To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Couldn’t we wait to kill ourselves until after the race?’ she yelled over the roar of the engine. ‘I quite fancy my horse’s chances!’

  The afternoon had turned fine and sunny by the time they arrived at the course and the official going was good. Cassie rushed off to find Willie Moore, because the three-year-old maiden was the second race on the card, and the horses would already be in the pre-parade ring. Tyrone always loved to cut things fine.

  Celebration looked a picture. Even in the pre-parade ring he was dancing around on his toes, and snorting with what Cassie hoped was excitement. Leonora’s horse, in direct contrast, looked half asleep. He was a big sort, dark brown, with a thin white blaze, and huge quarters. Like all the Claremore horses, he was turned out to perfection. The rest of the opposition looked moderate; and this was reflected in the betting. Value Guide was on offer at 6/4 against, Celebration 2/1, and it was 8/1 bar. Cassie stood by as Willie saddled him up in his box. The young horse always did a ‘jelly’, as it was called, as soon as he was put in to be saddled. He stood quaking and shaking, with his eyes rolling round his head, and his flanks heaving. But as soon as his number cloth was on and his mouth and bit had been given a squirt from the sponge, he calmed right down and walked out into the parade ring like a seasoned performer.

  Dermot Pryce was riding for Willie Moore, and Tyrone had put up Dirk Norton, a young Australian who was fast making a name for himself in his first season in Ireland. In fact it was Leonora who insisted that Norton should ride, because not everyone, Tyrone included, altogether approved of the young man’s racing tactics. There was no doubt as the two jockeys were legged up that the Rosse horses were the pick of the paddock. Celebration was right on his toes, and beautifully behaved, while Value Guide, always a very nervy horse, reared with Norton and very nearly went over. But the Australian settled him down well before they left the paddock, and cantered down after Cassie’s horse to the start.

  Willie Moore and Cassie went to the rails to see what price they could get for their horse. Value Guide was now 5/4 against, and Willie managed to pick up the only 2/1 still on offer before Celebration shortened to 7/4. Cassie had her five pounds on with the Tote, forgetting as always her horse’s number, and giving his name instead, then hurried to stand by her trainer in the grandstand.

  ‘They’re joint favourites now, Cassie,’ he told her, scanning the boards with his race glasses. ‘In fact two of the buggers have us now clear favourite.’

  Cassie put her glasses up and looked to where Willie was looking. Celebration was now 5/4, and sure enough Value Guide was drifting in places to 6/4.

  ‘I think the devils are just after late money,’ Willie said and put his glasses down. ‘We’ve no right to be favourite. And certainly not at that price. I don’t think any horse has a right to be a short-price favourite in a maiden.’

  Even so, it was a two-horse race from start to finish, with the favourites drawing right away from their field in the final two furlongs of the ten-furlong race. Pryce rode exactly to Willie Moore’s orders, and tracked Value Guide on the rails to the furlong marker. Then he feinted as if to go through the gap Norton had deliberately left for him between his horse and the rails, but as soon as he did so, Norton moved Leonora’s horse across and effectively closed the gap. But Pryce had read the tactic in advance, and as Norton moved across him, he had already switched Celebration to the outside where he had always intended to make his run and kicked for home. The young horse, finding that vital extra gear which singles out the winners from the also-rans, fairly ate up the ground, and fifty yards from the post had his head in front and looked as though he was going away. Then quite suddenly, with both jockeys riding for all they were worth, and with Norton really beating his horse up, Pryce seemed to lose his rhythm, bouncing awkwardly in the plate, and as a result, Celebration changed his legs. In that vital moment Cassie’s horse lost his momentary advantage, and the two animals crossed the line in what seemed like a dead heat.

  ‘Photograph,’ the course commentator announced. ‘Photograph.’

  While the punters rushed to take the ridiculously cramped odds on offer for the result of the photo finish, Cassie ran behind Willie, who, although he was an ex-jockey and even shorter than Cassie, was already halfway to the unsaddling enclosure.

  ‘That was terrific, wasn’t it, Willie?’ she asked him anxiously as she caught him up. ‘He really ran one heck of a race.’

