On the Right Track

by Penelope Janu

  At the end of the day we watched the Golden Slipper with Grandpa. We stood in the cordoned-off area reserved for trainers, owners and racing officials, and cheered the horses on. Angelina was already taller than me but neither of us could see much because of the people crowded around. But we yelled until we were hoarse. After the race, Grandpa cleaned Angelina up as best he could with a saddle blanket dipped in a bucket of water. I braided her hair in the same way I plaited horse’s tails, and retied her ribbon. Then we returned her, on time, to Eric.

  Angelina and I spent Slipper Day together every year after that. In the Slipper after my fall I was still recuperating at Grasmere, so we watched the race on television. I was in a wheelchair with my leg stuck out in front of me. Angelina must have been barely fourteen but she sneaked downstairs to Eric’s cellar and stole a bottle of Moët. I took out the cork and Angelina filled a glass. Then we shared it, drinking through a straw in tiny sips. It took ages to empty the glass. She hated the taste and I was frightened of choking on the bubbles. The wires had only just come out of my jaw and I was terrified I’d break it again.

  I’m standing at the top of a concrete staircase in the crowded stand, working out how to walk safely to Angelina while carrying a plastic flute of champagne, a paper cup of coffee, my wallet and phone.

  ‘Golden! Over here!’

  My orthopaedic surgeon, of all people, is waving at me from the member’s area. I wave and smile back. Moussa Khoury leaves his friends, their champagne and canapés, and squeezes past the security man guarding the barrier. He takes the drinks out of my hands. When he sees the height of the heels on my boots he barks a laugh.

  ‘Still pushing the boundaries, Golden?’

  ‘You said that’s what I should do. That eighty per cent of movement is good for my leg.’

  ‘Trouble is, you persist with the twenty per cent of movement that’s shit for it.’

  Dr Khoury always swore, even when I was a teenager. I liked to hear him cuss and curse about my leg, cataloguing everything that’d gone wrong and going through all the options on how to improve it. Eric hated the swearing but had to put up with it: Dr Khoury was only in his thirties but even then he was considered the best at what he did.

  I point to Angelina, sitting near the railing a few rows down. ‘Angelina’s down there. The champagne’s for her. Want to say hello?’

  ‘Sure. You go down the steps ahead of me, so I can watch you in action.’

  ‘Watch you in action’ was Dr Khoury’s favourite expression. He was standing at the end of my hospital bed the first time I saw him but all I could see was the top of his head. I was lying flat on my back and he was studying my leg. Even then his short-cropped hair, black and wiry, was thinning. I used to tease him about it. Now he shaves his head.

  I don’t have a good recollection of the fall, although I’ve heard so many people talk about it that when I can’t avoid telling the story, I manage a convincing recount. Before the accident Grandpa dropped me off at the train station, believing I was staying all weekend with a friend at her family’s beach house near Wollongong. I thought lying to Grandpa was justified because he’d taken Eric’s side in forbidding me to do track work with the racehorses. The trainer I’d agreed to ride for, who overlooked the fact that I was underage and an illegal substitute for his regular jockey, gave me an opportunity to prove to Eric that I was good enough to ride professionally.

  My stomach was full of butterflies all the way to the track. I recall getting dressed in the other jockey’s silks behind a screen, and weighing in with my helmet pulled low over my eyes to hide my identity. I was rushed out to the mounting yard, and barely had time to stroke Contralto’s muzzle before I was hoisted onto his back for marshalling and the warm-up. I remember slow galloping him around the track before he was led to the start.

  ‘He’s fast out of the gate,’ the trainer said. ‘And he likes to lead from the get go. Take him quickly out of the pack and keep him up the front.’

  I felt a wild rush of excitement as the gates opened and Contralto bolted out, with a half-head lead on the horses either side of him. I’m not sure I’ve experienced a buzz like it since. But after the start there’s a blank. I’ve been told we led the race from the beginning and were a length ahead of the other horses at the finish. But a few metres past the post Contralto’s nearside foreleg crumpled.

