The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘What about his jockey?’ the interviewer asked, saving the best till last. ‘The one weakness according to the commentators and probably a lot of the punters is that The Nightingale is being ridden by a woman, by Josephine your daughter in fact. Who I’m sure is an excellent pilot – in fact I know full well she is because I saw her win the Diamond Stakes at Ascot last year. But riding a big strapping horse like The Nightingale in a race like the Champion Hurdle … If the horse has an Achilles tendon, could this be it, Cassie?’

  ‘No,’ Cassie was quite adamant. ‘Josephine has ridden the horse in every bit of his serious work and whereas I know many people are worried she won’t be able to hold a big horse like Nightie together in the heat of a fast-run race over hurdles, I say they can put those worries to bed. If the horse hadn’t shown his disdain for your sex, John, and I could have the choice of anyone to ride the horse, I’d still have put up Josephine.’

  ‘You think a woman really is strong enough for the game then? That what all the male jocks believe isn’t so? That a woman isn’t made to race ride, et cetera?’

  ‘Tell that to my fellow countrywoman Julie Krone. You’ve seen her ride. She can hold her own with any male jockey and she does’

  ‘And you think your daughter’s in that league, Cassie?’

  ‘Wait until after the race. Who knows? Without tempting Providence maybe the lady in question just might make a few of the questioning gentlemen in the weighing room eat their safety helmets’

  Thirty-Seven

  The heavens had opened by the time Cassie got to where Mattie was waiting for her back at the bottom of the track down which in six hours’ time the horses would be led out to do battle for the first race on the card.

  ‘I don’t know whether this is significant,’ he said, sheltering under Cassie’s large golfing umbrella and showing her the day’s edition of the Sporting Life. ‘Jump For Fun’s got a new owner.’

  Cassie took the paper and looked at the story tucked down at the bottom right hand corner of the front page and then at the photograph of the apparent new owner.

  ‘Miss Diane Danielle,’ she said, with a shake of her head. ‘Good luck to her. She’ll need it, if you remember. Jump For Fun’s that lunatic High Line chestnut who nearly knocked Glockamorra over at the second flight last year. We also watched a tape of his last run at Sandown in the Rendelsham, remember? Where his spectacular fall at the third practically decimated the field.’

  ‘She paid £45,000 for him,’ Mattie said.

  ‘Then they saw her coming. That’s one of the horses that really shouldn’t be running. Who did she buy it from?’

  ‘Some farmer in the West Country,’ Mattie said. ‘Must have thought it was Christmas.’

  ‘Just remind me to remind Josephine yet again to keep well away from it anyway,’ Cassie said, ‘If anything’s going to take us out, it’ll be that horse.’

  It was still pouring with rain when The Nightingale had his early morning stretch in front of possibly even more cameras than he’d ever faced before. But as always all the fuss failed to bother him. As Josephine in her wet weather riding out gear sat on him, pulling his ears and stroking his neck, he stood and posed as he always had posed, calmly and patiently as if he earned his oats as an equine model rather than as a racehorse. All the while he was having his pictures taken, however, Mattie and Deirdre were always close at hand to make sure no-one got any nearer than the stipulated fifteen yards’ distance, a measure marked by a length of white string Mattie had pegged to the ground. Then as soon as he thought the paparazzi had taken enough footage Mattie stood in front of his horse, thanked the press for their help and allowed Josephine to wheel the horse round and away up the track for his last spin before the race itself. As always the track had been perfectly prepared with a good cover of grass and in spite of the heavy rain the going was still perfect racing ground, off which The Nightingale flew as Josephine allowed him just enough rein to stride out comfortably without wasting any valuable energy. Then once she felt he had eased himself out of any early morning stiffness and warmed any aches he might have contracted on his travels out of his muscles Josephine slowed him up and walked him off the course to be met at the designated exit by Cassie, Deirdre and Mattie.

  ‘The others might as well stay in their boxes,’ Josephine said with a grin.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mattie said as Deirdre threw a sheet over the horse’s quarters. ‘There’s a useful bit of place money to be won.’

