Brandt produced his cheque book, and opened it neatly in front of him on the table. Then he produced a gold fountain pen from his inside pocket and carefully removed the cap, before staring at the nib to make sure it was quite clean.
‘How much do you have to spend?’ Tomas replied.
‘I have half a million pounds,’ Brandt informed him. ‘But you will make me even happier if I am not forced to spend it all.’
‘You won’t need a tenth of that.’
‘Thank you. But what I would like you to feel is that you have the money to make people sell you good horses which otherwise they would not perhaps sell. I will write you a cheque for £250,000, and we can negotiate further monies, or anything unspent, when you have concluded your business, yes?’
Brandt started writing the cheque, and Tomas looked at Cassie, who was already looking at him.
‘Mr Brandt?’ Cassie asked. ‘May I ask you something? Why Claremore?’
‘I liked the way your horse won today,’ Brandt answered, still writing.
‘That’s not the only reason, I feel sure,’ Cassie persisted.
‘No, it isn’t, Mrs Rosse,’ Brandt replied, putting his gold pen away as carefully as he had taken it out. ‘I went round your yard yesterday when you were all on the gallops. I saw how many empty boxes you have. Which is good. Because the trainer I want has to be hungry.’
‘He’s nuts,’ said Tomas on the drive home. ‘Either he’s nuts or I’m dreaming.’
‘We can’t both be dreaming, Tomas,’ Cassie said, looking at the figures on the cheque as they passed under the street lamps.
‘Then he’s nuts. Completely doo-lally.’
‘Where will we look for the horses?’
‘We’ll cross that little bridge, Mrs Rosse, if that cheque you’re so busy holding isn’t made of rubber.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
‘Maybe you could manage another novena or two. For it’s going to be no easy task, I can tell you. Finding six handicappers. We don’t want to be buyin’ horses that have shown their ability, for they’ll be humpin’ bloody great weights, savin’ your presence. So we’ll be looking for the ones due to win off low weights. And how in the name of all that’s holy are we meant to recognise them? Sure if I could do that I’d never be drivin’ around in this poor old excuse for a motor car, now would I?’
He shook his head.
‘Jesus God. Six handicappers, and they’ve all got to win. I’d sooner find six pins in a cow byre.’
The cheque was duly honoured, as Cassie knew it would be, and Tomas and she both set to work reading the form books and racing papers until the small hours of the morning. By the time Cassie set off for Killiney with Mattie for their appointment with Jim FitzStanton, they had offered on three horses, and been refused on two. The one they had purchased, for at least two thousand pounds more than it was worth, belonged to a very shady garage owner in Tipperary, who was just about to go out of business and was very glad of the windfall. The horse was a five-year-old Tomas had seen run at Wexford at the end of May, when he had considered the horse unlucky to lose.
‘Ah, ’twas the jockey,’ the garage proprietor had explained. ‘Christ, sure the bugger needs holdin’ up, but not until after all the others have weighed in?’
The horse was a big sort, and would be well up to carrying weight if and when the time came. But at the moment, having not yet got his nose in front, he had not come to the handicapper’s attention, and was still running off low weights.
‘He needs feedin’, that’s all,’ Tomas said when the horse arrived. ‘You’ll be lookin’ at a different class of horse by the time he’s tucked into a week or so of old Tomas’ square meals.’
Otherwise they were not having much luck.
Happily, the reverse was true as far as Jim FitzStanton went. Admittedly Cassie thought initially that she was in the hands of a crank, when this enormously tall man with a shock of white hair and schoolboy spectacles sat her down and started to ask gently but searchingly about Cassie’s mental and emotional state. Cassie laughed nervously at first, unwilling to answer these questions seriously, lest she should unstop the floodgates. Then they both sat in silence for a while, staring at each other, while Mattie fidgeted and coughed.
FitzStanton then called through to his wife on a rather makeshift intercom, and asked her if she wouldn’t mind looking after the little boy for a few moments. Cassie was loath to leave Mattie in the care of strangers, but when Mary FitzStanton came in, all her worries evaporated. She was the sweetest and kindest-faced woman she had seen since she had left the convent. Mattie at once delighted in her company, and within minutes Cassie could hear him laughing and chattering away nonsensically outside the door.
