Taking the Fall

by A. P. McCoy

  ‘That’s a lot of horses,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Is it too many for you?’

  ‘Hell, no.’

  ‘Then on Boxing Day at Kempton—’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Don’t get excited. It’s only the first race. Then I’ve got two more the day after at Wetherby and then at Punchestown across the water if you’re up for it on the twenty-ninth, and that’s it, and we’ll see how you do before we get into the new year.’

  Duncan almost dropped the phone. ‘I didn’t know you had so many horses.’

  ‘I’m coming into my time, Duncan. Is it yes or do I have to look for someone else?’

  ‘Look no further, Petie. I’m your boy.’

  ‘We haven’t talked terms. I’ve never met a jockey who doesn’t talk terms first.’

  ‘I have a feeling you’ll do right by me.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Listen. I’ve got myself an agent.’

  Petie growled. ‘I’m not much of a one for agents.’

  ‘Never mind. But I’ll let him pretend that he got me all these rides. Okay by you?’

  ‘That’s your funeral. So it’s yes to everything? I’ve got some new colours, by the way. We’ll have them for you for Ludlow. The daughter designed them. They’re not rubbish or anything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You’ll want to come and see the set-up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How about tomorrow?’

  Duncan’s head was buzzing. He’d gone from three rides over the Christmas period to fifteen. He had to sit down and map it all out to see where the conflicts lay. Any more rides and he would need a secretary to co-ordinate his schedule. Luckily for him there were only two conflicts. One of them could be dealt with if he could leave quickly and get to the second track for a late race. It occurred to him that a fast car – not unlike a Lamborghini – wasn’t essential but would be helpful. The other conflict was with one of his own rides. He would have to call the trainer – a man he liked a lot – and explain.

  It occurred to him that he could hide behind his new agent, Mike Ruddy. After all, that was what agents were for. But it went against Duncan’s nature. He preferred to do his own dirty work, so he called up the trainer and explained his predicament. The trainer, a small-time operator, was disappointed but understanding; halfway through the conversation, though, Duncan remembered that Ruddy claimed to have two senior jockeys on his books. He asked if one of them would be an acceptable substitute and the trainer said he would be thrilled to have either.

  Next Duncan called Ruddy. He broke the news that Quinn had offered him eleven rides.

  ‘Eleven!’

  ‘Yes, and you get no commission on them either, so don’t ask.’ The normal arrangement was for an agent to net ten per cent of a jockey’s fee plus ten per cent of any win bonus. But since Ruddy hadn’t found the rides, he wasn’t about to argue. ‘But if it helps, you can go and brag that you got the rides for me.’

  Ruddy was happy with that.

  Duncan said, ‘Where are you with Palmer?’

  ‘Oh, he’s with me. Or he says he will be officially as soon as I can offer him a ride.’

  ‘I’ve got one for him.’

  Ruddy checked Palmer’s schedule and there was no conflict. ‘It’s working! I’m in business!’ he shouted down the phone.

  ‘Whoa, Bess! It’s only one commission,’ Duncan said.

  ‘It’s my first of many. Wait till you see. I’m going to talk to Palmer.’

  ‘Another thing. I’ll be riding at Kempton on Boxing Day.’

  ‘You’re joking! Can I tell ’em I got that one for you too?’

  ‘You can tell them what the hell you like.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Duncan said, kissing Lorna before he sat down. They were having lunch at the Ritz. Not because either of them liked it, but because Lorna’s father had an account. The name of Cadogan carried weight with the staff and got them a good table. But it didn’t allow Duncan to eat without being ‘correctly attired’. With seconds of his arrival, the maître d’ asked him if he could have a word. Duncan had arrived wearing a neat grey suit but with an open-necked shirt. The maître d’ offered him the loan of a tie and escorted him out to the reception area, where he was given a choice from several.

  ‘I should wear it as a headband,’ Duncan said when he sat down again.

