by Dick Francis
Why me? I thought for the millionth time.
Why me?
I shook my head.
Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help me get back to combat-ready fitness.
3
‘HAS JOSEPHINE LOST HER MAGIC?’
The front-page headline of Sunday’s Racing Post couldn’t have been more blunt. The paper lay on the kitchen table when I went downstairs at eight o’clock to make myself some coffee after a disturbed night.
I wondered if my mother or stepfather had been down to the kitchen yet and, if so, had they seen the headline? Perhaps I should hide it. I looked around for something to casually place over the paper as I could hear my mother coming down the stairs, but it was too late anyway.
‘That bastard Rambler,’ she was shouting. ‘He knows sod all.’
She swept into the kitchen in a light-blue quilted dressing gown and white slippers. She snatched up the newspaper from the table and studied the front-page article intently.
‘It says here that Pharmacist was distressed after the race.’ My mother was shouting over her shoulder, obviously for the benefit of my stepfather who had sensibly stayed upstairs. ‘That’s not bloody true. How would Rambler know anyway? He’d have been propping up a bar somewhere. Everyone knows he’s a drunk.’
I shifted on my feet, my false leg making its familiar metallic clink.
‘Oh, hello,’ said my mother, apparently seeing me for the first time. ‘Have you read this rubbish?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Well, don’t,’ she said, throwing the paper back down on the table. ‘It’s a load of crap.’
She turned on her heel and disappeared back upstairs as quickly as she had arrived, shouting obscenities and telling all the world how she would ‘have Rambler’s head on a platter for this’.
I leaned down and turned the paper round so I could read it.
FROM OUR SENIOR CORRESPONDENT GORDON RAMBLER AT CHELTENHAM was printed under the headline. I read on:
Josephine Kauri was at a loss for words after her eight-year-old Gold Cup prospect, Pharmacist, finished last in the Janes Bank Trophy yesterday at Cheltenham. The horse clearly did not stay the three-mile trip and finished at a walk and in some distress. The Cheltenham stewards ordered that the horse be routine tested.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that the Kauri’s horses have seemingly run out of puff in big races. Her promising novice chaser, Scientific, suffered the same fate at Kempton in December, and questions were asked about another Kauri horse, Oregon, at Newbury last week when it failed to finish in the first half dozen when a heavily backed favourite.
Is Josephine losing her magic touch that has won her such respect as well as numerous big prizes? With the Cheltenham Festival now only five weeks away can we expect a repeat of last year’s fantastic feats or have the Kauri horses simply flattered to deceive?
Gordon Rambler had pulled no punches. He went on to speculate that Mrs Kauri might be over-training the horses at home so that they had passed their peak by the time they reached the racecourse. It would not have been the first time a trainer had inadvertently ‘lost the race on the gallops’, as it was known, although I would be surprised if my mother had, not after so many years of experience. Not unless, as the paper said, she had lost her magic touch.
But she hadn’t lost her touch for shouting. I could hear her upstairs in full flow although I couldn’t quite make out the words. No doubt my stepfather was suffering the wrath of her tongue. I almost felt sorry for him. But only almost.
I decided it might be prudent for me to get out of the house for a while so I went for a wander around the stables.
The block nearest the house, the one over which Ian Norland lived, was just one side of three quadrangles of stables, each containing twenty-four boxes, that stretched away from the house.
When my mother had acquired the place from her first husband there had been far fewer stables laid out in two lines of wooden huts. But by the time my father had packed up and left nine years later, my mother had built the first of the current red-brick rectangles. The second was added when I’d been about fifteen, and the third more recently in what had once been a lunging paddock. And there was still enough of the paddock remaining to add a fourth, if required.
Even on a Sunday morning, the stables were a hive of activity. The horses needed to be fed and watered, seven days a week, although my mother, along with most trainers, still resisted the temptation to treat Sunday as just another day and send strings of horses out on the gallops. But that was probably more to do with having to pay staff double time on Sundays rather than any wish to keep the Sabbath special.
‘Good morning,’ Ian Norland called to me as he came out of one of the boxes. ‘Still here, then?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Surely, I thought, I hadn’t implied anything to him the previous afternoon. ‘Why wouldn’t I still be here?’
‘No reason,’ he said, smiling. ‘Just …’
‘Just what?’ I asked with some determination.
‘Just that Mrs Kauri doesn’t seem to like guests staying overnight. Most go home after dinner.’
‘This is my home,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is.’
He seemed slightly flustered, as if he had already said too much to the son of his employer. He was right. He had.
‘And how is Pharmacist this morning?’ I asked, half hoping for some more indiscretion.
‘Fine,’ he said rather dismissively.
‘How fine?’ I persisted.
‘He’s a bit tired after yesterday,’ he said. ‘But, otherwise, he’s OK.’
‘No diarrhoea?’ I asked.
He gave me a look that I took to imply that he wished he hadn’t mentioned anything about diarrhoea to me yesterday.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Does he look well in his eyes?’ I asked.
