For Kicks

by Dick Francis

  I had a clear choice of scrubbing the paths or getting on the motor-cycle and going. Thinking firmly that I was being paid at least ten thousand pounds for doing it, I scrubbed: and Cass hung around the yard all day to watch that I didn’t rest.

  The lads, who had spent much of the afternoon amusing themselves by jeering at my plight as they set off for and returned from the café in Posset, made quite sure during evening stables that the concrete paths ended the day even dirtier than they had begun. I didn’t care a damn about that; but Adams had sent his hunters back caked with mud and sweat and it took me two hours to clean them because by the end of that day many of my muscles were trembling with fatigue.

  Then, to crown it all, Adams came back. He drove his Jaguar into the yard, climbed out, and after having talked to Cass, who nodded and gestured round the paths, he walked without haste towards the box where I was still struggling with his black horse.

  He stood in the doorway and looked down his nose at me; and I looked back. He was superbly elegant in a dark blue pin-striped suit with a white shirt and a silver-grey tie. His skin looked fresh, his hair well brushed, his hands clean and pale. I imagined he had gone home after hunting and enjoyed a deep hot bath, a change of clothes, a drink… I hadn’t had a bath for a month and was unlikely to get one as long as I stayed at Humber’s. I was filthy and hungry and extremely tired. I wished he would go away and leave me alone.

  No such luck.

  He took a step into the box and surveyed the mud still caked solid on the horse’s hind legs.

  ‘You’re slow,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This horse must have been back here three hours ago. What have you been doing?’

  ‘My three other horses, sir.’

  ‘You should do mine first.’

  ‘I had to wait for the mud to dry, sir. You can’t brush it out while it’s still wet.’

  ‘I told you this morning not to answer back.’ His hand lashed out across the ear he had hit before. He was smiling slightly. Enjoying himself. Which was more than could be said for me.

  Having, so to speak, tasted blood, he suddenly took hold of the front of my jersey, pushed me back against the wall, and slapped me twice in the face, forehand and backhand. Still smiling.

  What I wanted to do was to jab my knee into his groin and my fist into his stomach; and refraining wasn’t easy. For the sake of realism I knew I should have cried out loudly and begged him to stop, but when it came to the point I couldn’t do it. However, one could act what one couldn’t say, so I lifted both arms and folded them defensively round my head.

  He laughed and let go, and I slid down on to one knee and cowered against the wall.

  ‘You’re a proper little rabbit, aren’t you, for all your fancy looks.’

  I stayed where I was, in silence. As suddenly as he had begun, he lost interest in ill-treating me.

  ‘Get up, get up,’ he said irritably. ‘I didn’t hurt you. You’re not worth hurting. Get up and finish this horse. And make sure it is done properly or you’ll find yourself scrubbing again.’

  He walked out of the box and away across the yard. I stood up, leaned against the doorpost, and with uncharitable feelings watched him go up the path to Humber’s house. To a good dinner, no doubt. An arm-chair. A fire. A glass of brandy. A friend to talk to. Sighing in depression, I went back to the tiresome job of brushing off the mud.

  Shortly after a supper of dry bread and cheese, eaten to the accompaniment of crude jokes about my day’s occupation and detailed descriptions of the meals which had been enjoyed in Posset, I had had quite enough of my fellow workers. I climbed the ladder and sat on my bed. It was cold upstairs. I had had quite enough of Humber’s yard. I had had more than enough of being kicked around. All I had to do, as I had been tempted to do that morning, was to go outside, unwrap the motor-cycle, and make tracks for civilization. I could stifle my conscience by paying most of the money back to October and pointing out that I had done at least half of the job.

  I went on sitting on the bed and thinking about riding away on the motor-bike. I went on sitting on the bed. And not riding away on the motor-bike.

