Devil Take the Hindmost

by Martin Cathcart Froden

  Besides, compared to some, I’m a man of modest means and pleasures. I own the Copenhagen Street property, and two smaller houses, as well as a few debts that I collect interest on and a couple of gambling schemes. In essence, just enough to tide me over.

  I’m good at always returning, or having Rupert return, the ledger. Mr Morton has never showed my smaller sidebusinesses much interest, other than to ask for a small cut every now and then. I never lie, and he always snorts at the insignificance of the money I make. My gambling and the collateral income must be shoelace money for him. I am glad about that. The less we are in contact the better.

  This changed after one of his random inspections. Just after Paul, sporting his new handlebars – these days I notice things like that – won twice in one weekend against Emrys, Mr Morton called me in and shouted at me for not calling his attention to the money I had made from the bikes.

  Mr Morton told me all my business was done ‘Under my protection you’ll be wise to remember.’

  I told him it was meagre profits. I’m not managing or sponsoring any other racers. By now I probably could, as I know a bit more who’s who. But I won’t tell Mr Morton that. I was issued the decree that from now on I was to keep a closer eye on Paul. To influence him for the better, to make sure he slept well, stayed in, trained. That he was kept busy racing, making money, apart from when delivering, and kept away from trouble and women. Especially women. The deliveries would also increase. I was to tell Paul he had been tried and he had passed, but his holiday was now over.

  ‘And for you too Silas.’

  I nodded and thought about nothing. Then I forced myself to think of a hot bath and a cold drink and everything felt better. For a second or so.

  ‘I’m the first to admit Paul’s been good for business. In a small way. The boy is fast, the police clueless, and he is very cheap compared to some of the other methods I’ve tried,’ Mr Morton said. ‘But for the money I’m paying him to run my errands, you need to make him more profitable. You understand this. And you will see to it. In fact you should have solved it before I was forced to bring it up.’

  For the first Saturday in August I arrange for Paul to be at the Carousel. Race ready for nine o’clock at night. It’s not his usual time to start, but it happens to be when my working day starts to pick up speed. I tell him I’ll give him some money, and that I’ll double the amount if he can find a partner.

  I make it sound like an exhibition, a room full of fans, a little something they can do for cash in their spare time. They can prance around like horses at the circus, and easily pay rent that month. It isn’t going to be quite like that but I don’t have to tell him he doesn’t have a choice. That I didn’t have a choice. I’m going to make him more profitable, and that always requires a show. I can’t be concerned about his comfort or dignity.

  ***

  The day comes and I dress to impress. Saunter over to the Carousel. I am early. Seeing the arrangements Mr Morton has made causes me to feel sorry for Paul and his friend. I’m paying them both handsomely, but as Mr Morton, who was quite enthusiastic about my idea when I first told him, shows me around the inner room, and talks me through the evening, and the people he has invited, I’m starting to feel a bit funny. It’s not a race or exhibition that’s for sure.

  ‘Tonight Silas, this is called the paddock.’ Mr Morton’s hand is on my shoulder, half fatherly, half a leash. He’s talking about the hexagon in the middle of the inner room.

  ‘And tonight we’ll hopefully see the birth of a new sport, or the death of two men. Either or: it’s publicity,’ he continues.

  ‘It’s great, really great,’ I say.

  ‘Come here,’ he says, with his hand like a vice on me, and he shows me four blocks where the axles of the two cyclists’ rear wheel will go. He’s had a scared-looking joiner working for him all day. The man is now busy nailing the blocks to the floor, the two sets of blocks facing each other.

  The hexagon is usually sprinkled with sawdust and sucks up blood, sweat, vomit and the tears of the defeated most nights a week. Today, though, it’s scrubbed clean, and the lines have been repainted. Not that it matters on this occasion. Boxers and wrestlers might stray outside the boundary lines, and be penalised for it, but where will the two cyclists go?

  Once Mr Morton lets go of me, I go and hide in the Ram’s Head across the road. Under the pretext of wanting to change and think up odds. I’m feeling too queer to drink gin and ask Isaac, the man in charge, for a good hangover cure.

  ‘I’ve got just the thing here. Very popular with the revellers.’