‘Now then, Mrs Rosse,’ FitzStanton said. ‘It’s better for you to tell me about it. But if it makes you feel better, I do already know about your grief.’
He smiled at her, and far from breaking down as she feared she would, Cassie found herself smiling back.
‘The point is, Doctor, you do understand that Mattie is an adopted child?’
‘Yes yes. Quite, I do indeed. Sheila Meath told me all about it. But him being adopted – that doesn’t stop Mattie being affected by your emotional and mental state. Far from it. He might be even more receptive to this kind of trauma, because he’s adopted. So let’s talk about it, if we may. How you are and how you have been. How he is, and how he has been. And please don’t be afraid of becoming upset. You will find you will be able to come to terms with your loss more easily, if you allow yourself to grieve freely and openly. My guess is that you would rather be damned than allow anyone to see you cry.’
Cassie stared up at him, astounded.
‘That’s crazy,’ he told her, with a gentle smile. ‘Completely daft. You feel sorrow, anger and fear. Resentment perhaps, I’m sure. It’s natural. It’s only natural. And if you don’t give proper vent to your emotions, they disappear, only to pop up somewhere else. And probably so well disguised you wouldn’t even know what it was that ailed you. Or – what ailed somebody else.’
He continued to talk to her for well over two hours, but during this time, comforted as she was by his compassion, Cassie felt no inclination to weep, or to reveal her emotions in any way. She was trying to make the past something which she need not yet contemplate, a closed door from which she could run away, far away, far enough away that if and when it did ever suddenly swing back open Cassie would be so distanced from it that she would hardly be able to recognise what lay beyond.
As far as Mattie went, FitzStanton explained to her that as a homeopath, to him her son’s symptoms were what he called ‘positive phenomena’, meaning that they indicated that the body was making a strong attempt to restore the balance.
‘We homeopaths see symptoms as part of the cure, do you understand? Not as part of the disease. We don’t bother with trying to find the cause of the disease inside the body. Now this may sound a little odd to you, but when it works, it really works. So what I’m going to do with young Mattie here, is first make him worse.’
He winked at Mattie as if it was all a tease, and Mattie grinned. But Cassie knew the doctor to be in earnest.
‘What I’m going to try and do is find a remedy that will match the reaction his body is having to the disease, and in fact increase that reaction, in the hope that the symptoms will intensify and then, please God, fade away as the disease fades away. I shall send you some powders in the post, and you must give them to Mattie here in the exact order they are numbered. And if you will have faith with me, you must continue until the course of powders is finished. After that, we’ll meet again and see how we all got on. In the meantime, if you have any worries, or if you want someone to talk to, I’m here. And if I’m not here, Mary is.’
The powders arrived three days later. Cassie did as requested and gave them in the stated order to Mattie, who at the time was quite wheeze free. The duration of the course was eighteen days. By the ninth day, M
attie could hardly breathe.
Erin woke Cassie at three in the morning with the news, and at once Cassie picked up her mattress and eiderdown and transferred them to her son’s bedside.
‘Aren’t you goin’ to take him to the hospital?’ Erin hissed at her, as Cassie settled herself on the nursery floor. ‘Sure the child’s half-dead.’
Cassie was out of bed and into the corridor with Erin on the end of one arm before Erin knew what was happening. She closed the nursery door so that Mattie couldn’t hear their conversation.
‘The sooner you learn to control yourself, Erin Muldoon,’ she warned the girl, ‘the better! Your histrionics and your wild panicking don’t do Mattie any good! It was the same with Josephine! Fuss, fuss, fuss! These children are growing up neurotic!’
‘Ah ’tis no wonder with a mother who’s always out ridin’,’ Erin replied sullenly.
‘Out riding?’ Cassie hissed. ‘Out riding! You think that’s what I’m doing, you stupid girl? You think I’m just going out riding! Now you go off to your bed, and I’ll explain a few home truths to you tomorrow. And I want no more of your hysterics, do you hear?’
