The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Not in this case there won’t,’ Cassie had replied, handing him his race glasses and his racing hat. ‘Both owners this afternoon are ladies, and they will much prefer the charm of your company. So go on, off you go, and make sure you lead up at least one winner.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be wasting your time on me,’ Joel told her as she plied him with more strong coffee, sitting disconsolately opposite her across the dining table, propping his forehead up with both hands. ‘You have better things to do.’

  ‘Don’t you start feeling sorry for yourself again, Joel Benson, I’m warning you,’ Cassie returned. ‘You were the one who flung himself on my mercies, so don’t you go telling me now that I’m wasting my time. Even so, there’s only a limited amount that I can do, and I reckon we’re just about reaching that limit.’

  ‘Fine. And then what?’

  ‘Then what about AA?’ Cassie ventured cautiously and rightly so, for no sooner had she asked than Joel started shaking his head adamantly.

  ‘I’m not that far gone. I don’t need AA.’

  ‘Joel,’ Cassie said, summoning up her courage, ‘on all known form you’re an alcoholic. OK, so you’re not actually killing yourself yet, but you go on the way you are and sure as hell you will. You need help. Badly. You said so yourself, and no amount of self-delusion’s going to alter that fact. If you’re afraid of going to AA—’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ Joel interrupted sharply. ‘Afraid? Get out of here.’

  ‘OK – nervous then. If you’re at all nervous at the prospect, then all I was going to say is that I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Oh sure. Rather like the way a mother takes her kid to the dentist and then sits reading Country Life while the poor kid’s having its teeth pulled.’

  ‘Fine,’ Cassie said, getting up from the table. ‘I can’t make you do anything. You’re a grown man, you’re not my responsibility, so you have to decide for yourself what you want to do.’

  She walked out of the dining room, leaving Joel at the table. Tough love, she thought. I had to practise it on Mattie and Josephine whenever they were behaving badly and every time I did it worked. So let’s see whether or not it works on this particular juvenile.

  Five minutes later Joel wandered back into the library where Cassie was busy remaking the fire, hands in pockets with the end of a Gitane clamped between his teeth. He stood by the window looking out at the rainswept winter afternoon and finished his cigarette which he then threw on the fire.

  ‘I never told you about the horse, did I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Cassie agreed, having herself forgotten that the first given reason for his visit to Claremore had been to tell her his latest findings on The Nightingale’s kidnapping.

  ‘Go back to the day of his last race, the King George VI, OK?’

  Joel lit up another cigarette and for once Cassie envied him. ‘There were several foreign-trained horses running that day, remember? In the first race, the one your daughter rode in, and then in the King George itself.’

  ‘I remember. We went over that.’

  ‘We did. And we also agreed there was nothing unusual about the fact there were a number of foreign entries. That’s the state of the art. Nothing unusual until we get to the photograph they – whoever they might be – the one they sent to prove the horse was still alive. They held up a copy of the day’s newspaper. The Times, if you recall.’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘I had the photograph analysed. Deciphered, rather, by a mate on The Times itself. As I thought, every edition of the paper has an identity mark on it, in between the two horizontal lines on the top of the front page. The edition your horsenappers were holding up was a foreign one. European, to be precise.’

  ‘Do you know what part of Europe?’ Cassie asked with a quick glance at him.

  ‘Switzerland possibly. Probably, in fact. At least supposition will be fact by the time the paper’s computer’s done its job. The batch number, the edition and something to do with a sorting code or some such will establish the actual area of sale.’ Joel took another draw on his cigarette, watching the winter landscape slide by. ‘Has to be interesting, yes? The horse was obviously taken abroad. And there were five foreign-owned and trained horses entered up at Ascot that day. So I’d say that has to narrow the field.’

  Joel took a battered but expensive-looking old wallet from his inside pocket, fished out a small slip of paper and read out the first two names on a list of the owners of that fateful day’s foreign entries.

  ‘Both of them are above suspicion, I’d say, wouldn’t you? Hardly think either the Sheikh or his brother has an axe to grind. And they certainly don’t need the money, if money was ever at back of this. Of the three others – well, you tell me. Your starter for ten. Arnold Weinberger.’

