Forfeit

17

I caught Victor Roncey coming out of the luncheon room and told him that the danger to Tiddely Pom was by no means over.

‘He’s here, isn’t he?’ he said squashingly.

‘He’s here thanks to us,’ I reminded him. ‘And there are still two hours to the race.’

‘What do you expect me to do? Hold his hand?’

‘It wouldn’t hurt,’ I said flatly.

There was the usual struggle between aggressive independence and reasonable agreement. He said grudgingly, ‘Peter can sit outside his box over in the stables.’

‘Where is Peter now?’

He waved a hand behind him. ‘Finishing lunch.’

‘You’ll have to take him in yourself, if he hasn’t got a stable lad’s pass.’

He grumbled and agreed, and went back to fetch his son. I walked over to the stables with them and checked with the man on the gate who said he’d had the usual number of people trying to get in, but not the man he’d turned away in the morning. Wing Commander Ondroy had told him to sling that man in the storeroom and lock him in, if he came sniffing round again.

I smiled appreciatively and went in with Roncey to look at the horse. He stood patiently in his box, propped on one hip, resting a rear leg. When we opened the door he turned his head lazily and directed on us an unexcited eye. A picture of a racehorse not on his toes, not strung up by the occasion, not looking ready to win Lamplighter Gold Cups.

‘Is he always like this before a race?’ I said. ‘He looks doped.’

Roncey gave me a horrified glance and hurried to his horse’s head. He looked in his mouth and eyes, felt his neck and legs and kicked open and studied a small pile of droppings. Finally he shook his head.

‘No dope that I can see. No signs of it.’

‘He never has nerves,’ Peter observed. ‘He isn’t bred for it.’

He looked bred for a milk cart. I refrained from saying so. I walked back into the paddock with Roncey and got him to agree to saddle up his horse in the stables, not in the saddling boxes, if the Stewards would allow it.

The Stewards, who included Eric Youll, didn’t hesitate. They said only that Tiddely Pom would have to walk the three stipulated times round the parade ring for the public to see him before the jockey mounted, but were willing for him to walk six feet in from the rails and be led and guarded by Peter and myself.

‘All a waste of time,’ Roncey muttered. ‘No one will try anything here.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ I said. ‘You’d try anything if you stood to lose half a million you hadn’t got.’

I watched the first two races from the Press Box and spent the time in between aimlessly wandering about in the crowd trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really looking out for another glimpse of Gail.

I didn’t see her. I did see Dermot Finnegan. The little Irish jockey walked in front of me and gave me a huge gap-toothed grin. I took in, as I was supposed to, that he was dressed in colours, ready to ride in a race. The front of his jacket was carefully unbuttoned. I added up the purple star on the pink and white horizontal stripes and he laughed when he saw my astonishment.

‘Be Jasus, and I’m almost as staggered as yourself,’ he said. ‘But there it is, I’ve got my big chance on the Guvnor’s first string and if I make a mess of it may God have mercy on my soul because I won’t.’

‘You won’t make a mess of it.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said cheerfully. ‘That was a grand job you made of me in Tally, now. Thank you for that. I took that when it came and showed it to the Guvnor but he’d already seen it, he told me. And you know I wouldn’t be certain that it wasn’t the magazine that put him in mind of putting me up on Rockville, when the other two fellows got hurt on Thursday. So thank you for that, too.’

When I told Derry about it in the Press Box during the second race he merely shrugged. ‘Of course he’s riding Rockville. Don’t you read the papers?’

‘Not yesterday.’

‘Oh. Well yes, he’s got as much as he can chew this time. Rockville’s a difficult customer, even with the best of jockeys, and our Dermot isn’t that.’ He was busy polishing the lenses of his race glasses. ‘Luke-John’s bookmaker friend must have accepted a good deal of Boston’s fifty thousand, because the price on Tiddely Pom has come crashing down like an express lift from 100 to 8 to only 4 to 1. That’s a stupid price for a horse like Tiddely Pom, but there you are.’

I did a small sum. If Boston had taken bets at 10 or 12 to 1 and had only been able to lay them off at 4 to 1, that left him a large gap of 6 or 8 to 1. If Tiddely Pom won, that would be the rate at which he would have to pay: which added up still to more than a quarter of a million pounds and meant that he would have to sell off the string of betting shops to pay his debts. Dumb Charlie Boston, trying to play with the big boys and getting squeezed like a toothpaste tube.

There was no sign of him in the paddock. Roncey saddled his horse in the stables and brought him straight into the parade ring very shortly before the time for the jockeys to mount. Peter led him round and I walked along by his quarters: but no one leaned over the rails to squirt him with acid. No one tried anything at all.

