The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  But then night would come, and worse, for morning would follow and she would have to drag herself out of the bed where she had slept only fitfully to supervise the daily exercise routines, which meant she would have to walk into the yard past The Nightingale’s box which was now completely shut up, top door and bottom, and into the tack room where on his peg hung his exercise bridle, saddle and embroidered saddlecloth. And every day she would have to ride out on the roads, the tracks and finally the gallops on which every day of the horse’s working life he had walked and trotted and galloped, up grassy pulls where all the time he was growing into himself and becoming the horse he was to be. Cassie had ridden him, half standing in her irons with the wind in her face, thundering up the turf furlongs not moving while the big horse swung along beneath her, his breath in perfect rhythm with his stride, his head tucked into his chest and his big ears pricked. Nothing could describe the joy the horse gave her, the thrill he sent through her every time she had ridden him, the love she had in her heart for this big black giant with the heart of an angel. A horse blessed with such an extraordinary turn of foot that it had to be seen to be believed, and when it was seen no-one could believe it.

  Yet now he was gone from her, gone from Claremore, and possibly gone even from the world which had taken him to its heart.

  ‘I hope and pray he is dead now,’ she told Tyrone when she tended his grave six weeks after the horse’s disappearance. ‘If the people who took him had wanted anything they’d have asked for it by now, but since they haven’t and since there is nothing they can do with the horse, I just pray to God that rather than suffering he is safely dead and buried and up there in the sky with you.’

  But he wasn’t. Cassie was to be denied even that small comfort. As if to torture her still further a Polaroid photograph arrived the very next day in the post showing The Nightingale standing with his head over a white-painted stable door behind a man in a balaclava helmet who was in turn holding up a copy of The Times showing the correct headline for the day in question.

  There was no message.

  Leonora called. It had taken her this long, but finally she called.

  ‘I should have rung before but here I am anyway,’ she said for openers. ‘I guess I didn’t because I guess I’m there or thereabouts on the list. Am I right or am I right?’

  ‘There’s really little point in talking to you when you’re in this state,’ Cassie began.

  ‘When I’ve been drinking, you mean,’ Leonora cut in, audibly drawing deep on a cigarette. ‘You don’t think I’m going to call you about something like this stone cold sober, do you?’

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if you hadn’t called at all,’ Cassie replied, preparing to hang up the phone.

  ‘So I am on your goddam list.’

  ‘What list is that, Leonora? If you mean the list of who might have done it, of course you’re on it. Who isn’t? Since they’re even taking bets on little green men from outer space being responsible I’d say you have every reason to be on it. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be nuts, Cassie. Jesus Christ, you really think I’m capable of snatching your precious horse? What for? You asked yourself that? What in hell would I want with taking your precious racehorse? You mean because you wouldn’t count Mother and me in, that it? Well, if that’s what you think, you’re out of your goddam tiny little head. Right?’

  ‘That all you rang to say, Leonora? Because if it is—’

  ‘Of course it’s not all I rang to say, Cassie!’ Leonora snapped back. ‘But if you’re going to start making insinuations, you think I’m just going to sit here and take it?’

  Cassie said nothing to contradict Leonora, knowing full well when she was this drunk there was no point in trying to correct any misapprehensions.

  ‘Jesus,’ Leonora breathed into the receiver after a moment. ‘So much for trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘I have business to attend to, Leonora,’ Cassie said curtly. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Don’t you want to hear why I called, for Chrissake?’ Leonora snapped back. ‘You think I called just to have you insult me? Because you are wrong. You are so – wrong.’

  ‘So what did you call for, Leonora?’ Cassie enquired coldly. ‘Because as I said, I do have things to do.’

  ‘You can’t keep out of the goddam news, can you? If you’re not winning every Group One race under the sun, you’re breaking everyone’s hearts with the story of your kidnapped horse.’

  There was another long pause during which Leonora took several noisy draws on her cigarette.