  ‘Big art man, not very nice, changes trainers like I change my shoes, but nothing personal,’ Cassie said. ‘At least not known. Tyrone never trained for him, neither have I.’

  ‘Von Plunkett? Baron Carl Von Plunkett? He had a horse in both races.’

  ‘Don’t know him at all. By name only.’

  ‘Right. So just one green bottle left. Someone else with a horse in both races. Someone by the name of Brandt. Herr Rudi Brandt. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie said slowly, getting up and going to sit on the arm of the chair in which Joel had sat himself. ‘I used to train several horses for Herr Brandt. If it’s the same Herr Brandt, that is. Big gambler. Went to gaol for smuggling currency.’

  ‘You could hardly be blamed for that.’

  ‘I did buy back his best horse, at ten times what I’d paid for it when he commissioned me to buy him a string. But then that helped pay for his defence.’

  ‘Could hardly hold that against you either. Anything else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think there’s anything else really. Except Tomas, our old head lad. Tomas never liked Herr Brandt one bit. Brandt tried to pass himself off as Swiss, but Tomas fingered him for a German and lo and behold at the trial – wasn’t he proved right? Brandt was indeed a German – not that there was any shame in that, but what Brandt was busy trying to cover up was the fact that his father had been a somewhat notorious colonel in the Gestapo.’

  ‘Good. I mean, bad. But that’s good.’ Joel stretched a hand out to stub out his cigarette and when he did and Cassie saw how much it was shaking she was overcome by pity.

  ‘Let’s forget Mr Brandt for the moment, shall we?’ she asked gently. ‘And let’s talk about Mr Benson instead. You want to stop drinking, don’t you? And you can. Thousands do every year. It’s really not impossible.’

  ‘You can’t ever have seen Lost Weekend, Mrs Rosse.’

  ‘I saw Days of Wine and Roses. Now look, Joel, not twenty miles from here there is the very best rehab clinic in Ireland.’

  ‘I don’t need a clinic, Cassie,’ Joel said defensively. ‘I just need to go somewhere to dry out. It isn’t habitual, my drinking. Not like this. It just comes and goes. It’s come now because this is a bad time, that’s all, and if I could just shut myself away somewhere—’

  ‘You can’t do this on your own, Joel. People in your state, they need help to do it.’

  Joel shook his head. ‘I don’t. Once before, when it was this bad, I had my brother lock me in my studio and after a week, I was fine. Really. That’s all I need. Just somewhere to lock myself away.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, getting up from the arm of his chair, the very chair in which Tyrone and she both used to sit on just such winter afternoons, warm and snug while the rain swept down off the shrouded hills and the winds stirred up the piles of sodden leaves.

  ‘OK, if that’s really the case, then suppose we shut you away in the guest cottage and throw away the key for as long as you say?’

  Joel looked round at her with his deepest frown. ‘You sure?’

  ‘If you are,’ she replied. ‘We’ll bring you everything you need, but we won’t let you out until you’re well and truly r
eady to come out. Meaning dried out.’

  ‘Deal,’ Joel said, getting unsteadily to his feet. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

  * * *

  Joel had just taken a pile of books and magazines over to the guest cottage when Erin came into Cassie’s study and closed the door on them both.

  ‘I emptied the place as you probably noticed,’ she confided in her mistress. ‘I took away everything that might have just a drop of alcohol in it, his mouthwash, his aftershave, his cologne—’

  ‘I’m sure there was no need to go quite that far, Erin,’ Cassie interrupted.

  ‘Get away with you,’ Erin said with a sigh, crossing her arms over her ample bosom. ‘When they get to a certain stage they’ll drink anything. And while I was over there I burglar-locked all the windows and took away the key. He’s not going to take this lying down quietly reading the latest edition of House and Garden, believe me.’

  ‘Do you think we can handle it, Erin?’ Cassie asked, suddenly feeling doubtful.