‘Told you so,’ Roncey muttered. ‘All this fuss.’ He put up his jockey, slapped Tiddely Pom’s rump, and hurried off to get a good position on the trainers’ stand. Peter led the horse out on to the course and let him go, and Tiddely Pom cantered off unconcernedly with the long lolloping stride so at variance with his looks. I sighed with relief and went up to join Derry in the Press Box to watch the race.

‘Tiddely Pom’s favourite,’ he said. ‘Then Zig Zag, then Rockville. Zig Zag should have it in his pocket.’ He put his race glasses to his eyes and studied the horses milling round at the start. I hadn’t taken my own glasses as I’d found the carrying strap pressed too heavily on tender spots. I felt lost without them, like a snail without antennae. The start for the Lamplighter was a quarter of a mile down the course from the stands. I concentrated on sorting out the colours with only force four success.

Derry exclaimed suddenly, ‘What the devil...’

‘Tiddely Pom,’ I said fearfully. Not now. Not at the very post. I should have foreseen... should have stationed someone down there... But it was so public. So many people walked down there to watch the start. Anyone who tried to harm a horse there would have a hundred witnesses.

‘There’s someone hanging on to his reins. No, he’s been pulled off. Great God...’ Derry started laughing incredulously. ‘I can’t believe it. I simply can’t believe it.’

‘What’s happening?’ I said urgently. All I could see was a row of peacefully lining up horses, which miraculously included Tiddely Pom, and some sort of commotion going on in the crowd on the far side of the rails.

‘It’s Madge... Madge Roncey. It must be. No one else looks like that... She’s rolling about on the grass with a fat little man... struggling. She pulled him away from Tiddely Pom... Arms and legs are flying all over the place...’ He stopped, laughing too much. ‘The boys are with her... they’re all piling on to the poor little man in a sort of rugger scrum...’

‘It’s a pound to a penny the poor little man is Charlie Boston,’ I said grimly. ‘And if it’s Madge and not the Blaze who’s saved the day, we’ll never hear the end of it from Victor Roncey.’

‘Damn Victor Roncey,’ Derry said. ‘They’re off.’

The line of horses bounded forward, heading for the first jump. Seventeen runners, three and a half miles, and a gold trophy and a fat cheque to the winner.

One of them crumpled up over the first. Not Tiddely Pom, whose scarlet and white chevrons bobbed in a bunch at the rear. Not Zig Zag, already positioned in the fourth place, from where he usually won. Not Egocentric, leading the field up past the stands to give the Huntersons their moment of glory. Not Rockville, with Dermot Finnegan fighting for his career in a battle not to let the horse run away with him.

They jumped the water jump in front of the stands. A gasp from the crowd as one of them splashed his hind legs right into it. The jockey in orange and green was dislodged and rolled.

‘That horse always makes a balls of the water,’ Derry said dispassionately. ‘They should keep it for hurdles.’ No tremor of excitement in his voice or hands. It had cost him nothing to get Tiddely Pom on to the track. It had cost me too much.

They swept round the top bend and started out round the circuit. Twice round the course to go. I watched Tiddely Pom all the way, expecting him to fall, expecting him to drop out at the back and be pulled up, expecting him to be too weak from colic to finish the trip.

They came round the bottom bend and up over the three fences in the straight towards the stands. Egocentric was still in front. Zig Zag still fourth. Dermot Finnegan had Rockville in decent control somewhere in the middle, and Tiddely Pom was still there and not quite last.

Over the water. Zig Zag stumbled, recovered, raced on. Not fourth any more, though. Sixth or seventh. Tiddely Pom scampered over it with none of the grace of Egocentric but twice the speed. Moved up two places.

Out they went again into the country. Derry remarked calmly, ‘Tiddely Pom has dropped his bit.’

‘Damn,’ I said. The jockey was working with his arms, urging the horse on. Hopeless. And half the race still to run.

I shut my eyes. Felt the fatigue and illness come swamping back. Wanted to lie down somewhere soft and sleep for a week and escape from all the problems and torments and disillusionments of weary life. A week alone, to heal in. A week to give a chance for some energy for living to come creeping back. I needed a week at least. If I were lucky, I’d have a day.

‘There’s a faller at that fence.’ The race commentator’s amplified voice jerked my eyes open. ‘A faller among the leaders. I think it was Egocentric... yes, Egocentric is down...’

Poor Huntersons. Poor Harry, poor Sarah.

Gail.

I didn’t want to think about her. Couldn’t bear to, and couldn’t help it.

‘He’s still going,’ Derry said. ‘Tiddely Pom.’

The red and white chevrons were too far away to be clear. ‘He’s made up a bit,’ Derry said. ‘He’s taken a hold again.’

They jumped the last fence on the far side and began the sweeping bend round into the straight, very strung out now, with great gaps between little bunches. One or two staggered fifty yards in the rear. There was a roar from the crowd and the commentator’s voice rose above it... ‘And here is Zig Zag coming to the front... opening up a commanding lead...’

