by Roald Dahl
‘See this fiver,’ he said, talking softly, holding it folded small in the palm of his hand.
The man glanced at it without moving his head.
‘Just so long as you wind her true this race, see. No stopping and no slowing down and run her fast. Right?’
The man didn’t move but there was a slight, almost imperceptible lifting of the eyebrows. Claud turned away.
‘Now, look, Gordon. Get the money on gradual, all in little bits like I told you. Just keep going down the line putting on little bits so you don’t kill the price, see. And I’ll be walking Jackie down very slow, as slow as I dare, to give you plenty of time. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘And don’t forget to be standing ready to catch him at the end of the race. Get him clear away from all them others when they start fighting for the hare. Grab a hold of him tight and don’t let go till I come running up with the collar and lead. That Whisky’s a gipsy dog and he’ll tear the leg off anything as gets in his way.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Here we go.’
I saw Claud lead Jackie over to the finishing post and collect a yellow jacket with ‘4’ written on it large. Also a muzzle. The other five runners were there too, the owners fussing around them, putting on their numbered jackets, adjusting their muzzles. Mr Feasey was officiating, hopping about in his tight riding-breeches like an anxious perky bird, and once I saw him say something to Claud and laugh. Claud ignored him. Soon they would all start to lead the dogs down the track, the long walk down the hill and across to the far corner of the field to the starting-traps. It would take them ten minutes to walk it. I’ve got at least ten minutes, I told myself, and then I began to push my way through the crowd standing six or seven deep in front of the line of bookies.
‘Even money Whisky! Even money Whisky! Five to two Sally! Even money Whisky! Four to one Snailbox! Come on now! Hurry up, hurry up! Which is it?’
On every board all down the line the Black Panther was chalked up at twenty-five to one. I edged forward to the nearest book.
‘Three pounds Black Panther,’ I said, holding out the money.
The man on the box had an inflamed magenta face and traces of some white substance around the corners of his mouth. He snatched the money and dropped it in his satchel. ‘Seventy-five pounds to three Black Panther,’ he said. ‘Number forty-two.’ He handed me a ticket and his clerk recorded the bet.
I stepped back and wrote rapidly on the back of the ticket ‘75 to 3’, then slipped it into the inside pocket of my jacket with the money.
So long as I continued to spread the cash out thin like this, it ought to be all right. And anyway, on Claud’s instructions, I’d made a point of betting a few pounds on the ringer every time he’d run so as not to arouse any suspicion when the real day arrived. Therefore, with some confidence, I went all the way down the line staking three pounds with each book. I didn’t hurry, but I didn’t waste any time either, and after each bet I wrote the amount on the back of the card before slipping it into my pocket. There were seventeen bookies. I had seventeen tickets and had laid out fifty-one pounds without disturbing the price one point. Forty-nine pounds left to get on. I glanced quickly down the hill. One owner and his dog had already reached the traps. The others were only twenty or thirty yards away. Except for Claud. Claud and Jackie were only halfway there. I could see Claud in his old khaki greatcoat sauntering slowly along with Jackie pulling ahead keenly on the leash, and once I saw him stop completely and bend down, pretending to pick something up. When he went on again he seemed to have developed a limp so as to go slower still. I hurried back to the other end of the line to start again.
‘Three pounds Black Panther.’
The bookmaker, the one with the magenta face and the white substance around the mouth, glanced up sharply, remembering the last time, and in one swift almost graceful movement of the arm he licked his fingers and wiped the figure 25 neatly off the board. His wet fingers left a small dark patch opposite Black Panther’s name.
‘All right, you got one more seventy-five to three,’ he said. ‘But that’s the lot.’ Then he raised his voice and shouted, ‘Fifteen to one Black Panther! Fifteens the Panther!’
