To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  They caught him after five minutes, down by the mile-and-a-half start. O’Dowell, perfectly unhurt, was reunited with his truant partner, and having to walk him the best part of three quarters of a mile back to the six-furlong start, the race was delayed a further five minutes.

  ‘That’s him cooked,’ Tomas sighed. ‘You can save your money.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Cassie replied. ‘He’s such a strong horse. It won’t have taken that much out of him.’

  ‘He’s cooked,’ Tomas said succinctly, and wandered off to the bar.

  Cassie hesitated and, taking her purse from under her arm where she held it tight, opened it and looked at the money she had been due to lay. One thousand pounds in her purse, and the other thousand in the lining of Tomas’s old tweed jacket. The entire two thousand pounds Joe Coughlan had lent them before and had willingly lent them again for what seemed now a crazy gamble. Seeing what she had just seen, and knowing what she did now, Cassie doubted her own sanity for a moment. That people could willingly be prepared to plunge such a large amount of money on a commodity as unknown as a racehorse astounded her. It terrified her when she realised that she had so nearly been one of those people. And that the money she had been so eagerly prepared to gamble was not even hers.

  Even so, still believing that Reverse would trot up, Cassie rushed off to the Tote to place what for Tyrone would have been a token bet but for Cassie was still a considerable amount of money.

  ‘I want a hundred-pound win on Reverse, please.’

  She was the only person at the windows, everyone else having already laid their money.

  ‘The horse’s name’s no good, miss. I need his number.’

  ‘Of course you do. So sorry.’

  Cassie fumbled for her racecard, then realised that she’d stuffed it in Tomas’s pocket earlier on.

  ‘The white flag is up!’ the course commentator called.

  ‘Quickly now, if you want to be on.’

  Cassie closed her eyes and tried to visualise Reverse’s number cloth. She remembered just in time.

  ‘Number two. Horse number two.’

  She pushed the money under the grille, and the man handed her back a clutch of tickets.

  ‘And they’re off!’

  By the time she’d got back to her place in the stands, they’d run the best part of a furlong. The big grey was leading, travelling very fast. Reverse was lying handy in third, and also motoring. Three furlongs from home the second horse began to tie up, and Reverse ranged up alongside him, still travelling fast and, as it seemed from the stands, still well within himself. Even though he was riding far too short, O’Dowell had him beautifully balanced, and from the way Reverse and the grey appeared to be drawing away from the rest of the field, Cassie was beginning to regret her change of mind about the size of her bet.

  Then O’Dowell went for home, a good furlong and a half earlier than instructed. Cassie bit her lip and pressed her race glasses harder to her eyes. The young horse was still striding out well, but wasn’t making much impression on the grey Blazes Man, who was still a length up. A furlong out, and Blazes Man began to tire and hang away from the rails, forcing O’Dowell to pull his whip through. But he had his horse balanced again immediately, and Reverse started at last to overhaul the leader.

  No one, it seemed, appeared to notice the little dark bay who was making up ground hand over fist on the rails.

  Not, that is, until the two leading horses, Reverse and Blazes Man, suddenly started to stop a hundred and fifty yards from home, and the little bay shot through the ever-widening gap on the rails to pinch the race from under them, and win by two lengths and going away.

  The commentator called the result, the winner being a horse called Badgerstale, and a photograph for second place.

  There was, as there always is on a racecourse when a rank outsider wins, a moment of stunned silence, then a buzz as everyone consulted their papers and racecards to find out who on earth had won and how and why. Cassie stood still staring out at the track, disbelieving and confused. She didn’t know whether to be relieved that her horse hadn’t won because she hadn’t plunged £2000 on him, or furious at the way he had been ridden.

  By the time she remet Tomas she had decided on the latter.

  ‘Of course he should have won it, Mrs Rosse,’ Tomas agreed as they waited for Reverse to return. ‘If the boy hadn’t ridden so short, he’d never have been thrown. And the horse wouldn’t have wasted all that energy bolting.’

  ‘And then the way he rode him!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘He was told not to produce him till the very last moment!’

  ‘Some jockeys are born listeners, Mrs Rosse,’ Tomas told her. ‘And some are born know-it-alls.’