‘Zig Zag’s slipped them,’ Derry said calmly. ‘Caught all the others napping.’

‘Tiddely Pom...?’ I asked.

‘He’s well back. Still plodding on, though. Most we could expect.’

Zig Zag jumped the first fence in the straight five seconds clear of the rest of the field.

‘Nothing will catch him,’ Derry said. I forgave him the satisfaction in his voice. He had tipped Zig Zag in his column. It was nice to be right. ‘Tiddely Pom’s in the second bunch. Can you see him? Even if he hasn’t won, he’s not disgraced.’

Zig Zag jumped the second last fence well ahead, chased after an interval by four horses more or less abreast. After these came Tiddely Pom, and behind him the other half dozen still standing. If we had to settle for that, at least the ante-post punters had had some sort of run for their money.

It was a clear twenty yards from the last fence that Zig Zag was meeting it wrong. The jockey hesitated fatally between pushing him on to lengthen his stride and take off sooner or shortening the reins to get him to put in an extra one before he jumped. In the end he did neither. Simply left it to the horse to sort himself out. Some horses like to do that. Some horses like to be told what to do. Zig Zag went into the fence like a rudderless ship, took off too late and too close, hit the fence hard with his forelegs, slewed round in mid air, crashed down in a tangle of hooves, and treated his rider to a well deserved thump on the turf.

‘Stupid bastard,’ Derry said, infuriatedly lowering his glasses. ‘An apprentice could have done better.’

I was watching Tiddely Pom. The four horses ahead of him jumped the last fence. One of them swerved to avoid Zig Zag and his supine jockey and bumped heavily into the horse next to him. Both of them were thoroughly unbalanced and the jockey of one fell off. When Tiddely Pom came away from the fence to tackle the straight he was lying third.

The crowd roared. ‘He’s got a chance,’ Derry yelled. ‘Even now.’

He couldn’t quicken. The low lolloping stride went on at the same steady pace and all the jockey’s urging was having no constructive effect. But one of the two in front of him was tiring and rolling about under pressure. Tiddely Pom crept up on him yard by yard but the winning post was coming nearer and there was still one more in front...

I looked at the leader, taking him in for the first time. A jockey in pink and white stripes, riding like a demon on a streak of brown, straining, hard-trained muscle. Dermot Finnegan on Rockville, with all his future in his hands.

While I watched he swept conclusively past the post, and even from the stands one could see that Irish grin bursting out like the sun.

Three lengths behind, Tiddely Pom’s racing heart defeated the colic and put him second. A genuine horse, I thought thankfully. Worth all the trouble. Or at least, worth some of it.

‘All we need now,’ said Derry, ‘is an objection.’

He wrapped the strap round his race glasses, put them in their case, and hurriedly made for the stairs. I followed him more slowly down and edged gingerly through the crowd milling round the unsaddling enclosure until I reached the clump of other press men waiting to pick up something to print. There was a cheer as Rockville was led through into the winner’s place. Another cheer for Tiddely Pom. I didn’t join in. Had nothing to contribute but a dead feeling of anti-climax.

All over. Tiddely Pom hadn’t won. What did I expect?

The crowd parted suddenly like the Red Sea and through the gap struggled a large, untidy earth mother surrounded by planets. Madge Roncey and her sons.

She walked purposefully across the comparatively empty unsaddling enclosure and greeted her husband with a gentle pat on the arm. He was astounded to see her and stood stock still with his mouth open and Tiddely Pom’s girth buckles half undone. I went across to join them.

‘Hullo,’ Madge said. ‘Wasn’t that splendid?’ The faraway look in her eyes had come a few kilometres nearer since fact had begun to catch up on fantasy. She wore a scarlet coat a shade too small. Her hair floated in its usual amorphous mass. She had stockings on. Laddered.

‘Splendid,’ I agreed.

Roncey gave me a sharp look. ‘Still fussing?’

I said to Madge, ‘What happened down at the start?’

She laughed. ‘There was a fat little man there going absolutely berserk and screaming that he would stop Tiddely Pom if it was the last thing he did.’

Roncey swung round and stared at her. ‘He started hanging on to Tiddely Pom’s reins,’ she went on, ‘and he wouldn’t let go when the starter told him to. It was absolutely crazy. He was trying to kick Tiddely Pom’s legs. So I just ducked under the rails and walked across and told him it was our horse and would he please stop it, and he was frightfully rude...’ A speculative look came into her eye. ‘He used some words I didn’t know.’

‘For God’s sake,’ said Roncey irritably. ‘Get on with it.’

She went on without resentment, ‘He still wouldn’t let go so I put my arms round him and lifted him up and carried him off and he was so surprised he dropped the reins, and then he struggled to get free and I let him fall down on the ground and rolled him under the rails, and then the boys and I sat on him.’

I said, trying to keep a straight face, ‘Did he say anything after that?’