  He pours me something called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, or a Bibi, for short. He explains something about Lithium that I can’t hear or understand. After a few glasses of Bibi, I feel a bit calmer and more clear-headed. I’ve not changed or thought about odds, but I doubt Mr Morton will notice. Besides he’ll have the betting under control tonight.’

  I walk back to the Carousel. I see that Mr Morton has changed into his evening wear. His customary white, with baby blue dashes, with his abacus, his business rosary, tucked into one armpit. A lot of the seats, especially the ones closest to the ring, are occupied by men smoking cigars and clasping his hand as he makes his rounds.

  ‘Silas, where’s your man?’ he shouts as soon as he sees me.

  ‘I told him to be here at nine sir. In about an hour,’ I say after consulting my watch.

  ‘That’s too late,’ Mr Morton shouts. ‘Make him come faster.’ He laughs and turns to his next guest, but not without wagging a finger at me. I stand in a corner sincerely hoping Paul hasn’t had an accident on the way over. It’s a nervous thirty minutes, the Bibi can’t help with that, until he walks in, his sportsman’s strut impossible to hide.

  To my disappointment Paul has brought with him an asthmatic Welshman. A man called Emrys, who despite wheezing, and plunging his head in formaldehyde or something before we get going with the warm-up challenge seems fit enough. As he’s getting on the bike, Paul, who has noticed my initial disproval, tells me Emrys wins a lot of races, quite often beating Paul. There’s no telling with cyclists I find. Boxers, fighters, horses and dogs I can gauge. Cyclists are still an unknown quantity.

  Mr Morton has arranged the evening like a gladiatorial tournament. Only there are no animals and no Coliseum. This doesn’t deter a man like the Elephant Emperor. Instead he hushes the crowd. Walks around with his arms up in the air, officiating a séance by the looks of it. He proceeds to introduce the two cyclists with fanciful Latin names: Paulus Maximus and Caesar Emrys. Gets them to strip to their waists, and parades them around the room for the patrons to pinch and admire.

  He has each cyclist take off their rear tyres and remove the inner tube, all with a great sense of drama. Then he sets them up on their bikes, or chariots as he calls them, and has the rear axles of their bikes inserted into the slots in the wooden blocks. Then, with the rear wheels, now naked, spinning in the air, he has the same unlucky joiner attach a belt to the wheel. This belt is attached to a cog on a stand. One each for Paul and Emrys. The joiner, now flushed and with shaking hands, fits the instrument of the first battle to the wheel. It’s a whisk. And the game that people are now betting on and laughing at too for that matter – which is great; happy people are more loose with their money – is to see which of the two cyclists can first turn milk into butter. The person whose legs first manage to whisk a bowl of milk to a consistency where it can be turned upside down without anything landing on the floor, will win. Mr Morton has even found a retired dairy manager, all dressed in white, as a co-judge. The man, a Mr Stanley, stands in one corner cutting up bread in preparation for the butter. The whole thing is truly awful.

  Soon the two boys are sweating, milk splattering in every direction, and Mr Morton goes over to slap Paul’s back.

  ‘Give the man a beer,’ he shouts to no one in particular, ‘No. Ginger ale. No, wait. This one has a hard-on for sarsaparilla. Mr Morton turns around to receive the lau
ghs. ‘A pint! No, a pitcher! Can’t you see he’s a thirsty man? And bring a couple of straws.’ He points to a bartender who scurries out of the room. Then he continues, ‘This one’s hungry for a win. Come on Paulus! You get to eat the butter you make.’ Then he laughs, and resumes his tour of the room. Once the bartender returns Mr Morton shakes his head and Paul never gets a drink.

  As the people in the wingchairs become increasingly drunk, the games turn more ridiculous. Also harder on the boys. I can see from the way Mr Morton is working the room, the way his upper lip is shining, that he’s content. The way his eye whites are showing and the way he gestures for one of his orangutans to come over and take bundles of cash to be put in a strongbox upstairs lets me know things are going well. In a way this makes me happy. Or at least relieved. After the butter, which Paul wins, Emrys is the first to saw through a log, then he’s also the quickest to reel in an anchor, and I get a bit worried in case, despite the lucrative nature of the evening, Mr Morton thinks I am, and by extension, he is, backing the wrong racer. Luckily Emrys has a massive coughing attack. Then, he collapses and falls off the bike. A harsh seallike sound escapes him and he can’t get back on the bike. Emrys is spluttering and trying to say something about the smoke and the sawdust, then he goes all white and has to be carried outside into the alley for some fresh air. Wagers from the chairs collected, wealth redistributed, drinks and smokes continuing, and there’s talk of a whole series of these events. The Emperor is happy.