  ‘And there’s a two mile hurdle race to be run before you two go counting your chickens,’ Cassie reminded them.

  ‘What about this rain?’ Deirdre enquired. ‘I can’t remember – does he go in the soft?’

  ‘He goes in anything,’ Mattie replied. ‘But all the same we wouldn’t want too much of this. No one wants to race in a bog.’

  ‘First things first,’ Cassie said. ‘When we’ve got him in his stable, I’ll take the first watch with Deirdre, because I have to go and meet somebody at eleven.’

  * * *

  He was late but Cassie imagined it to be through no fault of his own. According to those to whom she had spoken while she was waiting the race traffic was already blocking the roads into the town, and taxis from the station were at a premium. As arranged Cassie had positioned herself to meet him at the easiest place on the course, just inside the main entrance from where early arrivals with their reserved entry shields swinging from their lapels and race glasses were already making their way into the grandstand and the members’ enclosures, while groups of journalists and photographers having picked up their passes stood around in groups waiting to spot any well-known names and faces getting out of the expensive machinery arriving in the car parks.

  The machinery in which Joel arrived was certainly not very expensive. It was a green and cream Citroën 2CV. Cassie saw the car from a distance, as soon as it left the main road and bumped its way up towards one of the unreserved car parks in which there was still plenty of room. Putting up her lightweight race glasses to have a better look, Cassie watched as Joel unwound himself out of the passenger seat, stretched, and then bent back down to say something to the driver who emerged from the other side a minute later.

  Before she took refuge under the umbrella Joel was holding for her, Cassie saw she was wearing a variation of the sort of clothes she had worn when Cassie and she had met by chance in Radford prison car park, a long black linen skirt and a baggy red jacket over a blue jumper and white undershirt, with another pair of clumpy black ankle boots and a large black floppy-brimmed hat trimmed with an oversize red paper rose pulled down over her mass of dark tangled hair. Perhaps not only because it was Cheltenham but also since it was his first full day as a free man Joel had chosen to wear a suit, a suit Cassie had never seen him in before, dark green and baggy with a dark blue shirt and yellow tie. He had of course no hat. Cassie doubted if he had ever had a hat other than his old but undoubtedly genuine Dodgers baseball cap, nor could she even begin to imagine him in one, whereupon from the back of the Citröen he produced a large black fedora which he pulled on over his shock of long hair. Cassie found herself smiling at the sight of the two of them, both very tall, long-haired and dressed in odd and colourful baggy clothes. Surrounded by all the incoming racegoers, most of them in variations of the traditional British racing colours of brown and green, they stood out as two apparently carefree individuals, happy with both how and who they were. Then as if to unite their individuality, they leaned towards each other under the umbrella as one and exchanged a kiss, a kiss brief enough not to embarrass any passer-by but long enough to indicate passion withheld.

  Seeing their embrace, Cassie instinctively stepped back as if she might be seen by them, which in fact was not possible since it was still pouring with rain, she was well hidden from their view by the fact that she was inside the entrance building and far enough away from them that she had to observe their actions through her race glasses. None the less such was the effect of witnessing this
moment of endearment that Cassie found herself looking away as well as lightly colouring, even though she had made sure to invite Joel’s new friend to the races when she had written back in reply to his letter. Dearest Joel, Cassie remembered writing as she folded her race glasses up and replaced them in her bag,