Erin looked at her, then turned slowly on her heel and started to mooch back to her room.
‘And for God’s sake stop sniffing, Erin!’
‘Ah sure nothin’ that I do is right!’
‘And for God’s sake don’t start crying!’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, aren’t I only tryin’ to do the best I can?’
‘Then stop crying, and stop sniffing, and go back to your bed!’ Cassie urged.
Mattie was sitting propped up on his pillows when Cassie came back in. He smiled at his mother, but his discomfort was all too plainly visible.
Cassie sat on his bed and held his hand.
‘OK, Tiger?’ she asked. ‘Let’s see this one off together, shall we?’
‘Yes,’ Mattie whispered.
‘You don’t want to go to that horrid old hospital, do you?’
Mattie smiled at her, and shook his head.
‘OK. So we’ll find this kitten in your chest, and we’ll tell him not to be such a naughty old kitten, won’t we?’
Cassie rubbed her little boy’s back gently and settled him more comfortably on his pillows. Then she read him Peter Rabbit six or seven times to try and get him to sleep, but the wheeze was too bad, and whenever he started to drop off, he was woken violently awake by another bout of coughing.
‘Listen,’ said Cassie softly. ‘Is there anything really special you’d like?’
Mattie looked up at her, his big dark eyes ringed with grey.
‘I’d like to sleep in your bed,’ he answered.
‘That’s easily done,’ said Cassie, turning back his covers. ‘It’s a bit small, mind. We might both fall out.’
‘In your big bed.’
Cassie hesitated, and caught her breath when she realised what Mattie meant. He wanted to sleep next door. In the big bed. In Tyrone’s and her double bed.
‘Please.’
‘It’ll be awful cold.’
‘Please.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and fetch a couple of hot water bottles.’
In the kitchen, while the kettle was boiling, Cassie, her teeth chattering, but not from the cold, desperately searched for the bottle of cooking brandy she knew was in the cupboard, and poured herself a large shot. She looked at the glass of amber liquid. For a full minute she stared at it. Then she threw it away down the sink. After that, she filled two hot water bottles, and returned upstairs.
For a moment she stood staring at the locked door, at the door of a room she hadn’t been in since Tyrone had been killed. Erin had been in, to dust and clean, but the door had always been relocked, and the key placed on top of the lintel.
Cassie reached up and, finding the key, opened the door. She paused before she switched on any light. What would the room look like? Would it be an old friend, the face a little worn but still easily recognisable? Or would it now look back at her as if they were strangers?
She closed her eyes for a moment, then walked to the bedside and switched on the light.
The room was still the same.
It was so much the same that the pain in her heart was suddenly so acute that it filled her chest and her throat and she felt she was going to die. But she had to be brave, she must be brave. No one was going to see her cry. No one, not even her son.
And her resolve didn’t weaken. Not until she folded the bedspread back to put the two hot water bottles in the bed and plump up the pillows upon which Tyrone had rested his beautiful, wise, mad head and found his pyjamas, folded as neat as ever, where he had always left them, under the covers. Then suddenly with a massive sob, her tears started to flow unchecked as she fell on her knees, hugging his pyjamas to her face, and rocking backwards and forwards as she sobbed her aching heart out.
After some time, she didn’t know how long, Cassie stopped crying, and remembering her sick son next door, turned on the other bedside light, and going to her dressing table, wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with some tissues, and put a token dusting of powder on her face. Then she went next door to collect Mattie.
She carried the little wisp of a child into their bedroom and tucked him in under the covers on the side furthest from the door: the side where she herself had always slept. She brushed the hair from his eyes, and kissed his brow, before going round the other side of the bed and turning back the covers. Then she got into the side of the bed where Tyrone had always slept and, pulling his pillows around her face, settled into the shape of his body which he’d left behind him on the mattress.
Between them, Tomas and Cassie finally found and bought Herr Brandt’s required number of handicappers. Only one was purchased at the sales, and that was the one Cassie bought on her own.
Tomas’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw what she’d brought home.