  Presently I found myself sighing. I knew very well I had never had any real doubts about staying, even if it meant scrubbing those dreadful paths every day of the week. Quite apart from not finding myself good company in future if I ran away because of a little bit of eccentric charring, there was the certainty that it was specifically in Mr P. J. Adams’ ruthless hands that the good repute of British racing was in danger of being cracked to bits. It was he that I had come to defeat. It was no good decamping because the first taste of him was unpleasant.

  His name typed on paper had come alive as a worse menace than Humber himself had ever seemed. Humber was merely harsh, greedy, bad-tempered and vain, and he beat his lads for the sole purpose of making them leave. But Adams seemed to enjoy hurting for its own sake. Beneath that glossy crust of sophistication, and not far beneath, one glimpsed an irresponsible savage. Humber was forceful; but Adams, it now seemed to me, was the brains of the partnership. He was a more complex man and a far more fearsome adversary. I had felt equal to Humber. Adams dismayed me.

  Someone started to come up the ladder. I thought it would be Cecil, reeling from his Saturday night orgy, but it was Jerry. He came and sat on the bed next to mine. He looked downcast.

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It weren’t… it weren’t no good in Posset today, without you being there.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’ He brightened. ‘I bought my comic though. Will you read it to me?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said tiredly.

  There was a short silence while he struggled to organise his thoughts.

  ‘Dan.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I’m sorry, like.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, for laughing at you, like, this afternoon. It wasn’t right… not when you’ve took me on your motor-bike and all. I do ever so like going on your bike.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jerry.’

  ‘The others were ribbing you, see, and it seemed the thing, like, to do what they done. So they would… would let me go with them, see?’

  ‘Yes, Jerry, I see. It doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t.’

  ‘You never ribbed me, when I done wrong.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, wrinkling his forehead, ‘about me Mam. She tried scrubbing some floors once. In some offices, it was. She came home fair whacked, she did. She said scrubbing floors was wicked. It made your back ache something chronic, she said, as I remember.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Does your back ache, Dan?’

  ‘Yes, a bit.’

  He nodded pleased. ‘She knows a thing or two, does my Mam.’ He lapsed into one of his mindless silences, rocking himself gently backwards and forwards on the creaking bed.

  I was touched by his apology.

  ‘I’ll read your comic for you,’ I said.

  ‘You ain’t too whacked?’ he asked eagerly.

  I shook my head.

  He fetched the comic from the cardboard box in which he kept his few belongings and sat beside me while I read him the captions of Mickey the Monkey, Beryl and Peril, Julius Cheeser, the Bustom Boys, and all the rest. We went through the whole thing at least twice, with him laughing contentedly and repeating the words after me. By the end of the week he would know most of them by heart.

  At length I took the comic out of his hands and put it down on the bed.

  ‘Jerry,’ I said, ‘which of the horses you look after belongs to Mr Adams?’

  ‘Mr Adams?’

  ‘The man whose hunters I’ve got. The man who was here this morning, with a grey Jaguar, and a scarlet coat.’

  ‘Oh, that Mr Adams.’

  ‘Why, is there another one?’

  ‘No, that’s Mr Adams, all right.’ Jerry shud
dered.

  ‘What do you know about him?’ I asked.

  ‘The chap what was here before you came, Dennis, his name was, Mr Adams didn’t like him, see? He cheeked Mr Adams, he did.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what had happened to Dennis.

  ‘He weren’t here above three weeks,’ said Jerry reflectively. ‘The last couple of days, he kept on falling down. Funny, it was, really.’

  I cut him short. ‘Which of your horses belongs to Mr Adams?’ I repeated.

  ‘None of them do,’ he said positively.

  ‘Cass said so.’

  He looked surprised, and also scared. ‘No, Dan, I don’t want none of Mr Adams’ horses.’

  ‘Well, who do your horses belong to?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know. Except of course Pageant. He belongs to Mr Byrd.’

  ‘That’s the one you take to the races?’

  ‘Uh huh, that’s the one.’

  ‘How about the others?’

  ‘Well, Mickey…’ His brow furrowed.

