I Own the Racecourse!

by Patricia Wrightson

  This was the most successful of Andy’s efforts to earn money, and he still had only fifty cents. Since he could think of no more business deals, he resorted to an older and simpler method. He wandered into streets farther from home and asked strangers for money, making use of his own oddness and the effect it had on people.

  A baby that hasn’t yet learned to sit up knows a good deal about the people around it—whether to cry for attention or play quietly in its cot. So Andy, living behind a closed window, had learned to read faces through the glass. He knew that some people, children and adults, would rather not see him or talk to him. The children showed it by running away, or by teasing him until he himself was hurt and angry enough to run away. The adults showed it in the impatient way they spoke, or by looking away quickly and pretending not to see him at all. Some people found him amusing at times when he was really quite serious; and he would quickly pretend that he meant to be funny, to hide his puzzlement. Other people treated him with a heavy kindness that made him just as uncomfortable—but he knew how to make use of it, too. Most people were a little more patient and polite to Andy than they were to other boys. He liked that best.

  So now he went walking in the busier streets near the traffic lights. He smiled at people, and talked to them whenever he had the chance. If they answered in a cheerful and friendly way, or if they were carefully kind, he asked for money ‘to buy a drink because I’m thirsty’. In two afternoons he had collected fifty cents, enough to make up his third dollar. It was by far the easiest way he had tried.

  He put all his money in the pin-box, fastened it with a rubber band and went out to look for the old man with the bottles. It was late afternoon. The sun was no longer pouring heat down into the streets, but the streets themselves threw back a wave of warmth. Andy, loping down Blunt Street, suddenly found the two O’Day boys standing in his way.

  ‘And where have you been all the week?’ demanded Mike a little sternly. ‘Have you been dodging us, or what?’

  Terry added, ‘Aren’t we mates any more?’ He and Mike were both curious, having heard from Joe and Matt that old Andy had some scheme for which he needed money.

  Andy, brought to a sudden stop, chuckled and shifted his feet. He was pleased to see his friends and glad that they had missed him; but he could see the walls of Beecham Park, and he had the money, and the bees were buzzing in his head. ‘Can’t wait,’ he said, dodging past. Over his shoulder he called, ‘See you one of these days,’ and went loping on his way.

  He found the bottom gate of the racecourse standing open, but there was no sign of the old man. A car was parked in the centre of the grounds, and a water-cart drove slowly round the track, watering it. Andy stood in the gateway waiting for the old man, watching the jets of water spraying on to the track, admiring the big empty grandstand and the sheltered quiet inside the circling walls. He could hardly believe that soon it would all be his.

  He watched until the water-cart drove off; until a man came and locked the gate, and the car drove off to the other side of the course. He waited until it was dark, but the old man didn’t come. Andy went home. The next afternoon he waited again. It never occurred to him to look for the old man anywhere else, and he would have had no idea where else to look. He waited until the western skyline made a pattern of black blocks against the fading gold of the sky. Then, just as he was turning to go home, he saw a pair of old green trousers and a baggy grey jacket come lurching out of the hotel across the street.

  It was the same old man. He went slowly and unsteadily up the hill, and Andy followed. Sometimes he came quite close, and then dropped shyly back again. The old man turned into a narrow, angled lane, and Andy was afraid of losing him. Then he hurried and caught up.

  ‘Mister!’ he called. ‘Hey, mister, I brought the three dollars.’

  The old man looked behind, swayed slightly, and walked on. Andy grabbed at his sleeve.

  ‘I got ’em all, those dollars you said. You didn’t forget, did you? It was hard work getting them.’

  The old man had stopped, turned, and was peering at Andy in a dull, unrecognizing way. His eyes were rather bloodshot.

  ‘You gotta take the three dollars, mister,’ said Andy urgently. ‘You said cheap at the price, because it’s a packet of trouble. Don’t you want ’em?’ He was opening the pin-box, which chinked as he took off the rubber band.

  ‘Three dollars,’ said the old man in a hazy way. Then, to Andy’s relief, he seemed to wake up a little. ‘You got three dollars for an old bloke? You’re a good boy, a fine, big, strapping boy. Give it here.’ He held out his hand. Andy poured the silver coins into it. The old man poked them with an exploring finger.