  I was thrown against the railing. That’s what broke my jaw. Dr Khoury wasn’t sure whether the leg injuries happened then too, or as I hit the ground. Whichever it was, being trapped under Contralto as he thrashed around, trying to get back on his feet, made everything so much worse. I’m certain I remember the fear in Contralto’s eyes, his grunts of agony and the feel of his sweaty coat against my hands and face. The Racing Board inquiry found that his trainer had been hiding an injury by using anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers. The trainer was fined and suspended. Contralto had a screen pulled around him and was put out of his misery.

  My knee was badly damaged, and my ankle had a pilon fracture. The tibia and the fibula—the shin and the second lower leg bone—and the talus, the small bone that works as a hinge between the other bones, were broken and displaced. Dr Khoury started my treatment with an external fixator, which is like a frame or scaffold, fitted to the outside of the leg. It was connected through my skin to pins stuck into the broken bones to keep them in place. Angelina fainted the first time she saw it. I think if Eric hadn’t been so busy catching her and shouting for the nurses, he would have fainted too.

  Dr Khoury eventually attached screws and metal plates to the bones. Six months of immobilisation followed and then there was more surgery to remove the plates, fine-tune the ankle and sort out the bone, cartilage and ligament damage to my knee and lower leg. And because I lost so much skin in the accident and afterwards, the plastic surgeons spent months patching me up. But after a year, Dr Khoury could watch me in action without swearing too much. And by then my jaw had healed, so I could ask him questions.

  ‘When can I ride again?’

  ‘Another few months, at least.’

  ‘But I’ve been riding the boarding school horses for weeks. Riding is easier than walking.’

  ‘You’re a terrible patient, Golden. The shittiest patient I’ve ever had.’

  I hobbled up to him and yanked on his stethoscope. ‘Does that mean I have your permission? So I don’t need to sneak out of bed and ride in the dark anymore? Please, Dr Khoury. You have to tell Eric I can ride again.’

  A minute after Dr Khoury leaves Angelina and me, my phone rings. It’s Solomon Bain. I have to hold the phone away from my ear because he’s shouting into his. He’s always done that.

  ‘Heard you and Angelina were here,’ he says. ‘I’ve got Flute running in the Slipper. Nice chestnut colt. Long odds but worth a punt. Come down before the race, I’ll get you into the mounting yard.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Angelina snatches my phone. ‘Hey, Sol,’ she says. ‘It’s Angelina Latimer. Remember me? Sweetpea? I’ll put my money on Flute, and we’ll see you later on.’

  For the next two hours, Angelina comes and goes while I study the guide and watch the races. Thirty minutes before the Slipper is due to run, she pulls me to my feet.

  ‘I placed my bet with Marc’s father,’ she says. ‘Marc senior said he’d love to see you too.’

  ‘He can go jump.’ Grandpa and Marc senior were best friends until the police picked up Grandpa. Then Marc senior refused to have anything to do with him.

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Let’s head over to Sol, then.’

  Angelina and I talk our way into the member’s section, and one of Sol’s assistants shepherds us around the barriers into the adjacent mounting yard. The horses and jockeys are already there, and led around by the strappers. I make my way to the fence so I can see them close up, while Angelina goes in search of a drink.

  A shadow crosses the form guide I’m studying as Tomas Farmer, the jockey who got his start at the same stables
as my father, sidles up to me. We avoided each other when I glimpsed him at Randwick. I was sitting on the bench with Tor and Marc, and Tomas walked right past me. Now it looks as if he’s seeking me out. He was only ever a nodding acquaintance of Grandpa’s, but I think my father and he stayed in touch. I remember feeling sorry for Tomas because my father had more rides than he could handle whenever he visited Sydney, while Tomas had barely any. Mostly he did track work.

  ‘Hello, Tomas. Did you want me?’

  It’s after four now and a cool breeze is blowing. Yet Tomas, wearing a short-sleeved shirt with jeans, is sweating. He’s so fidgety he can’t stand still. Finally he gives me a jerky nod and sidles even closer. He won’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Your dad,’ he says, ‘he was helping the apprentices, he was. That’s how it started. That’s why he left, why he couldn’t come back for good.’

  Tomas wasn’t on the list I did for Tor because I’d forgotten all about him. Should he have been there? What should I do now I’ve remembered him? Questions spill from my lips.

