See? My mind’s all over the place today, because I don’t want to think about this afternoon – yeah, that’s probably the reason. Purple and silver. Don wore a purple waistcoat when he gave me away. He gave me this new life, too, and I’m dead grateful.
I’ll be one of the first women to ride the National. It’s a terrible race, very hazardous, my Gordy says. He worries about me and I worry about the poor bloody horses. Ooh, look, there’s our Sally waddling off to stroke Murdy and Nye. She’ll be staying here, because she’s eight months gone and anyway, she can mind our Eloise. Sally’s expecting to deliver twins, and she says they don’t like one another, cos they fight like buggery.
We’ve got just Ellie, and she’s enough, thanks. Reading at three, she was, and now that she’s coming up five she has a little Shetland called Periwinkle, and she wants a taller pony as well because Peri’s getting a bit small for her. Oh yes, we have a crazy life here, and she’s in charge, little madam. I think she takes after me.
Our three lads what were stuck in that stuffy scout hut are off out in the world, every one of them with a good job. It’s turned out well for all of us what had a bad start in life. Makes you think, eh? So many damaged people mending theirselves and one another just through talking and listening and laughing and crying. It’s all you need, see. Communication.
John lost his stammer and gained a wife, a lovely widow a bit older than him with two kids. He mends cars and sells them. Phil’s nearly a doctor serving his time down Walton, and Ian’s an accountant. I wouldn’t have given sixpence for their chances when me and Sal first met them, but it just goes to show, you never can tell – know what I mean? Look at my mad horse down there, stood with Nye and staring up at me. I know he knows that today’s the day.
It’ll soon be time. A string of bays has just left for the sands, but Murdoch’s made no effort to go with them. His lip’s curling; he’s talking to me. Murma’s further away with a few donkeys holding some kind of committee meeting, I’d guess. Her son never takes his eyes off me except to glance at his companion, Blind Nye.
Now he’s chopping the ground with a hoof. He’s telling me to come down. It’s time.
What a bloody life. I’ve been weighed, stared at, questioned and I got that mad I told the swines I’d had cornflakes for me breakfast and evackerated me bowel. Well, they were getting on me bleeding nerves. Laughing at me, they were. I don’t know what they were doing with me horse, only he’s been showing the whites of his eyes. Never seen a fuss like it, I swear. When he shows his whites, folk need to stand clear if he doesn’t know them.
He’s got to carry some weights, and all the animals are under guard in case some flea-brained scally shoves a bloody needle in their arses so they can’t run proper and something else will win the trophy. It’s weird. People are weird. This is supposed to be sport, but there must be criminals about.
I grab hold of Gordy. ‘Where’s Nye?’ I ask.
‘In the horsebox.’
Me dander’s up now. Me dander’s up as high as any of them cruel jumps. ‘Bring him in here,’ I order.
‘I can’t. They won’t have a tatty old donkey near highbred horses.’
Well, I hit him. I must stop this sort of behaviour, else he’ll start thinking I mean it. Tell you what, though, I am pissed off with this lark; more fuss here than at a grandmothers’ picnic down Otterspool Prom with gulls swooping down and pinching the butties. I’ve never been put through this load of crap before. But them other races weren’t like this, were they? I’m with the cream of the cream here, dead posh folk and high-bred horses.
Anyway, one minute I’m trying not to laugh at all these dignitaries what Don and Lippy used to call digs, and I’m looking at some terrible hats and wondering who got these people ready for coming to Aintree. Lippy waves at me – he’s here with his little doctor wife.
Then all of a sudden, I’m in the saddle and in the line, and Murdy’s snorting and tapping a hoof. What happened in between hats and starting line – don’t ask, cos I’ve got a hole in me memory. This is fear – adrenalin, I think it’s called. Some of the other horses are snorting, too. Some of them might be dead in about ten minutes. Focus, you soft cow!
And we’re off. Oh, God, the thunder. There’s one hundred and sixty-ish hooves beating the ground, forty horses going for gold. He takes his time, does my Murdoch, saves himself for a bit later on, like. Now I’ve gone deaf, deaf as a post. No thunder, no crowd, nothing at all, because I’m not me no more. I’m him and he’s me and there’s just one of us what have been glued together for six years come July. I do remember that none of these jockeys knows his mount like I know mine, scrape of strawberry jam, an apple for Nye, spit on the books and on the piano, climb the stairs, threaten to eat me wedding cake . . . Oh, now – this is it, this is how it feels when our invisible wings open.
