For Kicks Part 8

'And who's that?'

He smiled thinly. 'Look upon me as his agent. How about it? His terms are a regular fiver a week for information about the results of training gallops and things like that, and a good bonus for occasional special jobs of a more, er, risky nature.'

'It don't sound bad,' I said slowly, sucking in my lower lip. 'Can't I do it at Inskip's?'

'Inskip's is not a betting stable,' he said. 'The horses always run to win. We do not need a permanent employee in that sort of place. There are however at present two betting stables without a man of ours in them, and you would be useful in either.'

He named two leading trainers, neither of whom was one of the three people I had already planned to apply to. I would have to decide whether it would not be more useful to join what was clearly a well-organized spy system, than to work with a once-doped horse who would almost certainly not be doped again.

'I'll think it over,' I said. 'Where can I get in touch with you?'

'Until you're on the pay roll, you can't,' he said simply. 'Sparking Plug's in the fifth, I see. Well, you can give me your answer after that race. I'll be somewhere on your way back to the stables. Just nod if you agree, and shake your head if you don't. But I can't see you pa.s.sing up a chance like this, not one of your sort.' There was a sly contempt in the smile he gave me that made me unexpectedly wince inwardly.

He turned away and walked a few steps, and then came back.

'Should I have a big bet on Sparking Plug, then?' he asked.

'Oh... er... well... if I were you I'd save your money.'

He looked surprised, and then suspicious, and then knowing. 'So that's how the land lies,' he said. 'Well, well, well.' He laughed, looking at me as if I'd crawled out from under a stone. He was a man who despised his tools. 'I can see you're going to be very useful to us. Very useful indeed.'

I watched him go. It wasn't from kind-heartedness that I had stopped him backing Sparking Plug, but because it was the only way to retain and strengthen his confidence. When he was fifty yards away, I followed him. He made straight for the bookmakers in Tattersalls and strolled along the rows, looking at the odds displayed by each firm; but as far as I could see he was in fact innocently planning to bet on the next race, and not reporting to anyone the outcome of his talk with me. Sighing, I put ten s.h.i.+llings on an outsider and went back to watch the horses go out for the race.

Sparking Plug thirstily drank two full buckets of water, stumbled over the second last fence, and cantered tiredly in behind the other seven runners to the accompaniment of boos from the cheaper enclosures. I watched him with regret. It was a thankless way to treat a great-hearted horse.

The seedy, black-moustached man was waiting when I led the horse away to the stables. I nodded to him, and he sneered knowingly back.

'You'll hear from us,' he said.

There was gloom in the box going home and in the yard the next day over Sparking Plug's unexplainable defeat, and I went alone to Slaw on Tuesday evening, when Soupy duly handed over another seventy-five pounds. I checked it. Another fifteen new fivers, consecutive to the first fifteen.

'Ta,' I said. 'What do you get out of this yourself?'

Soupy's full mouth curled. 'I do all right. You mugs take the risks, I get a cut for setting you up. Fair enough, eh?'

'Fair enough. How often do you do this sort of thing?' I tucked the envelope of money into my pocket.

He shrugged, looking pleased with himself. 'I can spot blokes like you a mile off. Inskip must be slipping, though. First time I've known him pick a bent penny, like. But those darts matches come in very handy... I'm good, see. I'm always in the team. And there's a lot of stables in Yorks.h.i.+re... with a lot of beaten favourites for people to scratch their heads over.'

'You're very clever,' I said.

He smirked. He agreed.

I walked up the hill planning to light a fuse under T.N.T., the high explosive kid.

In view of the black-moustached man's offer I decided to read through Beckett's typescript yet again, to see if the eleven dopings could have been the result of systematic spying. Looking at things from a fresh angle might produce results, I thought, and also might help me make up my mind whether or not to back out of the spying job and go to one of the doped horse's yards as arranged.

Locked in the bathroom I began again at page one. On page sixty-seven, fairly early in the life history of the fifth of the horses. I read 'Bought at Ascot Sales, by D. L. Men-tiff, Esq., of York for four hundred and twenty guineas, pa.s.sed on for five hundred pounds to H. Humber of Posset, County Durham, remained three months, ran twice unplaced in maiden hurdles, subsequently sold again, at Doncaster, being bought for six hundred guineas by N. W. Davies, Esq., of Leeds. Sent by him to L. Peterson's training stables at Mars Edge, Staffs, remained eighteen months, ran in four maiden hurdles, five novice chases, all without being placed. Races listed below.' Three months at Humber's. I smiled. It appeared that horses didn't stay with him any longer than lads. I ploughed on through the details, page after solid page.