  ‘He did,’ Willie replied. ‘A race he should have won.’

  ‘You don’t think we got up?’

  ‘We were beat a short head, as well that bastard Norton knows.’

  Willie was eyeing the Australian jockey as he confidently steered Leonora’s horse into the berth reserved for the winner. Pryce on the other hand was standing Celebration in no man’s land, the space between the place for the first horse and the second.

  ‘Yes?’ said Willie, helping the jockey off with the saddle. ‘So what did the bugger do this time?’

  ‘He kicked me bloody foot out of the iron,’ Pryce replied, grinning toothlessly at his trainer. ‘Just as the post was coming up. Just as we was galloping all over them, he kicks me bloody foot out of me iron.’

  ‘That’ll teach you to try riding like Piggott,’ Willie muttered. ‘Do you want to object?’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Pryce answered, swinging the saddle and girth over his arm. ‘He’d have to admit it voluntarily, because the others were all somewhere in the next country.’

  The jockey disappeared into the weighing room, while the lad led the horse round and round, waiting for the result of the photograph.

  Leonora suddenly appeared at Cassie’s side, and grabbed her arm. Cassie hadn’t even noticed she was there until now. She was dressed as if she was at Royal Ascot, and most of the punters were staring at her rather than at the waiting horses.

  ‘What do you think, Cassie darling?’ she said. ‘I reckon you won.’

  ‘No you don’t, Leonora,’ Cassie replied. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be speaking to me.’

  Leonora found this hilarious and hooted with laughter. The she grabbed Cassie’s arm again as the commentator announced they had the result of the photograph.

  ‘Sshh!’ she whispered. ‘Here goes!’

  ‘First number four, Value Guide.’

  Leonora gave a great and unladylike whoop, as did several happy punters.

  ‘And second number nine, Celebration. The third horse was number thirteen, Lecturer, and the distances were a short head and a distance.’

  A short head and a distance. The shortest and the longest winning margins in racing. Leonora still had hold of Cassie and she was dragging her away from the enclosure.

  ‘Come on, darling!’ she was shouting over the noise. ‘This calls for a bottle!’

  ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ Cassie answered, detaching herself from Leonora. ‘I want to see Celebration put away first.’

  But Leonora didn’t care, nor was she listening: because she’d just spied Tyrone coming towards them and was flying towards him, one hand on her hat, the other ready to grab Tyrone’s arm. Cassie watched them go, Leonora prattling excitedly and Tyrone listening patiently, with that grave expression he always saved for garrulous owners.

  Cassie smiled to herself and turned to pat and comfort her unlucky horse. Willie’d got him so fit that, even after such a hard race, he was barely blowing.

  ‘Can’t we do anything about what happened, Willie?’ Cassie asked her trainer as they took their horse back to be hosed down and put away.

  ‘Yes,’ Willie replied. ‘We can. We’ll bury the bastard next time we meet.’

  The next morning, when Willie walked him out, Celebration was lame in his off fore. A group gathered as usual round the horse, the ‘Leg Committee’ as Tyrone called it at Claremore, while Celebration’s tendons and ligaments were carefully inspected. But there was no swelling or puffiness in the lower leg and the tendon was still sharp, to the Committee’s great relief
. There was, however, a little heat in the foot and the pastern, enough to suggest that the horse had jarred himself, probably as a result of having to change his legs in those few final and fateful strides. Niall Brogan, who was Willie Moore’s vet as well as Tyrone’s, was of the opinion that the damage was very slight and one hundred per cent curable, but preferring to be safe rather than sorry, advised roughing him off and turning him away after a couple of weeks in his box, particularly since so little of the flat season now remained. Cassie was disappointed, but not dismayed. She had learned from watching Tyrone that as far as racehorses went much valuable energy could be wasted in venting your frustrations.

  As for Claremore, the season ended on a high note. Value Guide franked his form by trotting up in a valuable three-year-old handicap at the Curragh in mid-October; and at the same meeting a colt Tyrone had bought and was training for the American tycoon Townshend Warner, whom he had met at Laurel Park on his 1962 American trip, upset the odds laid on the hot favourite in the Champion Stakes to win nicely by a length and a half. Warner had flown in specially to see his first runner in Ireland, and was so pleased at the winning result that he immediately commissioned Tyrone to buy and train him two more horses.

