by Joe McNally
‘Mmm.’
He threw again. ‘We’ve got a good pub team here, y’know,’ he said, dropping a dart as he pulled them out.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yep.’
No more chat, six more darts.
‘On holiday?’ he asked, throwing again.
‘Visiting a friend,’ I said.
‘Local?’
‘A mile or so down the front, Kristar Rask.’
‘A close friend?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘He killed himself yesterday morning.’
The woman who’d been training Rask’s guide dog had found the Labrador whining below his dangling feet as he hung by its leather lead from the doorway.
She told the police Rask had become increasingly depressed since his ‘accident’ and the police said they were not seeking anyone else in connection with Rask’s death. There was no suicide note.
Rask was dead. Bergmark had a mental block. The only lead left was the jockey, Alan Harle who’d been seen with the two men I was looking for. I hadn’t wanted to approach Harle so early as there was a chance he was involved, but it seemed I’d little choice. I would just have to be careful.
I tried to contact him through a mutual jockey-friend who said Harle was in France, looking after some horses for his guv’nor. I was told he’d be back for the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, but that was eleven days away.
Eleven days with nothing to do but contemplate what it would be like to be on a racecourse again, the course I’d loved above all others, back among the people I’d known so well. I wondered how I’d handle it, how I’d cope, how many people would recognise me and turn away. I’d been an outcast since my teens and sometimes wondered if I was just too scared of life.
6
At last the Cheltenham festival came round. I got there early on day one and went to the Arkle bar and ordered whisky. The place was already beginning to fill but I found a space by the window and unfolded the Racing Post. The headline said: ‘Spartan Sandal to Trample Rivals’. This was their tip for the Champion Hurdle, the biggest race of the season for two-mile hurdlers. There had been a time when I’d have known every runner’s form by heart, but these past five years I’d deliberately deprived myself of all racing information.
I had a lot of catching-up to do. I read on: ‘Spartan Sandal looks to have a favourite’s chance, in what appears to be a sub-standard Champion Hurdle, of landing the prize for the Essex stable of Jim Arlott.’
A piece near the end of the page took my attention. ‘Castle Douglas, one of the outsiders, will be a first runner in the race for second season trainer, Basil Roscoe, who enjoys the exclusive patronage of the mysterious Louis Perlman, with whose horses he’s done so well this year. A first ride in the race for Alan Harle, Castle Douglas would have to show mighty improvement to figure here.
‘Still, if the miracle happened, surely Mr Perlman would at last come out of hiding to receive the trophy from the Queen Mother. Despite 23 winners this season Perlman has yet to be seen on a racecourse, or anywhere else for that matter.’
I’d never heard of Perlman or his trainer Roscoe and, back when I was riding, Harle wouldn’t have had a chance of a mount in the Champion Hurdle. He hadn’t been getting fifty rides a season five years ago.
Drifting around the course over the next couple of hours I saw some familiar faces. A couple of them stopped to talk, some nodded, embarrassed, and a handful ignored me. To the ones who spoke I told them that since my ban was now up I planned to come racing occasionally for old time’s sake.
An owner I used to ride for asked if I’d be getting my licence back, too. I told him I doubted that very much and he touched my arm and looked sympathetic. Pity riled me but I appreciated the gesture.
Twenty minutes before the off of the Champion Hurdle I was in the stand. This was a race I wanted to see from start to finish.
Spartan Sandal and Kiri jumped the last together and were having a hell of a tussle till halfway up the hill. That’s when Alan Harle brought along on the outside the horse I’d been watching throughout, Castle Douglas. With Harle riding as though the devil were at his heels, he drove his mount past the battling pair halfway up the run-in and won going away by four lengths.
Twenty-to-one winners of the Champion Hurdle are seldom greeted with cheers by race-goers and Harle’s was no exception. He galloped past the post to cries of ‘What the hell’s that?’ and walked back in applauded by small polite sections of the crowd. Raising my binoculars I focused on Harle’s face. He was wiping his nose on his sleeve and smiling. Leaning forward he slapped the horse three times on the neck and ruffled the delighted groom’s hair.
