To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  Finally, after they’d hopped down off their horses in the yard and untacked them, Willie deigned to speak.

  ‘OK, Cassie,’ he said, as they headed for the tack room, ‘if they ever let you girls ride under rules, you’ll be the first one I’ll ring.’

  That Friday, an hour after dawn had broken, Reverse with Cassie on board did everything that was asked of him in his first serious piece, and more. Cassie didn’t make him take on the three-year-old filly who was galloping upside him, in case the more experienced horse headed him and disheartened her youngster. All too often she had heard Tyrone say that a young horse’s heart could be broken on the gallops by letting him get beat by older and sometimes faster animals.

  ‘The whole point of galloping a horse, Cassie McGann,’ she could hear him saying to her as she steadied the horse halfway through his work, ‘is to keep him sweet. Sweet and enthusiastic. Good horses don’t like getting beat. So why bury them out on the gallops?’

  So she let Reverse just lob along by the side of Tootsie, and when she called to Tomas to let out a reef just for the final hundred yards, she could feel the big horse quicken so immediately under her that she knew for certain he was a Ferrari and not a Ford.

  Back in the office they checked through his entries, and found that he was in at Naas in three weeks, and the Curragh in four. Cassie opted for the Curragh, and Tomas agreed, albeit reluctantly, being of the opinion that even a month might be a little bit soon for him.

  ‘We’ll play it by ear, Tomas,’ Cassie said.

  ‘We’ll need to be certain, Mrs Rosse,’ Tomas replied. ‘That race at the Curragh’s usually a pretty hot one.’

  ‘I have a feeling Reverse’s a pretty hot horse.’

  ‘He will be by July or August, certainly. By the look of him, he’s going to need time. Maybe we should slip little Tootsie in a modest little race out in the country. She’s still a maiden, remember.’

  ‘Let’s play it by ear, Tomas,’ Cassie repeated.

  Tomas nodded, touched his cap and went to make up his feeds. But Cassie knew his walk well enough to know that he was not in full agreement.

  That evening Cassie was too tired to go running, and too tired to face Erin in the kitchen, who, from what she’d seen of her that afternoon was in one of her ‘sighing’ moods. Instead she thought she’d sit in the study and put her feet up in front of the television.

  She sat not watching or listening to the programme but staring at the row of ledgers which remained undisturbed since Tyrone’s death above his desk. Cassie had felt at first as if she was trespassing sitting in the study by herself, because this had always been what Tyrone had called his dug-out. She had only ever disturbed him in here if there had been a crisis, and they had never once sat down in this room together to discuss anything. Whenever they had something to say to each other, Tyrone would lock his desk with the ledgers in it, rise, take Cassie by the hand and lead her across the hall to the drawing room.

  And now the ledgers he had always so carefully locked away were up on the shelf where Cassie had replaced them when she had forced herself to go through the heart-breaking process of sorting through all Tyrone’s papers. She had found notes she had written to him, little billet-doux she had sometimes slipped into his pocket on the racecourse or at a stuffy dinner party, for him to read when she wasn’t at his side to remind him of her love for him. And there was a drawer full of all the birthday cards she had ever written him, and all the gift tags she had attached to her presents to him. He had kept every one, secretly, unknown to her. There were photographs too, pictures she still couldn’t bear to look at, and probably, she thought, never could. And there were the letters she had sent him from America just before they were married, which he had tied up in a pink ribbon, in the exact order in which he had received them.

  But she had never once looked in the ledgers. Now, however, she found herself rising and taking them down and putting them in a pile on the desk in front of her. They were each gold-stamped with a year, starting back in 1948, when Cassie had been in her second year at the convent. Nineteen forty-eight. She had been seven years old when Tyrone had started his first ledger. So what did it contain? What did they all contain? Were they diaries? A detailed journal of his life? Or what? Cassie hardly dared open them.

  When she did, she found they were records of all Tyrone’s wagers. They contained a near twenty-year history of every bet Tyrone had ever struck. The entries were all in his wonderfully neat hand, and in the same coloured inks: black for the name of the horse, the meeting and the odds, blue for his winnings, red for his losses. As she progressed through the volumes, Cassie was staggered by the size of the wagers. She had known that Tyrone liked what he called the odd tilt or touch, but she had never realised that it was a full-time occupation. Nor had she realised what a totally reckless man he had been, gambling heavily at times such as when they were first married when he could ill afford to do so.

  But he seemed to have won more than he lost, particularly when Leonora sent all her horses to him, when the size of his bets increased, and also their frequency. But even at that time he didn’t confine his bets to his own horses, with whose chances and form he was most familiar. He had wagers everywhere, including France and even America. He had regularly made and lost fortunes. No wonder he had sent to Paris for model gowns for her, and lavished presents on them all at crazy times. When he was on a winning streak, he spent.

  ‘You old devil,’ Cassie said out loud with a smile. ‘You’re a rogue. You never said a thing about it. Even when you were down and losing thousands.’

  She had thought he had made all his money just from training and selling on young horses. Now she was entering the game herself, she realised quite how impossible that was, to make a rich living from training other people’s horses. Obviously if you wanted to strike gold, you gambled.

