Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

by Roald Dahl

  Claud took a step forward. His face was beginning to purple slightly with the outrage of it all and I could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down as he swallowed.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr Feasey. I’m so absolutely sure this dog’s improved I’ll bet you a quid he don’t finish last. There you are.’

  Mr Feasey turned slowly around and looked at Claud. ‘You crackers?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll bet you a quid, there you are, just to prove what I’m saying.’

  It was a dangerous move, certain to cause suspicion, but Claud knew it was the only thing left to do. There was silence while Mr Feasey bent down and examined the dog. I could see the way his eyes were moving slowly over the animal’s whole body, part by part. There was something to admire in the man’s thoroughness, and in his memory; something to fear also in this self-confident little rogue who held in his head the shape and colour and markings of perhaps several hundred different but very similar dogs. He never needed more than one little clue – a small scar, a splay toe, a trifle in at the hocks, a less pronounced wheelback, a slightly darker brindle – Mr Feasey always remembered.

  So I watched him now as he bent down over Jackie. His face was pink and fleshy, the mouth small and tight as though it couldn’t stretch enough to make a smile, and the eyes were like two little cameras focused sharply on the dog.

  ‘Well,’ he said, straightening up. ‘It’s the same dog, anyway.’

  ‘I should hope so too!’ Claud cried. ‘Just what sort of a fellow you think I am, Mr Feasey?’

  ‘I think you’re crackers, that’s what I think. But it’s a nice easy way to make a quid. I suppose you forgot how Amber Flash nearly beat him on three legs last meeting?’

  ‘This one wasn’t fit then,’ Claud said. ‘He hadn’t had beefsteak and massage and roadwork like I’ve been giving him lately. But look, Mr Feasey, you’re not to go sticking him in top grade just to win the bet. This is a bottom grade dog, Mr Feasey. You know that.’

  Mr Feasey laughed. The small button mouth opened into a tiny circle and he laughed and looked at the crowd who laughed with him. ‘Listen,’ he said, laying a hairy hand on Claud’s shoulder. ‘I know my dogs. I don’t have to do any fiddling around to win this quid. He goes in bottom.’

  ‘Right,’ Claud said. ‘That’s a bet.’ He walked away with Jackie and I joined him.

  ‘Jesus, Gordon, that was a near one!’

  ‘Shook me.’

  ‘But we’re in now,’ Claud said. He had that breathless look on his face again and he was walking about quick and funny, like the ground was burning his feet.

  People were still coming through the gate into the field and there were easily three hundred of them now. Not a very nice crowd. Sharp-nosed men and women with dirty faces and bad teeth and quick shifty eyes. The dregs of the big town. Oozing out like sewage from a cracked pipe and trickling along the road through the gate and making a smelly little pond of sewage at the top end of the field. They were all there, all the spivs and the gypsies and the touts and the dregs and the sewage and the scrapings and the scum from the cracked drainpipes of the big town. Some with dogs, some without. Dogs led about on pieces of string, miserable dogs with hanging heads, thin mangy dogs with sores on their quarters (from sleeping on board), sad old dogs with grey muzzles, doped dogs, dogs stuffed with porridge to stop them winning, dogs walking stiff-legged – one especially, a white one. ‘Claud, why is that white one walking so stiff-legged?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That one over there.’

  ‘Ah yes, I see. Very probably because he’s been hung.’

  ‘Hung?’

  ‘Yes, hung. Suspended in a harness for twenty-four hours with his legs dangling.’

  ‘Good God, but why?’

  ‘To make him run slow, of course. Some people don’t hold with dope or stuffing or strapping up. So they hang ’em.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Either that,’ Claud said, ‘or they sandpaper them. Rub their pads with rough sandpaper and take the skin off so it hurts when they run.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  And then the fitter, brighter-looking dogs, the better fed ones who get horsemeat every day, not pigswill or rusk and cabbage water, their coats shinier, their tails moving, pulling at their leads, undoped, unstuffed, awaiting perhaps a more unpleasant fate, the muzzle-strap to be tightened an extra four notches. But make sure he can breathe now, Jock. Don’t choke him completely. Don’t

  let’s have him collapse in the middle of the race. Just so he wheezes a bit, see. Go on tightening it up an extra notch at a time until you can hear him wheezing. You’ll see his mouth open and he’ll start breathing heavy. Then it’s just right, but not if his eyeballs is bulging. Watch out for that, will you? Okay?

  Okay.

  ‘Let’s get away from the crowd, Gordon. It don’t do Jackie no good getting excited by all these other dogs.’

  We walked up the slope to where the cars were parked, then back and forth in front of the line of cars, keeping the dog on the move. Inside some of the cars I could see men sitting with their dogs, and the men scowled at us through the windows as we went by.

  ‘Watch out now, Gordon. We don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘No, all right.’

