly, almost jerking the reins from the lad’s hand.
‘God, he’s on his toes!’ Kathy said, adjusting her stirrup leathers. ‘I think my nerves are getting to him.’
‘Mine too,’ Frankie said, having to break into a jog himself at times to stay by the horse’s side. ‘He’s like a boxer before a fight, isn’t he? He’s bobbing and weaving like Tyson!’
Kathy smiled at that and said, ‘Hey, who’s the famous writer here, me or you?’ Sauceboat bucked, throwing her forward, making her shout, ‘Whoa!’ After falling off Zuiderzie at Cheltenham, she didn’t want to suffer the indignity of landing on the ground before they’d even left the paddock. Sauceboat’s trainer, Miles Henry, hurried across to take the rein on the opposite side from the lad who smiled at him in relief.
The trainer said, ‘Not on his best behaviour, I’m afraid. It’s not like the old bugger. He usually wanders round half-asleep.’
‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Kathy said as she settled back in the saddle, conscious that the racegoers surrounding the paddock were watching, waiting for the only woman rider to be dumped on her bottom. She took a tighter hold on the rubber-clad reins, resisting the urge to clutch at Sauceboat’s mane, too. She had hoped to ride Zuiderzie again but the horse had been moved from Miles to another trainer. Miles had recommended Sauceboat as “the ideal horse for you to ride over hurdles”. She knew he was just too kind to speak the truth; “he’s a quiet old plodder who won’t exhaust you and make you fall off as Zuiderzie did”.
And he’d felt safe and comfortable these past couple of months when she’d ridden him out at least three times a week. This was by far the most active she’d seen him, and she began to think that he might just have a better chance than his trainer and the bookies thought. Sauceboat had been placed four times but had never won. He was an outsider at 16/1 but as Miles led her out onto the track and released the reins, she felt raw power as Sauceboat stretched his neck and launched into a gallop toward the start. Frankie’s cry of ‘Good luck!’ sounded faint as she accelerated away. From behind, he and Miles watched her shoulders and arms swing from side to side as she wrestled the straining animal for control.
Frankie, worried, glanced across at Miles. They’d come to know each other well in the run-up to this race. The trainer smiled and reached to put an arm around his shoulder. ‘She’ll be fine, Frankie. The fizz will go out of him before he gets to the start. Let’s go and watch.’
They went into the stand and raised their binoculars.
Sauceboat was still on his toes at the start as he circled with the other fifteen runners. Miles had told Kathy the horse would settle himself naturally toward the rear of the field once the race started. ‘Try and make progress as you come out of the back straight for the last time. You’ll have to give him a smack or two, and he sometimes responds if you can lean close to his ear and shout something.’ Kathy had said the only thing she’d be likely to shout was ‘Help!’
Sauceboat pricked his ears as he heard the starter climbing the rostrum and he pulled hard to reach the lowered tape.
‘Line up jockeys!’ called the starter. The horses were seasoned handicappers and they came slowly but readily into line. ‘Right!’ shouted the starter and pressed the lever to raise the tape. Within twenty strides, Kathy found herself in the lead. Hauling at the reins, she tried to settle Sauceboat as they approached the first but he was ignoring her. Head down, neck outstretched, he skipped lightly over the hurdle and resumed his relentless gallop. Kathy glanced behind. They were already ten lengths clear of the others and she knew she was going far too fast. No way could Sauceboat keep up this pace. But there was no way, either, that she could hold him. She decided quickly to stop sawing at his mouth with the reins. It was best, she thought, to try to relax, try to look as stylish as possible for as long as she was in the lead - which, she was confident, wouldn’t be for much longer.
But a circuit later, he was s
till well clear. With just two to jump, nobody was making any headway. In the stands, Frankie and Miles looked at each other in puzzled, happy wonderment. As they approached the last hurdle, Sauceboat was twenty lengths ahead and seemed, if anything, to be accelerating again. Frankie started shouting and jumping up and down, and when the pair cleared the last safely, he threw his arms around the trainer and they started bouncing on their toes.
Sauceboat galloped past the winning post carrying a bemused Kathy, whose dazed smile began to fade quickly as she realized the sweat and foam-streaked bay wasn’t stopping. Standing in her stirrups and leaning back, she pulled as hard as she could, but it didn’t slow him. She pictured herself, in what should have been a moment of glory, being carted around for another couple of circuits until this brute finally became tired of galloping. Approaching the top bend, she transferred her left hand to the right rein, hauling on it with both hands to try and turn him toward the white plastic rail in the hope it would act as a barrier.
Sauceboat turned toward the rail but didn’t slow. He crashed through it, sending white shards like darts into the grass. There was another rail. He went through that too, still galloping headlong. Kathy found herself laughing nervously, hands still on the right rein, still hoping he would turn, slow down. Her thighs and forearms were burning, shoulders aching, fingers weakening quickly. There were trees ahead. That would stop him, surely. He seemed to be heading for them, a row of elms, a few leaves drifting from the branches in slow motion.
She thought of baling out, taking her chances in a certain tumble at thirty miles an hour before he reached the trees. But the experience she’d gained in all the dangerous things she’d done kept her cool, persuaded her to play the percentages. She knew that only a blind animal would run into a tree trunk. He’d change direction or stop - had to. Her view between his pricked ears showed the thick tree on the extreme right of the row rising like a long gun sight. He was going straight at it. In the final few strides before impact, she closed her eyes and Sauceboat wheeled violently right to pass the trunk. Kathy was thrown, her body whipping almost horizontally through the air the way it used to as a child when her father would swing her by her feet in the garden. The left side of her head was the only part of her to hit the trunk. The sound of her helmet cracking coincided with the clean snapping sound as her vertebrae parted, breaking her neck.
For Your Sins: previously published as Joseph's Mansions Page 4