‘Like I said, he’s just tired.’ He picked up a bucket and began to fill it under a tap. ‘Sorry, I have to get on.’ It was my cue that the conversation was over.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. I started to walk on but I stopped and turned round. ‘Which box is Pharmacist in?’
‘Mrs Kauri wouldn’t want anyone seeing him,’ Ian said. ‘Not just now.’
‘Why on earth not?’ I said, sounding aggrieved.
‘She just wouldn’t,’ he repeated. ‘Mrs Kauri doesn’t like anyone snooping round the yard. Won’t even allow the owners to see their own horses without her there to escort them.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said in my best ‘voice-of-command’. ‘I’m not just anyone, you know, I’m her son.’
He wavered, and I thought he was about to tell me when he was saved by the arrival of his employer.
‘Morning, Ian,’ my mother called, striding round the corner towards us. She had swapped the light-blue dressing gown and white slippers for a full-length waxed Barbour coat and green wellington boots.
‘Ah, morning, ma’am,’ Ian replied with some relief. ‘I was just talking to your son.’
‘So I see,’ she said in a disapproving tone. ‘Well, don’t. You’ve talked to him too much already.’
Ian blushed bright pink, and he stole a glance of displeasure at me.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said.
She nodded firmly at him as if to close the matter. Ian’s rebuke may have been short but I had the distinct impression that his indiscretion would be remembered for much longer. But for now, she turned her attention to me. ‘And what are you doing out here exactly?’ she asked accusingly.
‘I was just having a look around,’ I said as innocently as I could.
I was thirty-two years old and still a serving captain in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Until recently, I had been commanding a platoon of thirty men fighting and killing her enemies with zest and gusto, but here I was feeling like a naughty fourth-former caught having a smoke behind the bike sheds by the headmistress.
‘Wel
l, don’t,’ she said to me in the same tone that she had used towards Ian.
‘Why not?’ I said belligerently. ‘Have you something to hide?’
Ian almost choked. It hadn’t been the most tactful of comments and I could see the irritation level rise in my mother’s eyes. However, she managed to remain in control of her emotions. There were staff about.
One didn’t fight with family in front of staff.
‘Of course not,’ she said with a forced smile. ‘I just don’t want anyone upsetting the horses.’
I couldn’t actually see how wandering around the stable blocks would upset the horses but I decided not to say so.
‘And how is Pharmacist this morning?’ I asked her.
‘I was on my way to see him right now,’ my mother replied, ignoring the implication in my voice. ‘Come on, Ian,’ she said, and set off briskly with him in tow.
‘Good,’ I said walking behind them. ‘I’ll come with you.’
My mother said nothing but simply increased her already breakneck pace with Ian almost running behind her to keep up. Perhaps she thought that, with my false foot, I wouldn’t be able to. Maybe she was right.
I followed as quickly as I could along the line of boxes and through the corridor into the next stable rectangle. If my mother thought she could go fast enough so that I wouldn’t see where she had gone, she was mistaken. I watched as she slid the bolts and went into a box on the far side, almost pushing Ian through the gap and pulling the door shut behind them. As if that would make them unreachable. Even I knew that stable doors are bolted only from the outside. Perhaps I should lock them in and wait. Now, that would be fun.
Instead, I opened the top half of the door, leaned on the lower portion, and looked in.
My mother was bent over, away from me, with her sizeable bottom facing the door. I did not take this as any particular gesture of disapproval as she was simply running her hands down the backs of Pharmacist’s legs, feeling for heat that would imply a soreness of the tendon. Ian was holding the horse’s head-collar so that it couldn’t move.
‘Nothing,’ my mother said, standing up straight. ‘Not even a twinge.’
‘That must be good,’ I said.
‘How would you know?’ my mother said caustically.
‘Surely it’s good if there’s no heat in his tendons,’ I said.
‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘It means there must be another reason for him finishing so badly yesterday.’
That’s true, I thought.
‘Does he look all right?’ I asked.
‘No, he’s got two heads.’ My mother’s attempts at humour rarely came off. ‘Of course he looks all right.’
‘Has he got diarrhoea?’ I asked.
Ian gave me a pained look.
‘And why, pray, would he have diarrhoea?’ my mother asked haughtily with strong accusation in her tone.
Ian stood quite still, looking at me. His jaw set as in stone.
‘I just wondered,’ I said, letting him off this particular hook. ‘I know horses can’t vomit so I just wondered if he had a stomach upset that might show itself as diarrhoea.’
‘Nonsense,’ my mother said. ‘Horses only get diarrhoea with dirty or mouldy feed and we are very careful to keep our feed clean and fresh. Isn’t that right, Ian?’
‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’ he said immediately.
I thought, perhaps unfairly, that Ian would have said ‘Yes, ma’am’ to any request at that precise moment, even if she’d asked him to jump off the stable roof.
The inspection of Pharmacist was over and my mother came out through the door followed by Ian, who slid home the door bolts.