  Thank you for your honest and touching letter and yes – of course you are right. You have said what we both have been thinking, which I am sure we are both right in our different ways to think. We’ve always known what we had wasn’t really for keeps, however much for our very different reasons we might have wanted it to be. And what you have said so well was always there waiting to be said, but it was never said I suppose because really and in truth there seemed no real need to say it. It was there every time the two of us kissed, every time we made love. Each time we did, there was always goodbye somewhere there waiting to be said, if not this time then sometime soon, just as there was always that feeling that this might be the last time. I hope you find what you want with Polly – I’m sure you will. Now we’ve both got this far with each other’s help, you’re ready for what you want. Maybe you weren’t before, when you and I were together and maybe that was what was at the back of it. But now after everything that has happened to you, after all you have been through, I think you’ll find the love you want, need and deserve so very much. I shall certainly pray that you do, and I shall always think the same of you – that you are a wonderful, vibrant, original and highly determined person, and just as you say you won’t stop loving me nor will I ever stop loving you. Please God may we always still love each other as friends. I’m sure we will. That’s one of the good things about getting older. Everything doesn’t have to be so definitive. You can let the edges blur a little, leave a few emotional ends well and truly loose. What’s important now is that we both do the best for ourselves and for those we love, and that includes letting each other be when and where we want to be.

  ‘Mrs Rosse,’ a familiar voice said behind her. ‘Look, I must have kept you waiting, but the traffic is a nightmare.’

  ‘Joel,’ Cassie said, turning to him and smiling. ‘You haven’t kept me waiting one bit.’ She stood on tiptoes and kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Not one bit,’ she repeated and then carefully wiped the lipstick mark off his cheek with her handkerchief.

  ‘Thank you for your letter,’ Joel began, taking one of her hands. ‘I meant to write back but then as I knew I’d be seeing you again so soon—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Cassie said, stopping him by squeezing his hand. ‘You know the old motto, never complain, never explain. Your enemies won’t believe you and your friends already know. So where’s Polly?’

  ‘Just behind. I said I wanted to go on ahead just so that I could say hello, and well—’ Joel shrugged, for once giving a boyish grin instead of a puzzled frown. ‘You know.’

  ‘I know,’ Cassie said. ‘As a matter of fact I knew when I saw the head. The bust you were working on in Radford.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Joel said, frowning now.

  ‘You’re not a woman,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘She’s doing a book on euthanasia,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘I don’t think I told you that, did I?’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Oh. Anyway. She wrote and asked me if she could come and see me, and that’s how we became friends.’

  ‘She’s very beautiful.’

  ‘I don’t normally go for tall women.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. She suits you.’

  Joel looked at Cassie and shook his head. ‘At the risk of being corny, Mrs Rosse,’ he said, ‘you’re something other.’

  ‘Go and get Polly,’ Cassie said. ‘I like the name Polly. Although I suppose you’d rather she was called something like Brubeck or Ellington.’

  ‘Ellington would be a very nice girl’s name,’ Joel agreed. ‘Maybe if we have a daughter that’s what we’ll call her.’

  ‘Good,’ Cassie said crisply. ‘So now go and get Polly and while you’re at it, leave that frightful thing you’ve got on your head in the car.’

  The Race

  It was the worst race of Cassie’s entire career.

  ‘I have never been so nervous,’ she confessed to Theodore who had now arrived to join the party and was accompanying Cassie across the crowded thoroughfares towards the racecourse stables. ‘In all the races I’ve run the horse in, even in the English Derby, I’ve never been so utterly terrified.’

  ‘Yes, well, you had nothing to lose really, Cassie, when you ran in the Derby, now did you?’ Theodore asked her. ‘If you’d come second or third, he’d have been a good horse but not the great one he became. But the moment he won that race, then suddenly – all at once you were in charge of a superhorse.’

  ‘I know, Theodore, I know you’re absolutely right,’ Cassie agreed. ‘But that doesn’t make it any better. And as for poor Josephine. She was quite literally sick with nerves all night.’

  ‘So it would appear,’ Theodore replied, spotting the ashen-faced Josephine waiting for her mother by the security gate to the stables. ‘Mind you, I was always the same before a big match.’

  ‘I thought you were going to say before a big operation.’

  ‘No no,’ Theodore threw back his head and laughed with delight. ‘No, rugby matches were infinitely worse. When I won my first cap for Ireland I neither slept properly nor ate decently for a week. But as soon as I ran out onto the pitch, Dr Sport soon cured my ills. Let’s hope it will be the same for dear Josephine.’