Harle had certainly prospered since I’d left racing. He’d stumbled into the sport as a kid straight from the orphanage and had been riding for almost a decade when I first came on the scene, round the gaffs mostly, on bad jumpers nobody else would sit on. He’d suffered more than his share of falls but had always seemed to bounce back. From what I remembered of his personality he was an easy-going type who took opportunity where he found it.
Harle had never been noticeably ambitious or dedicated. To see him come back in on a Champion Hurdler just didn’t seem right.
People hurried from the stand to watch the winner being unsaddled. I went against the flow, climbing to the top level to look down on the paddock.
Harle dismounted to hearty congratulations from a camel-coated man and a slim blonde in a tight black skirt. He was probably the trainer, Roscoe. The woman would be either his wife or girlfriend. I raised my binoculars. Roscoe was fairly young, early thirties maybe, and, from his styled hair to his brown Gucci shoes, impeccably dressed. Arms out of the sleeves, he wore his coat like a cloak.
A handful of pressmen surrounded him and the blonde who looked older, maybe forty. I tilted the glasses slowly: good legs, good figure, good dentist. Her mouth got a lot of exercise between smiling, pouting and talking and I decided she was Roscoe’s girlfriend.
The MC for the presentation put me right when he picked up the microphone. ‘Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the winning owner, Mr Louis Perlman, cannot be here today and so I now call on Mrs Basil Roscoe to receive the Champion Hurdle Challenge Cup on his behalf.’
The blonde minced forward, her stiletto heels murdering a few worms as she crossed the lawn. Her husband watched, smiling smugly, and I wondered what kind of owner Louis Perlman was and what pleasure he took from his horses if he never watched them run.
What was Roscoe’s past history? He was a new one on me. The press bar was only one floor below me so I put my glasses down and went looking for some information.
I found Joe Lagota of The Sportsman in the press bar and he told me little more about Harle and Roscoe than the Racing Post article had. He said Harle had only been riding for Roscoe for about six months. According to Joe none of the press guys liked Roscoe mainly because he’d never tell them anything. They’d all given up asking about his owner, Louis Perlman.
When Joe started asking me questions about my interest, I knew it was time to leave.
There wouldn’t be a chance of getting near Harle while he was celebrating so I bought a card from one of the stalls, scribbled a congratulatory message and asked a passing jockey to give it to him.
I walked on through to the ring, the bookmakers’ stronghold. The next race was fifteen minutes away and I had decided to go on to the course and watch it from ground level at the last fence. A stroll among the betting boys would pass the time nicely.
I knew a few of the bookies and some nodded recognition as I wandered among them. None looked surprised to see me. I walked to the rails where the real big money boys bet, most of their customers were known to them by name and bank account number.
At the end of this line was an old and very familiar face which opened in a wide smile when it saw me.
‘Eddie, my old son, come ‘ere!’ The battered voice hadn’t changed. I walked up smiling and
shook hands with Wilbur Slacke. He clasped my hands in both of his which were cold and white with thick blue veins.
‘Still skinning the punters then, Will?’ I said.
‘Just enough to keep the wolf from the door as usual, Eddie, though the bugger’s getting a bit too close to the front gate recently!’
‘Does that mean you’ll have to sell one of the Mercs? My heart bleeds.’
He smiled even wider, showing his own teeth still. His eyes watered in the cold wind as he stepped rheumatically off the stool to lean on the railings. ‘How’s business?’ I asked.
‘Not so bad, Eddie. Can’t complain really.’
‘The big winner must have been a good one for you?’
‘Brilliant result. Best one I can remember in the Champion for a long time. We all won a few quid except that big bugger at the end.’ He nodded down the line of bookies toward a sour looking character handing someone a wad of notes as thick as a sandwich.
‘The big guy with the black hair?’
Will nodded, still smiling. ‘A right mean bastard.’