All down the line the twenty-fives were wiped out and it was fifteen to one the Panther now. I took it quick, but by the time I was through the bookies had had enough and they weren’t quoting him any more. They’d only taken six pounds each, but they stood to lose a hundred and fifty, and for them – small-time bookies at a little country flapping track – that was quite enough for one race, thank you very much. I felt pleased the way I’d managed it. Lots of tickets now. I took them out of my pockets and counted them and they were like a thin pack of cards in my hand. Thirty-three tickets in all. And what did we stand to win? Let me see … something over two thousand pounds. Claud had said he’d win it thirty lengths. Where was Claud now?
Far away down the hill I could see the khaki greatcoat standing by the traps and the big black dog alongside. All the other dogs were already in and the owners were beginning to walk away. Claud was bending down now, coaxing Jackie into number four, and then he was closing the door and turning away and beginning to run up the hill towards the crowd, the greatcoat flapping around him. He kept looking back over his shoulder as he ran.
Beside the traps the starter stood, and his hand was up waving a handkerchief. At the other end of the track, beyond the winning-post, quite close to where I stood, the man in the blue jersey was straddling the upturned bicycle on top of the wooden platform and he saw the signal and waved back and began to turn the pedals with his hands. Then a tiny white dot in the distance – the artificial hare that was in reality a football with a piece of white rabbit-skin tacked on to it – began to move away from the traps, accelerating fast. The traps went up and the dogs flew out. They flew out in a single dark lump, all together, as though it were one wide dog instead of six, and almost at once I saw Jackie drawing away from the field. I knew it was Jackie because of the colour. There weren’t any other black dogs in the race. It was Jackie, all right. Don’t move, I told myself. Don’t move a muscle or an eyelid or a toe or a fingertip. Stand quite still and don’t move. Watch him going. Come on, Jackson, boy! No, don’t shout. It’s unlucky to shout. And don’t move. Be all over in twenty seconds. Round the sharp bend now and coming up the hill and he must be fifteen or twenty lengths clear. Easy twenty lengths. Don’t count the lengths, it’s unlucky. And don’t move. Don’t move your head. Watch him out of your eye-corners. Watch that Jackson go! He’s really laying down to it now up that hill. He’s won it now! He can’t lose it now …
When I got over to him he was fighting the rabbit-skin and trying to pick it up in his mouth, but his muzzle wouldn’t allow it, and the other dogs were pounding up behind him and suddenly they were all on top of him grabbing for the rabbit and I got hold of him round the neck and dragged him clear like Claud had said and knelt down on the grass and held him tight with both arms round his body. The other catchers were having a time all trying to grab their own dogs.
Then Claud was beside me, blowing heavily, unable to speak from blowing and excitement, removing Jackie’s muzzle, putting on the collar and lead, and Mr Feasey was there too standing with hands on hips, the button mouth pursed up tight like a mushroom, the two little cameras staring at Jackie all over again.
‘So that’s the game, is it?’ he said.
Claud was bending over the dog and acting like he hadn’t heard.
‘I don’t want you here no more after this, you understand that?’
Claud went on fiddling with Jackie’s collar.
I heard someone behind us saying, ‘That flat-faced bastard swung it properly on old Feasey this time.’ Someone else laughed. Mr Feasey walked away, Claud straightened up and went over with Jackie to the hare-driver in the blue jersey who had dismounted from his platform.
‘Cigarette,’ Claud said, offering the pack.
The man took one, also the five-pound note
that was folded up small in Claud’s fingers.
‘Thanks,’ Claud said. ‘Thanks very much.’
‘Don’t mention,’ the man said.
Then Claud turned to me. ‘You get it all on, Gordon?’ He was jumping up and down and rubbing his hands and patting Jackie, and his lips trembled as he spoke.
‘Yes. Half at twenty-fives, half at fifteens.’
‘Oh Christ, Gordon, that’s marvellous. Wait here till I get the suitcase.’
‘You take Jackie,’ I said, ‘and go and sit in the car. I’ll see you later.’
