by Wade, Calvin
Just as Dad said this, Mistral Flagship jumped the second last . The tortoise was now beating the hare.
“Turn him around, ‘Fingers’!” Dad urged along with a dozen other punters in the bookmakers who were showing a renewed interest.
Mistral Flagship was moving further and further away, probably leaving a trail like a gastropod, carousel horses moved faster. Quartz Starr did not appear to like the sight of another horse passing by, he turned around and with ‘Fingers’ now back on board, they shot after Mistral Flagship like Tornado and Zorro. Mistral Flagship jumped the last fence like it had done a third circuit of the Grand National course.
“We’re going to catch him!” Dad shouted. “WE ARE GOING TO CATCH HIM!” So much for keeping a low profile!
With every stride, Quartz Starr was gaining ground, but it was hard to tell whether it was all too late. Quartz Starr jumped the last fence awkwardly but at speed. The commentator sounded like he was going to have a heart attack. Several people in that bookmakers looked likely to die with him, including Dad.
“Quartz Starr is closing on Mistral Flagship here! ‘Fingers’ Marling is not looking his normal self-assured self as he pushes Quartz Starr along and rides for dear life! He only has one foot in the irons and it looks like his saddle has slipped too, boy will he be sore when this one’s over! Quartz Starr is gaining ground though! Mistral Flagship can see the winning post, he has less than half a furlong to go, but he is looking like he’s on a treadmill, everything is moving, but he is not going forward! Here comes Quartz Starr, it’s going to be close, it’s going to be ever so close! Both jockeys push their mounts forward, they want this win! Here comes the line….MISTRAL FLAGSHIP, QUARTZ STARR…..QUARTZ STARR, MISTRAL FLAGSHIP! IT’S TIGHT! PHOTOGRAPH! PHOTOGRAPH!”
Everyone in the bookies breathed out simultaneously! What a race! Dad was convinced we’d won it.
“He’s won. Won by a nose!”
Caroline was equally sure Dad had it wrong!
“Your horse only went past mine after the line! Mine won!”
I had absolutely no idea which one had won!
“I thought it was a draw! Can you have a draw in a horse race, Dad?”
“You can, it’s called a dead heat.”
“Do we still win if it’s a dead heat?”
“Yes, but not as much.”
“Enough to get me to Singapore?”
“I think so, hopefully we’ll find out in a minute! Just stop asking questions, Richie, or we’ll miss the announcement!”
Within seconds of hushing me, the commentator announced,
“The result is coming through from Wincanton. Number 3, Mistral Flagship, beats Number 2, Quartz Starr.”
Dad’s head sagged. I smiled a rueful smile. Caroline rubbed her hands and cheered in that deafening high pitched tone of hers! I knew my dreams of going to Singapore were over. My immediate thoughts were for my father though, not for me, he looked visibly shaken as he said a hasty farewell and rushed back off to work, no doubt trying to catch up on the several hours he had missed. That was the least of his worries now though, until he paid that money back, I knew he would be constantly looking over his shoulder. He would certainly be making no shortcuts through unlit passageways!
Caroline offered to take me for a pint of Guinness in “The Buck”.
“You were going to lose anyway,” she explained, “whether I had the other horse or not was immaterial. At least I have enough money to help you drown your sorrows now!”
Once our stomachs were lined with about three pints of Guinness, I angled the conversation away from Donna and her bust up with Caroline and told her where Dad had found a hundred pounds from to back the two horses.
“Kiffer! Dad borrowed money off Kiffer! Does he have a death wish?”
I shrugged.
“Looks like it!”
“They’ll beat him to a pulp until they get that money, you know that don’t you?”
I nodded. Caroline looked down at her handbag that was sat on the table.
“You want me to give Dad the £150, don’t you, Richie?”
“I don’t want you to do anything. I just think it would be safer to owe you money than Kiffer.”
“But I’ll never get it back!”
“You’d never get Dad back if he was made into a kebab or an ice cube!”