  Tyrone had also flown to Paris for the Prix de I’Arc de Triomphe a fortnight earlier, for, although he hadn’t a runner, there were two French-bred yearlings he was anxious to see. Cassie was to have accompanied him, but three days before they were due to leave Josephine developed measles, so Cassie remained behind to nurse the very sick four-year-old. Tyrone had also insisted on staying, but Cassie said there was nothing for him to do except fuss and worry, so persuaded him to fly over to France after all. On the Saturday night, Josephine’s temperature shot up to 104° and she became delirious, seeing large rats and spiders all over her bed. Cassie sat up all night, changing her daughter’s soaking pyjamas half a dozen times and holding her burning head while she was constantly sick. She was so ill through the night that Cassie was quite sure that she was going to die. But by dawn on Sunday the child suddenly fell into a deep and peaceful sleep, and by midday the crisis was over, her temperature having dropped to just under 100°. Cassie remained in her bedroom, sleeping fitfully throughout the day on a mattress on the floor. Tyrone telephoned constantly from Paris, although Cassie never let him know for one moment quite how ill his daughter was, or had been. By Monday, before he left the French capital to go and see the yearlings, Josephine was able to talk to him on the telephone and for his part he was able to depart in great relief.

  He was due back from France on Thursday, but telephoned on Wednesday night to say he’d suddenly been offered another half a dozen horses to look at, and so he wouldn’t be home again until after the weekend. Cassie, used to the vagaries of Tyrone’s work, thought nothing of the delay, and returned to the nursery to finish Josephine’s bedtime story.

  On 30 November it became evident that Antoinette was about to give birth to her child. She had been a model mother-to-be, and she and Cassie had become close friends. The girl had revealed in full the circumstances of the conception. It had been after a wild party in Dublin where some rich idiot boy had made some hash cookies and thought it hysterically funny to hand them round to all the girls without telling them what was in them. Gerald had been smoking all evening, as had most of the boys at the party, and the last fully coherent memory Antoinette had before waking up the next morning in Gerald’s bed was playing cards and taking all her clothes off. The first excuse she had given Cassie for her pregnancy about an ill-prepared contraceptive was a lie. She had been in no fit state to remember to take any precautions and neither had Gerald. Antoinette did however vaguely remember some people at the party discussing birth control, Gerald included, saying that it was wrong to use contraception, because it was against the natural order of things, and therefore impure, coming as it did between the individual and his or her search for certainty and absoluteness.

  Cassie said what absolute rubbish. Unsurprisingly Antoinette agreed.

  Antoinette went into labour at six o’clock in the evening, and by quarter to eight she was delivered of a son, who weighed just under eight pounds. Cassie and Erin attended the midwife, who declared that she wished all births were as easy. Antoinette in fact managed to half sit up and see her baby actually enter the world. The midwife held the baby up, gave it a good slap, cut the cord, and handed it to Erin to wash. Once this was done, Cassie took the infant from Erin and went back to the bed.

  ‘Here,’ Cassie said, offering the girl her baby.

  Antoinette looked at her and frowned.

  ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Because you must hold it,’ Cassie told her. ‘You must hold your baby in your arms, or you’ll never know. You’ll never be sure of what you’re about to do otherwise.’

  Cassie placed the newborn baby gently in the girl’s arms and stood back. It took all her mental strength and willpower to do so, because she knew that the chances of being able to remove the baby from the mother once it was in her arms might be very remote. But she had to make the gesture. Not only that, but Cassie herself also had to be sure.

  The girl looked down at the tiny squawling baby in her arms, at her son, her firstborn, and Cassie saw her eyes fill with tears. At that moment she was sure that she had lost the child to its mother, but she made no move and showed nothing on her face of the turmoil she was feeling inside. Instead she just turned and smiled to Erin, who was standing anxiously biting her lip.

  The midwife, however, was totally unaware of the drama which was being played out before her and went about her duties, prattling away about what a straightforward delivery it had been, thank God, and what a beautiful little baby he was. All the time Antoinette just looked down at her child, rocking it gently in her arms, and slipping one of her fingers into the baby’s tiny hand.