  ‘Mickey is the horse in the box next to Mr Adams’ black hunter, which I do?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He smiled brilliantly, as if I had made a point.

  ‘Who does Mickey belong to?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Hasn’t his owner ever been to see him?’

  He shook his head doubtfully. I wasn’t sure whether or not he would remember if an owner had in fact called.

  ‘How about your other horse?’ Jerry had only three horses to do, as he was slower than everyone else.

  ‘That’s Champ,’ said Jerry triumphantly.

  ‘Who owns him?’

  ‘He’s a hunter.’

  ‘Yes, but who owns him?’

  ‘Some fellow.’ He was trying hard. ‘A fat fellow. With sort of sticking out ears.’ He pulled his own ears forward to show me.

  ‘You know him well?’

  He smiled widely. ‘He gave me ten bob for Christmas.’

  So it was Mickey, I thought, who belonged to Adams, but neither Adams nor Humber nor Cass had let Jerry know it. It looked as though Cass had let it slip out by mistake.

  I said, ‘How long have you worked here, Jerry?’

  ‘How long?’ he echoed vaguely.

  ‘How many weeks were you here before Christmas?’

  He put his head on one side and thought. He brightened. ‘I came on the day after the Rovers beat the Gunners. My Dad took me to the match, see? Near our house, the Rovers’ ground is.’

  I asked him more questions, but he had no clearer idea than that about when he had come to Humber’s.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘was Mickey here already, when you came?’

  ‘I’ve never done no other horses since I’ve been here,’ he said. When I asked him no more questions he placidly picked up the comic again and began to look at the pictures. Watching him, I wondered what it was like to have a mind like his, a brain like cotton wool upon which the accumulated learning of the world could make no dent, in which reason, memory, and awareness were blanketed almost out of existence.

  He smiled happily at the comic strips. He was, I reflected, none the worse off for being simple-minded. He was good at heart, and what he did not understand could not hurt him. There was a lot to be said for life on that level. If one didn’t realise one was an object of calculated humiliations, there would be no need to try to make oneself be insensitive to them. If I had his simplicity, I thought, I would find life at Humber’s very much easier.

  He looked up suddenly and saw me watching him, and gave me a warm, contented, trusting smile.

  ‘I like you,’ he said; and turned his attention back to the paper.

  There was a raucous noise from downstairs and the other lads erupted up the ladder, pushing Cecil among them as he was practically unable to walk. Jerry scuttled back to his own bed and put his comic carefully away; and I, like all the rest, wrapped myself in two grey blankets and lay down, boots and all, on the inhospitable canvas. I tried to find a comfortable position for my excessively weary limbs, but unfortunately failed.

  Chapter 11

  The office was as cold and unwelcoming as Humber’s personality, with none of the ostentation of his car. It consisted of a long narrow room with the door and the single smallish window both in the long wall facing down the yard. At the far end, away to the left as one entered, there was a door which opened into a washroom: this was whitewashed and lit by three slit-like, frosted glass windows, and led through an inner door into a lavatory. In the washroom itself there was a sink, a plastic topped table, a refrigerator, and two wall cupboards. The first of these on investigation proved to hold all the bandages, linaments and medicines in common use with horses.

  Careful not to move anything from its original position I looked at every bottle, packet, and tin. As far as I could see there was nothing of a stimulating nature among them.

  The second cupboard however held plenty of stimulant in the shape of alcohol for human consumption, an impressive collection of bottles with a well stocked shelf of glasses above them. For the entertainment of owners, not the quickening of their horses. I shut the door.

  There was nothing in the refrigerator except four bottles of beer, some milk, and a couple of trays of ice cubes.

  I went back into the office.

