by A. P. McCoy
‘How about that! With no effort on my part!’
‘What was that?’ Millichip replied, angry.
Duncan stopped walking. From behind his saddle he said, ‘You should never disappoint a horse. Did you know that?’
Millichip turned to his trainer. ‘What the hell is he on about?’
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ Duncan said. ‘Did you realise you were breaking one of the rules of horse racing?’
‘What?’
‘You and Billy here. You’re both wearing fedoras at the same time. You can’t do that. Only one of you can wear a fedora. The other has to wear a flat cap or something.’
‘What?’
‘I mean, did you ever see Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin both wearing a fedora together? No. It looks wrong.’
Millichip stared back at him. Billy, chewing on his lip, squinted even harder and looked away again. Duncan hitched his saddle up. ‘I’ve got to get weighed in, so’s you can claim your prize money.’
They didn’t follow him, but after a moment Duncan heard Millichip shout, ‘That’s your lot. That’s the last ride you’ll have for me.’
Duncan weighed in and started to strip off his sweat-soaked silks. As he was about to go into the shower, he got a message from his valet that another trainer, a man called Petie Quinn, wanted an urgent word.
Hair still wet and gleaming from the shower, he found Quinn waiting outside the Weighing Room. He was a stocky Irishman with a bullet head of close-cropped silver hair. He was a bruiser, but well-respected, if only middle-ranking. He pretty much kept himself to himself.
Quinn stepped up to Duncan, but from the side, as if he preferred to stand shoulder to shoulder. ‘I saw how you rode that seller. Will you ride in the last race for me?’ he asked.
‘What’s going on?’
Quinn looked round like there might be an enemy listening. ‘I’m running Brighton Taxi in the last and she’s good for a place at least, but my idiot jockey has broken his wrist.’ He linked his arm through Duncan’s and muscled him away from some eavesdroppers in the corridor. ‘We’re telling everyone he slipped in the shower, but the fuckin’ idjit was making an early weigh and he dumped himself off the scales.’
‘He did what?’
‘Will you ride for me or not?’
‘You’re joking! He’s riding steeplechasers and he fell off a weighing machine?’
‘Yes or no?’
‘You’ve got it.’
Quinn’s big face broke into a huge grin. The skin crinkled around his eyes and he offered Duncan a shovel of a hand to shake. ‘You do this favour for me and there’ll be more rides for you. Plenty more rides.’
‘One thing,’ Duncan said. ‘You’ll have to tell George Millichip.’
‘What? He doesn’t have you exclusively.’
‘No, you don’t need his permission. Let’s say it’s a courtesy. Don’t discuss it with him. Just let him know.’
Quinn shrugged. ‘I’ll find him in the owners’ and trainers’ bar and tell him right away. See you in the paddock.’
So it was one contact lost and another made. No change there then. But it did feel good to be driving out of the reserved car park in the sunflower Lamborghini with Lorna tipped back in the passenger seat as he toed the accelerator. The Lamborghini gargled fuel as he crept out of the gate, getting him attention he could take or leave. He’d made his mark on the card today.
‘A first and a second,’ Lorna said. ‘Are you pleased?’
‘It’ll do nicely. I came here only expecting to get round on the first one.’
‘What’s it like to ride a winner?’
He looked at her as he edged out of the racetrack grounds and on to the high road. Her eyes were wide and she darted her tongue to moisten her lips. She wanted an answer to the question no one could ever really answer; the question posed by every lazy journalist who shoved a microphone or a notebook in your face. How does it feel? She was a beautiful and naive young thing; it didn’t seem right or fair that he was going to have to hurt her just to get revenge on her father. He glanced at her again. Her hair was long and wavy and nut-brown, with natural red highlights; her skin was pale, but her lips were the same rosebud pink that appeared in her cheeks. Her hazel-brown eyes had a delicious sparkle, impossible not to see as an invitation.