‘I don’t remember him from when I was riding.’
Will coughed raggedly and turned away to spit. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘Johnny-come-lately from up North, shouldn’t even be here. He’s never been on the waiting list for that pitch. Claims he’s operating it on behalf of Sammy Wainwright but I’m sure he bought Sammy off. Still, he’s took a few doings with results recently so maybe he’ll get skint soon and crawl back into the hole he came out of.’
I’d never heard Will call anyone down so much. I looked at the guy again. He was taking money this time but didn’t seem any happier.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked.
‘Stoke. Howard Stoke.’ He started coughing again and I slapped his back gently. When he stopped his face was crimson and his eyes full of water.
‘A nice glass of malt would quieten that down,’ I said.
‘Likely.’ He nodded.
‘Half a dozen would kill it stone dead.’
His smile returned. ‘And me with it.’
Out on the course, away from the crowds, the grass was lush on good to soft ground which gave an inch under my heels. I stood by the open ditch way over on the far side of the track. The black birch was tightly packed between the white wings that led the horses in. The fence sloped away, inviting them to jump.
The field approached. Sixteen thoroughbreds. Eight tons of horse flesh moving at thirty miles an hour. Watching the leader, a big chestnut, his ears pricked as he came to jump, I found myself counting the stride in with his jockey ... one, two, three, kick – up and over he goes.
The rest reach it now, closely grouped, the jockeys’ colours mixing, meshing with speed. The thunderous hoofbeats shake the ground and the birch crackles like a long firework as their bellies brush through. Cameras click and whirr, jockeys shout and whips smack on flesh. They land, their front feet gouging the turf. Hooves slide and a big brown head goes low. The rider cries out but his mount recovers. They are last by a length as the runners gallop away.
Silence now.
Emptiness.
In the depths of depression I head home.
7
Back at the cottage I poured a drink stiff enough to splint a fracture and sat down. It was cold and gloomy. I lit a fire. After five minutes’ spitting and crackling, the logs caught properly and began warming the room.
I stood in front of it staring down at the burning logs. Then at myself in the mirror above the mantelpiece. The flames weaved and jumped, casting light then shadows on my face and shoulders. I looked tired ... ghostly.
After another drink I began to feel warm inside as well as out. Pulling the chair nearer the fire I sat. It had been a bloody melancholy day. Tipping the glass toward me, I looked through the liquid at the soft yellow glow of the flames. All that looked back was my self-pitying face. Finishing the drink in one gulp I shut out all the old pathetic thoughts and faced up to reality.
I was no longer a jockey. Maybe I’d never be a jockey again. There was a job to do and it had to be done on the racecourse as much as anywhere else.
I had hated that place today because I wasn’t the big shot any more. I would always despise going to racecourses now. I couldn’t handle being just one of the crowd ...Well, I would damn well just have to get used to it because it was the only way back for me.
Pouring another drink I tried piecing together the day’s events. I hadn’t been able to talk to Harle. He’d been tied up with interviews, celebrations and all the other demands which fall on Champion Hurdle winners.
How direct could I be anyway when I did meet him? It wouldn’t be long before people would start asking questions about me asking questions. I’d gone over the top a bit with Joe Lagota. He was definitely suspicious and though he was lazy, he was shrewd enough. If Joe smelt an exclusive for his paper he’d get busy. I’d have to be careful.
I thought about Harle’s connections: Roscoe and this phantom, Perlman. Strange bedfellows. Harle himself, his rapid rise to fame.
I had been out of racing a while but things don’t change that much. I’d never known a jockey to bum around as long as Harle then find himself employed by a powerful new owner as first jockey.
What goes for jockeys goes double for trainers. They don’t come from nowhere to training for a top owner. Roscoe was even more surprising than Harle, who’d at least had the experience of riding round the gaffs. But here was Roscoe, up with the guys who’d been training festival winners before he could keep his nappy dry for a night, training a Champion Hurdle winner. How long had he known Harle?
