Banker

by Dick Francis

  ‘Very much,’ I said.

  ‘Come along, then.’ He led the way to a door at the back of the house, collecting an overcoat and a black retriever from a mud room on the way. ‘Go on then, Squibs, old fellow,’ he said, fondly watching his dog squeeze ecstatically through the opening outside door. ‘Breath of fresh air won’t hurt you.’

  We walked across to the stable arch with Squibs circling and zig-zagging nose-down to the gravel.

  ‘It’s our quietest time of year, of course,’ Oliver Knowles said. ‘We have our own mares here, of course, and quite a few at livery.’ He looked at my face to see if I understood and decided to explain anyway. ‘They belong to people who own broodmares but have nowhere of their own to keep them. They pay us to board them.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then we have the foals born to the mares this past spring and of course the three stallions. Total of seventy-eight at the moment.’

  ‘And next spring,’ I said, ‘the mares coming to your stallions will arrive?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded. ‘They come here a month or five weeks before they’re due to give birth to the foals they are already carrying, so as to be near the stallion within the month following. They have to foal here, because the foals would be too delicate straight after birth to travel.’

  ‘And… how long do they stay here?’

  ‘About three months altogether, by which time we hope the mare is safely in foal again.’

  ‘There isn’t much pause then,’ I said. ‘Between… er… pregnancies?’

  He glanced at me with civil amusement. ‘Mares come into use nine days after foaling, but normally we would think this a bit too soon for breeding. The oestrus – heat you would call it – lasts six days, then there’s an interval of fifteen days, then the mare comes into use again for six days, and this time we breed her. Mind you,’ he added, ‘Nature being what it is, this cycle doesn’t work to the minute. In some mares the oestrus will last only two days, in some as much as eleven. We try to have the mare covered two or three times while she’s in heat, for the best chance of getting her in foal. A great deal depends on the stud groom’s judgement, and I’ve a great chap just now, he has a great feel for mares, a sixth sense, you might say.’

  He led me briskly across the first big oblong yard where long dark equine heads peered inquisitively from over half-open stable doors, and through a passage on the far side which led to a second yard of almost the same size but whose doors were fully shut.

  ‘None of these boxes is occupied at the moment,’ he said, waving a hand around. ‘We have to have the capacity, though, for when the mares come.’

  Beyond the second yard lay a third, a good deal smaller and again with closed doors.

  ‘Foaling boxes,’ Oliver Knowles explained. ‘All empty now, of course.’

  The black dog trotted ahead of us, knowing the way. Beyond the foaling boxes lay a wide path between two small paddocks of about half an acre each, and at the end of the path, to the left, rose a fair sized barn with a row of windows just below its roof.

  ‘Breeding shed,’ Oliver Knowles said economically, producing a heavy key ring from his trouser pocket and unlocking a door set into a large roll-aside entrance. He gestured to me to go in, and I found myself in a bare concrete-floored expanse surrounded by white walls topped with the high windows, through which the dying sun wanly shone.

  ‘During the season of course the floor in here is covered with peat,’ he said.

  I nodded vaguely and thought of life being generated purposefully in that quiet place, and we returned prosaically to the outer world with Oliver Knowles locking the door again behind us.

  Along another short path between two more small paddocks we came to another small stable yard, this time of only six boxes, with feed room, tack room, hay and peat storage alongside.

  ‘Stallions,’ Oliver Knowles said.

  Three heads almost immediately appeared over the half-doors, three sets of dark liquid eyes turning inquisitively our way.

  ‘Rotaboy,’ my host said, walking to the first head and producing a carrot unexpectedly. The black mobile lips whiffled over the outstretched palm and sucked the goodie in: strong teeth crunched a few times and Rotaboy nudged Oliver Knowles for a second helping. Oliver Knowles produced another carrot, held it out as before, and briefly patted the horse’s neck.

  ‘He’ll be twenty next year,’ he said. ‘Getting old, eh, old fella?’

  He walked along to the next box and repeated the carrot routine. ‘This one is Diarist, rising sixteen.’