‘Well, he hadn’t much breath,’ she admitted judiciously. ‘But he did say something about killing you, as a matter of fact. He didn’t seem to like you very much. He said you’d smashed everything and stopped him getting to Tiddely Pom, and as a matter of fact he was so hysterical he was jolly nearly in tears.’

‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know exactly. When I let him get up, he ran away.’

Roncey gave me a mean look. ‘So it took my wife to save my horse, not the Blaze.’

‘Oh no, dear,’ she said placidly. ‘If Mr Tyrone hadn’t been looking after him, the little man would have been able to reach him sooner, and if I hadn’t come back from the Isle of Wight because I thought it would be quite safe if no one knew, and we all wanted to see the race, if I hadn’t been there at the starting gate, someone else would have taken the little man away. Lots of people were going to. It was just that I got to him first.’ She gave me a sweet smile. ‘I haven’t had so much fun for years.’

The day fragmented after that into a lot of people saying things to me that I didn’t really hear. Pieces still stick out: Dermot Finnegan being presented with a small replica of the Lamplighter Gold Cup and looking as if he’d been handed the Holy Grail. Willie Ondroy telling me that Charlie Boston had been slung off the racecourse, and Eric Youll outlining the Stewards’ plan for warning him off permanently, which would mean the withdrawal of his betting licence and the closing of all his shops.

Derry telling me he had been through to Luke-John, whose bookmaker friend had taken all of Charlie Boston’s fifty thousand and was profoundly thankful Tiddely Pom hadn’t won.

Collie Gibbons asking me to go for a drink. I declined. I was off drink. He had his wife with him, and not an American colonel in sight.

Pat Roncey staring at me sullenly, hands in pockets. I asked if he’d passed on my own telephone number along with the whereabouts of Tiddely Pom. Belligerently he tried to justify himself: the man had been even more keen to know where I lived than where the horse was. What man? The tall yellowish man with some sort of accent. From the New Statesman, he’d said. Didn’t Pat know that the New Statesman was the one paper with no racing page? Pat did not.

Sandy Willis walking past leading Zig Zag, giving me a worried smile. Was the horse all right, I asked. She thought so, poor old boy. She muttered a few unfeminine comments on the jockey who had thrown the race away. She said she’d grown quite fond of Tiddely Pom, she was glad he’d done well. She’d won a bit on him, as he’d come in second. Got to get on, she said, Zig Zag needed sponging down.

The Huntersons standing glumly beside Egocentric while their trainer told them their raffle horse had broken down badly and wouldn’t run again for a year, if ever.

That message got through to me razor sharp and clear. No Egocentric racing, no Huntersons at the races. No Gail at the races. Not even that.

I’d had enough. My body hurt. I understood the full meaning of the phrase sick at heart. I’d been through too many mangles, and I wasn’t sure it was worth it. Vjoersterod was dead, Bert Checkov was dead, the non-starter racket was dead... until someone else tried it, until the next wide boy came along with his threats and his heavies. Someone else could bust it next time. Not me. I’d had far, far more than enough.

I wandered slowly out on to the course and stood beside the water jump, looking down into the water. Couldn’t go home until the race train went, after the last race. Couldn’t go home until I’d phoned in to Luke-John for a final check on what my column would look like the next day. Nothing to go home to, anyway, except an empty flat and the prospect of an empty future.

Footsteps swished towards me through the grass. I didn’t look up. Didn’t want to talk.

‘Ty,’ she said.

I did look then. There was a difference in her face. She was softer; less cool, less poised. Still extraordinarily beautiful. I badly wanted what I couldn’t have.

‘Ty, why didn’t you tell me about your wife?’

I shook my head. Didn’t answer.

She said, ‘I was in the bar with Harry and Sarah, and someone introduced us to a Major Gibbons and his wife, because he had been in your Tally article too, like Harry and Sarah. They were talking about you... Major Gibbons said it was such a tragedy about your wife... I said, what tragedy... and he told us...’

She paused. I took a deep difficult breath: said nothing.

‘I said it must be some help that she was rich, and he said what do you mean rich, as far as I know she hasn’t a bean because Ty is always hard up with looking after her, and he’d be reasonably well off if he put her in a hospital and let the country pay for her keep instead of struggling to do it himself...’

She turned half away from me and looked out across the course. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I swallowed and loosened my mouth. ‘I don’t like... I didn’t want... consolation prizes.’

After a while she said, ‘I see.’ It sounded as if she actually did.

There was a crack in her cool voice. She said, ‘If it was me you’d married, and I’d got polio... I can see that you must stay with her. I see how much she needs you. If it had been me... and you left me...’ She gave a small laugh which was half a sob. ‘Life sure kicks you in the teeth. I find a man I don’t want to part with... a man I’d live on crumbs with... and I can’t have him... even a little while, now and then.’