As for the elusive Mr Perlman, I’d heard of one or two shy owners in my riding days but they’d never stuck the game long. They were the people who’d inherited horses or rich folks pressed into it by poorer friends. Owning racehorses was not a pastime for shrinking violets.
It stretched credibility to breaking-point to believe that Perlman wouldn’t make at least a token appearance to be presented by the Queen Mum with the Champion Hurdle winner’s trophy. If he were patronising one of the big stables I’d have been inclined to believe he was simply an eccentric but the fact that Harle and Roscoe were involved made me sceptical.
Perlman had to have something serious to hide. Maybe under another name he’d been warned off. If so, what offence had he committed?
Harle would be staying at the Duke’s Hotel in Cheltenham. The racing snobs never stayed anywhere else. Roscoe was certain to be bedding down there with Mrs Roscoe and where he was, Harle wouldn’t be far behind.
There would be a party tonight with the Champion Hurdle under their belts and everybody who thought they were anybody would be there. The tales passing among the loose tongues would be worth hearing. I decided to invite myself.
It was 7.30. My glass was almost empty. I swallowed the last of the whisky and decided to sleep for a couple of hours before tidying myself up to gatecrashing standard.
The Rover’s twin beams lit up the narrow twisting hilly roads which didn’t straighten till near the outskirts of Cheltenham. The town was busy. The population must treble during festival week.
The white front of the Duke’s Hotel was illuminated by a row of floodlights in the gardens. This was my first time through its doors for six years. Inside, nothing had changed: twenty guineas a roll wallpaper and thirty quid a yard carpet. Teak, leather, brass and silk in dignified doses.
At reception a dark-eyed, cream-bloused girl told me Mr Roscoe had taken the Directors Suite for the evening, that it was on the third floor and if I was Mr Glenn I was to go right up.
The suite was big enough to hold maybe fifty or sixty people. It seemed to me there were at least a hundred packed in there.
They had all dressed for a party, some of the women with much care, but that had been hours ago. By now there were signs of staleness; a carelessly rubbed eye leaving a mascara smear, a few straggling tendrils escaping from a blonde bun, a vee-shaped frock front which had taken an u
neven dive showing a tanned, wrinkled cleavage. If all the jewellery were real there was a million pounds’ worth.
I recognised a number of jockeys, many conspicuous anyway by their short stature. The other men were all shapes and sizes and in varying stages of undress, some missing ties or jackets or both. Everyone held a drink. It was warm and stuffy from too many bodies. A sweaty affair.
I sidled through the throng to where I’d guessed the bar was. Three staff in black uniforms were pouring champagne at a hot pace. I lifted a glass.
Someone spoke in my right ear. ‘Take two.’ A note in the voice zoomed straight into my memory bank and locked on immediately. I knew who it was before I started turning round, a girl I hadn’t seen since I was fifteen years old, a beauty I’d had such a crush on at school I hadn’t even been able to speak to her.
I faced her. Charmain. The auburn hair was pinned up showing small ears and the fine jawline, as I remembered it, along with the green eyes and the wide lips, just thick enough to give the impression of a permanent pout. She was lightly made-up, a natural flush colouring her cheeks.
I had never forgotten her. She’d been my first love and it hadn’t mattered all that much that it was unrequited. I had often lain awake, especially in prison, thinking about her, dreaming of meeting again and fantasising about the outcome.
The scene had been well rehearsed in my mind; we’d look at each other for a long moment just like we were doing now then she’d say, in a voice mixed with curiosity and desire, ‘Aren’t you Eddie Malloy?’ All my old feelings for her came welling back as I waited for her to speak. Her look turned to one of slightly puzzled recognition. ‘Don’t I know you?’
I nodded, trying to look cool. ‘I’m Eddie Malloy. We were at school together.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I remember ... of course.’
But I could see she didn’t remember so I pretended, childishly, that I couldn’t recall her name properly. ‘And you’re, eh, is it Carol ...?’