The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  Mrs Rosse

  I can’t write letters. I can paint pictures, I can draw people, I can carve creatures great and small out of stone. I can play the drums, I can whistle through my fingers, I can walk on my hands, but I can’t write letters. If I tried to say what I want to say it would come out all wrong. Worse, you might not believe me. To me seeing is believing. See a person and you can see whether or not they lie or tell the truth. Even the telephone won’t really do because you cannot see what is going on at the other end. I need to see you. I can’t get over there, but you could come over here, if you need, want or even vaguely feel like seeing me (maybe just out of curiosity). It isn’t a good time, all round. I don’t like waiting for trial, but then this I brought on myself. I’m not sure I brought what has happened between us on myself but that I might be able to sort out if you would let me see you. Just once more. There is a perfectly good explanation (I can hear you saying ‘there always is’) but there is. But I’m not going to write anything down on paper. I know it will just sound like yet another excuse, rather than a valid explanation.

  Joel

  ‘This is the moment, Cassie Rosse,’ Cassie thought to herself after she had re-read the letter for a third time, ‘this is the moment when movie heroines turn to their best girlfriends to find out what to do. Or to their mother. Or maybe even to their daughter. But you don’t have anyone to turn to except yourself. And right now, as far as making value judgements go, you don’t even trust yourself.’

  What she did instead of rushing to a decision was put the letter back in the desk drawer once again so that she could consider her response calmly and logically considering this no time for either fury or passion. As Mattie would say she really needed to get her head round this one, because to her way of thinking once she had decided which way to go there would not be any turning back. Whatever she decided this time about Mr Joel Benson and herself was going to be for good and all, as Tyrone would have said. No more maybes, no more perhapses, no more just-this-onces. This time it was all or nothing.

  She felt better immediately she had come to that realization, as if making the actual decision was something that would take care of itself or be taken care of by someone else, perhaps even by something else such as an outside force. As far as Cassie was concerned she had finally made up her mind, namely that when she did make up her mind her decision really would be final.

  Then she took herself off to the office to put the finishing touches to Claremore Racing’s Cheltenham campaign. She might have only started the jumping side of things in order to keep her son’s interest, but such was Cassie’s determination, and now that she had not altogether unexpectedly produced some very likely candidates for National Hunt’s greatest racing festival, she was resolved not to come home empty-handed.

  ‘Well Loved is our best chance, guv’nor,’ Liam said to her one fine dry February morning as they sat on their hacks watching the Cheltenham bound horses thunder up the gallops. ‘Unbeaten in his three races now he is, and it’ll take something else to beat him in the Arkle.’

  ‘Agreed, although as we all well know there’s no such thing as a racing certainty.’

  ‘There wasn’t till Himself came along,’ Liam said, pointing to The Nightingale who was lobbing up the gallop easily keeping his place alongside the steeplechasers. ‘And now isn’t he going nicely?’

  ‘He’s certainly striding out,’ Cassie agreed. ‘He’s beginning to look his old self.’

  ‘Bridie says he’s beginning to feel his old self.’

  ‘You know the saying, Liam,’ Cassie remarked, swinging her hack round to head for the top of the gallops where the string was pulling up. ‘They don’t come back, right?’

  ‘With all the respect in the world, guv’nor,’ Liam replied, ‘they does not include The Nightingale.’

  Together they cantered across the top field, the sharp February wind stinging their cheeks and bringing water to their eyes.

  ‘So what’s the long term plan, guv’nor?’ Liam called over to Cassie. ‘Are you thinking of giving Himself a run come spring?’

  ‘Come on, Liam!’ Cassie called back. ‘You know as well as I do, there’s one heck of a way to go yet! At the moment my sights are on Cheltenham!’

  Cassie talked to the work riders about the performances of their various mounts as the string circled round, their hot breath hanging on the chill of the winter morning. Passing her, The Nightingale snorted his well-being and then gave himself a good hard shake under Bridie who laughed, nearly taken out of her seat by the vigour of the horse. Little Teddy Elliot who was riding the Triumph Hurdle hope Don’t Say That turned scarlet when Cassie pulled her hack alongside his horse to talk to him.