  ‘Do you think he can handle it more’s the point, Mrs Rosse. Now then, Mr Mattie’s home and waiting for you in the drawing room to congratulate you on the double it seems you had this afternoon, so go off and celebrate, it’ll do you good instead of sitting there worrying. You leave Mr Benson to me. My sister’s a nurse in America at a big rehab clinic and she’s told me all about what they do. As long as he has the will for it, he’ll come through.’

  Cassie smiled at the freckle-faced Erin. Many was the time the poor woman had driven Cassie half mad with her dogmatism, and many was the time she had said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, but in the end somehow whenever it really mattered Erin always knew better than Cassie did where Cassie should be and exactly what she should be doing. Now she was smiling back at Cassie as if she was her daughter rather than her employer.

  ‘Go along with yous now, Mrs Rosse,’ she instructed. ‘I know all about this sort of business, it’s all right. Sure many’s the time we all had to pick our own father off the floor when he’d taken a few too many.’

  ‘Tomas? You’re not telling me your father had a problem drinking?’ Cassie stared in amazement at Erin, for she had idolized her old head lad whom she had inherited from Tyrone.

  ‘A problem drinking?’ Erin laughed. ‘No, he certainly had no problem drinking, Mrs Rosse. Me father’s problem was not drinking. Ah but then it wasn’t really his fault. He only ever succumbed when one of his blessed horses here didn’t win.’

  ‘So what are we meant to celebrate with?’ Mattie demanded to know, having found the drink cupboard securely locked up.

  ‘I can’t risk leaving drink around the place anywhere,’ Cassie reiterated, having already outlined the situation. ‘If Joel should break his word and somehow get out of the cottage—’

  ‘To hell with Joel,’ Mattie cut in. ‘Your first double for I don’t know how long and we’re expected to celebrate it with orange juice.’

  ‘We’ll go down to the village later,’ Cassie said. ‘When I’m sure Joel’s settled in for the night.’

  ‘You must be crazy.’ Mattie collapsed on a sofa and stuck his legs out in front of him. ‘Thinking you’re going to dry him out here. He should be locked up in some sanatorium rather than be allowed to run riot round our house.’

  ‘You’re being a little over-dramatic, Mattie,’ Cassie replied. ‘Joel’s not that sort of drinker. He’s not a hell-raiser or home-wrecker. He just has a bit of a problem that recurs now and then.’

  ‘And I just saw a pig fly past the window,’ Mattie snorted derisively. ‘A bit of a problem that recurs now and then – not.’

  ‘I don’t understand it when you talk like that,’ Cassie said with a frown. ‘What do you mean not?’

  ‘I mean you just wait and see, guv,’ Mattie replied. ‘You just wait till you see what your bit-of-a-problem man does to this place. And to your life.’

  ‘Now where are you off to?’ Cassie asked him as he turned and made for the door.

  ‘I’m going on down to the village. Are you coming or aren’t you? As I said, I’m in no mood to celebrate our first double for three months on fruit juice or Diet Coke. And don’t you think it might be a nice gesture if you went down to the yard and said well done to the team?’

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me how to run my yard, thank you, Mattie.’

  ‘Not everyone would agree with you there, guv’nor.’

  ‘Really? Interesting that now we’ve had some success it’s back to being our double again and not just your as in me on my own. Like it has been recently when things haven’t been going that well.’

  Mattie stopped by the door, turning to face his mother. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything about this now, because I didn’t really think it was the time,’ he began. ‘But since you seem dead set on a confrontation—’

  ‘Me dead set? Now just a minute, you just hold your fire for one minute, do you hear?’

  ‘No I won’t,’ Mattie returned, looking her right in the eye. ‘You know as well as I do that it hasn’t been working out between us very well recently—’

  ‘I don’t know what you can be talking about.’

  ‘Yes you do. Me being here. Me working just for you. I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while – and before you jump down my throat again, this isn’t just me. It’s Josephine as well.’

  ‘What is?’ Cassie asked in some amazement. ‘How can this be anything to do with Josephine? How do I know what anything can be to do with, because as I said – I don’t have even an idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘I’m talking about where I’m at, that’s what I’m talking about. And where I’m at isn’t being tied to your apron strings any more!’