That night, when we got back to Mum and Dad’s in Aughton, after Mum had gone to bed for a read, Caroline slipped Dad the £150. She was at liberty to point out,
“I have completely saved your arse, Dad! Listen to this, because I mean it, if I ever, EVER want to come to the bookies with you again, I expect to be welcomed with open arms, OK?”
Dad gave Caroline a hug.
“That would be fine, love, but I’ve learnt my lesson today. Me and the bookies have gone our separate ways.”
Caroline went back to Durham that weekend and patched things up with Donna. Donna continued to be possessive and Caroline continued to hate it, but, as I kept telling her, we all have our faults, we either learn to accept them or move on to someone who has other faults that are more tolerable!
Quartz Starr went to the Cheltenham festival the following March and despite his fall at Wincanton, he went off favourite again. This time he fell at the second fence and ‘Fingers’ Marling did not have the opportunity to get back on board. Two years later, once Paul Mullins sorted out his jumping, he won the King George on Boxing Day and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March. Dad insisted he did not have a penny on either time, although Dave at the Dog & Gun’s son, Joe, won an absolute fortune!
The afternoon of the failed double ended my gambling career as soon as it had begun. I also conceded that my pursuit of Kelly was over. What I didn’t appreciate, on that day of the gambling disaster, was that every cloud has a silver lining and although the pursuit of Kelly was over, the pursuit of Jemma had just begun!
Kelly
“Oh my God! Who was that? That absolutely reeks!”
“Eugh! Was that you, Danny?”
Danny did not confirm or deny that he was the perpetrator of the vilest smell that I had ever been subjected to. The worst thing was, I was several hundred feet up in a cable car, so there was just no escaping it. I covered my mouth and nose in a similar fashion to three of the four Londoners in their early twenties, that I shared the cable car with, whilst the fourth, Danny, an unshaven, dark haired, unattractive guy, just sat back with his arms folded, admiring the odour his backside had produced. His three friends laughed through their gagged mouths, they thought it was hilarious! Laddish humour was beyond me!
I was in a particularly bad mood as my body was aching! I had been in Singapore for over six months now and had decided it was time to move on. It was a wonderful place, spotlessly clean with amazing shops that I could not afford to shop in, but I had managed to get a job in a backpackers hostel just off Orchard Road, the main retail and entertainment area of Singapore, so had survived without eating into my savings. The majority of the backpackers that came through the hostel had been over to Sentosa Island during their stay. Sentosa was meant to be a beautiful island full of entertaining tourist attractions and fantastic beaches. I particularly wanted to see ‘Fort Siloso’, one of the restored coastal gun batteries from World War II when British ruled Singapore was trying to defend itself from the Japanese. Before I left Singapore, I knew I must to check it out. The reason I was aching was that I decided to head over there by cable car, from Jewel Box, the iconic hilltop destination at Mount Faber. I thought I was in fairly good shape, but the torturous ascent up Mount Faber had proved me wrong!
Once I arrived at Jewel Box, I took five minutes to grab a bottle of water and sit in the shade out of the blazing Singapore sun, then bought my return cable car ticket to Sentosa Island. Trust me to then share a cable car with four idiotic Southerners who were spoiling my enjoyment of the lush greenery and stunning coastal scenery below, by acting worse than chimps at a tea party. To further darken my mood, halfway across,
at its highest point, the cable car stopped. After five minutes without moving, the chimps grew restless.
“We’re going to be stuck up here until we starve or die of dehydration,” one said positively, “they’ll get it going again after a few weeks and once each cable car gets to Sentosa, the doors will open and a load of skeletal remains will spill out!”
“I know how to get us out,” genius Danny said and began rocking from side to side, making the cable car rock forwards and backwards.
“Cut it out, Danny, you dickhead!” said the quietest of the four, a guy who’s black hair was poking out of a New York Yankees baseball cap.
“Scared Woody?”
“No, but you’re frightening this young lady!”