  ‘Now then, Teddy,’ she said, eyeing the muscular young bay horse beneath him, ‘what sort of feel did he give you?’

  ‘Sure and there’s no comparison between the harse he was last week, guv’nor, and the harse he is now,’ Teddy replied, staring up at the sky above him. ‘He’s like a great big curled up spring, he is. Ready to go soon as you press the button.’

  ‘He’s jumping his hurdles better too, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘The harse has a lep in him like a toad in a thunderstorm, guv’nor. Sure I just wish I was goin’ to be in the plate this time two week.’

  ‘It’s not an impossibility,’ Cassie replied. ‘The horse goes better for you than for anyone.’

  ‘Ah Jeez, guv’nor,’ Teddy gasped, looking at Cassie quickly for the first time. ‘I wouldn’t let him down if you gave me the chance. Nor you neither, ma’am.’

  ‘Then we’ll pencil you in, Teddy. I’m not promising, mind, but since it doesn’t look like I can get Christy Lynch or Terry McGuire there’s a good chance you can ride him. Now then, Jimmy—’ Cassie wheeled her horse round to go and talk to Sauce For The Goose’s work rider, who was having a bit of trouble keeping his charge at a walk. ‘He still won’t really settle, will he?’

  ‘No, guv’nor,’ Jimmy Kelly replied, bouncing in the saddle as his horse trotted on the spot. ‘If he does this at Cheltenham he’ll leave his race in the paddock.’

  ‘Let him lead tomorrow. Give him his head and let him bowl along up in the van. I think maybe I’ve been getting it wrong, trying to save him. Maybe he’s just one of those who’s happier making all. It’s worth a try anyway.’

  Jimmy Kelly topped his hat to Cassie in response as she swung round now to Bridie. Under her, The Nightingale stood as cool as could be, watching everything around and about him with a bright eye and his ears pricked.

  ‘Well?’ was all she asked.

  ‘It’s as if he hasn’t missed a day, guv’nor,’ Bridie laughed, and then patted her horse on his neck. ‘He could take them all going backwards.’

  As the string walked back across the top of the field to join the track which led to the yard, Cassie and Liam held back, intending to canter down the gallops and across the bottom fields once the string was safely out of sight.

  ‘Have you thought about who’d ride Nightie if we do decide to give him a run?’ Cassie wondered, watching the big black horse sauntering back under the relaxed hands of his beloved Bridie. ‘He’s not going to go for a man, you know.’

  ‘Ah now with the greatest respect, guv’nor,’ Liam replied. ‘Once he and Dex get reacquainted it’ll be an altogether different story.’

  ‘I doubt it, Liam,’ Cassie said, turning her horse to face back down the gallops. ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘So who’d you put up then? In the unlikelihood of that being the case?’

  ‘In the unlikelihood of him racing at all, Liam,’ Cassie replied, shortening her reins, ‘then I’d put up a girl.’

  As she cantered off before him Liam nearly fell off his horse, and not because he had been caught unawares. At least not as regards being ready to canter on he hadn’t.

  ‘You’d put a girl?’ he shouted across to Cassie as he ranged his horse up alongside hers. ‘You’d put a girl up on The Nightingale?’r />
  ‘You don’t pull faces whenever I ride him, Liam!’ Cassie called back. ‘And you’ve even come to terms with Bridie riding his work now!’

  ‘Ah but not on a racecourse, guv’nor! With the greatest respect in the world women were not put on this earth as jockeys!’

  ‘Oink oink, Liam!’ Cassie laughed. ‘I guess we’re man enough to have your babies, but not to ride your horses! At least not on the racecourse! Come on – race you to the bushes!’

  Even though theoretically she was on the slower horse, Cassie had got first break and she was still a good half length up by the time they galloped past the clump of rowan bushes in the bottom fields where they always pulled up.

  ‘You’ve certainly lost none of your old ways, guv’nor!’ Liam laughed, pulling his horse back down to a trot. ‘You’re as neatly balanced as a pair of scales!’