I daren’t look. There’s a few horses down, but I don’t want to know. We’re being passed by riderless ones who carry on because that’s what they’ve been taught, and I ignore them because this day is ours. Floating like a feather over and across Bechers and the Chair, no end to him, no beginning to me, cos we are a thingy – a centaur. Second time. Second time round and we don’t flag, no pause, no fear now, just the flying.
We don’t get to the finish first, cos half a dozen without riders are there before us. Sound crashes in like a bomb hitting Liverpool. They’re screaming our name as we cross the line. Only now do I look back – the second horse is coming in half a furlong at least behind us. I lean forward as he slows down. ‘You done it, baby, we won it and I don’t half love you.’ I’m proud, cos I never needed the whip except to stroke him gently as a sign that I was pleased with him.
He’s breathing hard. I pat him and he’s wet through. There’s telly cameras all over the shop and a helicopter in the sky. Here comes the bit we’re going to hate. Still, what can’t be cured must be endured – and we did win.
In this world, there are many horses, then there’s Murdoch. No, there’s Murdoch and me, and we are joined by a thread no one can see, a thread that was made on that first day when I lay across his back and he walked me round the big field – the paddock. Oh, bloody hell, there’s Gordy and he’s crying again, bless him. I think I’m in shock, because I’ve lost all sense of time. This is a long race, but I feel as if it lasted about three minutes.
Now, the shit stuff starts. We’ve a mounted cop on both sides of us. Murdy’s not pleased and I have to tell him, ‘Easy, boy.’ Oh Jaysus, as Gordy would say. The winner’s enclosure is packed with hysterical people, and the mounted police try to push them back. Mad Murdoch, winner of the Grand National, has stiffened all his muscles, but his breathing’s calmer. And then he does it so suddenly I nearly lose me hold on the reins. Yes, he’s up, front legs thrashing about, people scarpering like shoplifters dashing out of Woolworth’s.
And all I can do is bloody laugh, because his legs crash down on one of them ugly hats I told you about before. Dignitaries? Look at that one running away in her sling-backs, no stockings and enough hard skin on her heels to cover an elephant. Her hat’s buggered too, cos Murdoch saw to that.
Trophy. Photos. Me talking to a telly camera. There’s a long pole with a fluffy end nearly up me nose – it’s a microphone. My baby’s still wet with sweat. So I do me whistle, that one with a finger at one side of me gob and me thumb at the other side. He stills. The digs and press folk go quiet as well. One of the police says I’ve cleared the wax out of his ears. Maybe I should charge for me services – wouldn’t be the first time, would it?
Gordy arrives at our side.
I smile down at him before speaking me mind into the fluffy bit. ‘Thanks and all that,’ I say, ‘but this animal’s me best friend and he’s wetter than a ton of cod on a Fleetwood fishing boat. I’m not being funny or nothing, but he needs a rub down and his donkey what’s waiting for him. You can have more photos when I’ve dried him off and made sure his breathing’s right. Now, let me through.’ Nobody move
s. So I carry on. ‘This animal is worth more than all the rest of us put together. He matters.’ The police clear a way and we get past. And they’re all here, Lippy and Lillian (don’t forget the third letter l in her name), Angela, Mo, Belle, Tom, Katie and the new girls. Every one of them steps up with blankets and rags to rub my darling horse dry.
We’re still being filmed, only I don’t care no more. Somebody from a newspaper asks if I’m happy and I tell him I am, because me horse is still alive and not needing his throat opening so he can breathe. And yes, it is great to be the first woman to get the trophy, but will they bugger off, cos I want Murdoch back with Nicholas Nye.
That’s when they grab hold of my Gordy to get the tale about the donkeys and Murma and the geese and cats and dogs and chickens and the RSPCA. I hear somebody saying they want to do a shoot at Wordsworth House, and I think to meself – well, as long as they don’t mean with a gun. I hear Nye’s bell, and here he comes to have his photo took next to Longshanks Mad Murdoch and this dwarf of a female jockey.
I’m sitting proud as a peacock (peahen?) on my bareback horse while cameras flash. ‘It’s all right, Murdy,’ I whisper, ‘it’s just the price of fame. Never mind, we’ll soon be home.
‘I promise,’ I tell him as I slide off, and he does that horrible grin, all tombstone teeth and quiet whickering. Honest, he’s a right case, this chap.