On page ninety-four I came across the following: 'Alamo was then offered for public auction at Kelso, and a Mr John Arbuthnot, living in Berwicks.h.i.+re, paid three hundred guineas for him. He sent him to be trained by H. Humber at Posset, County Durham, but he was not entered for any races, and Mr Arbuthnot sold him to Humber for the same sum. A few weeks later he was sent for resale at Kelso. This time Alamo was bought for three hundred and seventy-five guineas by a Mr Clement Smith-son, living at Nantwich, Ches.h.i.+re, who kept him at home for the summer and then sent him to a trainer called Samuel Martin at Malton, Yorks.h.i.+re, where he ran unplaced in four maiden hurdles before Christmas (see list attached).'

I ma.s.saged my stiff neck. Humber again.

I read on.

On page one hundred and eighty, I read, 'Ridgeway was then acquired as a yearling by a farmer, James Green, of Home Farm, Crayford, Surrey, in settlement of a bad debt. Mr Green put him out to gra.s.s for two years, and had him broken in, hoping he would be a good hunter. However, a Mr Taplow of Pusey, Wilts, said he would like to buy him and put him in training for racing. Ridgeway was trained for flat races by Ronald Streat of Pusey, but was unplaced in all his four races that summer. Mr Taplow then sold Ridgeway privately to Albert George, farmer, of Bridge Lewes, Shrops.h.i.+re, who tried to train him himself but said he found he didn't have time to do it properly, so he sold him to a man a cousin of his knew near Durham, a trainer called Hedley Humber. Humber apparently. thought the horse was no good, and Ridgeway went up for auction at Newmarket in November, fetching two hundred and ninety guineas and being bought by Mr P. J. Brewer, of the Manor, Witherby, Lanes...'

I ploughed right on to the end of the typescript, threading my way through the welter of names, but Humber was not mentioned anywhere again.

Three of the eleven horses had been in Humber's yard for a brief spell at some distant time in their careers. That was all it amounted to.

I rubbed my eyes, which were gritty from lack of sleep, and an alarm clock rang suddenly, clamorously, in the silent cottage. I looked at my watch in surprise. It was already half past six. Standing up and stretching, I made use of the bathroom facilities, thrust the typescript up under my pyjama jacket and the jersey I wore on top and shuffled back yawning to the dormitory, where the others were already up and struggling puffy-eyed into their clothes.

Down in the yard it was so cold that everything one touched seemed to suck the heat out of ones fingers, leaving them numb and fumbling, and the air was as intense an internal shaft to the chest as iced coffee sliding down the oesophagus. Muck out the boxes, saddle up, ride up to the moor, canter, walk, ride down again, brush the sweat off, make the horse comfortable, give it food and water, and go in to breakfast. Repeat for the second horse, repeat for the third, and go in to lunch.

While we were eating Wally came in and told two others and me to go and clean the tack, and when we had finished our tinned plums and custard we went along to the tack room and started on the saddles and bridles. It was warm there from the stove, and I put my head back on a saddle and went solidly asleep.

One of the others jogged my legs and said, 'Wake up Dan, there's a lot to do,' and I drifted to the surface again. But before I opened my eyes the other lad said, 'Oh leave him, he does his share,' and with blessings on his head I sank back into blackness. Four o'clock came too soon, and with it the three hours of evening stables: then supper at seven and another day nearly done.

For most of the time I thought about Humber's name cropping up three times in the typescript. I couldn't really see that it was of more significance than that four of the eleven horses had been fed on horse cubes at the time of their doping. What was disturbing was that I should have missed it entirely on my first two readings. I realised that I had had no reason to notice the name Humber before seeing him and his horse and talking to his lad at Leicester, but if I had missed one name occurring three times, I could have missed others as well. The thing to do would be to make lists of every single name mentioned in the typescript, and see if any other turned up in a.s.sociation with several of the horses. An electric computer could have done it in seconds. For me, it looked like another night in the bathroom.

There were more than a thousand names in the typescript. I listed half of them on the Wednesday night, and slept a bit, and finished them on Thursday night, and slept some more.

On Friday the sun shone for a change, and the morning was beautiful on the moor. I trotted Sparking Plug along the track somewhere in the middle of the string and thought about the lists. No names except Humber's and one other occurred in connection with more than two of the horses. But the one other was a certain Paul J. Adams, and he had at one time or another owned six of them. Six out of eleven. It couldn't be a coincidence. The odds against it were phenomenal. I was certain I had made my first really useful discovery, yet I couldn't see why the fact that P. J. Adams, Esq. had owned a horse for a few months once should enable it to be doped a year or two later. I puzzled over it all morning without a vestige of understanding.