  By the third box he said, ‘This is Parakeet,’ and delivered the treats and the pat. ‘Parakeet turns twelve on January 1st.’

  He stood a little away from the horse so that he could see all three heads at once and said, ‘Rotaboy has been an outstanding stallion and still is, but one can’t realistically expect more than another one or two seasons. Diarist is successful, with large numbers of winners among his progeny, but none of them absolutely top rank like those of Rotaboy. Parakeet hasn’t proved as successful as I’d hoped. He turns out to breed better stayers than sprinters, and the world is mad nowadays for very fast two-year-olds. Parakeet’s progeny tend to be better at three, four, five and six. Some of his first crops are now steeplechasing and jumping pretty well.’

  ‘Isn’t that good?’ I asked, frowning, since he spoke with no great joy.

  ‘I’ve had to reduce his fee,’ he said. ‘People won’t send their top flat-racing mares to a stallion who breeds jumpers.’

  ‘Oh.’

  After a pause he said ‘You can see why I need new blood here. Rotaboy is old, Diarist is middle rank, Parakeet is unfashionable. I will soon have to replace Rotaboy, and I must be sure I replace him with something of at least equal quality. The prestige of a stud farm, quite apart from its income, depends on the drawing-power of its stallions.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, I see.’

  Rotaboy, Diarist and Parakeet lost interest in the conversation and hope in the matter of carrots, and one by one withdrew into the boxes. The black retriever trotted around smelling unimaginable scents and Oliver Knowles began to walk me back towards the house.

  ‘On the bigger stud farms,’ he said, ‘you’ll find stallions which are owned by syndicates.’

  ‘Forty shares?’ I suggested.

  He gave me a brief smile. ‘That’s right. Stallions are owned by any number of people between one and forty. When I first acquired Rotaboy it was in partnership with five others. I bought two of them out – they needed the money – so now I own half. This means I have twenty nominations each year, and I have ‘no trouble in selling all of them, which is most satisfactory.’ He looked at me enquiringly to make sure I understood, which, thanks to Ursula Young, I did.

  ‘I own Diarist outright. He was as expensive in the first place as Rotaboy, and as he’s middle rank, so is the fee I can get for him. I don’t always succeed in filling his forty places, and when that occurs I breed him to my own mares, and sell the resulting foals as yearlings.’

  Fascinated, I nodded again.

  ‘With Parakeet it’s much the same. For the last three years I haven’t been able to charge the fee I did to begin with, and if I fill his last places these days it’s with mares from people who prefer steeplechasing, and this is increasingly destructive of his flat-racing image.’

  We retraced our steps past the breeding shed and across the foaling yard.

  ‘This place is expensive to run,’ he said objectively. ‘It makes a profit and I live comfortably, but I’m not getting any further. I have the capacity here for another stallion – enough accommodation, that is to say, for the extra forty mares. I have a good business sense and excellent health, and I feel underex-tended. If I am ever to achieve more I must have more capital… and capital in the shape of a world-class stallion.’

  ‘Which brings us,’ I said, ‘to Sandcastle.’

  He nodded. ‘If I acquired a horse like Sandcastle this stud would im
mediately be more widely known and more highly regarded.’

  Understatement, I thought. The effect would be galvanic. ‘A sort of overnight stardom?’ I said.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he agreed with a satisfied smile. ‘I’d say you might be right.’

  The big yard nearest the house had come moderately to life, with two or three lads moving about carrying feed scoops, hay nets, buckets of water and sacks of muck. Squibs with madly wagging tail went in a straight line towards a stocky man who bent to fondle his black ears.

  ‘That’s Nigel, my stud groom,’ Oliver Knowles said. ‘Come and meet him.’ And as we walked across he added, ‘If I can expand this place I’ll up-rate him to stud manager; give him more standing with the customers.’

  We reached Nigel, who was of about my own age with crinkly light-brown hair and noticeably bushy eyebrows. Oliver Knowles introduced me merely as ‘a friend’ and Nigel treated me with casual courtesy but not as the possible source of future fortune. He had a Gloucestershire accent but not pronounced, and I would have placed him as a farmer’s son, if I’d had to.

