Forever Is Over

by Wade, Calvin

  “Can I come?”

  “To Singapore? I’d rather you didn’t. I need to do this alone and you would only try to split us up anyway.”

  “I meant to Ormskirk, soft lad!”

  “Why? Do you need to go shopping?”

  “No, I fancy coming to the bookies with you, it sounds like fun.”

  “Dad might not be happy.”

  “He’ll just have to be unhappy then! I know he’s a male chauvinist pig and he’ll love you going in with him and hate me going in, but tough shit, I’m coming!”

  We walked down to Town Green train station and jumped on the Merseyrail train to Ormskirk, a ten minute trip with just one stop at Aughton Park. Caroline wanted to let off steam about Donna, but the way she wanted to constantly divert the conversation back to her lovelife, seemed to me to indicate that this was more a lovers tiff than a break up.

  We met Dad as arranged outside the Brahms & Liszt wine bar, which was literally just across the road from the bookmakers. Dad was surprised to see Caroline walking up Moorgate with me.

  “Hi love,” he said to Caroline, “what are you doing back?”

  Dad kissed her cheek.

  “I just decided I would spend my holidays with the family, Dad. I wanted to have some quality time with you all.”

  “Good. Your Mum will be pleased. What are you doing with Richie?”

  “I just thought it would be fun to spend the afternoon with him.”

  Dad pulled a face.

  “It’s just that Richie and I have some business to attend to, love. You may have to go to Taylor’s for a coffee for an hour and then he’ll be all yours.”

  Caroline smiled.

  “Dad, calm down! Richie’s told me what’s going on! I will be the soul of discretion. The rest of the Billinghams won’t hear anything about this from me, especially Mum. I’ve never been into a bookies before, it sounds like fun!”

  “It’s not a place for young girls, love. It’s full of old men smoking.”

  Caroline looked like she was seething inside, but managed to control her temper. She was determined to come with us and knew if she lost her temper and stormed off, Dad would be getting what he wanted.

  “Dad, it’s a bookmakers, not a strip joint or a peep show. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be any women in there firing ping pong balls out their jacksies! I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it! Come on, let’s go!”

  Caroline lead the way over the road to Stanley Racing. Dad rolled his eyes and whispered to me,

  “What did you bring her for?”

  I whispered back, “I couldn’t stop her!”

  The bookmakers, as Dad had forecast, was a cloud of smoke. There were about twenty people in there before us, nineteen men and one old woman who was chain smoking her own roll-ups. She was smoking them until they almost burnt her tongue. She was probably younger than she looked, which wasn’t hard as she looked like she was about one hundred and thirty. Her face had more wrinkles than the skin of a hot chocolate. The men were all ages from eighteen to eighty eight, but all looked like desperation to escape poverty was their motivator. I’m sure the wealthy gamble fortunes at Cheltenham and Royal Ascot, but that type of gambler was not visiting Stanley Racing in Ormskirk on a drizzly, damp Thursday afternoon. The Stanley threw its arms wide open to Society’s outcasts. Those who questioned evolution by asking where were the transitional phases between monkey and man, only had to witness the reprobates in Stanley Racing on a Thursday afternoon.

  The only smartly dressed man in Stanley Racing that afternoon was my father. Despite not obeying the dress code of torn top and paint splattered jeans or charity shop rejects perfumed in body odour, Dad was a fully accepted member of this oddball clan. Everyone greeted Dad warmly or nodded their hellos and the cash assistants and manageress all greeted Dad by name.

  “Hi Charlie! How was the steak and kidney pie?”

  Sheila, the manageress asked, revealing that this wasn’t Dad’s first visit to Stanley’s that day. Dad looked uncomfortable with this revelation, but Caroline loved it.

  “Is this your first visit here too, Dad?” she mocked.

  It was now ten minutes to two, Florida Diamond was running at two o’clock. There was another race at Uttoxeter taking place, so everyone gathered around the screens as an excited commentator belted out his commentary. There was a tight finish, so half a dozen punters came to life as three horses jumped the last fence (or hurdle, I can’t remember which) in line.

  “Go on ‘End Of Reason’! Give him a crack O’Leary!” yelled one bloke.