  ‘It’s all there,’ said Andy.

  ‘I thank you, my boy…I was in the war, you know. The real war, nineteen-eighteen…The holy saints’ll make it up to you, boy.’

  ‘Can I have it now?’ said Andy.

  The old man closed his fist tightly. ‘You just give it to me.’

  Andy laughed and laughed. ‘That’s the money I gave you,’ he pointed out, still laughing. ‘I don’t want the money, I want the racecourse. Is it mine now, mister? Can I have Beecham Park?’

  ‘If you say so,’ said the old man. He waved his free hand in a broad and generous gesture. ‘Lock—stock—and barrel, boy. All yours.’

  Andy breathed deeply and laughed again with delight.

  4

  The Practical Side

  Andy wandered slowly home in the twilight, chuckling now and then, and muttering to himself. He had raised the money and paid the price; now Beecham Park Trotting Course was his. The first stars were glinting in the blue-black depths of sky, and he could not tell whether they were in the sky or in his head. The hard asphalt under his feet, the cottages squatting in dim rows on either side, were not so real or so close as the quietness and splendour of his racecourse. He thought how surprised his mother would be—then chuckled uneasily when he remembered his empty money-box. He thought, instead, how surprised his friends would be. He wanted to go and tell them at once; yet in another way he didn’t want to tell anyone at all. It was so big, his secret. He felt lost in it.

  He was very quiet during the evening, and went to bed even before Mrs Hoddel had time to suggest it. Early in the morning he went out and looked at his racecourse. He saw three horses running with their gigs through a silvery, silken mist that lay over the grounds. In the afternoon he looked again, and saw a yellow tractor raking the track level. He was still watching when he saw his four friends going by towards the open park behind the racecourse. Andy loped quickly after them; but then, when he caught them up, he dropped back again with a new sort of shyness.

  Matt nudged Terry, who was nearest to him. ‘See who’s coming after us?’ Terry, Mike and Joe looked quickly back and went on walking. They were a little offended with Andy who had kept away for a whole week, busy on some mysterious project which he had failed to explain. They went on in silence to the storm-water channel, where they hoped to find some useful pieces of timber to make a set of bails and stumps for cricket.

  Among the rubbish that came washing down the storm-water channel there were often things worth rescuing: bolts, bits of wire or rope, useful tins or odd lengths of timber. The boys climbed down the cemented sides of the channel into its broad, gently curving bed, which was almost dry except for a trickle of water along its centre. They began to work their way along it, pausing now and then to examine something, lifting aside a sheet of grey and brittle cardboard, rolling an empty bottle into the stream; conscious of Andy, who kept pace with them on the bank above and watched. Where the big willows hung over the channel, they found three or four pieces of timber which they threw out on the bank. Andy placed them in a neat stack while the others climbed out.

  ‘What you want them for?’ he asked.

  ‘Making a wicket,’ said Joe.

  Andy chuckled in a pleased and interested way. ‘Why don’t you make another skateboard, so’s two could go at the
one time?’

  ‘No wheels,’ said Mike, climbing into one of the willows. Soon they were all sitting like birds among the branches, while Andy sat contentedly under the tree.

  ‘I own the dockyards,’ said Matt hopefully, looking over the park towards them from his perch.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Mike firmly. ‘I’ve had them for months.’

  ‘I thought you might, but I wasn’t sure. Just thought I’d have a go. Who’s got Pyrmont Bridge?’

  ‘Me,’ said Terry.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Make a toll bridge of it. A bob to go over.’

  ‘All the traffic’ll go through Railway Square for nothing. Who wants to pay a bob to go over Pyrmont Bridge?’

  ‘Don’t be a lunatic. There’s enough traffic jams now, when they do use Pyrmont. They’ll pay.’

  The willow dipped and swayed as the boys moved from branch to branch. At the foot of the tree, Andy laughed with secret glee. ‘I own something, too!’ he shouted into the branches.

  There was only silence from above. They were not going to show an undignified curiosity about Andy’s doings.