There’s a bit more pissing about with photos, leave me hat on, take me hat off, stand at his head, make him do that grin again. It’s boring. And I’ve a daughter waiting for me at home . . .
We’re back at Dove Cottage. I give Gordy a goodnight kiss, and that’s that, cos I feel as if I’ve been dragged through me granny’s mangle. I should be used to it by now, but the National’s a bloody killer, isn’t it? If I feel hammered, what’s my poor horse going through? I’ll massage him in the morning; he likes being massaged.
Me eyes start drooping into the closed position. In that stupid world that lives at the edge of being awake and at the start of sleep, I see her standing there, a battleship in a frock, scarf trying to cover them big plastic curlers she always used, pink ones, blue ones, yellow ones. And she’s grinning at me.
‘Hello,’ I say in my head.
‘I’m that proud of you, Babs,’ she says. ‘My girl, my daughter.’
‘Thanks, Mam.’ And I drift away from here, past her and into a world where there’s just me, Gordy, Ellie, Murdoch, his mother and our donkeys. This is my heaven, and here I’ll stay until . . . until . . .
I sit up, muscles aching and complaining as I thump my beloved husband. ‘You’re snoring again,’ I tell him before settling back on the pillows. I must stop hitting him, or he might begin to think I mean it.
SOFT ECHOING HOOVES
Ankles strapped. Tightly wrapped
Against disease. Ran with ease
Across the sand, his own land.
Fences cleared, never feared,
Did not go under. Heard the thunder
Forty more with him before
Seldom behind. One of a kind.
Thrum, thrum, the beat of drum?
No. It’s the field; to him they yield
Hard and fast, riders cast
To lie on ground while wild hooves pound.
Yet still he rushes, still he pushes
For the line. ‘The prize is mine!’
And leaving space, he owned the race,
Took the crown. Then looking down
On mortals less, he nodded. ‘Yes,
I didn’t fall. I’ll never crawl.’
Within this book, you had a look
At Murdoch (Mad), who’s quite the lad.
An imitation, my own creation.
A paler horse who runs the course.
But Red Rum was the one I met
On Southport sands. I can’t forget
The scent of him, his gentle touch.
I fell in love and cared so much
I never watched the National,
Since love is rarely rational.
I should have known. No rider thrown
No fence refused, no skill unused.
A noble mount whose wins we count.
We had the best. He’s now at rest.
Though still I hear on Southport’s beach
Soft echoing hooves beyond my reach.
Reader, I hope you love my Mad Murdoch
as much as I do.
RUTH HAMILTON
By Ruth Hamilton
A Whisper to the Living
With Love From Ma Maguire
Nest of Sorrows
Billy London’s Girls
Spinning Jenny
The September Starlings
A Crooked Mile
Paradise Lane
The Bells of Scotland Road
The Dream Sellers
The Corner House
Miss Honoria West
Mulligan’s Yard
Saturday’s Child
Matthew & Son
Chandlers Green
The Bell House
Dorothy’s War
A Parallel Life
Sugar and Spice
The Judge’s Daughter
The Reading Room
Mersey View
That Liverpool Girl
Lights of Liverpool
A Liverpool Song
A Mersey Mile
Meet Me at the Pier Head
Midnight on Lime Street
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Gail Stanton Friars (new researcher) and Avril Cain (my forever researcher).
I send heartfelt gratitude to my readership.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although the books are fiction, I try hard to adhere to the (f)actualities of the era in which they are set. In this one I wander off a bit, for which misdeed I beg tolerance.
Mad Murdoch is a pale imitation of the aforementioned horse, and his owners are . . . unusual.
I allow women to ride in the National rather earlier than they did in reality.
The phasing out of hospital matrons had already begun at the time.
We were relatively unaware of the long-term effects of LSD and similar drugs until later.
For these and all other mistakes, I ask pardon.
Ruthie
First published 2015 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76909-0
Copyright © Ruth Hamilton 2015
Cover design and shop photography © www.blacksheep-uk.com
Main figure: © David Copeman / Alamy; Policeman: © Andrew Sole / Alamy; Porter: © Allan Cash Picture Library / Alamy; Old lady: © Jenny Matthews / Alamy. Author photograph © Bolton News
The right of Ruth Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.
ton, Midnight on Lime Street
Midnight on Lime Street Page 40