  ‘Are you talking about apprentice jockeys? How was my father helping them? He couldn’t come back permanently from Hong Kong? Is that what you mean?’

  A group of men and women, laughing, joking and armed with a bottle of champagne, congregate on my other side. They’re probably part owners, getting ready for their horse to run. I only look their way for a moment but by the time I turn back to Tomas he’s walking away. I’m following him when Angelina reappears and takes my arm.

  ‘C’mon, Golden.’ She points to the other side of the yard. Sol is gesturing that we join him. ‘Solomon wants us over there.’

  When I search for Tomas again, he’s nowhere to be seen. Was what he said significant? I have no more idea about that than I do about why I questioned him in the first place. Because when I told Tor I didn’t know my father well enough to understand what kind of man he was, I was telling the truth. He bought my first pony and taught me to ride. I admired him as a jockey. Once he came to a school event and we danced a barn dance together. But I never lived with him, not even for a weekend.

  Grandpa and I took turns to sprinkle my father’s ashes around the roots of the ghost gum. ‘He wasn’t perfect, Gumnut,’ Grandpa said. ‘But he was courageous in the saddle. And he loved us well enough.’

  What was Tomas referring to? Is it time I faced up to what happened with my father?

  The horses leave the mounting yard nervous and jittery, but settle once they’re off their lead ropes and warming up on the track. Sol’s horse Flute has a dark chestnut coat, just like Contralto had, with a white sock on his rear off side. He’s strongly built for a two year old. He walks calmly into his gate at the start of the race and is one of the first horses out. But then another horse blocks his run. It unsettles him and he doesn’t hit his stride again until the field comes to the turn and he finds a space of his own.

  ‘Go, Flute!’ Angelina screams.

  Sol doesn’t say a word. But one of his eyes flickers in a nervous twitch. I shoulder bump him.

  ‘Flute’s just getting started.’

  He harrumphs. ‘Not before time.’

  As if Flute has heard what Sol said, he picks off three horses. Now he’s in fourth place. His jockey holds him steady. The lead horses include the favourite, a long-legged bay mare from Ireland. She’s wearing blinkers and ear guards.

  At the 900-metre mark, at the top of the straight, Flute makes his run. When I grip Sol’s arm he covers my hand with his and squeezes it tightly. He mutters, ‘Go boy!’ over and over again. Angelina jumps up and down and makes whooping noises. When the horses gallop past us in a blur, Flute is level with the favourite. We watch the screen, mesmerised, as Flute extends his neck. He’s half a nose in front at the finishing post.

  I’m laughing at Sol’s uncustomary display of emotion as he grabs me in a bear hug and spins me around. Eventually he puts me down, takes my hand and raises it in the air. It’s only then that I notice the cameras around us.

  A journalist shouts out. ‘Mr Bain! Look this way! Hey, Angelina. How’re you doing? Smile!’

  CHAPTER

  18

  The vibrations on my bedside table wake me. It’s almost midnight. Why is Eric calling at this time of night? I’ll lie awake and worry that Angelina is in trouble if I don’t pick up. Just before I answer I see that Eric isn’t the only one who wants me. I’ve got three missed calls from Tor.

  ‘Have you seen The Sun Herald?’ Eric says.

  The Christian Louboutin boots I borrowed from Angelina are propped against the wall in the hallway. I glare at them as I limp to my office. Eric rants about how I’m my own worst enemy as I find the online edition of tomorrow’s paper. A photo of Sol and me is on the front page.

  ‘Oh!’ I say. ‘That’s no good.’

  Sol smiles into the camera. I’m in profile, and laughing up at him as he lifts my arm. There’s a lot of stockinged leg showing between the tops of my boots and my hemline—my dress is even shorter than I thought it was. Angelina is behind us, jumping in the air.

  ‘Eric! Stop yelling for a minute, so I can read.’

  Golden Saunders celebrates a Golden Slipper win.

  The richest horserace for two year olds in the world, the two million dollar Golden Slipper, has been won by Flute, a New Zealand bred racehorse owned by a Saudi Arabian syndicate. Flute’s trainer is Randwick Stables’ Solomon Bain, who also trained last year’s Melbourne Cup winner, Harlequin.