  ‘Hey, Mike! Did you hear, Joe? I own something, too! Not just kidding like you do, though.’ He chuckled knowingly. ‘You don’t really own all that stuff, I know. You never paid for any of it. What I own, I bought it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Joe. ‘We heard you the first time. What do you own?’

  Andy screwed up his eyes and twisted his face cunningly.

  ‘You needn’t tell us if you don’t want to,’ said Terry cruelly. ‘Nobody said you had to be friends.’

  ‘I’m friends!’ cried Andy, deeply hurt…‘Gee, you know I’m best friends. I’m going to tell you, aren’t I? It’s just…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Go on, Andy—good old Andy!’ cried Matt, almost bursting under the strain. ‘Spit it out, boy. Did you buy it with the three dollars?’

  Andy tried to tell them, but the words seemed to be too big for his tongue to manage. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll show you tonight.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Mike, not believing him.

  ‘You wait and you’ll see,’ Andy promised, hugging himself.

  He was very quiet for the rest of the afternoon, but now his friends saw that his quietness had a waiting, explosive quality like a bomb. Mike and Joe exchanged looks but said nothing. Matt was amused, and made teasing remarks about ‘the big secret’ until Terry told him briefly to stow it. There was a feeling of tension building up, and Joe’s long quiet face grew more and more serious. Whatever it was that gripped Andy so that everything else was shut out, he had been wrapped up in it for a whole week. What could he have bought for three dollars that could keep him in this state of round-eyed, hushed excitement? It was too much money for Andy, or it was not enough.

  ‘He’s bought a dog,’ whispered Matt.

  Mike and Joe exchanged a thoughtful look. That was one thing Andy really might have done, about which he might be very excited.

  ‘If he has, he’s been rooked,’ muttered Terry. ‘The sort of pup he could get for three dollars, he could’ve picked up for nothing.’

  Mike was shaking his head. ‘No. If it was a dog, he’d tell us.’

  Evening came, and pale lights swung between tree-tops in the park. The boys went home through streets that were roaring and humming with the sound of cars and where white-coated men had sprung up like a crop of Saturday-night mushrooms. Later, when the giant voice was speaking with calm authority into every ear in Appington Hill, Andy arrived in the O’Days’ back yard before it was half filled and drove everyone frantic with his impatience.

  ‘They’re too slow tonight, aren’t they, Mike? You won’t wait for ’em if they don’t come soon, will you? Don’t you wish they’d hurry up, Terry? This is nearly enough now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Stand in that corner,’ said Mike, exasperated, ‘and don’t move or talk.’

  At last the yard was filled. ‘Coming, Terry? You coming, Joe? Hey, Matt!’ For once, Andy’s friends followed him; and he swelled with pride and mystery as he led them, with many quiet chuckles, through the darkening streets. Halfway along the little passage he stopped suddenly, made shy by the very importance of his secret. ‘You’re my friends,’ he reminded them. ‘That’s why I’m showing you.’

  ‘Get on with it, then,’ said Mike unsympathetically.

  They groped their way out to the cliff-top, and Andy felt the presence of shadowy forms on verandahs. ‘Sh-sh,’ he whispered mysteriously, and led the way down the rocks.

  None of the others had the least idea of what was coming. Then Andy said ‘There!’ and threw out a hand to the wide circle of brilliance and movement below, they stared in a puzzled way. Andy sat on a rock shelf and chuckled in the dark. ‘That’s it,’ he said at last, peering at them. Reflected light from below washed faintly over their faces. He could see that they were still mystified. ‘It’s mine,’ he explained. ‘I bought it.’ He stood up suddenly and leaned forward in the night, clinging with his hands to the cliff-face. ‘I own Beecham Park!’ cried Andy triumphantly.

  The other boys were completely silent. Andy chuckled and gazed, and chuckled again. On the splendid stage below, the crowd drifted and swirled; the bookmakers shouted; the band marched and played.

  ‘Three dollars and cheap at the price,’ said Andy. ‘I only got two in my box. I had to get another one.’ He was talking dreamily, half to himself. ‘It took a time. Mum doesn’t know I opened the money-box…Don’t you wish it was yours?’ He looked at the shocked faces of his friends. ‘You can come and look at it any time,’ he assured them. ‘It’s just the same as if it was yours.’