  ‘Any problems?’ Oliver Knowles asked him, and Nigel shook his head.

  ‘Nothing except that Floating mare with the discharge.’

  His manner to his employer was confident and without anxiety but at the same time diffident, and I had a strong impression that it was Nigel’s personality which suited Oliver Knowles as much as any skill he might have with mares. Oliver Knowles was not a man, I judged, to surround himself with awkward, unpredictable characters: the behaviour of everyone around him had to be as tidy as his place.

  I wondered idly about the wife who had ‘just buggered off with a Canadian’, and at that moment a horse trotted into the yard with a young woman aboard. A girl, I amended, as she kicked her feet from the stirrups and slid to the ground. A noticeably curved young girl in jeans and heavy sweater with her dark hair tied in a pony tail. She led her horse into one of the boxes and presently emerged carrying the saddle and bridle, which she dumped on the ground outside the box before closing the bottom half of the door and crossing the yard to join us.

  ‘My daughter,’ Oliver Knowles said.

  ‘Ginnie,’ added the girl, holding out a polite brown hand. ‘Are you the reason we didn’t go out to lunch?’

  Her father gave an instinctive repressing movement and-Nigel looked only fairly interested.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ she said. ‘Pa really doesn’t like parties. He uses any old excuse to get out of them, don’t you Pa?’

  He gave her an indulgent smile while looking as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘I didn’t mind missing it,’ Ginnie said to me, anxious not to embarrass. ‘Twelve miles away and people all Pa’s age… but they do have frightfully good canapés, and also a lemon tree growing in their greenhouse. Did you know that a lemon tree has everything all at once – buds, flowers, little green knobbly fruit and big fat lemons, all going on all the time?’

  ‘My daughter,’ Oliver Knowles said unnecessarily, ‘talks a lot.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know about lemon trees.’

  She gave me an impish smile and I wondered if she was even younger than I’d first thought: and as if by telepathy she said, ‘I’m fifteen.’

  ‘Everyone has to go through it,’ I said.

  Her eyes widened. ‘Did you hate it?’

  I nodded. ‘Spots, insecurity, a new body you’re not yet comfortable in, self-consciousness… terrible.’

  Oliver Knowles looked surprised. ‘Ginnie isn’t self-conscious, are you, Ginnie?’

  She looked from him to me and back again and didn’t answer. Oliver Knowles dismissed the subject as of no importance anyway and said he ought to walk along and see the mare with the discharge. Would I care to go with him?

  I agreed without reservation and we all set off along one of the paths between the white-railed paddocks, Oliver Knowles and myself in front, Nigel and Ginnie following, Squibs sniffing at every fencing post and marking his territory. In between Oliver Knowles explaining that some mares preferred living out of doors permanently, others would go inside if it snowed, others went in at nights, others lived mostly in the boxes, I could hear Ginnie telling Nigel that school this term was a dreadful drag owing to the new headmistress being a health fiend and making them all do jogging.

  ‘How do you know what mares prefer?’ I asked.

  Oliver Knowles looked for the first time nonplussed.‘Er…’ he said. ‘I suppose… by the way they stand. If they feel cold and miserable they put their tails to the wind and look hunched. Some horses never do that, even in a blizzard. If they’re obviously unhappy we bring them in. Otherwise they stay out. Same with the foals.’ He paused. ‘A lot of mares are miserable if you keep them inside. It’s just… how they are.’

  He seemed dissatisfied with the loose ends of his answer, but I found them reassuring. The one thing he had seemed to me to lack had been any emotional contact with the creatures he bred: even the carrots for the stallions had been slightly mechanical.

  The mare with the discharge proved to be in one of the paddocks at the boundary of the farm, and while Oliver Knowles and Nigel peered at her rump end and made obscure remarks like ‘With any luck she won’t slip,’ and ‘It’s clear enough, nothing yellow or bloody,’ I spent my time looking past the last set of white rails to the hedge and fields beyond.