Personally, if it had been my best horse that had inexplicably run so badly, I would have had a vet out here last night drawing blood and giving him the full once over, testing his heart, his lungs, and everything else for that matter. Strangely, my mother seemed satisfied with a quick look and a cursory feel of his legs.
‘How long before the dope test results are out?’ I said, somewhat unwisely.
‘What dope test?’ my mother asked sharply.
‘The one that was ordered by the stewards.’
‘And how do you know they ordered a dope test?’ she demanded.
‘It says so in today’s Racing Post.’
‘I told you not to read that article,’ she said crossly.
‘I don’t always do what I’m told,’ I said.
‘No,’ my mother said. ‘That’s the problem. You never did.’
She turned abruptly and strode away, leaving Ian and me standing alone.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked him.
‘Don’t involve me,’ he said. ‘I’m in enough trouble already.’
He turned to walk away.
‘But wouldn’t you have had a vet in last night?’ I said to his retreating back.
‘I told you,’ he said over his shoulder without stopping, ‘don’t involve me. I need this job.’
I called after him. ‘You do realize there won’t be a job if someone has been nobbling the horses. There won’t be any jobs here. The yard will be closed down.’
He stopped and came back.
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ he said through clenched teeth.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Nothing?’
‘That’s right. Nothing. If I say anything I’ll lose my job and then I’ll have no job and no reference. What chance would I have then?’
‘Better than having a reputation as a doper,’ I said.
He stood silently looking up at me.
‘So far the tests have all been negative. Let’s hope they stay that way.’
‘But you think otherwise, don’t you?’ I said.
‘Something strange is going on. That’s all I know. Now let me get on with my job, while I still have it.’
He strode away purposefully, leaving me alone outside Pharmacist’s box. I opened the top half of the door and took another look at the horse. As yesterday on the television, he looked all right to me.
But, then, I was no vet.
The atmosphere back in the house was frosty, to put it mildly. Positively sub-zero, and it had nothing to do with Pharmacist or any of the other horses. It had to do with money.
‘Josephine, we simply can’t afford it.’
I could hear my stepfather almost shouting. He and my mother were in the little office off the hallway while I was sitting very quietly out of sight in the kitchen, eavesdropping. They must have been far too involved in their discussion to have heard me come in from the yard, so I had simply sat down and listened.
Some might have accused me of being somewhat underhand in secretly listening to their conversation. They would have been right.
‘We must be able to afford it,’ wailed my mother. ‘I’ve had the best year ever with the horses.’
‘Yes, you have, but we’ve also had other things to contend with, not least the ongoing fallout from your disastrous little scheme.’ My stepfather’s voice was full of incrimination and displeasure.
‘Please don’t start all that again.’ Her tone was suddenly more conciliatory and apologetic.
‘But it’s true,’ my stepfather went on mercilessly. ‘Without that we would’ve easily been able to buy you a new BMW. As it is … well, let’s just hope our old Ford doesn’t need too much work done on it. Things are tight at present.’
I wondered what disastrous little scheme could have resulted in things being so tight financially that one of the top trainers in the country was unable to upgrade her old Ford to a new BMW. But she had never before seemed to care about what sort of car she drove.
I would have loved to listen to them for a while longer. However, I really didn’t want to get caught snooping so I carefully stood up and silently swivelled back and forth on my good foot from the kitchen table to the back door. It was a technique I had developed to get around my hospit
al bed at night once I had removed my prosthesis. I was getting quite good at heel-and-toeing, as the physiotherapists had called it.
I could still hear my mother at high volume. ‘For God’s sake, Derek, there must be something we can do.’
‘What do you suggest?’ my stepfather shouted back at her. ‘We don’t even know who it is.’
I opened the back door a few inches then closed it with a bang.
Their conversation stopped.
I walked through from the kitchen to the hall, my right foot making its familiar clink whenever I put it down. My mother came out of the open office door.
‘Hello,’ I said as genially as I could.
‘Hello, darling,’ she replied, again placing too much emphasis on the ‘dar’. She took a step towards me and I thought for a fleeting second she was going to give me a kiss, but she didn’t. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how much longer are you planning to stay?’
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ I said, smiling. ‘I hadn’t thought about leaving just yet.’
Oh, yes, I had.
‘It’s just that one has to make plans,’ my mother said. ‘It’s not that I want you to go, of course, it’s just I would like to have some idea of when.’
‘I haven’t even worked out where I would go,’ I said.
‘But you would go back to the army.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘It’s not as simple as that. They want to give me time to get over the injuries. And, even then, they’re not sure they actually want me any more. They’ll decide when I go back after my leave.’
‘What?’ She sound genuinely shocked. ‘But they have to have you. You were injured while working for them so surely they must have an obligation to go on employing you.’
‘Mum, it’s not like any other job,’ I said. ‘I would have to be fit and able to fight. That’s what soldiers do.’
‘But there must be something else you could do,’ she argued. ‘They must need people to organize things; people to do the paperwork. Surely those don’t have to be fit enough to run around and fight?’