  O’Dowell hopped down off the horse and started to unsaddle him.

  ‘He’s a good sort of horse, Mr Muldoon,’ he said. ‘He’ll win some nice ones when he learns to settle.’

  ‘And when he’s ridden to orders,’ Cassie seethed.

  ‘He ran very green, sir,’ the jockey continued, ignoring Cassie and slipping off the horse’s saddle. ‘He didn’t really know what he was being asked till that little fellah sneaked up on the rails. Then he started to motor again.’

  ‘He’d have won if you’d ridden him like you were told,’ Cassie said, raising her voice to be noticed.

  But the boy wasn’t interested in her opinion. He slapped the horse on the flank, told Tomas that he really was a nice sort of animal, and then sauntered off to the weighing room.

  The photograph showed Reverse to have held on to second place by a head.

  ‘There’s no point in coming second, Tomas,’ Cassie said over a drink. ‘Tyrone always said it’s first or forget it.’

  ‘The horse was beat, Mrs Rosse. He was beat in the paddock, he was beat on the way down and he was beat in the race. He changed his legs twice in the last furlong.’

  Cassie sighed and sipped her orange juice. Tomas was right, and she knew it. She knew she would also have to learn to observe Tyrone’s other hard and fast-held tenet: no excuses.

  She opened her purse to get some money to buy another drink, but first had to remove the clutch of tote tickets that were littering the top of her bag.

  ‘Get rid of these for me, would you Tomas?’ she asked, handing them to him.

  ‘I thought yous weren’t going to have a bet,’ he replied, taking the tickets from her.

  ‘I wasn’t. Then I thought hell – just in case. It’s all right. I didn’t put it all on. I only had a hundred on him.’

  ‘’Tis always “only” when you lose,’ he sighed. ‘A hundred pound buys a lot of corn.’

  ‘I know. But I thought he was sure to win.’

  Tomas shook his head and then suddenly stopped. He grabbed back the tickets he’d already stuffed in an ash tray and started feverishly leafing through them. Then he examined the other tickets in his hand.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Cassie enquired.

  ‘You said you had a hundred pounds on Reverse,’ Tomas replied.

  ‘That’s right. I did.’

  ‘Well you didn’t. You backed the winner.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Tomas! I had one hundred pounds to win on number two!’

  ‘Reverse was number twenty bloody two!’

  Cassie stopped laughing and stared at him. Tomas was grinning at her, wider than she’d ever seen him grin before.

  ‘I saw his saddlecloth, Tomas,’ Cassie told him, dropping her voice. ‘I remembered his saddlecloth. You had my race card, but luckily I remembered seeing the number on his saddle cloth. Number two.’

  ‘Twenty-two,’ Tomas corrected her. ‘If you’ll also remember, the cloth got tucked up under one side of the girth and surcingle, so you may well, from where yous was standing, have only seen the two.’

  ‘I did. That’s all I saw.’

  ‘The winner was number two.’

  Cassie started to laugh.

  ‘My goodness! I don’t believe it! What price was he?�
��

  ‘33/1.’

  Cassie’s mouth opened and closed silently as Tomas knocked back his fresh double whisky in one, then setting his cap right, led her off to the Tote.

  ‘You could have won a bloody fortune!’ he told her on their way. ‘Savin’ your presence. I didn’t hear the returns, but with the favourite beat, they’ll certainly not pay a lot less than 33/1.’

  Cassie wondered how in a field of only eight runners, there was one such long-priced horse. Tomas explained that he was the first runner from some new man’s yard, and that the small and unfashionably bred horse looked like a toast rack in the paddock, and went down to the start on three legs.

  ‘Sure ’tis a wonder he wasn’t a hundred to one the way he looked.’

  They stopped at the late pay out window while Tomas carefully counted out all the tickets for horse number two.

  ‘I haven’t my glasses,’ he said to the man behind the grille. ‘What do you pay on the winner?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re the one with the tickets?’ the official replied with a huge smile. ‘I was told ’twas a lovely little brown-haired woman with dancin’ eyes.’

  ‘Just tell me what you’re paying, Romeo,’ Tomas replied good-naturedly.