  Humber’s desk stood under the window, so that when he was sitting at it he could look straight out down the yard. It was a heavy flat-topped knee-hole desk with drawers at each side, and it was almost aggressively tidy. Granted Humber was away at Nottingham races and had not spent long in the office in the morning, but the tidiness was basic, not temporary. None of the drawers was locked, and their contents (stationery, tax tables and so on) could be seen at a glance. On top of the desk there was only a telephone, an adjustable reading lamp, a tray of pens and pencils, and a green glass paper weight the size of a cricket ball. Trapped air bubbles rose in a frozen spray in its depths.

  The single sheet of paper which it held down bore only a list of duties for the day and had clearly been drawn up for Cass to work from. I saw disconsolately that I would be cleaning tack that afternoon with baby-voiced Kenneth, who never stopped talking, and doing five horses at evening stables, this last because the horses normally done by Bert, who had gone racing, had to be shared out among those left behind.

  Apart from the desk the office contained a large floor-to-ceiling cupboard in which form books and racing colours were kept; too few of those for the space available. Three dark green filing cabinets, two leather arm-chairs, and an upright wooden chair with a leather seat stood round the walls.

  I opened the unlocked drawers of the filing cabinet one by one and searched quickly through the contents. They contained racing calendars, old accounts, receipts, press cuttings, photographs, papers to do with the horses currently in training, analyses of form, letters from owners, records of saddlery and fodder transactions; everything that could be found in the office of nearly every trainer in the country.

  I looked at my watch. Cass usually took an hour off for lunch. I had waited five minutes after he had driven out of the yard, and I intended to be out of the office ten minutes before he could be expected back. This had given me a working time of three-quarters of an hour, of which nearly half had already gone.

  Borrowing a pencil from the desk and taking a sheet of writing paper from a drawer, I applied myself to the drawer full of current accounts. For each of seventeen race-horses there was a separate hard-covered blue ledger, in which was listed every major and minor expense incurred in its training. I wrote a list of their names, few of which were familiar to me, together with their owners and the dates when they had come into the yard. Some had been there for years, but three had arrived during the past three months, and it was only these, I thought, which were of any real interest. None of the horses which had been doped had stayed at Humber’s longer than four months.

  The names of the three newest horses were Chin-Chin, Kandersteg an
d Starlamp. The first was owned by Humber himself and the other two by Adams.

  I put the account books back where I had found them and looked at my watch. Seventeen minutes left. Putting the pencil back on the desk I folded the list of horses and stowed it away in my money belt. The webbing pockets were filling up again with fivers, as I had spent little of my pay, but the belt still lay flat and invisible below my waist under my jeans: and I had been careful not to let any of the lads know it was there, so as not to be robbed.

  I riffled quickly through the drawers of press cuttings and photographs, but found no reference to the eleven horses or their successes. The racing calendars bore more fruit in the shape of a pencilled cross against the name of Superman in the Boxing Day selling chase, but there was no mark against the selling chase scheduled for a coming meeting at Sedgefield.

  It was at the back of the receipts drawer that I struck most gold. There was another blue accounts ledger there, with a double page devoted to each of the eleven horses. Among these eleven were interspersed nine others who had in various ways failed in their purpose. One of these was Superman and another Old Etonian.

  In the left hand page of each double spread had been recorded the entire racing career of the horse in question, and on the right hand pages of my eleven old friends were details of the race they each won with assistance. Beneath were sums of money which I judged must be Humber’s winnings on them. His winnings had run into thousands on every successful race. On Superman’s page he had written ‘Lost: three hundred pounds.’ On Old Etonian’s right hand page there was no race record: only the single word ‘Destroyed.’

  A cross-out line had been drawn diagonally across all the pages except those concerning a horse called Six-Ply; and two new double pages had been prepared at the end, one for Kandersteg, and one for Starlamp. The left-hand pages for these three horses were written up: the right-hand pages were blank.

  I shut the book and put it back. It was high time to go, and with a last look round to make sure that everything was exactly as it had been when I came in, I let myself quietly, unnoticed, out of the door, and went back to the kitchen to see if by some miracle the lads had left me any crumbs of lunch. Naturally, they had not.