  “Whip his arse, McKenzie!” urged another.

  These guys were unlikely to be paid up members of the RSPCA!

  Once the horses reached the winning post, one guy jumped up and down, the others cursed and ripped up their betting slips. Dad pulled me over to a corner.

  “Listen Richie, if we win these races, whatever you do, do NOT celebrate like old Welby did there. The guys know him and will let him have his moment of glory, but they know he’ll have only had a couple of quid on. If you start celebrating like a fool and they see you picking up over a grand, it just takes one of them to decide he needs it more than you and they’ll have it off you before you can say ‘Red Rum’.”

  “Thanks Dad!” I replied. “Here was I worrying about losing and now you’ve got me worrying if I win too!”

  “Just keep your mouth shut son and you’ll be fine. Come on, I’ll show you how to write the slip out for the double.”

  I was expecting some sort of complex bet completion process, but it was just a case of writing £350 win double on Florida Diamond and Quartz Starr and the times of their races, Wincanton 2.00 and Wincanton 2.30. The only complicated bit was the taxation.

  “Are you going to pay the tax, son?” Dad asked.

  “I get taxed for betting on a horse! There’ll be a toilet tax soon or a fresh air tax! I can’t believe they tax betting!”

  “Well, they do.” Dad responded not empathising with me at all.

  “You’ve got a choice, you either pay tax on your bet, 10% of your stake, or you don’t pay the tax at all and they take 10% of your winnings off you.”

  I did a quick calculation.

  “£35 tax on the bet or a £140 tax on the win! It’ll have to be on the win, I haven’t got £35!”

  “You could lower your stake.” Dad explained.

  “No. Let them tax me if I win. I’d still have £1 260. I can handle that.”

  “You say that now, but I haven’t met a winner yet who hasn’t wished he’d put more on and paid the tax!”

  Once I’d completed the slip, I went to the queue to put my bet on. There was one person in front of me….CAROLINE!”

  “Cal, what are you doing?”

  “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m having a bet!”

  “How did you know what to do?”

  “Margaret showed me!”

  Caroline waved over to the old dear with the face like the skin of hot chocolate. Margaret waved back with her yellow fingers and roll-up. Five minutes later, despite the warnings from Dad, I was shouting on ‘Florida Diamond’ at the top of my voice, as ‘Fingers’ Marling came out from the slipstream of the grey horse that had been in the lead the whole way and suddenly told ‘Florida Diamond’ to “GO!” The horse reacted like it had been injected with bionic powers and scooted clear.

  “GO ON THE DIAMOND!!” I yelled, as it left the rest of the field eating dust, “YOU BEAUTY!”

  I did a victory dance as it crossed the line, too fuelled with delight to remember my instructions.

  “Did you have that one then?” asked a bearded bloke next to me with a beer belly big enough to store sextruplets. I rembered my responsibilities.

  “Me? No.” I replied. “My sister did though.”

  IVF man looked over at Caroline who was tearing her betting slip up and mumbling to herself about two quid going down the drain.

  “She backed two horses,” I explained.

>   Once again, Dad dragged me to a corner of the shop. Even Dad was getting excited.

  “What did I tell you, son, what did I tell you? Just less of the Hokey cokey, Richie, remember what I said about playing it cool?”

  Cool? I thought. How can I keep it cool? In just over half an hour,

  I will be collecting over a thousand pounds and heading out of here with pockets stuffed with notes, to book my trip to Singapore! Raffles Hotel, here I come! In forty eight hours, I would be ordering a Singapore Sling and a bottle of champagne with two glasses for me and my gorgeous girlfriend!

  Miss Watkinson

  “Oh my God! It’s Richie! I can’t believe you’ve come! Thank you so, so much! You’ve come all this way to see me, how can I ever thank you?”

  Richie

  Thirty minutes between races when you have seven hundred quid rolling on to an evens favourite is too long. Twenty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds too long! As soon as ‘Florida Diamond’ flashed past the winning post, I wanted the next race to start. I was on a high and wanted it to continue before reality kicked me in my surviving testicle.