  ‘Is it awful?’ Lorna said, glancing round the restaurant as if she hadn’t seen it before. ‘This was the only place I could think of, and anyway, the old bastard will pick up the bill, won’t he?’

  ‘Is that how you think of him? The old bastard?’

  Lorna had called him. She wanted to meet him again. It was she who had suggested central London.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t talk about him like that. But you don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Duncan scowled at the card in front of him. ‘Can you translate this menu?’

  ‘The food here is ghastly. Anyway, you said you never eat much.’

  ‘I don’t. They can’t muck up the soup, can they?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘I saw the Prime Minister eating here one day with some of her cabinet. She hardly touched the food.’

  ‘She should be a jockey.’

  Lorna reached across the table and stroked his arm. ‘Why have you been hiding from me, Duncan? Didn’t we have a great day out at Doncaster?’

  Duncan ordered something called potage aux carottes and Lorna had foie gras. She also ordered a bottle of Chablis. She’d obviously been there many times with her parents. Duncan wasn’t made uncomfortable by the stiff formality of the place, but neither was he particularly impressed by crisp linen and heavy crystal glassware. He could take it or leave it. It was just that he felt he had more in common with the waiters than the diners.

  Lorna read his thoughts. She looked a little sad. ‘It’s dull here, isn’t it? Next time I’ll think of somewhere more exciting.’

  Duncan smiled to himself. She was already projecting the pair of them into the future. ‘It’s fine. Let’s have a glass of wine.’

  During the meal Lorna dropped her napkin. Duncan, watching like a hawk, saw how the waiter’s nostrils flared as he dipped down beside her to retrieve it. The waiter put the napkin back on the table but saw Duncan looking at him. He’d been caught and he knew it.

  ‘That man was sniffing you,’ Duncan said after the waiter had gone.

  Lorna preened the hair at the back of her neck. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Duncan looked at her. She was wearing a short, skimpy black dress with black tights and shiny black heels. She also wore poppy-red lipstick. ‘Go to the ladies’ room and take off your knickers,’ he commanded.

  ‘I can’t. I’m not wearing any.’

  He leaned across and stroked the side of her dress, feeling the coarse line of suspenders under her dress.

  ‘Stockings, not tights,’ she said.

  ‘You gorgeous slut.’

  She licked her poppy-red lips. ‘Do you want to get a room?’

  ‘What? At these prices?’

  ‘I can put it on account.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘I have Daddy’s code word. All I have to do is tell the staff. It covers room, dinner, everything.’

  ‘Tell me the code word.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No. You’d only abuse it.’

  ‘How would I abuse it?’

  Lorna narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Bringing women here and things like that.’

  ‘Do you think I’m seeing other women?’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘You’re wrong. The only woman I’m seeing right now is you.’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Tell me the code.’

  The room in the Ritz was enormous. It had a marble mantelpiece, elegant sofa, furniture of polished mahogany and heavy red velvet curtains. The gold tie-ropes
for the curtains were missing. These had been used, at Lorna’s suggestion, to tie her wrists to the enormous king-sized bed. She lay face down on the bed, nude but for her black stockings and suspenders. Her ankles were similarly tethered, with her legs stretched wide apart, but with the white cotton belts from the bathrobes supplied by the hotel.

  Duncan, having carefully tied the knots as requested, was slowly undressing. He’d had more Chablis than soup, and the wine had made him heady. The sight of her peachy pink bottom already had him on fire. He was hard as a rock. He was just determined not to rush things.

  ‘I’m not telling you the code,’ Lorna said, petulantly.

  ‘Did I ask again?’

  ‘I’m not telling you, so don’t ask.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So don’t ask.’

  You’re being slow, thought Duncan. She actually wants me to make her spit it out.

  Naked, he got on to the bed with her and ran his index finger slowly down the length of her spine. ‘Well tell me this, Lorna. How is it that an eighteen-year-old girl has such . . . sophisticated sexual tastes?’