“Sorry, love!” said Danny, half-heartedly.
“It’s OK. You seem to be determined to kill me one way or another, either by suffocation or choking after that disgusting smell or now that’s failed, you try to dislodge our cable car and make us fall a thousand feet to our death! Did they leave you out in heaven, when God was dishing out brain cells?”
Other than Danny, the boys erupted again into laughter. I was pleased that I had managed to come up with a reproach straight out of the Jemma Watkinson text book. I had certainly learnt to look after myself since Mum died, or I suppose, since the moments before Mum died. Once they had stopped laughing, the cable car started moving again and a conversation ensued.
“I take it you are English. Whereabouts are you from?” one of the two, at that time nameless, characters asked.
“Yes, I’m from Ormskirk.”
“Where’s that?” he asked looking puzzled.
“It’s a market town in West Lancashire. If you head North from Liverpool, towards Preston, Ormskirk’s pretty much on the way. Have you ever been to Southport?”
“No.”
“I have,” Danny piped up.
“Well, you will have passed through Ormskirk to get to Southport.”
“Right,” Danny said, not really feigning any interest, “we’re from Richmond in Surrey.”
“What are your names?” I asked, “I’m Kelly.”
“Hi Kelly! I’m Andy, but everyone calls me Woody!”
Woody took my hand and shook it. The other three did not have much to write home about in the looks department, but Woody was an attractive man. You could tell there was a load of bulging muscle underneath his T-shirt. He had an Italian type look, a very dark complexion. His brown eyes seemed to sparkle when he looked at me. “Danny!” said the Phantom Farter.
“Pete,” said the pale redhead who looked like he’d burnt.
“Scotty,” said the final lad, the smallest of the bunch, who had boyish features and smooth skin. Scotty was the type of lad who would look good in make-up. Pity he’d missed the 1980’s boat. I thought he must be the youngest of the four, but it later transpired that he was, at twenty three, the eldest. The others were all twenty two. They were all school friends who had graduated, worked for a year and were now spending twelve months travelling the world. They had been away from England for four days. If Pete didn’t cover up for the remaining 361 days, he would have no skin left by the time he arrived back home.
“Are you backpacking?” Woody asked.
“Not really. Just travelling. I haven’t even done much of that! I went to Holland six months ago for a couple of weeks, then came here to Singapore. It’s been great, but it’s time to move on.”
“Where are you going next?” Scotty enquired.
“No idea!”
“We’re going to Hong Kong on Saturday. You could always tag along with us, if you wanted.” Woody suggested.
I had had a lot of offers like this over the previous six months. Given the offers were generally made by young men and normally after the briefest of conversations, I deduced they were made based on my looks rather than my personality.
“You don’t know me! I might be a murderer for all you know!”
I used this one a lot. Sick, I know, but it amused me.
“You couldn’t be any worse to travel with than Danny!” Pete replied.
“Yes, if we can cope with his farts, we can cope with anything!” Woody added.
“Are you travelling alone?” Scotty asked.
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“No-one my age was allowed to come. I have very liberal parents.”
I suppose not having parents, one being dead and one being an escapee, made them fairly liberal.
“How old are you?” Woody asked.
“Nearly eighteen.”
“Bloody hell! You’re brave, travelling around alone as a seventeen year old female,” said Danny.
“I told you, I’m a murderer!” I said with a sarcastic smile.
“You could come in useful. We can get you to strangle Danny then, if he keeps delivering those ‘silent but deadlies’!” Pete said.
“You should definitely come with us! We could do with some female company. We need a sensible head to keep us in check! If we start to annoy you, you could just move on alone, but you’ll grow to love us, I guarantee it!” Woody said, flashing me a lovely smile.