As it was a fine day, Wally said, it was a good time for me to scrub some rugs. This meant laying the rugs the horses wore to keep them warm in their boxes flat on the concrete in the yard, soaking them with the aid of a hose pipe, scrubbing them with a long-handled broom and detergent, hosing them off again, and hanging the wet rugs on the fence to drip before they were transferred to the warm tack room to finish drying thoroughly. It was an unpopular job, and Wally, who had treated me even more coldly since Sparking Plug's disgrace (though he had not gone so far as to accuse me of engineering it), could hardly conceal his dislike when he told me that it was my turn to do it.

However, I reflected, as I laid out five rugs after lunch and thoroughly soaked them with water, I had two hours to be alone and think. And as so often happens, I was wrong.

At three o'clock, when the horses were dozing and the lads were either copying them or had made quick trips to Harrogate with their new pay packets; when stable life was at its siesta and only I with my broom showed signs of reluctant activity, Patty Tarren walked in through the gate, across the tarmac, and slowed to a halt a few feet away.

She was wearing a straightish dress of soft looking k.n.o.bbly green tweed with a row of silver b.u.t.tons from throat to hem. Her chestnut hair hung in a clean s.h.i.+ning bob on her shoulders and was held back from her forehead by a wide green band, and with her fluffy eyelashes and pale pink mouth she looked about as enticing an interruption as a hard worked stable hand could ask for.

'Hullo, Danny boy,' she said.

'Good afternoon, miss.'

'I saw you from my window,' she said.

I turned in surprise, because I had thought October's house entirely hidden by trees, but sure enough, up the slope, one stone corner and a window could be seen through a gap in the leafless boughs. It was, however, a long way off. If Patty had recognised me from that distance she had been using binoculars.

'You looked a bit lonely, so I came down to talk to you.'

'Thank you, miss.'

'As a matter of fact,' she said, lowering the eyelashes, 'the rest of the family don't get here until this evening, and I had nothing to do in that barn of a place all by myself, and I was bored. So I thought I'd come down and talk to you.'

'I see.' I leant on the broom, looking at her lovely face and thinking that there was an expression in her eyes too old for her years.

'It's rather cold out here, don't you think? I want to talk to you about something... don't you think we could stand in the shelter of that doorway?' Without waiting for an answer she walked towards the doorway in question, which was that of the hay barn, and went inside. I followed her, resting the broom against the door post on the way.

'Yes, miss?' I said. The light was dim in the barn.

It appeared that talking was not her main object after all.

She put her hands round the back of my neck and offered her mouth for a kiss. I bent my head and kissed her. She was no virgin, October's daughter. She kissed with her tongue and with her teeth, and she moved her stomach rhythmically against mine. My muscles turned to knots. She smelled sweetly of fresh soap, more innocent than her behaviour.

'Well... that's all right, then,' she said with a giggle, disengaging herself and heading for the bulk of the bales of hay which half filled the barn.

'Come on,' she said over her shoulder, and climbed up the bales to the flat level at the top. I followed her slowly. When I got to the top I sat looking down at the hay barn floor with the broom, the bucket and the rug touched with suns.h.i.+ne through the doorway. On top of the hay had been Philip's favourite play place for years when he was little... and this is a fine time to think of my family, I thought.

Patty was lying on her back three feet away from me. Her eyes were wide and glistening, and her mouth curved open in an odd little smile. Slowly, holding my gaze, she undid all the silver b.u.t.tons down the front of her dress to a point well below her waist. Then she gave a little shake so that the edges of the dress fell apart.

She had absolutely nothing on underneath.

I looked at her body, which was pearl pink and slender, and very desirable; and she gave a little rippling s.h.i.+ver of antic.i.p.ation.

I looked back at her face. Her eyes were big and dark, and the odd way in which she was smiling suddenly struck me as being half furtive, half greedy; and wholly sinful. I had an abrupt vision of myself as she must see me, as I had seen myself in the long mirror in October's London house, a dark, flashy looking stable boy with an air of deceitfulness and an acquaintance with dirt.

I understood her smile, then.

I turned round where I sat until I had my back to her, and felt a flush of anger and shame spread all over my body.

'Do your dress up,' I said.

'Why? Are you impotent after all, Danny boy?'

'Do your dress up,' I repeated. 'The party's over.'