  Ten seconds after ‘Florida Diamond’s’ victory, I was convinced it was my lucky day. Ten minutes later I was not so sure. In fact, I had gone from one extreme to another quicker than an Eskimo on a rocket to Dubai.

  “Quartz Starr’s going to lose, Cal, I know it.”

  “Whatever it does, you can’t do anything about it, so stop stressing. What will be, will be.”

  “I can’t help stressing. I’ve got seven hundred quid on a horse!”

  Dad, who had been having a chat with one of his fellow punters, headed over to provide some fatherly advice.

  “Richie! Pack in the pacing up and down the shop! Someone’s going to kick your head in, in a minute and if you don’t cut it out, it might well be me. They’ll have all clocked you putting that big, fat wad on before and if shouting and screaming for ‘Florida Diamond’ wasn’t bad enough, you’re pacing up and down saying,

  “Come on, Quartz Starr! I need this for Kelly! Singapore’s waiting!”

  Then I hear you say in a big, loud voice,

  “I’ve got seven hundred quid on a horse!”

  How thick are you, Richie? It’s like cutting your own arm off and then jumping into a pool full of malnourished sharks. I am warning you, Richie, cut it out!”

  I suddenly had a vision before my eyes of Jemma’s old boyfriend, Ray. I hated him because he was a loudmouthed show off, not interested in anyone else’s situation but his own and I immediately understood Dad’s point. I was only acting the way I was through nervous excitement , but from the perspective of my fellow gamblers, who may have just gambled away their wife’s housekeeping, they would not want to see some young upstart pacing round excitedly with a fortune at his fingertips.

  “Sorry Dad, I take your point.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling son, but I’ve got £200 riding on Quartz Starr too and I’ll be in more of a mess than you if it doesn’t win, as I’ll owe £150 to a man you wouldn’t want to owe a pound too.”

  “I thought you said Dave at the Dog & Gun lent you the money.”

  “I lied son, Dave wouldn’t lend me a penny. He’s lent me money in the past and had to wait until my next win to get it back, which sometimes was several months. Dave did give me the tips but the money came from Kiffer. He wanted 50% back, but I figured if I was going to turn £100 into £400, I could afford to give him £50.”

  “Bloody hell, Dad!”

  I had only heard of Kiffer but his reputation was well known in Ormskirk. He was a loan shark. A man who had apparently inspired dozens of soap storylines. The body in the attic of the disused semi, that was a Kiffer killing. The body in the gigantic ice cube in the ice cream factory, that was a Kiffer too. The human kebab, you guessed it - Kiffer! He didn’t kill people himself, but it was rumoured his henchmen did, but nothing could ever be proven. I doubt he would kill my Dad over £150, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one trying to explain why I didn’t have it.

  Dad could see that I had gone a whiter shade of pale.

  “Don’t worry son, Quartz Starr will romp home. I’ll give him his £150 and still have £250 in my arse pocket.”

  I shook my head. I would never end up like Dad. Quartz Starr was definitely going to be my first and last bet. I would not be venturing into Stanley Racing again, there was enough drama in my life without this!

  Two thirty eventually came around. Dad commented that Quartz Starr “looked immaculate”. I had no experience of judging how well turned out a horse was, but Quartz Starr looked like he knew he was something special. He looked like an Olympic athlete whilst one or two of the others looked like they had an addiction to hay and sugar lumps! They were the horseracing version of the sextuplet IVF man from earlier. I made this point in a whisper to Dad.

  “Quartz Starr looks much fitter than the rest of them.”

  “He should do, Richie! Apparently this is his prep race for the Cheltenham Festival. Him running against this lot, is like Seb Coe challenging me and you to a 1500 metre race. It’ll be no contest, he’ll piss this easier than Florida Diamond won the last one!”

  “I hope you’re right, Dad!”

  “I will be.”

  The race was over two miles and the first mile and a half went like a dream. It was going so well, I had to ask Dad why the other jockeys looked like they were trying really hard, bouncing up and down on their saddles like they were backside trampolines, whilst ‘Fingers’ Marling was not moving an inch.