Of all the groups that offered to accompany me on my travels, this four had not exactly made the best initial impression, but the more I spoke to them, the more I warmed to them, especially Woody. We stuck together around Sentosa and once we hit the beach, Woody’s bronzed body and six pack sealed the deal. Richie seemed a distant memory to me now, sometimes I could hardly picture what he looked like. It was time to fall in love again and time to have some fun. Three days later, the five of us flew to Hong Kong Kai Tak airport. It was a pretty scary landing as the airport was surrounded by high rise buildings and it seemed like the pilot had to weave his way in and out of them. Woody held my sweaty palm throughout. We were an item by then and, if truth be told, we were already an item by the time we took the cable car back to Jewel Box.
Jemma
“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 sat facing me as I said this in the most sarcastic tone I could muster. I’d been in Styal prison for six months before he had the decency to pay me a visit. Like everyone else, he had left me to rot.
“Screw the lot of you!” I thought.
“I’m sorry, Jemma,” Richie said, bowing his head a little.
“What for?”
“What?”
“What are you sorry for?”
“Not visiting.”
“No, you’re not. Have you been ill again?”
Richie started mumbling and his body language was closed and uncomfortable.
“No. It’s just been difficult. There’s been a lot going on in my head, what with Kelly disappearing and various different things at home. I wanted to come but….”
I cut him short.
“As far as I’m concerned, Richie, if you haven’t been ill, you’ve got no real excuse, have you? You can’t really be sorry for not doing something that you genuinely did not want to do! I don’t want you here. Could you please leave.”
Richie looked surprised.
“Seriously? Its taken me bloody ages to get here!”
“I’m absolutely serious, Richie.”
I was going to say ‘deadly serious’ but given I was in Styal for manslaughter, death was a topic I tended to avoid. Richie stood up to leave, half of me wanted to stop him, that same half wanted to hug him like I had hugged him in Ormskirk (which was never going to happen with half a dozen guards looking on) but the other half was bitter and twisted and had found a scapegoat.
“I’ll go then.”
“What made you come anyway, Richie? A guilty conscience?” Admittedly, I was not expecting the response Richie came back with. “Actually Jemma, if you must know, it was a guilty conscience that has been keeping me away!”
“What?”
“Jemma, either I can explain or I ca
n bugger off home. I can’t do both.”
Despite everything, I was officially intrigued. I needed to keep the tough outer layer on display though. At all times in Styal, I needed to be tough.
“Yes you can! Sit down. Explain to me what you meant by what you just said. If it makes sense, you can stay, if it doesn’t, you can bugger off home!”
Richie sat back down. We faced each other across a wooden table, like every other con and visitor in there. It was like a mass congregation of ‘The Invisible Chess League’, as it felt like a chess board and pieces should be on the table. Not that every prisoner at Styal could play chess, some of them would have struggled to play Tiddlywinks!
Richie looked at me as though he needed to see through my eyes and into my soul. I’m not into romantic clichés, but when he sat there, looking at me, that was genuinely how I felt.
“Jemma, you know exactly what I meant! I felt guilty visiting you. I went out with your sister. Your sister was…is….the only girl I have ever loved. For some reason, I found myself developing feelings for you too. Feelings that, for so many different reasons, were wrong for me to have. Maybe they developed because of my cancer. Maybe they developed because of your arrest or because Kelly disappeared, but they were developing and that felt wrong. I needed to keep away. I needed to sort things out in my head.”
“Richie, if you had visited me for an hour a week, you would have had another twenty three hours that day and twenty four hours every other day of the week, to get your head sorted. I needed you to visit me and you didn’t come through for me. Not for six whole months!”
“Needed me to? I’m nothing to you apart from your sister’s ex and some guy you thought you screwed at Joey Birch’s party when we were fifteen.”
I shook my head.
“Richie, if that was your attempt to eek out a confession of love from me, then I must say, that was pathetic! Just ask me! You’ve had cancer, I’m being detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for killing my mother. Do you not think, both of us are beyond playing games? Had I started developing feelings for you from the day we collided in Ormskirk? Yes. Did those feelings grow whilst I was in Risley? Yes .Am I completely pissed off with you now for abandoning me for the last six months? Too right I am!”