I slid down the hay, walked across the floor and out of the door without looking back. Twitching up the broom and cursing under my breath I let out my fury against myself by scrubbing the rug until my arms ached.

After a while I saw her (green dress re-b.u.t.toned) come slowly out of the hay barn, look around her, and go across to a muddy puddle on the edge of the tarmac. She dirtied her shoes thoroughly in it, then childishly walked on to the rug I had just cleaned, and wiped all the mud off carefully in the centre.

Her eyes were wide and her face expressionless as she looked at me.

'You'll be sorry, Danny boy,' she said simply, and without haste strolled away down the yard, the chestnut hair swinging gently on the green tweed dress.

I scrubbed the rug again. Why had I kissed her? Why, after knowing about her from that kiss, had I followed her up into the hay? Why had I been such a stupid, easily roused, l.u.s.ting fool? I was filled with useless dismay.

One didn't have to accept an invitation to dinner, even if the appetiser made one hungry. But having accepted, one should not so brutally reject what was offered. She had every right to be angry.

And I had every reason to be confused. I had been for nine years a father to two girls, one of whom was nearly Patty's age. I had taught them when they were little not to take lifts from strangers and when they were bigger how to avoid more subtle snares. And here I was, indisputably on the other side of the parental fence.

I felt an atrocious sense of guilt towards October, for I had had the intention, and there was no denying it, of doing what Patty wanted.

Chapter 7.

It was Elinor who rode out on my horse the following morning, and Patty, having obviously got her to change mounts, studiously refused to look at me at all.

Elinor, a dark scarf protecting most of the silver blonde hair, accepted a leg up with impersonal grace, gave me a warm smile of thanks and rode away at the head of the string with her sister. When we got back after the gallops, however, she led the horse into its box and did half of the jobs for it while I was attending to Sparking Plug. I didn't know what she was doing until I walked down the yard, and was surprised to find her there, having grown used to Patty's habit of bolting the horse into the box still complete with saddle, bridle, and mud.

'You go and get the hay and water,' she said. 'I'll finish getting the dirt off, now I've started.'

I carried away the saddle and bridle to the tack room, and took back the hay and water. Elinor gave the horse's mane a few final strokes with the brush, and I put on his rug and buckled the roller round his belly. She watched while I tossed the straw over the floor to make a comfortable bed, and waited until I had bolted the door.

'Thank you,' I said. 'Thank you very much.'

She smiled faintly, 'It's a pleasure. It really is. I like horses. Especially race horses. Lean and fast and exciting.'

'Yes,' I agreed. We walked down the yard together, she to go to the gate and I to the cottage which stood beside it.

'They are so different from what I do all the week,' she said.

'What do you do all the week?'

'Oh... study. I'm at Durham University.' There was a sudden, private, recollecting grin. Not for me. On level terms, I thought, one might find more in Elinor than good manners.

'It's really extraordinary how well you ride,' she said suddenly. 'I heard Mr Inskip telling Father this morning that it would be worth getting a licence for you. Have you ever thought of racing?'

'I wish I could,' I said fervently, without thinking.

'Well, why not?'

'Oh... I might be leaving soon.'

'What a pity.' It was polite; nothing more.

We reached the cottage. She gave me a friendly smile and walked straight on, out of the yard, out of sight. I may not ever see her again, I thought; and was mildly sorry.

When the horse box came back from a day's racing (with a winner, a third, and an also-ran) I climbed up into the cab and borrowed the map again. I wanted to discover the location of the village where Mr Paul Adams lived, and after some searching I found it. As its significance sank in I began to smile with astonishment. There was, it seemed, yet another place where I could apply for a job.

I went back into the cottage, into Mrs Allnut's cosy kitchen, and ate Mrs Allnut's delicious egg and chips and bread and b.u.t.ter and fruit cake, and later slept dreamlessly on Mrs Allnut's lumpy mattress, and in the morning bathed luxuriously in Mrs Allnut's s.h.i.+ning bathroom. And in the afternoon I went up beside the stream with at last something worthwhile to tell October.

He met me with a face of granite, and before I could say a word he hit me hard and squarely across the mouth. It was a back-handed expert blow which started from the waist, and I didn't see it coming until far too late.

'What the h.e.l.l's that for?' I said, running my tongue round my teeth and being pleased to find that none of them were broken off.

He glared at me. 'Patty told me...' He stopped as if it were too difficult to go on.

'Oh,' I said blankly.

'Yes, oh,' he mimicked savagely. He was breathing deeply and I thought he was going to hit me again. I thrust my hands into my pockets and his stayed where they were, down by his side, clenching and unclenching.