  “It’s all about the amount of horse you’ve got under you,” Dad explained, “the rest of the jockeys know their horses are knackered, so they are trying to cajole them to go faster, whilst ‘Fingers’ knows Quartz is still in first gear, so he is just steering him around.”

  I was managing to contain my excitement but if what Dad was saying was right, this was virtually all over, there was just one other horse that looked like it could muster any sort of challenge.

  The bookies had been relatively quiet, with just a few mutterings, when out of nowhere, the tranquillity was broken by a high pitched shriek that no doubt attracted the attention of any canines situated within a five mile radius.

  “COME ON MISTRAL FLAGSHIP!”

  It was bloody Caroline!

  For a split second, I covered an ear with one hand and my eyes with the other, as I daren’t look at Dad after this. His worst fears were just being realised! I opened my eyes, but now used my cupped left hand that had protected my eardrum to blinker me from Dad’s stare. I turned to my right to face Caroline, who was jumping twice as high as I was in the previous race. It was bizarre, it was like she had borrowed a pogo stick! If Caroline had jumped any higher, she would have needed a motorbike helmet to protect her from the ceiling.

  “Caroline! We haven’t backed Mistral Flagship!”

  “Speak for yourself bruv, I have! I’ve got a fiver on it, at 33-1! Margaret picked it out for me! GO ON MISTRAL!”

  Caroline’s horse was in the lead, but ‘Fingers’ was doing what he did in the previous race, just shadowing the lead horse, just waiting for his moment to pounce. I don’t know whether it was horse or jockey, but with half a mile to go, one of the two decided enough was enough. To use Dad’s analogy, it would have been like Seb Coe jogging along behind Dad and I for 1100 metres of a 1500 metre race thinking,

  “I’ve not trained every day of my life for the last ten years to amble around at this pace!”

  Then hearing the bell and thinking,

  “Right! Now I’ll show them what I’m really made of!”

  Quartz Starr did just that. He probably only went into the second of his gears but in the blink of an eye, he left Mistral Flagship for dead, then moved further and further clear so his backside became like a speck in the middle of a TV screen to Mistral Flagship. Caroline stopped jumping and screaming. I was going to Singapore!

  I guess in gambling the most dangerous thing yo
u can do is to count your money before a race is over. I was doing just that. I was counting every twenty pound note in my head when all of a sudden the wheels came flying off our Formula One Ferrari. Approaching the second last fence, Quartz Starr was ambling along, he was so far ahead that ‘Fingers’ had now slowed him right down, to a pleasant trot no faster than a donkey on Blackpool beach. I am sure after the race, ‘Fingers’ will have reflected that this was probably not the ideal speed to be jumping fences several feet high.

  At the second last, rather than leap majestically over like a salmon heading up stream, Quartz Starr jumped half heartedly, as though there was no fun in this race any more, his underbelly hit the birch at the top of the fence and ‘Fingers’ Marling was dumped unceremoniously onto the mud on the landing side. Quartz Starr also managed to land safely on the far side of the fence and trotted off to find a healthy strip of grass to munch on.

  A ghostly figure now set fire, with a zippo, to those twenty pound notes that I was counting in my imagination. I held my head in my hands.

  “Shit!”

  The dream was over. I would not be going to Singapore after all. A mud splattered ‘Fingers’ Marling ran off in pursuit of Quartz Starr, eventually grabbing his reins and although Quartz Starr was now facing towards the fence he had just attempted to jump, ‘Fingers’ put a foot in the stirrups and started to re-mount him. Whilst all this chaos was ensuing ,Mistral Flagship was clumsily, wearily, jumping the third last fence. I had no idea what was going on. I needed guidance from Dad.

  “What’s ‘Fingers’ doing, Dad?”

  “What does it look like he’s doing, he’s getting back on!”

  “Is he allowed to do that though? You told me if my horse fell, I’d lost.”

  Dad eyes were transfixed to the screen. He answered hurriedly.

  “Yes, that’s because jockeys don’t normally bother getting back on the bloody horse, that’s why! They’re normally too concerned that the horse might be injured or because the rest of the horses are already two fences down the track by the time they catch theirs, but there’s nothing wrong with Quartz Starr and he’s still in the lead, so we’ve still got a chance!”