  She sighed. ‘Kiss my neck. Daddy has a Betamax with a nice collection of what he calls foreign art films.’

  ‘Foreign art films?’

  ‘Hmmm. Do that again. He keeps them locked in his office. But his estate manager cut me an extra key in return for a favour.’

  ‘I can imagine what that favour was. You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I am. And we know what happens to naughty girls, don’t we?’ She swayed her bottom a little, as if to tell him what she wanted. Instead he kissed her neck and ran his tongue down her spine. When she purred, he spanked her buttock hard.

  She cried out. But then said, ‘You can spank me harder.’

  He slapped her again, this time raising a neat red handprint on her white buttock. She tensed but pushed her bottom in the air for more. She purred again and he rewarded her with another slap. With each slap he pushed his way a little further inside her.

  ‘You’re divine,’ she said.

  He nibbled the side of her neck and gently bit her shoulders. He reached round to pull at her nipples, which had become like hard berries. She shuddered under him. He’d never known a woman who could come so easily.

  He had her spread out like a starfish and she occasionally pulled at the restraints as if she wanted to break free, but would give in and bury her face back in the pillow. At last he came inside her and lay face down on her back, feeling their sweat mix and cool under his body.

  They lay like that for a long time. Eventually she said, ‘You okay?’

  ‘Now give me the code.’

  ‘Ha! Not a chance. You should have wrung it out of me. Don’t you know a woman will give you anything just before she comes?’

  ‘Really?’ He climbed off her and moved across to the shower. He switched it on and above the sound of the rushing water he heard her call to him.

  ‘Untie me, Duncan. I want to get in there with you.’

  He ignored her and stepped into the shower. When he switched it off, she was still calling him.

  He got dressed quickly.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I have a meeting. I’ll be back in an hour or two.’

  ‘Untie me!’

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘Untie me, you bastard!’

  He walked across to her and made to untie her wrist. Then he kissed her instead. ‘Don’t go away.’

  He could still hear her muffled shouts as he walked down the corridor to call the lift.

  He met up with Mike Ruddy at the Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street in Soho. It was a smoky joint padded out with tired professionals and creative types. Ruddy said he’d rented a tiny office around the corner and was in the process of equipping it. So far he had a telephone, a desk with no chair and a paintbrush. Duncan suspected he was living there.

  When Duncan arrived at the pub, Ruddy was already three quarters of the way down a mug of bitter. At the table with him but drinking white wine was Aaron Palmer, the senior jockey who’d also thrown in his lot with Ruddy. Ruddy crowed at Duncan’s arrival and scuttled off to get him a glass of wine and another beer for himself. The two jockeys nodded at each other.

  ‘He managed to talk you into it too?’ Duncan said, glancing round. All jockeys had a habit of checking out the faces seated about them in a bar. Just in case they might say something that could be misconstrued – or correctly construed – as inside information.

  ‘Ah, fuck it,’ said Palmer.

  Palmer was thirty-eight. He was already cruising to retirement. With most jump jockeys retiring around the age of thirty-five, he maybe had a couple more seasons left. Unlike flat jockeys, who were more likely to ride until they were fifty, jump jockeys started to feel the pain of hitting the ground at thirty miles per hour on a regular basis. About one in every ten rides you ended up with your face in the wet grass, hugging your ribs. You could see that Palmer had lost his appetite for mud pie. In the Weighing Room some of the jockeys called him the Monk, not just because he had a severe haircut like a tonsure, but also because he was a loner with an intense stare.

  Duncan wondered if sticking at a job for long enough changed your face. He’d seen fishmongers who looked at you like a haddock on a marble slab. Palmer had a ridiculously long, thin horse-face, which made you wonder if he’d started out like that. He also had a habit of chewing on nothing at all. He had everything but the bridle and the blaze.

  ‘So how did he talk you round?’ Palmer wanted to know.