  ‘£9 to a 2/6d dividend.’

  ‘That’s 72/1!’ Tomas whispered reverentially to Cassie. ‘Jesus you’re a rich woman!’

  ‘All the money was for number twenty-two, and for number five,’ the Tote official explained. ‘There wasn’t even a forecast anywhere coupled with number two. How many tickets d’you have now?’

  Tomas spread the slips in front of him, and grinned.

  ‘I’d say we have them all,’ he replied.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the evening of 29 June, one major worry receded from Cassie’s mind: Josephine recovered her appetite. For her supper, a detail Cassie was never able to forget, she ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup, four slices of lamb, five roast potatoes and two helpings of trifle.

  Her mother made no comment on this change of events, but took it all in her stride, treating this historic moment like an everyday occurrence. She did, however, manage to wink unnoticed at Erin and put a finger to her lips, just in time to stop Erin making one of her famous remarks.

  And it was all due to a horse.

  Or, to be a little more exact, a pony. It was Josephine’s seventh birthday and Cassie, shortly after her miracle win at the Curragh, had been trying to decide what to get her. With the money she had won, the bank had been repaid, the final creditors satisfied, Claremore was safe, and there was even just under fifteen hundred pounds lodged safely in Mr Flannery’s keeping. So Cassie determined to buy her daughter something really wonderful for her birthday.

  Erin had suggested clothes, but Cassie informed her crisply that she’d be getting a whole bunch of new clothes anyway, now that they were solvent.

  ‘No,’ Cassie explained, ‘I want to make this birthday a day she’ll never forget as long as she lives.’

  It took Sheila Meath, Josephine’s other godmother, to suggest the perfect present of a pony.

  ‘Why didn’t I think of that!’ Cassie cried.

  ‘Because you’ve had other things on your mind, my dear,’ her friend replied. ‘It hasn’t exactly been a time to see things clearly.’

  Sheila also supplied the animal: a perfectly schooled first pony, with a shiny black coat and the temperament of a St Bernard. On the morning of Josephine’s birthday, Cassie opened the french windows of the drawing room and made Erin stand holding the pony just outside them, with the curtains closed. She led her daughter downstairs and into the room, where there was a little pile of presents by the fireplace.

  ‘Gracious me,’ Cassie had said. ‘You’ll never see what you’ve been given for your birthday with all those drapes still drawn!’

  ‘Curtains, Mummy,’ Josephine had gravely corrected her. ‘You say curtains. Not drapes.’

  ‘OK. So be an angel, would you, sweetheart? And draw the curtains?’

  There was a long moment of total silence when Josephine saw what was revealed behind them. It was as if she couldn’t quite believe what she saw. She stood staring at the little black pony, who at once started to walk towards her, with Erin barely able to hold him back. Then she turned and hugged Cassie, and ran to the pony, who was now actually in the drawing room, putting her arms round his neck and hugging him tight.

  ‘A pony,’ was all she said. ‘A pony, all of my own.’

  Mattie, whom Cassie had in her arms, clapped his hands and hooted with laughter when he saw the pony walking round the drawing room.

  ‘Come on, Josie!’ Cassie said. ‘Let’s give your brother first ride!’

  And placing Mattie in the saddle, Josephine took the leading rope and led her brother round the lawns, with Cassie keeping a firm hold on him.

  ‘That won’t have done much for his asthma,’ Erin sniffed afterwards.

  ‘It won’t have done him any harm either,’ Cassie retorted. ‘In fact if you ask me, it’ll probably have done him the power of good. Fresh air, and a bit of an adventure. I’ve been thinking that we probably mollycoddle Mattie too much.’

  ‘Never!’ protested Erin. ‘Sure ’tis a wonder he’s still alive! He’s that finely wove!’

  Nevertheless, despite Erin’s protestations, Cassie started adopting a less restrictive régime as far as Mattie was concerned, allowing him to play with the pony, putting the toys back in his nursery, and for good measure, letting Josephine and her blanketed bed in there too.

  She did this not just on her own initiative, but under the guidance of Sheila Meath, whom she discovered was a firm believer in alternative medicine.