  ‘Thanks, Liam,’ Cassie returned with a grin. ‘Getting a compliment out of you as far as riding goes sure is something.’

  ‘Not at all, guv’nor,’ Liam said as they dropped to a walk. ‘But to be serious now—’

  ‘You mean you weren’t being serious then?’ Cassie teased.

  ‘Sure of course I was. What I want to be serious about is what you said up there. About putting a girl up on Himself.’

  ‘Think about it, Liam. If Dex can’t stay on, and if we do race the horse, then only a girl will do.’

  ‘Ah well ’tis no wonder the bookies are quoting what they are about him running again, let alone winning,’ Liam said in disgust. ‘For if that sort of rumour’s already in the air—’

  ‘Wait a minute, Liam,’ Cassie said, turning half round in her saddle to look at him. ‘I know the bookies will lay odds on most anything – but Nightie running again? And winning? What sort of odds are they quoting?’

  ‘When Himself was first returned here yous could get what yous wanted about him ever racing again,’ Liam replied. ‘Some of the lads who’d never stop believing in him even if the old horse was pushing up the daisies which God forbid, they waded in at sixty-six to one and sure didn’t that wipe the price off the boards overnight? Best ye can get about him racing now is two to one against, although there’s still plenty of ten and twelve to one about him winning again. Didn’t Jimmy Kelly get thirty-three to one about him winning first time out?’

  ‘Thirty-three to one?’ Cassie echoed. ‘Is this generally available?’

  ‘It was last week, guv’nor. But if they had the spies out this morning, even though the old fella was only hacking up, they mightn’t be quite so generous any more.’

  Cassie walked her horse on in silence across the wet fields before popping him over the hedge bordering the empty home paddocks. When Liam had done the same and once more caught up with her, Cassie half turned again in her saddle to address him. ‘How do you think the horse has come on, Liam?’

  ‘Ach it’s impossible to tell, guv’nor, until he’s had a couple of really decent gallops. Sure you know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Yes I do. But I also know as well as you do what your eye tells you. About the horse’s condition, about his attitude, about his fitness.’

  ‘If I hadn’t known the history—’ Liam stopped and shook his head once.

  ‘If you hadn’t known the history?’

  ‘I’d say he’d be cherry ripe be the middle of April.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’ Cassie turned away and walked her horse on once again in silence, musing on the various possibilities. ‘OK,’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s get real.’

  ‘Let’s get real indeed!’ Liam laughed. ‘I’ve never known ye to get otherwise, guv’nor!’

  ‘The main problem is to get the horse race-fit without the world and his wife finding out.’

  ‘And his bookmaker,’ Liam added.

  ‘And particularly his bookmaker,’ Cassie agreed. ‘But say we managed that – and don’t ask me how yet, we’ll work out the details later. What would we run him in? If we run him in a stakes we’ll get no price, will we?’

  Liam eyed her. ‘You’re thinking of having a touch, are ye?’

  ‘We’ll get the odds ante post, of course. At least a proportion of the odds you say are on offer at the moment,’ Cassie continued, ignoring Liam’s observation. ‘But as soon as any sizeable bet’s down, or as soon as we attempt to get a sizeable bet down, they’ll wipe the board.’

  ‘If any real money goes down on the horse, guv’nor, ye’ll be lucky to find a bookie to give you a slip.’

  ‘Then we’re going to have to help ourselves quietly to what’s on offer now, Liam,’ Cassie said, ‘and then wade in on the day at SP.’

  ‘At starting price? Ah well you’re talking of a coup now, guv’nor, aren’t ye?’

  They were nearing the stable blocks now, so Cassie reined back to a halt and pulled her horse across the front of Liam’s.

  ‘I’m not talking at all, Liam, understand?’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘We’ve been talking nothing but Cheltenham and Nightie hasn’t been mentioned once.’

  ‘Of course he hasn’t, guv’nor. Divil the once.’

  ‘But just suppose we do find him a race, Liam, and particularly with a girl up—’

  ‘Ach now, guv’nor—’

  ‘Think about it, Liam. Think of the odds. A girl up on The Nightingale? Particularly someone as untried as Bridie.’