He’d pushed Brighton Taxi with hands and heels to an easy victory. All Quinn had said to him in the paddock was to keep him near the front, then give her a squeeze when he felt the time was right. He liked that: a trainer who trusted a jockey to do the job. And it was the horse itself who’d told him when she wanted to go. Duncan had whispered go on, then and had given her the squeeze, and it was enough to run out an easy winner. Quinn had been overjoyed and had hugged him like a bear in the winners’ enclosure – this man he’d only met an hour earlier – and stood for the champagne afterwards. Duncan had one glass and Lorna had three. But the best part of it was to be raising his glass to the purple-faced George Millichip across the carpet of the owners’ bar.
‘What’s it like to win? I can’t tell you,’ he said.
‘Try.’
‘If I told you it was like Christmas Day and your birthday and the first day of the summer holiday all rolled into one, it still wouldn’t get close. How does this thing work?’ he asked, indicating the eight-track tape-cartridge player in the dashboard.
She flipped the glove compartment open and found a cartridge the size of a paperback book. It had never been played. ‘Old stuff. Jimi Hendrix. Do you want to stick it in?’
He smiled at her and asked her to turn up the volume. He drove out of Doncaster towards the motorway, and as he took the country lane approaching the slip road he noticed a muddy old sunken track between the trees. He bounced off the road and bumped the Lamborghini along the track, which was just about wide enough.
‘What are you doing?’ Lorna shouted.
‘You want to know how it feels to win? Wait there.’
He got out of the car and walked around to the passenger door. When he opened it, Lorna’s eyes were blazing at him. There was a soft smile on her lips, like she knew exactly what was about to happen. Duncan reached down the side of her seat, pressed a catch and the seat fell back, taking Lorna with it. She screamed in surprise and then giggled. But she stopped giggling when he reached both hands under her skirt and hooked his thumbs around the waistband of her semi-opaque black tights, tearing them from her in one deft movement. Her exposed legs were milky white and the neat triangle of pubic hair confirmed she was a genuine redhead. He parted her legs and stuck his tongue deep inside her.
She was shocked. ‘Don’t do that!’ she shouted.
He ignored her. She grabbed his hair, trying to pull his head away from her pussy. He resisted. At last he came up for air and said, ‘It’s what grown-ups do.’
‘Really?’ she said. Then she surrendered. ‘Jesus!’
He forced down his trousers and got into a tangle until she helped him. He lifted her ankles over his shoulders and plunged deep inside her. They both howled as the psychedelic sounds of Jimi Hendrix blasted from the open doors.
Pretty soon he turned her over so that her pale rump was sticking up in the air. The smell of new leather seats and the smell of sex somehow got mixed up in his mind. He was trying to work her dress free over her head so that he could grab her tits at the same time. He managed to get it over her freckled shoulders, but the unbuttoned neck stuck to her skull like some kind of exotic headdress and wouldn’t go any further. He gave up trying to rip the thing free. At last he swelled to double his normal size and came inside her.
He lay across her, his head on her shoulder as they waited to recover.
Finally Lorna said, ‘Is that what it’s like to ride a winner?’
‘Pfff mhhh,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Pretty much.’
He dropped Lorna back at her mansion, but only after checking that Daddy Cadogan’s helicopter wasn’t on the pad. H
e wasn’t quite prepared to meet the Duke just yet. Lorna told him to come in while one of the staff summoned him a taxi, but he didn’t much fancy hanging around for the small talk, so she said she’d get a cab to pick him up on the road.
‘When will I see you again?’ she asked with spaniel eyes.
‘I almost can’t wait,’ he said, kissing her. ‘I’ll call you.’
He walked up the long driveway and waited at the gates for the cab to appear. It started to rain, so he took shelter in the trees, looking back at the lights of the grand house. He was already feeling a little sorry for Lorna. He didn’t have to be a psychologist to see that a kid like that was throwing herself at him because she had no decent family life. She was sweet. But don’t go soft on her, a voice in his head warned. You’re here for a reason.
The headlights of an approaching car washed over him, but he was hidden under the trees as it slowed and turned into the driveway. It was driven by a chauffeur in livery. And not in a helicopter this time but there in the back seat was Duke Cadogan himself, living it large.
That was close, thought Duncan as he watched the red tail lights recede up the long drive. After a minute the cab arrived. He flagged it down and got in, giving the cabbie his address.