There was nobody around the bookies now. I was the only one with anything to collect, and I walked slowly with a sort of dancing stride and a wonderful bursting feeling in my chest, towards the first one in the line, the man with the magenta face and the white substance on his mouth. I stood in front of him and I took all the time I wanted going through my pack of tickets to find the two that were his. The name was Syd Pratchett. It was written up large across his board in gold letters on a scarlet field – ‘SYD PRATCHETT. THE BEST ODDS IN THE MIDLANDS. PROMPT SETTLEMENT.’
I handed him the first ticket and said, ‘Seventy-eight pounds to come.’ It sounded so good I said it again, making a delicious little song of it. ‘Seventy-eight pounds to come on this one.’ I didn’t mean to gloat over Mr Pratchett. As a matter of fact. I was beginning to like him quite a lot. I even felt sorry for him having to fork out so much money. I hoped his wife and kids wouldn’t suffer.
‘Number forty-two,’ Mr Pratchett said, turning to his clerk who held the big book. ‘Forty-two wants seventy-eight pounds.’
There was a pause while the clerk ran his finger down the column of recorded bets. He did this twice, then he looked up at the boss and began to shake his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t pay. That ticket backed Snailbox Lady.’
Mr Pratchett, standing on his box, leaned over and peered down at the book. He seemed to be disturbed by what the clerk had said, and there was a look of genuine concern on the huge magenta face.
The clerk is a fool, I thought, and any moment now Mr Pratchett’s going to tell him so.
But when Mr Pratchett turned back to me, the eyes had become narrow and hostile. ‘Now, look, Charley,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t let’s have any of that. You know very well you bet Snailbox. What’s the idea?’
‘I bet Black Panther,’ I said. ‘Two separate bets of three pounds each at twenty-five to one. Here’s the second ticket.’
This time he didn’t even bother to check it with the book. ‘You bet Snailbox, Charley,’ he said. ‘I remember you coming round.’ With that, he turned away from me and started wiping the names of the last race runners off his board with a wet rag. Behind him, the clerk had closed the book and was lighting himself a cigarette. I stood watching them, and I could feel the sweat beginning to break through the skin all over my body.
‘Let me see the book.’
Mr Pratchett blew his nose in the wet rag and dropped it to the ground. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘why don’t you go away and stop annoying me?’
The point was this: a bookmaker’s ticket, unlike a totalizator ticket, never has anything written on it regarding the nature of your bet. This is normal practice, the same at every racetrack in the country, whether it’s the Silver Ring at Newmarket, the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, or a tiny country flapping track near Oxford. All you receive is a card bearing the bookie’s name and a serial number. The wager is (or should be) recorded by the bookie’s clerk in his book alongside the number of the ticket, but apart from that there is no evidence at all of how you betted.
‘Go on,’ Mr Pratchett was saying. ‘Hop it.’
I stepped back a pace and glanced down the long line of bookmakers. None of them was looking my way. Each was standing motionless on his little wooden box beside his wooden placard, staring straight ahead into the crowd. I went up to the next one and presented a ticket.
‘I had three pounds on Black Panther at twenty-five to one,’ I said firmly. ‘Seventy-eight pounds to come.’
This man, who had a soft inflamed face, went through exactly the same routine as Mr Pratchett, questioning his clerk, peering at the book, and giving me the same answers.
‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’ he said quietly, speaking to me as though I were eight years old. ‘Trying such a silly thing as that.’
This time I stepped well back. ‘You dirty thieving bastards!’ I cried. ‘The whole lot of you!’
Automatically, as though they were puppets, all the heads down the line flicked round and looked at me. The expressions didn’t alter. It was just the heads that moved, all seventeen of them, and seventeen pairs of cold glassy eyes looked down at me. There was not the faintest flicker of interest in any of them.
‘Somebody spoke,’ they seemed to be saying. ‘We didn’t hear it. It’s a nice day today.’