  ‘Come on with you, Erin,’ the midwife announced. ‘It’s time for that tea you promised.’

  She shut up her medical bag and smiled at Antoinette.

  ‘We’ll leave you in peace with your baby for a while,’ she finished. ‘Then I’ll pop up and make sure everything’s tidy and back in its right place before I leave.’

  Erin and the midwife left, but not before Erin had cast one of her long, soulful glances back at Cassie, who remained standing by the side of the bed.

  After they had gone, Antoinette looked up at Cassie and smiled. Cassie read it as the smile of maternity, and though her heart was breaking, smiled back and touched the girl on her arm. Then she turned and walked to the door.

  ‘Sorry,’ Antoinette called after her.

  Cassie turned, to see the girl holding out her baby to her. She swallowed hard as she saw the tears in the young girl’s eyes.

  ‘You do still want him?’ Antoinette asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie replied. ‘As long as you’re quite sure.’

  ‘I am,’ the girl said, lying. ‘Yes. Absolutely.’

  And she handed Cassie the baby who was now to be Cassie’s and Tyrone’s son.

  ‘How’s the boy?’ Tyrone would demand, leaping up the stairs two at a time every evening on his way to see Mattie, as the child was now named.

  Cassie would follow behind laughing and Erin would be waiting as always in the nursery, holding the baby and ready with the same response.

  ‘You can hardly expect him to have grown now since lunchtime, Mr Rosse.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Tyrone would laugh. ‘There’s always something different about him! A bit of a new tooth! An even bigger smile for his Dad than he gave him at breakfast!’

  ‘Dear Lord,’ Erin then grumbled, jealous as always of the attention Mattie was taking away from ‘her’ Josèphine. ‘Anyone would think this was the first in the nursery.’

  Cassie would try to arbitrate, and make sure that nobody’s feathers got too ruffled and that everyone got the same amount of love and attention, including Erin. It wasn’t easy.

  Tyrone would hit the roof if
he found that Erin had started to bathe his son before he got home, and in reply Erin would colour deeply and start to sulk, which was what she always did when she was found out in one of her little possessive practices – habits which she imagined nobody else was noticing.

  ‘You were twenty minutes late, Mr Rosse,’ she’d say. ‘We can’t have the baby getting tired.’

  ‘Erin Muldoon, this is my son, and I’ll tell you whether or not he’s tired!’ Tyrone would announce. ‘Now is that understood?’

  Which was where Cassie would step in, placating the glowering Erin while making pleading faces at Tyrone. Tyrone would resolutely ignore them, although quite well aware that he was skating on extremely thin ice. Then Erin would down tools and disappear to her mam below in the kitchens, from where Cassie would have to coax her back up to the nursery once more with apologies, flatteries and promises.

  Even when Erin was persuaded to rejoin the bathing party upstairs, she couldn’t help opening that big mouth of hers and starting it up all over again.

  ‘You haven’t dried his feet properly, Mr Rosse.’

  ‘Be careful of the top of his little head now.’

  ‘You can’t sit him like that! Sure his poor little head’ll drop off!’

  ‘Make sure that towel’s dry now, Mr Rosse. You don’t want your baby catching the pneumonia.’

  Sometimes things would reach such an impasse that Tyrone would closet Cassie in their bedroom and hiss at her that either Erin went or he did. Cassie would reason with him, since she knew full well that his son’s welfare was no joking matter to Tyrone, and Tyrone would finally come off the boil and troop back along the corridor after Cassie to the nursery for storytime, which he firmly maintained was his favourite moment of the day.

  Before going in for that final magical half-hour with their children, Tyrone and Cassie would both pause on the threshold of the nursery and look in, both of them still quite unable to believe their good fortune in having two beautiful children. Josephine, so dark and serious, with huge almond eyes, and Mattie with a bubble of blonde curls and already the sweetest of dispositions. When Cassie and Tyrone peeped round the nursery door, Josephine would look up very seriously from whatever book she had chosen for her parents to read and smile, while Mattie would be lying gurgling in his cot, waving his little chubby arms up above him.