  Still they were silent, unable to realize that Andy had bought Beecham Park Trotting Course for himself. The tide of people flowed away, the bookmakers sputtered, the great voice spoke out.

  ‘The horses!’ cried Andy, his eyes wide in the pale, reflected light. ‘They’re coming! Can’t you hear their feet, Joe?’

  The dark, shining horses whirled their jewelled drivers round under the floodlights. Andy watched them, his face alight with pride and love. This was his, this bright circle in the dark night. He had bought it for three dollars.

  Around him on the cliff, his friends stirred uneasily. Matt muttered, ‘Cripes!’ Terry was frowning. Mike and Joe exchanged a look, worried on Joe’s side and stern on Mike’s. It was clear that someone had ‘taken’ Andy for three dollars, and that he was going to be let down. That was all that the two younger boys saw—and, with Andy’s face dreaming in the dim light from below, that was enough. Mike and Joe were beginning to sense something more; some bigger problem, not so simple to grasp.

  Joe tried once. ‘Look, Andy, you know you couldn’t really buy Beecham Park for three dollars. It’d cost thousands and thousands.’

  ‘The old chap sold it cheap,’ Andy explained. ‘A packet of trouble, that’s what he said. He wanted to sell it cheap.’

  Old chap! That was unexpected. Not some mean-hearted member of the high-school set, then; someone older, from whom Andy should have been safe. ‘Cunning old coot,’ muttered Terry, and spat.

  Andy turned to them, full of delight, the spikes of hair standing up on the back of his head. ‘Good, isn’t it?’ he breathed.

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ muttered Mike. ‘Let’s get out of here. We need a bit of time.’

  ‘Come on, boy,’ said Joe, putting a gentle hand on Andy’s shoulder. ‘Time we went home.’

  Andy followed them up the cliff. ‘I’ll show you tomorrow too,’ he promised. ‘It’s real quiet, and you can see the men sweeping her out.’

  They saw Andy to his own street and watched him loping home. Then, since Joe’s front yard was the nearest private place, they wandered that way.

  ‘We never should have let him loose for a whole week,’ said Joe. Andy was a responsibility they accepted.

  A woman came to a dimly lit door and shrieked, ‘Fred!’ At
an upstairs window two men were shouting angrily. In the street a white-coated figure strolled among the cars.

  ‘We can’t talk to his mother,’ Mike pointed out. ‘She doesn’t know he’s taken the money from his money-box.’ Since all their families and most of their friends had known each other for a long time and met very often, that seemed to dispose of all adult help. They filed through Joe’s front gate and sat on the steps.

  ‘What do we want to talk to her for, anyway?’ said Matt. ‘She can’t do anything. Andy’s been taken for three dollars, but I don’t reckon she’d know who did it.’

  ‘If they get away with this,’ Terry pointed out, ‘they’ll be selling him the Harbour Bridge next.’

  ‘We’ll have to see about that, won’t we? Andy must know who he gave the money to. We’ll have to find out from him.’

  Terry smiled fiercely.

  ‘And how are you going to explain to Andy?’ demanded Mike. ‘You saw him back there. Are you just going to tell him he doesn’t own the place after all?’

  ‘Poor old Andy,’ muttered Joe, beating his fist softly on the step. ‘He won’t believe it.’

  ‘He’ll get over it in a week or two,’ Terry suggested. ‘If we take him gently till then, there won’t be much harm done.’

  For once Mike disagreed violently with his younger brother. ‘Don’t be a lunatic! He’ll go round acting as if he owned the place, making himself a laughing stock. Half the kids in Appington Hill will be having a go at him.’

  Matt jumped up impatiently. ‘He can’t really believe he owns Beecham Park! How does he think he’s going to run it? All those tough types down there—they’ll tell him pretty quick if we don’t. He’ll just have to listen to sense for once. I’ll tell him myself tomorrow.’

  ‘You can try,’ said Mike.

  Matt was a little surprised to find the matter being left to him like this. He stalked home feeling important and very determined. He was waiting for Andy when he called early in the morning, and went out with him to the quiet streets.