  So was this what she was going to have to do all the time? Rather than just the once to try and get her finances on an even keel? That was naïve for a start, she suddenly realised – putting all her eggs in one racing basket. But what else could she do to stop Flannery foreclosing on the mortgage? She was going to have to gamble. She was going to have to follow in Tyrone’s footsteps. She was going to have to study not just form, but the form of the form, and find out on the grapevine which horses were ‘on’ and which were ‘off’.

  When she’d first become really interested in racing, Cassie had been confused by the two terms, believing wrongly when she heard a certain stable was ‘off’ that they were ‘on’, and vice versa. Now she understood that when the word was out that a certain horse was ‘on’, it meant that it was expected duly to win. And if these tips were horses running in selling plates, or claiming races, or moderate handicaps, the chances of them obliging, as Cassie learned winning was called, were pretty short.

  She sat back in Tyrone’s chair. It was too large for her, so much so that she felt as if she was wearing one of his old sports coats. She sat back and stared at the books in front of her, and wondered whether she would have the nerve and the daring of her dead and beloved husband.

  Then she went upstairs and tucked up her children, even though they were both fast asleep, Mattie for once sleeping quite quietly and peacefully. She kissed them both, and they barely stirred from their deep, innocent sleeps, before retiring to her own little room.

  How she hated the dark now! Before it had never worried her, not even in her mother’s house. But now she practically always slept with her bedside light on. When she slept. Sleep was now something to be fought, lest it took her into that strange land of terrible and frightening dreams. She hadn’t started dreaming about Tyrone for months, probably because of the heavy sleeping tablets Doctor Gilbert had prescribed. But now it seemed that every night she dreamt some black and ghoulish vision, and she would wake soaked in sweat and numbed with a grievous fear. Then she would get up and go down to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, and sit by the still warm stove until dawn broke, and th
e birds started singing once more. When she wasn’t riding work, which seemed to be now about only one day a week, sometimes she would creep back to bed for an hour, but usually once it was light she would change swiftly and silently and leave for the yard before anyone else was awake.

  Sometimes on fine mornings, she would stop by the woods at the exact point where she and Tyrone had heard the nightingale. She would sit on the old tree trunk and pray to God to make the little bird sing again, as a sign that Tyrone was there, somewhere, anywhere. It didn’t matter where. Just that he was still, that somehow he still existed if only now in spirit, and that he was looking down on her, and making sure that they were all, all three of them, going to be all right until they met again.

  But the woods were filled not with the throbbing luscious sound of the nightingale’s song, but with the rattle and prattle of the dawn chorus, the sharp cries of the starlings and the flapping of the bigger birds’ wings. And Cassie would rise, weary and disheartened, not even cheered by the sound which before had never failed to raise her spirits: that of the horses calling and shouting for their breakfasts.

  It was decided to run Reverse at the Curragh, or rather Cassie decided the horse was to run. Tomas said he still had too much fat about him and Cassie, looking at the horse, was inclined to agree. But two things forced her hand. Firstly, Tootsie came heavily into season, and lost all interest in her work, and secondly, despite still being a little on the tubby side, Reverse did a piece of work in the week before his intended race which even nearly convinced Tomas he was ready to go. Cassie galloped him over the full six furlongs, leaving Tomas on the ground with the stopwatches. Reverse’s split times for the last two furlongs, when he was no way fully extended, were the fastest times Cassie had ever seen recorded at Claremore.

  ‘What sort of speed will he go when he’s asked, eh Tomas?’ Cassie asked as she hopped off his back and gave him an easy. ‘Jeeze, he was barely out of a canter!’

  ‘He’s having a bit of a blow, Mrs Rosse,’ Tomas said doubtfully. ‘I’d like to see him easier in his wind.’

  ‘He will be after his next piece of work,’ Cassie retorted. ‘He’s a bit of a stuffy horse, I reckon, and one more piece of fast work should have him spot on.’

  Tomas picked a handful of grass and offered it to the horse, who ate it with relish. Then he stuck a Sweet Afton in his own mouth and, lighting it, thoughtfully watched the smoke drift up to the sky.

  Cassie asked him for a leg back up on to her horse, and as she walked him home, wondered what on earth she could do to convince her very own Doubting Tomas.

  Everything went in copybook fashion until the Claremore team arrived at the Curragh itself. Reverse had continued to improve in condition, and pleased even Tomas in his final bit of work. The two horses Cassie and Tomas most feared didn’t stand their ground, leaving from an original entry of over thirty horses, a field of only eight runners, six of whom according to their spies could more or less be discounted. There was only one other strongly fancied runner, from Tim Curley’s yard, a well-bred grey called Blazes Man, but Tomas bought his lad a large drink on his arrival at the course and came back with the information that the grey was only out for a school in public, an activity frowned upon by the authorities but widely practised by most trainers, whereby their horses’ first run in public was, as it was said, something in the nature of an education. Reverse was the short-priced favourite in all the newspapers, so once they had digested all the evidence, Tomas grudgingly admitted he could well be their ‘good thing’. He still had the last word, however, advising Cassie not to plunge until the horse was saddled and on his way to the start. Tomas was a firm believer in the amount of slipping which took place between cups and lips.