  These were the best dogs of all, the secret ones kept in the cars and taken out quick just to be entered up (under some invented name) and put back again quick and held there till the last minute, then straight down to the traps and back again into the cars after the race so no nosy bastard gets too close a look. The trainer at the big stadium said so. All right, he said. You can have him, but for Christsake don’t let anybody recognise him. There’s thousands of people know this dog, so you’ve got to be careful, see. And it’ll cost you fifty pound.

  Very fast dogs these, but it doesn’t much matter how fast they are they probably get the needle anyway, just to make sure. One and a half ccs of ether, subcutaneous, done in the car, injected very slow. That’ll put ten lengths on any dog. Or sometimes it’s caffein, caffein in oil, or camphor. That makes them go too. The men in the big cars know all about that. And some of them know about whisky. But that’s intravenous. Not so easy when it’s intravenous. Might miss the vein. All you got to do is miss the vein and it don’t work and where are you then? So it’s ether, or it’s caffein, or it’s camphor. Don’t give her too much of that stuff now, Jock. What does she weigh? Fifty-eight pounds. All right then, you know what the man told us. Wait a minute now. I got it written down on a piece of paper. Here it is. Point 1 of a cc per 10 pounds bodyweight equals 5 lengths over 300 yards. Wait a minute now while I work it out. Oh Christ, you better guess it. Just guess it, Jock. It’ll be all right you’ll find. Shouldn’t be any trouble anyway because I picked the others in the race myself. Cost me a tenner to old Feasey. A bloody tenner I give him, and dear Mr Feasey, I says, that’s for your birthday and because I love you.

  Thank you ever so much, Mr Feasey says. Thank you, my good and trusted friend.

  And for stopping them, for the men in the big cars, it’s chlorbutal. That’s a beauty, chlorbutal, because you can give it the night before, especially to someone else’s dog. Or Pethidine. Pethidine and Hyoscine mixed, whatever that may be.

  ‘Lot of fine old English sporting gentry here,’ Claud said.

  ‘Certainly are.’

  ‘Watch your pockets, Gordon. You got that money hidden away?’

  We walked around the back of the line of cars – between the cars and the hedge – and I saw Jackie stiffen and begin to pull forward on the leash, advancing with a stiff crouching tread. About thirty yards away there were two men. One was holding a large fawn greyhound, the dog stiff and tense like Jackie. The other was holding a sack in his hands.

  ‘Watch,’ Claud whispered, ‘they’re giving him a kill.’

  Out of the sack on to the grass tumbled a small white rabbit, fluffy white, young, tame. It righted itself and sat still, crouching in the hunched up
way rabbits crouch, its nose close to the ground. A frightened rabbit. Out of the sack so suddenly on to the grass with such a bump. Into the bright light. The dog was going mad with excitement now, jumping up against the leash, pawing the ground, throwing himself forward, whining. The rabbit saw the dog. It drew in its head and stayed still, paralysed with fear. The man transferred his hold to the dog’s collar, and the dog twisted and jumped and tried to get free. The other man pushed the rabbit with his foot but it was too terrified to move. He pushed it again, flicking it forward with his toe like a football, and the rabbit rolled over several times, righted itself and began to hop over the grass away from the dog. The other man released the dog which pounced with one huge pounce upon the rabbit, and then came the squeals, not very loud but shrill and anguished and lasting rather a long time.

  ‘There you are,’ Claud said. ‘That’s a kill.’

  ‘Not sure I liked it very much.’

  ‘I told you before, Gordon. Most of ’em does it. Keens the dog up before a race.’

  ‘I still don’t like it.’

  ‘Nor me. But they all do it. Even in the big stadiums the trainers do it. Proper barbary I call it.’

  We strolled away, and below us on the slope of the hill the crowd was thickening and the bookies’ stands with the names written on them in red and gold and blue were all erected now in a long line back of the crowd, each bookie already stationed on an upturned box beside his stand, a pack of numbered cards in one hand, a piece of chalk in the other, his clerk behind him with book and pencil. Then we saw Mr Feasey walking over to a blackboard that was nailed to a post stuck in the ground.

  ‘He’s chalking up the first race,’ Claud said. ‘Come on, quick!’

  We walked rapidly down the hill and joined the crowd. Mr Feasey was writing the runners on the blackboard, copying names from his soft-covered notebook, and a little hush of suspense fell upon the crowd as they watched.

  SALLY

  THREE QUID

  SNAILBOX LADY

  BLACK PANTHER

  WHISKY

  ROCKIT

  ‘He’s in it!’ Claud whispered. ‘First race! Trap four! Now listen, Gordon! Give me a fiver quick to show the winder.’

  Claud could hardly speak from excitement. That patch of whiteness had returned around his nose and eyes, and when I handed him a five pound note, his whole arm was shaking as he took it. The man who was going to wind the bicycle pedals was still standing on top of

  the wooden platform in his blue jersey, smoking. Claud went over and stood below him, looking up.

  ‘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 gypsy 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 twenty-five 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 toward 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.