‘Had a good day, sir?’ asked the cheerful cabbie.
‘It’s a struggle,’ Duncan said. ‘But you mustn’t weaken.’
‘Quite right,’ said the cabbie, who then went on to tell him what was wrong with the country, the government, the tax he had to pay, the immigration policy and the lousy through-flow of traffic.
There were worse things you could be, Duncan thought, than a winning jockey.
3
When he got back to his flat, the first thing he did was call Kerry. His friend had been unseated in the fifth race. When Duncan saw him he was fine, but there was a fear he might have torn ligaments in his ankle.
Falling from a horse was an art form. The art was not getting an injury if you could get away with it, and pretending that it didn’t hurt if you had. His old man used to tell him that if nothing was broken he was to get back on the horse. Duncan learned to hide pain even from himself. After a while he drew admiring remarks from his father. ‘You’re the iron boy,’ Charlie would say. Duncan almost started to welcome the next fall so he could prove to himself exactly how hard he was.
But though the falls almost always hurt, that wasn’t a problem for a jockey. It was the damage that kept you out of racing that really mattered, and the course doctor had told Kerry he was going to be out for a few weeks.
‘You’re joking,’ Duncan said over the telephone. ‘That’s fucked.’
‘The bastard of a quack,’ Kerry said. ‘I got up and walked away but he saw me limping. He took off my boot and I hit the roof. It’s torn.’
The implications for Kerry were serious. He sent every penny he earned back to his family in County Kildare, where he had a seriously ill mother and three younger siblings to worry about. If he wasn’t racing, he wasn’t earning.
‘You know that Petie Quinn fellow?’ Duncan said. ‘He was so pleased with me winning that last race he gave me a good bonus, cash in hand. You can have that and pay me back when you’re riding again.’
‘I can’t ask for your winnings, Duncan.’
‘No, you can’t. And you can’t refuse me either.’
‘Fuck off with you.’
‘No, you fuck off. That’s settled then.’
Kerry went quiet on the other end.
‘Are you okay?’ Duncan asked him.
‘Sure. Pissed off. You’re one o’ the best, Duncan.’
‘Fuck off now. Talk to you later.’
The next day he took a bus to see his dad. Charlie was living in a care home called Grey Gables. It was one of God’s waiting rooms, and Charlie knew it. The smell of urine was just about masked by the smell of bleach. There were about sixty residents, ranging from fun, sprightly pensioners to the barely breathing. It wasn’t what either of them wanted but it was governed by their income, and the staff seemed caring enough.
Duncan tapped on the door. Charlie’s eyes opened wide with delight to see his son. He put a finger to his lips and beckoned him into his room before gently closing the door after him. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened here, Duncan. Sit down, sit down.’ He made Duncan slump into the soft upholstered chair while he drew up a hard-backed chair for himself.
‘What’s gone off ?’
He folded his arms. ‘They’ve give me an injun!’
‘What?’
‘My new carer. She comes and does the bed and checks up on me. Injun.’ He waved his palms in the air – jazz hands – as if that denoted extraction from the Indian subcontinent.
‘Is she all right?’
‘Bloody beautiful. Lovely. Some prat up the corridor wouldn’t have her ’cos she’s an injun. They asked me. I said I don’t mind. Glad to see the back o’ that other lazy sow. Did I tell you about that pound note left on the table?’
Charlie claimed that his previous cleaner had been lifting small change left around in the room.
‘You did, Dad, you did.’
‘They think you’re ga-ga if you’re in this place. Nothing wrong with my memory.’
Most days, thought Duncan.
In fact Charlie’s long-term memory was superb. He could remember every detail of each horse he’d ever trained and raced. He knew its place, the prize money, the condition of the track and the wear and tear in the saddle leather. He was a one-man horse-racing almanac.
Charlie uncapped a bottle and poured himself a whisky. He didn’t offer his son a glass because Duncan didn’t like the stuff. Charlie wanted to hear all about Doncaster, and Duncan told him everything except how he got there in the Lamborghini and his Jimi Hendrix experience in the woods afterwards.
‘To hell with Millichip. He’s going backwards. So who is this Petie Quinn fellow, who you rode for in the last race?’