The crowd, sensing excitement, was beginning to move in around me. I ran back to Mr Pratchett, right up close to him, and poked him in the stomach with my finger. ‘You’re a thief! A lousy little thief!’ I shouted.
The extraordinary thing was, Mr Pratchett didn’t seem to resent this at all.
‘Well, I never,’ he said. ‘Look who’s talking.’
Then suddenly the big face broke into a wide, frog-like grin, and he looked over at the crowd and shouted, ‘Look who’s talking!’
All at once everybody started to laugh. Down the line the bookies were coming to life and turning to each other and laughing and pointing at me and shouting, ‘Look who’s talking! Look who’s talking!’ The crowd began to take up the cry as well, and I stood there on the grass alongside Mr Pratchett with his wad of tickets as thick as a pack of cards in my hand, listening to them and feeling slightly hysterical. Over the heads of the people I could see Mr Feasey beside his blackboard, already chalking up the runners for the next race; and then beyond him, far away up the top of the field, I caught sight of Claud standing by the van, waiting for me with the suitcase in his hand.
It was time to go home.
ROALD DAHL
* * *
Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more brilliant stories. He remains the World’s No.1 storyteller.
CHARMING BAKER
* * *
Born in Hampshire 1964, Charming Baker spent much of his early life travelling around the world following his father, a commando in the British Army. At the age of twelve, he and his family finally settled in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Baker left school at sixteen and worked various manual jobs. In 1985, having gone back to college, he was accepted onto a course at the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s, where he later returned as a lecturer. After graduating, Baker worked for many years as a commercial artist as well as developing his personal work.
Solo exhibitions include the Truman Brewery, London, 2007, Redchurch Street Gallery, London, 2009, New York Studio Gallery, NYC, 2010, Mercer Street, London, 2011 and Milk Studios, LA, 2013. Baker has also exhibited with the Fine Art Society, collaborated with Sir Paul Smith for a sculpture entitled ‘Triumph in the Face of Absurdity’, which was displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and continues to be committed to creating work to raise money for many charities. He has recently been commissioned to be a presenter on The Art Show. His work is in many international collections.
Although Baker has produced sculptural pieces in a wide and varied choice of materials, as well as many large-scale and detailed drawings, he remains primarily a painter with an interest in narrative and an understanding of the tradition of painting. Known to purposefully damage his work by drilling, cutting and even shooting it, Baker intentionally puts in to question the preciousness of art and the definition of its beauty, adding to the emotive charge of the work he produces. Indeed Edward Lucie-Smith has described Baker’s paintings as having, something more, a kind of romantic melancholy that is ve
ry British. And sometimes the melancholy turns out to have sharp claws. The pictures make you sit up and examine your conscience.
Charming Baker lives and works in London.
CRUELTY
Tales of Malice and Greed
* * *
Even when we mean to be kind we can sometimes be cruel. We each have a streak of nastiness inside us. In these ten tales of cruelty Roald Dahl explores how and why it is we make others suffer.
Among others, you’ll read the story of two young bullies and the boy they torment, the adulterous wife who uncovers her husband’s secret, the man with a painting tattooed on his back whose value he doesn’t appreciate and the butler and chef who run rings around their obnoxious employer.
DECEPTION
Tales of Intrigue and Lies
* * *
Why do we lie? Why do we deceive those we love most? What do we fear revealing? In these ten tales of deception Roald Dahl explores our tireless efforts to hide the truth about ourselves.
Here, among many other tales you’ll read about how to get away with the perfect murder, the old man whose wagers end in a most disturbing payment, how revenge is sweeter when it is carried out by someone else and the card sharp so good at cheating he does something surprising with his life.
LUST
Tales of Craving and Desire
* * *
To what lengths would you go to achieve your heart’s desire? In these ten tales of maddening lust Roald Dahl explores how our darkest impulses reveal who we really are.