  ‘I really can’t be bothered with this, Leonora,’ Cassie said, deciding there was little point in prolonging this conversation any further. ‘If that’s all you called to say—’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact it wasn’t, Miss Smartass,’ Leonora replied. ‘What I actually called to say was that I was sorry about your horse. Really sorry. But there you are. I guess it’s a little too bloody late for that now. So why don’t you go to hell instead?’

  Then the phone went dead.

  In the old days, a call like that from Leonora would have rocked Cassie. Now with both Tyrone and The Nightingale gone nothing like that hurt or upset her any more. She was accustomed to pain and suffering, inured to the hurt the world seemed endlessly able to inflict, with only one concern left and that the well-being of her children. As long as Matt and Jo were safe from harm then as far as Cassie was now concerned the rest of the world could go hang. Except for her children everything that mattered had been taken from her, so there seemed little point in trying to care any longer. At least that was what she felt every evening by the time she had reached to turn off the light by her bed.

  Even so, that evening as Cassie sat by the fire in her drawing room cradling a glass of brandy she felt the call rankling, not for what Leonora had said but for what it now made Cassie conclude. Before Leonora had made that call she had just been one of the suspects. Now the more Cassie thought about it the more reason she felt she had to make her old adversary the prime suspect, her reasoning being that Leonora had called to try to throw Cassie off the track. She probably wasn’t even drunk but only play-acting, Cassie decided as she took a drink of her brandy. Pretence was something else Leonora had always excelled at, having spun web after web of deceit throughout her life causing nothing but misery and insecurity to everyone who had the misfortune to know her, and most of all to count her as a friend. Other than causing her arch-rival unimaginable grief, what else Leonora hoped to gain by organizing the theft of her horse Cassie could not begin to imagine, particularly given the risk she would be running were she indeed proved to be the culprit. But then mindful of what had always motivated Leonora in their previous confrontations Cassie knew spite would once again be a perfectly adequate incentive. In fact by the time she had reached for the decanter to pour herself what she promised would be one last drink and then drunk most of it Cassie was entirely convinced that Leonora had plotted the theft of her beloved horse for exactly the same reasons she had so often plotted her downfall, namely jealousy.

  Leonora’s jealousy of Cassie seemed to be boundless. For some reason, from the moment Cassie had entered Miss Truefitt’s Academy for Young Ladies in Glenville, West Virginia, Leonora Von Wagner had been not merely absurdly jealous of Cassie but obsessively so. Cassie had not been able to understand why. Whereas she was small and according to her mother really rather a plain girl, even in her teenage Leonora was stunning, a tall willowy blue-eyed blonde who, being the only daughter of one of the richest men in America, had everything a young woman needed, from an impeccable background to the pick of society’s eligible young men. Yet that had never stopped Leonora from always wanting more, particularly when it came to other people’s possessions, animate and inanimate. Even so, Cassie had always wondered what Leonora could possibly have wanted from her then. Later in life after she had met and married Tyrone she understood a little of the nature of Leonora’s obsessive jealousy, but at s
chool for a long time and thanks purely to Leonora’s machinations, she had no friends and spent most of her time with nobody speaking to her. It was only after the famous tennis final where she trounced Leonora that she achieved popularity with her peers. Cassie sometimes regretted ever having set up that tennis match, particularly now when it seemed that Leonora might have finally exacted the worst revenge possible.

  Had she not humiliated Leonora that day Cassie would never have had the courage to go to New York, which meant she would never have met Tyrone. She had only finally run away to escape from all the unhappiness she had encountered at home, culminating in the death of the woman she believed to be her grandmother but who was in fact her mother, and the discovery of her own illegitimacy. It did seem that all this had followed on as a direct consequence of her stay at Leonora’s home on Long Island where her so-called new friend had deliberately compromised her by having her discovered in her bedroom with their young stable groom, Dexter Bryant, the boy who had grown into the man who was now Cassie’s retained stable jockey.