  ‘I’m still not sure. Plus I didn’t already have an agent.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Lad with your talents.’

  ‘I can’t bite my tongue.’

  ‘Then get a tongue-tie.’

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘I rode a couple of times for your dad, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  Palmer glanced right and left. Then he slowly leaned across the table and spoke very quietly. ‘I don’t know what went down that time. But I know what I know and Charlie was always a straight shooter.’

  ‘It’s good to hear you say that. Not everyone thinks so.’

  ‘I know what I know. And so do others.’

  Ruddy came back with the round of drinks. Wine for Duncan. ‘You’ve no idea what a relief it is,’ he said, ‘to drink as much beer as you like. What are you two talking about?’

  Palmer looked at him with glittering eyes. ‘Up Your Bum to win the three thirty at Buggertown. Cheers.’

  Yes, one or two big-time trainers hadn’t liked it when Charlie had begun to do well. Not least because Charlie wasn’t one to mince words. That was where Duncan had got it from. Charlie served it straight up. If he thought someone was a liar or a cheat, he told them. He said: I don’t care if the mare is in foal or the stallion breaks its neck, a liar is a liar and a cheat is a cheat. He’d taught Duncan to speak straight, too.

  But what he’d failed to teach Duncan was that you couldn’t do that in horse racing any more than you could do it at the town hall hustings. Eventually the liars and the cheats and the knaves would move against you.

  While Duncan was at Penderton, Charlie was having his best year. But maybe he was doing too well. He had winners over in Ireland at Punchestown, at Kempton, at Cheltenham in front of all the cameras, and then finally a spectacular and thrilling second-place photo finish with a horse called Dieseltown Blues at the Grand National, on the day when every granny in the country placed a bet, the ultimate test for horse, jockey and trainer. And then they started coming.

  High-profile owners who were maybe dissatisfied with their trainers – in the way that high-profile owners often were dissatisfied if they weren’t winning everything – brought some serious stock along for Charlie to look at. And if the animals weren’t fit, he told them so. Fitness and diet and a different but uncompromising training regimen for each horse was what Charlie was all about. But the original trainers were disgrunt
led to hear that Charlie had told so-and-so that their horses were unfit. Some of them took it personally.

  And when one owner decided he wanted to pull all six of his horses from their current stable and move across to Charlie, that was when he got the hex.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ his head lad said.

  Charlie let go of the fetlock of the bay he was attending to and saw a man in a sheepskin coat and a cloth cap getting out of a Jaguar XJ6 luxury saloon. He recognised the man from televised horse racing, though they’d never met. It was William Osborne. There were two top trainers in the country at that time, battling for supremacy. Osborne was one of them.

  Osborne, a fox-faced man, tucked his chin into the collar of his sheepskin coat as he walked across the yard, so that his warm smile was half hidden. From across the yard he offered a handshake and greeted Charlie like they were old pals. ‘Charlie,’ he said. Charlie! ‘How come we’ve not met in person before now? How’s that then, hey?’

  ‘It’s Mr Osborne?’ Charlie asked, shaking the hand, still wondering what the hell this was all about.

  ‘Will, please, Will to you, Charlie. We trainers are one of a kind.’

  No we’re not, thought Charlie. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Cup o’ tea would be grand,’ Osborne said. He stuck out a long tongue to advertise how parched he might be.

  Charlie kept an electric kettle and a box of tea bags in the tack room, so he led the way through. Without being invited, Osborne took a chair. Charlie leaned his back against the wall, arms folded, while the kettle boiled.

  ‘I’ve got a filly. Very sweet. Should be doing much better. Big hopes for her. But she keeps fizzling out. I’ve done everything and I want you to have her, see what you can do.’

  ‘What?’ Charlie said. ‘Why am I so honoured?’

  Osborne wrinkled his eyes. ‘You’ve got a hell of a reputation for ironing out these things.’

  ‘Have I?’