‘I don’t know much about him, Dad. Gave me a good drink on top of my fee. Owns and trains.’
‘How the hell does he afford that?’
‘No idea. Doesn’t spend it on fancy suits, that’s for fuckin’ sure. Looks like a dosser.’
Charlie tapped his bottom lip. ‘Irishman. Petie Quinn. Wait! I’ve got him! Rough-looking fellow, comes up to you sideways.’
‘That would be him.’
‘Can’t say I know much about him either. But I know he once got into a row with Osborne. No love lost there.’
Osborne. That was one of the dangerous names, along with Cadogan. Osborne was a trainer. Any mention of those names could bring on a black mood and a bout of bitter recrimination, sometimes even leading to heavy whisky-drinking and an episode of dementia. Duncan had become expert at steering the subject away from the three names he’d found on the back of the betting slip. He was about to change the subject, sharp, by talking about Kerry tearing the ligaments in his ankle, but he was saved by a delicate knock on the door.
It was Charlie’s Indian carer.
‘Ah, Mrs Solanki,’ Charlie shouted. ‘We were just talking about you. I want you to meet my son.’
‘Don’t get up!’ Mrs Solanki was in the house uniform. She wore lots of gold rings and had a brilliant crimson spot in the middle of her forehead.
But Charlie and Duncan were already on their feet. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Solanki. You’re looking after my dad? That’s a tough job.’
‘He keep ask me to marry him,’ she giggled. She had a strong Punjabi accent. ‘But I say no, I have husband!’
‘She comes into my room like a beam of light,’ Charlie said.
‘I come to make bed. I come back later.’
‘She seems fun,’ Duncan said after the woman had excused herself and left.
‘She’s a doll. What were we talking about?’
‘I was just telling you about Kerry ripping his ankle, Dad.’
Duncan spent all afternoon with Charlie, sifting through the details of th
e day’s racing at Doncaster and at all the other track meetings around the country. They talked about the big Boxing Day meeting at Kempton with the wonderful Prince Dagobert Chase, a glamorous Grade 1 National Hunt fixture open to horses aged four years or older. It was the second most prestigious chase in all of England. A ride in that sort of exalted company was what Duncan wanted; but he was dreaming. The best he might hope for was another race on the same card, but no one had picked up on him. Kerry was booked for a ride that day. Duncan brushed away a selfish hope that he might not be ready in time. There was always the possibility that Kerry would persuade the trainer to give Duncan the ride.
Charlie had the same thought. ‘Who is putting Kerry up? At Kempton, I mean.’
Duncan mentioned the name of the trainer.
‘I know him. I’ll call him.’
‘No, Dad, best not.’
‘What? Is that another one you’ve been mouthing off to?’
‘Kerry might have a word. Best leave it.’
The fact was that having his dad put in a word was sometimes counterproductive. Charlie was innocent of everything that had been said about him. Charlie knew that; Duncan knew that. But the trio who had stitched him up had done such a good job, there was still plenty of doubt everywhere. Even amongst folk Charlie might count as old friends and allies. Reputations in horse racing were hard won but easily ruined. Duncan heard how people talked. In the Weighing Room and the owners’ bar. In the bar and at the gallops. Jokes. Whispers. Rumours.
Hell. Sometimes you mentioned a name and all you got was a raised eyebrow or a flared nostril and that was it.
If he were a killing man, he would have done the job by now, for what they’d done to his dad. But he wasn’t. He didn’t want blood. He only wanted what was fair, but which no court of law could ever give him. He wanted revenge. He wanted justice.
Duncan had learned about summary justice as a lad, when he was at Penderton with old Tommy. When he was taken on, he cycled the seven miles there and back every day. He never saw the owner, Dick Sommers, and at first the job was mainly about shovelling shit. But when gruff Tommy saw that he was interested and knowledgeable, he started to let him do more than groom the horses and pick their hooves. If Duncan did well, Tommy would bare his teeth and nod; if he was careless, he’d get a cuff round the side of the head. It was a shock to be slapped like that: his dad had never once hit him. But it only made him more attentive, more determined to get things right.