  Yes, how different things would have been, Cassie repeated to herself as she put down her empty glass. Had I gone on ignoring Leonora’s hostility at school and not set up that tennis match, I wouldn’t have met and married Tyrone, I wouldn’t have met Dexter again and helped rescue him from alcoholism, I wouldn’t have two wonderful children and I’d never have won the Derby with The Nightingale, because if I hadn’t been so set on beating the oh-so-grand Leonora Von Wagner at tennis for the Academy’s Challenge Cup then The Nightingale would never have been.

  Cassie sat back in her chair and stared at the ceiling above her.

  If I hadn’t taken the stupid girl on The Nightingale would never have been, she repeated yet again to herself. There would never have been such a horse. So really rather than hating Leonora maybe I really ought to be grateful to her, because if it hadn’t been for her provoking me so much I might never have found this thing I have for winning. I might never have discovered my true self and instead might be locked into a safe but probably dull marriage with someone like Joe Harris, the boy I left behind when I ran off to New York. Hell – things might have worked out so differently. My mother might not have died the way she did, the night of the dance Joe was going to propose to me – at least I’m pretty certain he was – and if I’d accepted, maybe I would have married Joe, and instead of being here at Claremore I’d now be living in the smart part of Westboro with three or four grown-up kids, a moderately successful husband, two cars, a dog and wondering what on earth I’d done with my life? So maybe I ought to be down on my knees thanking you, Leonora, instead of suspecting you of doing the worst possible thing you could now do to me. Because without you I would not have had this life. Without you I would never have met Tyrone.

  But God almighty, you would have done! she suddenly said right out aloud, unmindful of the fact that she was now sitting by a dead fire in the pitch darkness. In fact, what am I saying? You did meet him before I did because Tyrone had been your mother’s lover! That’s when you fell in love with him, I’ll bet! And that’s why you felt you had first call – and why you went mad when he fell in love with me! And why you would never let go of him – and pretended you’d had an affair with him in the South of France – and that Mattie was really Tyrone’s illegitimate son – I mean long after Tyrone was dead for God’s sake you still hadn’t given up! Why you still tried to take Claremore from me by the wager you made me make on the Derby – and why now—’

  ‘Why now you have stolen my horse!’

  Cassie shouted the last sentence out loud, so great was the awakening of her rage. Then for a long time, a seemingly endless amount of time, she just sat enveloped in the dark of a moonless autumn night while she realized the depth of her enemy’s fury. For to Cassie there was now no other explanation, there was nothing else which could even begin to make sense. Having failed in every other way to destroy Cassie, Leonora had taken from her the one thing Cassie could not vouchsafe for herself and her family. She had taken away their future.

  As far away outside in the dark silent grounds of Claremore a night owl hooted a lonely call, Cassie rose and replacing the now only half-full decanter of brandy on the drinks table and slowly made her way upstairs to bed.

  Dimly somewhere she heard the telephone ring, somewhere out in the dark. But all she did was moan softly and turn away from the sound of it, burying her face in the softness of her pillow.

  Still it rang, again and again and again. Without turning she reached a hand out backwards and fumbled for the receiver. With a clatter it fell off its cradle and in and out of her hand.

  Picking it up blindly she somehow got it round to her mouth.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, after drawing a deep, long breath. ‘Yes, who in hell is this? Don’t you know what time it is, for God’s sake?’

  ‘It’s a quarter to seven,’ a voice said in her ear. ‘Don’t tell me it’s too early. I thought you trainers were always up with the sparrows.’

  Cassie looked slowly round her bedroom, trying her best to pull it into focus. Sure enough there were shafts of bright and early summer sunshine lighting up the edges of the windows and walls behind her heavy curtains.

  ‘OK,’ she said wearily, rolling onto her back and running the back of one hand across her forehead. ‘OK, so who is this?’

  ‘This is Joel Benson,’ the voice said, deep and measured. ‘You won’t remember.’

  ‘Joel Benson,’ Cassie repeated slowly, closing her eyes tight against the pain in her head. ‘Joel Benson. Yes. Yes I remember you. You’re the fellow with all the answers? Who came here to take photographs of—’ She stopped and drew another long, slow breath, but this time for a different reason. ‘You came here to take photographs,’ she finished.