  The Carousel doesn’t close for another couple of hours, but the Roman feast is over. I can’t look Paul in the eye, but I give him twice the amount I had promised him and the same for his friend. As soon as he’s allowed he runs out into the alley to check on Emrys, while Mr Morton walks around the room with a toga and a laurel wreath made from bay leaves for the winner he can’t find. He hands it to Miriam, who’s standing in the shadows. I hadn’t noticed her.

  I go across the road for another Bibi. Sitting by the window in the Ram’s Head I see Paul come limping out with Emrys draped over his shoulder. Miriam comes out and tries to hand him the wreath, but he shakes his head. Instead she hangs it around the neck of a drunk sleeping against a lamp post. Then she goes inside. Paul hails a taxi which he piles Emrys into, pays and then goes back in for the bikes. I pay for my drink. All I want to do is to go home and have a bath. Clean myself.

  Chapter 16

  After passing a few barber’s shops around Victoria station on Tuesday morning after the Roman Feast, Paul goes inside one and asks for a fashionable haircut. Once he’s done he is sold a bottle of Stephenson’s Hair Pomade – For the Discerning Gentleman, which he’s not sure he is. He comes out feeling silly, and vain, but after a few hours of rubbing his unusually naked neck and trying to look at his reflection in shop windows without being caught, he starts feeling good about it. And he thinks, but can’t swear, that a pretty girl at a flower stall smiles a little extra to him. But then again that’s how flowers are sold after all, and he retraces his steps and buys a bouquet of red, white and yellow tulips from her. He lugs around the flowers all day, and that earns him more smiles from passing women than any haircut could. Then he makes his last delivery and cycles to Kensal Rise, eating apples all the way there.

  It’s a midweek meet. The racing calendar calls it The Tuesday Tumble as the track is quite tight and not all that smooth in places. People like Paul, who have raced on the track a few times know where the worst parts in the decking are, but it’s always enjoyable to see the more inexperienced riders come off, usually flying forwards over their handlebars. The accidents happen either high up on the banking in curve two, or close down by the black line in curve four. The race is a part of a monthly series, the Cadbury’s Cup. There are also biweekly races, the main spectacle on Sundays as well as a smaller race every Thursday. Usually out of town. This concentration was Silas’ suggestion, but Paul knows who’s behind it. Paul knows and Silas knows who is wielding the whip.

  Paul knows, or knows of, most of the other racers. As it’s a Tuesday the crowd will be small but dedicated. Possibly even near to sober. Enthusiasts. Not just happy to be out in the sun, not at work, watching other people almost kill themselves, but knowledgeable. It won’t be the gin-fuelled Saturday night revellers you sometimes get at the bigger velodromes, or the Sunday crowd who have decided to make a day of it; the ones who save up, steal, borrow, pawn, to come and enjoy themselves, almost disregarding the racers. For the weekend crowd, the entertainment could be anything from tigers killing ocelots, to boxing, rowdy soapbox preachers, or bearded ladies on stilts. It just happens that this year they have decided to flock to cycling. Next year it might be something else. But today at Kensal Rise, it’ll be a crowd with stubs, with notebooks and pens behind their ears, mumbling odds and race pedigrees. Offering litanies to the gods who reign in the Kingdom of Money. Praying to the numbers they have chosen, or feel have chosen them.

  Almost two months ago, in the back of a taxi on their way to Mr Gullard, the pawn broker, Paul asked Miriam if she’d like to come and see him race at Kensal Rise sometime. He’s not sure what she usually does on a Tuesday night, but hopes she’s above routine.

  Warming up, circling the track slowly, avoiding high up in turn two, and low down in curve four, he looks out for her. He knows where she’ll be sitting if she turns up. She said she would, but her business, whatever it is, is probably as fickle as his. He knows he would have to drop everything and leave the track if a message came through from Mr Morton that something was to be picked up and delivered. Even if it was just a piece of paper.