  He stopped by the gate, knowing that he was unable to escort Cassie any further. Cassie showed the security guard her pass and then turned to Theodore to tell him where she would meet him. Instead she found herself briefly in his arms and almost off her feet as he kissed her good luck. ‘Now is the time to be Buddhist, Cassie dearest,’ he said to her, putting her back down on her feet. ‘From now on think of nothing else but the horse. I am the arrow. I fly to my target. Be your horse, and win the greatest race of your life.’ He smiled, raised his hand and was gone into the throng of racegoers queuing up in the still pouring rain outside the racecourse stables gate waiting to catch first sight of the horse which had become their totem.

  Liam was poised ready with Deirdre outside The Nightingale’s stable, Deirdre with a fresh bucket of water and sponge and Liam with Josephine’s saddle, number sheet, surcingle and girth which he handed to Cassie. As was often the case when The Nightingale ran, both Liam and Fred had travelled over with the horse as an extra precaution and as always Cassie was glad of his presence. Liam could sometimes be doleful and often downright lugubrious, but his greatest asset was his quiet strength and his inability ever to panic, qualities which Cassie needed more than ever in those around her that day. He was also good for Josephine, keeping her mind easy with his constant teasing, his observations and his banter, so much so that although he had to stand outside The Nightingale’s box as they got the horse ready, Cassie could see that his non-stop patter was finally relaxing Josephine.

  As for the horse himself, as always The Nightingale knew he was at the races, pushing both Cassie and Josephine aside with one nudge of his muzzle as soon as they came into his box so that he could stick his head back over the door and survey the opposition. At times like this he always reminded Cassie of a prize fighter before a big fight in the way he seemed to eye up every horse he got in his sight, staring at them fixedly and often pawing the ground with a forefoot at the same time. As Cassie pulled his stable sheet off his back the horse suddenly threw his head back, snorting contemptuously.

  ‘That was Butler’s Perk walking by,’ Liam called. ‘He obviously doesn’t give him much of a chance.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Cassie agreed. ‘Glockamorra’s the horse he has to beat. I saw him being unboxed and I have to tell you he looks awful well.’

  ‘So does Nightie,’ Josephine said, doing up the horse’s racing bridle. ‘In fact I think he looks about as good as he did when he won his first King George,
and that was the best I’ve ever seen him look.’

  ‘And I’d say he’s a little fat,’ Cassie said. ‘Let’s face it, in an ideal world he could have done with a proper race. But then I’d far rather see him carrying a little bit of condition than looking like a toast rack.’

  ‘We’re seven to four clear favourite,’ Mattie announced, arriving in front of the box, his appearance being greeted by The Nightingale’s laying his ears flat and pulling the worst face Cassie had ever seen him pull. Mattie, well used to the horse’s tricks, pulled an equally hideous face back which seemed to surprise The Nightingale who immediately repricked his ears and whinnied softly at his trainer.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Josephine, stroking the horse’s neck. ‘Don’t tell me we’re losing our inhibitions?’

  ‘That’s what I thought the other night when he’d got half his rug off,’ Mattie replied. ‘Fat chance. He wouldn’t even let me unbolt the door.’

  ‘Good,’ Josephine said. ‘We want him still to be angry. As long as he’s angry he’ll want to make mincemeat of the others, particularly since they’re all going to be ridden by men.’

  ‘Now that is something I hadn’t thought of,’ Cassie said, straightening up from doing up the horse’s monogrammed paddock sheet. ‘The nearer the other jockeys get to him, the more he’ll want to get away.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ Josephine said. ‘As long as he doesn’t try to get away sideways. What about the ground, Mattie?’

  ‘I have to say the way it’s rained it’ll be more like heavy than soft by the time they’re off,’ Mattie said. ‘But then it won’t bother Nightie half as much as it’ll bother some of the others. Remember how Dex said he went through it the last time he raced at Ascot? He said he just sluiced through the mud, so in a way, as long as it keeps raining and the sun doesn’t come out and start to make it sticky, I’m not that worried.’