  ‘Yes,’ the voice said. ‘You got me.’

  Cassie raised her head and looking down at herself saw to her horror that she was still fully dressed.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Mr Benson,’ she said, cupping the phone on her shoulder and sitting up to begin taking her clothes off. ‘You sure as hell were right about not having horses’ portraits done while they’re still racing. Oh boy, were you right.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ the voice agreed. ‘And while you may not believe this, I’ve been feeling pretty bad about that.’

  ‘I assure you – there is really no need.’

  ‘I haven’t been feeling guilty about telling you. I’ve been feeling terrible about the fact that I had begun my preliminary sketches …’ The voice fell to silence.

  ‘When the horse was stolen,’ Cassie prompted.

  ‘It’s no good. I can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Cassie cut in, screwing her eyes up even tighter against the increase in the pain of her headache. ‘Don’t even begin to think such things. As my husband used to say, there’s nothing so idle as a hypothesis. With the help of an if, he would say, you might put Ireland into a bottle.’

  ‘Yes? In that case I’ll try not to think it any more.’

  ‘Just tell me why you rang, Mr – Mr—’

  ‘Benson.’

  ‘Mr Benson, I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to be. You must have dozens of people like me crawling round your yard every day of the week.’

  ‘Not quite like you,’ Cassie said without thinking, then frowned as she wondered why she’d said it.

  ‘I’ve found out something,’ Joel continued after the briefest hesitation. ‘That’s what I’m ringing about. The man on the gate at Ascot?’

  ‘The man on the gate at Ascot,’ Cassie repeated slowly. ‘Which man, which gate?’

  ‘The man who checks the horses in and out of the stableblock.’

  ‘So what about him?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Joel replied. ‘Which wouldn’t mean a thing if he hadn’t committed suicide.’

  He waited for a moment before adding one word which suddenly got Cassie sitting bolt upright.

&nb
sp; ‘Apparently.’

  Eight

  He was waiting for her at the arrivals gate, dressed so it seemed to Cassie in the same old white tennis shirt and faded cord trousers that he’d worn on his visit to Claremore, the only visible difference in his appearance being the addition of a battered old panama hat in deference to the heat wave. Even the degree of beard stubble appeared to be the same.

  ‘Good flight?’ he enquired, throwing away a half-smoked Gauloise. ‘My car’s over here.’

  Before she had time to respond he ambled on ahead of her towards a filthy and battered car. It was so abused Cassie had no idea what sort of car it was but waited patiently while Joel cleared away the debris off the front passenger seat before she got in and sat down, hoping that the stains she had spotted on the upholstery were as ancient as the car. After several attempts to start the car the engine finally fired, and Joel drove them out of the airport rather too fast for Cassie’s liking.

  ‘You look as though you spend your life in this car.’

  ‘Cars are for driving, not washing. Now – this gate man. That’s why you’re here, after all.’

  In response to his glance Cassie nodded her agreement, although that was not the real reason she had flown over to England at the first possible opportunity. Naturally she was anxious to learn the latest developments concerning the theft of her horse but she could do that over the telephone or the fax. There was no real need for her to make a special journey just to hear out some near stranger’s latest conjecture based on information which anyhow would eventually come her way via the police. No, the reason she had come was because she could not bear to spend one more moment in her home. The place she loved most in the world had suddenly become like a prison to her and she needed to escape from it. Just for a few days she needed to flee from the pressures, the responsibilities and the memories and try to find the person who she feared might be becoming lost. Never in the whole of her life had she ever thought of drowning any of her sorrows, not through all the grief she had suffered losing her second baby, and not during the anguish of losing Tyrone. Yet the night before she had gone to bed having drunk well over half a bottle of brandy and the act had shamed her, so much so that even had Joel Benson not rung with his news she knew she would have found any excuse to run away, just for a few days.