  The contrast from the Knowles land was dramatic. Instead of extreme tidiness, a haphazard disorder. Instead of short green grass in well-tended rectangles, long unkempt brownish stalks straggling through an army of drying thistles. Instead of rectangular brick-built stable yards, a ramshackle collection of wooden boxes, light grey from old creosote and with tarpaulins tied over patches of roof.

  Ginnie followed my gaze. ‘That’s the Watcherleys’ place,’ she said. ‘I used to go over there a lot but they’re so grimy and gloomy these days, not a laugh in sight. And all the patients have gone, practically, and they don’t even have the chimpanzees any more, they say they can’t afford them.’

  ‘What patients?’ I said.

  ‘Horse patients. It’s the Watcherleys’ hospital for sick horses. Haven’t you ever heard of it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s pretty well known,’ Ginnie said. ‘Or at least it was until that razzamatazz man Calder Jackson stole the show. Mind you, the Watcherleys were no great shakes, I suppose, with Bob off to the boozer at all hours and Maggie sweating her guts out carrying muck sacks, but at least they used to be fun. The place was cosy, you know, even if bits of the boxes were falling off their hinges and weeds were growing everywhere, and all the horses went home blooming, or most of them, even if Maggie had her knees through her jeans and wore the same jersey for weeks and weeks on end. But Calder Jackson, you see, is the in thing, with all those chat shows on television and the publicity and such, and the Watcherleys have sort of got elbowed out.’

  Her father, listening to the last of these remarks, added his own view. ‘They’re disorganised,’ he said. ‘No business sense. People liked their gypsy style for a while, but, as Ginnie says, they’ve no answer to Calder Jackson.’

  ‘How old are they?’ I asked, frowning.

  Oliver Knowles shrugged. ‘Thirties. Going on forty. Hard to say.’

  ‘I suppose they don’t have a son of about sixteen, thin and intense, who hates Calder Jackson obsessively for ruining his parents’ business?’

  ‘What an extraordinary question,’ said Oliver Knowles, and Ginnie shook her head. ‘They’ve never had any children,’ she said. ‘Maggie can’t. She told me. They just lavish all that love on animals. It’s really grotty, what’s happening to them.’

  It would have been so neat, I thought, if Calder Jackson’s would-be assassin had been a Watcherley son. Too neat, perhaps. But perhaps also there were others like the Watch-erleys whose star had descended as Calder Jackson’s rose. I said, ‘Do
you know of any other places, apart from this one and Calder Jackson’s, where people send their sick horses?’

  ‘I expect there are some,’ Ginnie said. ‘Bound to be.’

  ‘Sure to be,’ said Oliver Knowles, nodding. ‘But of course we don’t send away any horse which falls ill here. I have an excellent vet, great with mares, comes day or night in emergencies.’

  We made the return journey, Oliver Knowles pointing out to me various mares and foals of interest and distributing carrots to any head within armshot. Foals at foot, foals in utero; the fertility cycle swelling again to fruition through the quiet winter, life growing steadily in the dark.

  Ginnie went off to see to the horse she’d been riding and Nigel to finish his inspections in the main yard, leaving Oliver Knowles, the dog and myself to go into the house. Squibs, poor fellow, got no further than his basket in the mud room, but Knowles and I returned to the sitting room-office from which we’d started.

  Thanks to my telephone calls of the morning I knew what the acquisition and management of Sandcastle would mean in the matter of taxation, and I’d also gone armed with sets of figures to cover the interest payable should the loan be approved. I found that I needed my knowledge not to instruct but to converse: Oliver Knowles was there before me.

  ‘I’ve done this often, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to arrange finance for buildings, for fencing, for buying the three stallions you saw, and for another two before them. I’m used to repaying fairly substantial bank loans. This new venture is of course huge by comparison, but if I didn’t feel it was within my scope I assure you I shouldn’t be contemplating it.’ He gave me a brief charming smile. ‘I’m not a nut case, you know. I really do know my business.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘One can see.’

  I told him that the maximum length of an Ekaterin loan (if one was forthcoming at all) would be five years, to which he merely nodded.