‘Jesus Christ ’tis a milk pony!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where the devil did you find that thing? Or perhaps it’s the next pony for your daughter?’
‘It’s only because he’s small, Tomas,’ Cassie replied calmly. ‘You’re all such snobs about small horses. Remember Battleship who won the Grand National? He was only just over fifteen hands. Petite Etoile was what you’d call a pony; and she didn’t do so bad either, right? Winning the 1,000 Guineas and The Oaks. Small can also be beautiful, you know.’
‘He’s not even beautiful,’ Tomas snorted. ‘He’s a head on him like a mule.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with his conformation though,’ Cassie argued. ‘He’s got a nice deep chest and really nice quarters.’
‘His quarters look better than they are, Mrs Rosse, because he’s dip-backed. What’s he called, anyway?’
Cassie laughed, and pulled the horse’s ears.
‘The Donk,’ she replied.
‘Good,’ said Tomas. ‘At least he has one thing right about him. His name.’
The Donk had run three times that season and the best he’d achieved was a distant sixth in a ten-horse race over west in Listowel. But Cassie had noticed that the year before he’d been finishing pretty close up to some fairly useful horses, although never actually winning his race. She’d also noticed that his grand dam had produced six winners, four of which were very useful handicap horses. There was also firm evidence of speed on his sire’s side, although nothing fashionable. Which was why Cassie got him so cheap.
‘I am not interested in their breeding please, Mrs Rosse,’ Brandt told her on the telephone from Geneva when she rang to give him the latest news. ‘All I want to know is when they are running. You will kindly keep me informed as to your plans.’
‘He’d be the ideal owner,’ Tomas said, ‘if only he wasn’t a Kraut.’
‘He’s Swiss, Tomas,’ Cassie retorted. ‘You know dam’ well he’s Swiss!’
‘I know he’s got a Swiss passport,’ Tomas replied. ‘And there’s plenty of ’em, too, with South American ones.�
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‘But you like the Germans! You helped them during the war!’
‘We do not like the Nazis, Mrs Rosse. And we were neutral during the war. You wouldn’t find a man in Ireland who liked the Nazis.’
‘Herr Brand is not a Nazi.’
‘Not now, maybe. I’d not be sure about what he once was.’
But whatever Tomas felt about Cassie’s new owner, and however little he considered her latest equine purchase, he still paid the same amount of attention to The Donk and fed him up as well as he did all the other horses in the yard.
Within three weeks of his arrival, such was the improvement in the little horse that it was decided to run him the following Thursday in a mile-and-a-half handicap at Limerick.
‘He’ll not win,’ Tomas said, categorical as always, ‘but he’s the sort who’ll come on for a race. And we’ll be able to get the measure of him against the horses with some form. For there’s three or four entered who’ve won a few races between them.’
Cassie rang her new owner at the weekend and discussed their race plans.
‘Will he win on this Thursday please?’ Brandt asked her.
‘We don’t think so for a minute, Herr Brandt,’ Cassie replied. ‘But we’ll sure find out how good or bad he is, because he’s not far off ready.’
‘Good. Then we will please speak after the races.’
The little horse travelled badly on the long journey to the races, and was awash with sweat when they finally unboxed him. Tomas took one look at him and stated that whatever outside chance the horse might have had he’d lost travelling, so it was just as well he wasn’t fancied. In the pre-parade ring, however, the horse calmed down, and was walking round nice and easily, beginning to look about him and take an interest in things – so much so that by the time they had him saddled up he was up on his toes.
‘All right, old lad,’ Tomas said, squeezing the wet sponge in the horse’s mouth, ‘gently does it. You’re only here for an easy.’
Liam led him round, and the little liver chestnut looked a picture of health in the bright sunshine. But he was friendless in the market, opening at 16/1 and drifting to 25/1 by the time the horses were cantering down to the start. By the time they were galloping back in earnest towards the winning post, The Donk was fifteen lengths in the lead. When they passed the post, he’d increased his lead to twenty lengths, and was easing up.
To Hear a Nightingale Page 51