  ‘Guv’nor—’

  ‘Think of the odds, Liam,’ Cassie persisted. ‘With Dexter Gordon up the horse will have winner stamped all over him. But with Bridie Moore up—’

  ‘Ah yes, with Bridie Moore up—’

  ‘And maybe even in a handicap?’

  ‘A handicap?’

  ‘Forgive the blasphemy – or is it sacrilege, Liam?’ Cassie laughed. ‘Whatever – if we entered him up in a handicap, with an untried female jock – listen. If he’s back to even two stone of his former self, let alone a stone, Nightie could win a handicap even with top weight which he’d be sure to get.’

  ‘And an inexperienced woman rider?’

  ‘He could win with the parish priest riding him, Liam. You yourself know that particularly in that sort of company, The Nightingale is a steering job. But first things first. First we have to start really checking on his fitness, then we pick up some ante post vouchers about him racing again, then some about him winning again. And if we want this to come off, then you and I forget we ever had this conversation, OK?’

  ‘I never heard a word that we said,’ Liam agreed. ‘Divil the word.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ Cassie laughed. ‘Divil the word.’

  Both of them walked their horses on in silence to the yard, both of them imagining how they might best pull off the proposed coup and what they both might make out of it, Liam wondering how best to spread the three hundred pounds he always had stashed away in his mattress ready for a good touch, and Cassie how she could invest her only available five thousand pounds to make the best part of a million and a quarter.

  Twenty-Two

  Finally Cassie wrote to Joel.

  Dear Joel

  I’m sorry for the delay in writing back to you but things have been a little fraught this end for reasons I won’t go into now. Nothing to do with The Nightingale who continues to astonish us all by his recovery to what seems like full strength. Time will tell, however, and we still haven’t decided where to go with him next. Maybe I’ll just keep him as a hack!

  Anyway, I don’t wish to burden you with my worries when you have quite enough of your own on your plate (although from what I read in the papers it seems you’re more likely to be charged with encouraging a suicide, because your father asked for a drug and you helped him procure it, rather than murder or manslaughter. And even if they do try you for murder or manslaughter informed opinion says because of precedent you’ll walk away. I know this won’t remove your anxieties, but it surely must relieve them?) – anyway as I was saying, there have been a few things amiss here which have kept me occupied which is why I am so late
in replying to your letter.

  Of course I will come and see you. The trouble is I’m not quite sure when. We’re running up to Cheltenham now, as no doubt you realize, and what with one thing and the other – and there’s plenty of ‘other’, take my word for it – I can’t see myself finding a day free to fly over before the week of the Festival itself. But I can’t really wait that long to hear what you have to say, just as I’m sure you can’t wait that long to say it. Can’t you really write it to me in a letter? Now that time has passed, all I really want to know is what L. was doing in your studio and why you couldn’t tell me on the phone when I asked. You can’t blame me for being suspicious and/or jealous or whatever. L. has set out on more than one occasion deliberately to try to wreck some part of my life. So when she now starts cropping up not only in my life but in yours what am I supposed to think? You see, what I find difficult is knowing what to believe. So many things with you seem to be a contradiction, or seem at least to be contradicted by a later turn in events. You say you had a reason for L. to be in your studio, and that the things I overheard are easily explicable, so surely you could just write these reasons in a letter? It can’t really be that hard to understand, or, if it is, then maybe we’ll have come to the end of this particular road.

  Is that what you’re afraid of? I am. So much has now happened between us and we seem to have got so involved with one another that I know I don’t want it to end, believe me. But since we can’t yet meet up, something has to be put down on paper. I just don’t understand why you got so incredibly hostile when I asked you on the telephone what L. was doing seeing you that night, and why she had to come to your club to do so. So since you couldn’t or rather wouldn’t explain, not unnaturally I jumped to some sort of conclusion and it wasn’t very favourable to you. Of course I know that I don’t ‘own’ you. That you have a life quite separate from mine and the right to see whomsoever you choose. And sure, I’m paranoid about L. Who wouldn’t be? She’s capable of anything.