  ‘Half of what the doctors tell you, my dear,’ she would say, ‘is sheer nonsense. A little boy like that. He can’t possibly go through life dust-free! This kind of early isolation only makes things worse later on. The doc you’ve got to go and see is old Jimmy FitzStanton out in Killiney. He might even recommend putting Mattie on the box.’

  Sheila wouldn’t elaborate any more, saying if she did, she’d be bound to get it all wrong, and only muddy the water. Instead she made an appointment for Cassie and Mattie in a fortnight with Jimmy FitzStanton.

  In the meantime, there were horses to be trained, and now even more urgently, new owners to be found.

  ‘And how do yous intend goin’ about that?’ Tomas asked her one morning as he was making up some linseed mashes.

  ‘I’m going to say a novena to St Jude,’ Cassie replied with a grin.

  ‘A novena to St Jude is right,’ growled Tomas. ‘I can’t think of a greater lost cause.’

  ‘Just you wait and see, Doubting Tomas,’ Cassie said. ‘Just you wait and see.’

  On the ninth day of Cassie’s novena, Reverse ran his second race of the season at Navan. It was a very moderate race, and the horse won as he liked, although the official distance was only half a length.

  ‘He idled soon as he hit the front, sir,’ Dermot Pryce’s deputy jockey told Tomas after the race. ‘But there was no point in knocking him about. He’s too good an animal.’

  Tomas and Cassie had a quick drink to celebrate their first win of the year, and when they returned to the horse-box, they found a message stuck under one of the wipers. It was a small white visiting card, from someone called Peter Brandt. On the back was a handwritten message that the writer would be delighted if Mr Muldoon and Mrs Rosse would meet him in Jury’s hotel that evening for a drink at eight o’clock.

  They barely made it home again before it was time to turn round and head back to Dublin. As it was they were twenty minutes late.

  ‘That is, I understand,’ said Mr Brandt, ‘of little moment in Ireland. I start to worry when people are a day late.’

  He offered them seats and called the waiter over, ordering champagne.

  ‘I hope you like champagne,’ he enquired.

  ‘I just love it,’ Cassie said quite truthfully.

  Tomas remained
silent, having been saving his thirst for a large John Jameson.

  Cassie studied their host as he carefully lit a large cigar. He was about forty or forty-two, she guessed, not that tall, long-faced with dark eyes and perfectly even teeth. He was also Swiss. Or at least he was resident in Switzerland, according to his visiting card.

  ‘I saw your horse win this afternoon, he said, carefully blowing out his match. ‘My congratulations.’

  ‘You were at Navan?’ Cassie said with some surprise.

  ‘He’d hardly have seen it win now, would he?’ Tomas muttered, ‘if he’d been at Wexford.’

  ‘I like horseracing,’ Brandt replied. ‘And I am here on a holiday.’

  The waiter poured the champagne, and Herr Brandt raised his glass in a toast.

  ‘To more victories.’

  ‘This is very civil of you, I’m sure,’ Cassie said, enjoying the first glass of champagne she’d had in nearly two years. ‘But if you’ll pardon me, I’m sure you didn’t call us all the way in to Dublin just to drink our health.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ Brandt replied politely. ‘I forget how busy you must be. No, no. No, I asked you here for drinks so that we might talk business.’

  Tomas forgot about his longing for a large whisky, and pulling his jacket down, sat more upright in his chair.

  ‘Mr Muldoon. It is a very simple request. I would like you to buy me some racehorses.’

  ‘You would, would you?’ Tomas replied affably. ‘Well now, that all depends on how many.’

  Brandt was visibly impressed. So was Cassie, but for opposing reasons.

  ‘Your yard is full, yes?’

  ‘We have some vacancies. How many horses were you thinking of buying? And what sort?’

  ‘Six horses. All handicappers.’

  ‘You don’t want any youngsters?’

  ‘I want six handicappers. And they must be ready to race in a month. Six weeks.’

  ‘You’ll want them all to be winners too, no doubt.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Tomas turned to Cassie, suddenly desperate for her advice. But Cassie was staring in bewilderment at Brandt. She saw from the look in those dark, cold eyes, that the man was serious. And that the man meant business.