  By the time the commissarie calls the racers in for a quick speech about the rules, the number of laps, the standings in the cup and the points they are able to earn today by placing in certain ways, Miriam is nowhere to be seen. With a sigh the commissarie explains about the two extra sprints where sponsors and a certain unnamed film star are offering cash prizes. Gives no word about the bad track. He’s an old hand who knows that despite the apparent sophistication of the crowd, they too like blood and screams as much as anyone else.

  Recognizing Paul, Emrys and Percy Wyld as regular racers, he winks and walks off. Paul shakes Percy’s hand, feeling like it was a hundred years ago that he was being tested for his abilities. Pleased now to think he’s surpassed his old heroes, he rolls out onto the track. Still she’s not in her seat.

  Harry walks up to him after a brief chat with his brother Percy.

  ‘Paul, come here,’ he says. ‘You know this track don’t you. The pitfalls and all that?’

  ‘I’ve been on it before.’

  ‘Well, you might think it’s the actual track that’s your biggest enemy today, but that’d be wrong. Today, as any day, the track is full of new men as desperate as you.

  ‘Some are angry, others are by nature more easy-going. Light-hearted racers for whom exhaustion is a laugh, something they do to pass the time. The angry ones run out of anger, especially if they occasionally win. But the happy ones – the ones undeterred, and simple-minded in their beaglelike contentment to just run and row and race and then eat and then sleep – these boys you ought to fear like the plague. If you are not like them you will have a harder time of it. You will think too much, laugh too little and generally lose to them.’

  ‘I’ll make sure to read less, and race more.’

  ‘Joke all you like young man. I know the competition. You have to think yourself invincible. Rely on your strength in finding the calm while your lungs are rasping. You have to train your ability to shut out the daily problems, the distractions of life. Just seeing the front wheel, the person in front, and making sure that that person ends up being behind you. That money, rent, love, racing politics, managers, sponsors, hurts and any intelligent thoughts all stay outside the bubble. It’s an absolute calm in the eye of the chaos of spokes and legs.’

  ‘I hear you Harry.’

  ‘I’m only telling you this to scare you a little. I’m just trying to make you faster, which will
make me richer, and Silas too, so – best of luck.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Paul says and rubs a little more liniment into his left thigh, always his weakest leg. Harry walks up to his spot by the starting line, grinning to Paul over his shoulder.

  The official in the black tails starts brandishing the starter gun, a sure sign that things are about to kick off. Paul lines up, holding onto the barrier on the top side of the straight. It’s such a long race today that he hasn’t bothered asking for someone to hold him upright as he starts off. The jostling and positioning will come later, when people have been racing for close to three hours. When they are tired and thirsty and irritated and angry at themselves and their bodies for not responding to the messages they are trying to send. Annoyed that the commands sent from brain to legs are not being followed. This will go on until the brain gives in too, when any motivation dies under a blanket of exhaustion. That what he’s saving himself for, the last fifteen laps or so. Until then he’ll make sure to be in the first ten riders, maybe go for one of the cash sprints. Staying in the race is the key. Still she’s not there.

  She would have been sitting very close to where he’s balancing now. She would have smiled, maybe even noticed his haircut, she would have bent her head and buried her nose in the flowers he’s had left on the railing where he thought she would stand, but still she’s not there.

  Then he spots a face he knows well. A face he’s dependent on: Silas. Paul raises a hand in greeting. Takes his eyes off the bike. The gun cracks and he tears himself off the balustrade, almost falling over. It’s a terrible start. He’s last by almost half a lap before the pace has even picked up, and still she’s not there. He didn’t think it’d mean so much to him, but pedalling off to try to catch them, he realises he’s thought about and planned every move up until now. And after the race too. Little comments, excuses, compliments and jokes. Without her watching him, Paul feels like a different man. He’s the same as before he ever had the thought of involving her in his life. It’s an independence and innocence he feels he can’t go back to. On lap twenty, when he’s caught up properly, avoided three crashes, and found himself in a secure enough position in the depleted field he raises his head. Looks again, but nothing. Silas looks up from his papers and waves to him. A lazy hand brushing off a fly mid-air. Not great, but at least someone has come to see him, to keep him company from the stands.