  ‘No, not you,’ Cassie said quietly, her face suddenly creased with the pain of disappointment. ‘Not you, Mattie, not you as well.’

  ‘Not me as well as what, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Don’t you turn as well.’

  At her request she saw the look come into his eyes, the look he used to have when he was a small boy and he had known she was about to cry, a look half fear and half love, but adding up to total helplessness. She wanted to go and put her arms about him, just as she had always done when she saw him get that look, so that she could allay his fears and stem the tears she felt burning the back of her eyes, but even though she made no move she saw him stiffen as if ready to resist and in that moment she knew that he was lost to her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked as calmly as she could, after she had cleared her throat. ‘Is it a girl? Is it a job? What?’

  ‘Why should it be anyone? Or anything?’ Mattie protested, the rise in his voice giving away his guilt.

  Cassie took a deep inner breath and soldiered on. ‘Come on – there’s been something worrying you for quite some time now, so why don’t you tell me. The longer you carry it round in there, the more it’s going to rankle. What is it that isn’t just you but Josephine as well? I don’t understand, so please tell me what all this is about, and then maybe I will.’

  Mattie paused, dropping his eyes now from hers and staring first down at the floor then up above him as if he didn’t know from where he was going to get the strength. ‘Tom McMahon’s offered me a job,’ he said, still looking anywhere but at Cassie.

  There was a silence while Cassie digested what she thought she had just heard. ‘Tom McMahon –’ she began.

  ‘Tom McMahon’s offered me a job, OK?’

  ‘You mean – at least I take it you mean as an assistant? And if so, OK—’ she slowly agreed. ‘Fine. I don’t see any great problem there. In fact I think that might be a very sensible move.’

  ‘Not as his assistant,’ Mattie contradicted. ‘He’s offered to set me up on my own.’

  ‘On your own?’ Cassie echoed. ‘But that would mean you’d be in opposition to Claremore.’

  ‘Yes, I knew you’d think that,’ Mattie said, with a theatrical sigh. ‘I knew you’d take exactly that attitude.’r />
  ‘I’m not taking an attitude, Mattie. I’m stating a fact. If you’re going to train horses elsewhere you will be in direct opposition to Claremore. Period. And under the wing of Tom McMahon of all people!’

  ‘But you like Tom McMahon!’ Mattie protested.

  ‘You mean I did.’ Cassie pushed her way past him out of the room with no idea of where she was headed. All she knew was she had to get out. Mattie followed her at once, close behind.

  ‘Look – I can’t just stay here for the rest of my life,’ he protested, but having seen the look in his mother’s eyes now sounding distinctly worried. ‘It’s not right that I stay here and play second fiddle to you. It’s just not on. Josephine thinks—’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Josephine, have you?’

  ‘Of course I’ve been talking to Josephine. Someone’s got to talk to her, seeing that you don’t bother ringing her any more.’

  ‘I don’t bother ringing her? I ring her all the time – but all I ever get is her machine!’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ Mattie said. ‘The point is Josephine thinks—’

  ‘No – as far as this is concerned I don’t give a tuppenny damn what Josephine thinks!’ Cassie said, stopping in her tracks to turn and face her son, frightening him even more. ‘Can’t you see that just because Josephine’s got herself in a mess she wants to drag you down with her!’

  ‘Come on, Ma! That isn’t how it is at all!’

  ‘That’s how it is, Mattie, and that’s how she is, and that’s how everyone is and you have to accept that if you’re going to be a grown up! Everyone’s main priority is looking after number one and their second priority is to ruin it for everyone else!’

  Mattie stood there, looking at his mother with open astonishment, not having seen this side of her since he’d been a boy of ten and had disappeared for over half a day without telling anyone where he was going. ‘Ah, come on,’ he said more quietly. ‘Not everyone’s like that. Josephine certainly isn’t.’

  ‘Everyone is like that, Mattie,’ Cassie replied. ‘Everyone. Do you know what I overheard Josephine saying the other day? When you two were talking in the tack room? That I’d been very lucky.’