  Bain is pictured with the aptly named Golden, granddaughter of trainer John Saunders, and daughter of jockey James Saunders (both men’s racing careers ended in controversy). She’s also the stepdaughter of Eric Latimer, the conservative MP notorious for his anti-gambling stance. I’m not sure what he’d have to say about his daughters’ presence at the track (that’s his other daughter Angelina in the background, with a betting slip in her hand).

  See the Sports section for full details of an exciting day of racing at Rosehill Racecourse.

  ‘Well!’ Eric barks. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

  ‘Angelina was twenty-five last week. It’d be idiotic for anyone to criticise you because she placed a ten-dollar bet. And Solomon’s well regarded, there’s nothing controversial about him. Normal people like racing, Eric. If it’s well regulated, there’s nothing wrong with—’

  ‘Golden! Listen to me. I’ve had a call from Tor.’

  ‘I’ve had three. What does he want?’

  ‘He said he warned you. That he and Nate warned you. He’s leaving New York for Hong Kong later today. He’ll call you from there.’

  ‘Why? I have no idea what—’

  ‘You were told to keep your head down!’

  I rest my cheek on my desk to cool my flushed face. ‘What the paper said, Eric, it has nothing to do with what Tor is doing.’

  ‘He told me in no uncertain terms that I was to remind you of what you’d agreed to. Expect a call on Monday.’

  It’s impossible to sleep. Right from the start, Tor said if people became suspicious about my role he wouldn’t be able to use me anymore. And if I were to blame he’d let Eric know. It seems he already has. And now I have something else to worry about. The conversation I had with Tomas Farmer buzzes around in my head. What was he trying to tell me about my father? Do I want to find out why he went to Hong Kong? To find out what happened in the year I was born?

  It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting on a bale of straw in Pepper’s stable, with my phone in my pocket in case Tor calls. Ramsay is sitting opposite me on another bale of straw, ready to start work. He’s five years old, lively and smart, but he’s on the autism spectrum. He finds it difficult to express his feelings and ideas in ways others can understand.

  I use augmentative communication with Ramsay. My iPad is lying on a milk crate between us. A core vocabulary board of letters, symbols and pictures are arranged in a grid on the screen. Ramsay didn’t learn to communicate in the usual way, modelling his speech throu
gh listening to others. He doesn’t speak at all. But using the board lets him build sentences. I communicate by using the board as well, saying the words as I touch the icons. Everything I say and everything we type out, appears in print at the top of the screen.

  We both look up when Pepper snorts. Her head and neck appear above the half door. There’s a strong breeze; when her rug flaps around her legs she stamps her feet in displeasure.

  ‘She,’ I point to Pepper as I touch a pronoun icon, ‘doesn’t like,’ I touch a red circle with a line through it, ‘the wind.’ I touch a picture of a cloud with its cheeks puffed out.

  Ramsay touches icons in response. She. Horse. Frightened.

  I touch icons as I say the words. She is a frightened horse. ‘You’ve told me how Pepper is feeling, Ramsay. That’s very good.’

  Big. Horse. Black.

  ‘She is a big horse. She is black. Excellent!’ I touch a green smiley face icon. ‘What else can you tell me?’ I point to the board. ‘What about an action word? Can you tell me what Pepper can do?’

  She run. She eat.

  I’ve loaded the board with lots of horse terms. I touch the icons. ‘She can walk. She can trot. She can canter. She can gallop. She can eat. What does she eat?’

  Eat oats. Eat grass.

  ‘Fantastic! She eats oats. She eats grass. Now let’s talk about your feelings. How does Pepper make you feel? What feelings do you have when you see Pepper?’

  I am happy.

  ‘I am happy! High five for that one.’ Our hands meet over the board as my phone rings.

  Ramsay looks for the phone icon and touches it. I give him a thumbs up and touch the relevant icons. My phone is ringing. Then I answer.

  ‘I can’t talk for long, Tor. I’m with a client.’

  There’s a hesitation as if Tor’s not quite sure I’m telling the truth. But then Pepper whinnies over the stable door and Ramsay screams in response. He runs around the stable in excitement, jumping over the straw bales and throwing Pepper’s bedding into the air. It takes a few minutes to settle him down.