  Unhappily he was to be proved right, and all too soon.

  Dermot Pryce was involved in a car crash on his way to the racecourse, and was rushed to hospital with multiple injuries. Cassie called the hospital at once, to be told that Pryce was in no danger, but had sustained a broken pelvis, three broken ribs and multiple lacerations, while Tomas rushed around to find another jockey. They had very little time, because Reverse’s race was the second on the card. Tomas’ first three choices were all booked, and two other jockeys who would have made able substitutes only had rides in the last two races so hadn’t yet arrived at the Curragh. Finally and sixth best, Tomas offered last season’s star apprentice the ride, a cocky little Dubliner called Brendan O’Dowell. He was a very talented lad, of that there was no doubt; but the the more orthodox trainers and horseman strongly disapproved of his style of riding, considering that for a tall boy he rode far too short.

  ‘Just tell him to drop his leathers a couple of holes then, Tomas,’ Cassie said, throwing the saddle up on to Reverse’s back.

  ‘You tell him,’ Tomas retorted, ‘and Christ you’ve only forgotten the number cloth!’

  Tomas yanked the saddle back off and looked round for the missing article of tack.

  ‘I’m going to go and have a word with O’Dowell,’ Cassie said. ‘Because you won’t. Liam will help you finish saddling up.’

  Cassie left Tomas and Liam to it, and went in search of her jockey. She saw him standing just inside the door of the weighing room, having a cigarette and a gossip with some of his fellow riders.

  ‘Now listen, O’Dowell,’ Cassie said taking him outside, ‘you haven’t ridden for Mr Muldoon before, and he wants you to know that while he reckons you, he also thinks like a lot of people that you ride too short.’

  O’Dowell turned round and pulled a very open face to one of the jockeys in the doorway behind him. Then he turned back and looked Cassie coolly in the eye.

  ‘There’s plenty of other jocks, ma’am,’ he replied, stubbing out his cigarette.

  ‘You’re booked, O’Dowell,’ Cassie told him. ‘You’ve accepted the ride and you’re to ride to orders.’

  ‘Whose orders would these be, ma’am?’

  ‘Mr Muldoon’s, and the owner’s – who unfortunately isn’t here.’

  ‘I see.’

  He gave another backwards look to his chum, and slapped his whip down on top of his boot.

  ‘I have to get mounted now, ma’am,’ he said, touching his cap, ‘if you’ll excuse me.’

  Cassie followed him towards the paddock, seething quietly. The boy hadn’t been directly discourteous, but his every question and reply had been heavily tinged with recognisable sarcasm.

  ‘Mr Muldoon says you’re to ride the horse two holes longer than you normally do,’ Cassie instructed as they made their way across the grass to where the horse had been pulled in.

  ‘I’ll check that with Mr Muldoon, ma’am,’ O’Dowell replied. ‘Just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. You know – too many cooks and all that.’

  The jockey touched his cap to Tomas and then ran his eye over the horse.

  ‘Nice sort of animal, sir,’ he said to Tomas, his back now to Cassie.

  ‘You’re to hold him up until a furlong out, O’Dowell,’ Cassie instructed. ‘He’s got a lot of speed, and if you tuck him in third or fourth, just off the pace until the distance, once you let him down you’ll bury them.’

  Tomas legged the boy up and checked the girths. The boy immediately started shortening his leathers.

  ‘Leave those be now,’ Tomas said. ‘That’s the length you’re to ride him.’

  O’Dowell nodded, and settled into the horse, while Liam tugged the number cloth, one side of which had got rucked up under the girths and saddle.

  ‘Let that thing alone,’ Tomas said. ‘And get the horse out of here, O’Dowell. He’s beginning to get warm.’

  Warm was an understatement, Cassie thought, looking at the lathers of sweat which had broken out between the horse’s hind legs, down his neck and under his saddle. Reverse was also becoming visibly upset with the pre-race activity, and was beginning to prance and roll his eye.

  Liam grabbed the lead chain in an attempt to get the horse quickly out of the paddock,
but the horse suddenly stood upon his hind legs and sent Liam flying. Tomas grabbed the bridle as the horse came down, and Liam scrambled back on to his feet, a bit shaken but luckily unscathed.

  ‘Go on now!’ urged Tomas. ‘Get the beast out of here! And take him down easy, O’Dowell!’

  The jockey tried to settle the horse as Liam led him towards the paddock exit, but Reverse’s blood was up, and he jinked and pranced and practically knocked another horse flying as he crashed sideways out of the exit.

  ‘Come on,’ Tomas said grimly, taking Cassie by the elbow. ‘We’d best see how he goes down.’

  ‘But I haven’t placed the bet yet!’ Cassie protested.

  ‘’Tis just as well I’d say,’ Tomas replied. ‘By the look of him he’s already run his race.’

  They stood at the bottom of the enclosure, right by the rails, and watched intently as Reverse came out first onto the course.

  ‘My God, Tomas!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘That little so and so’s only shortening his leathers!’

  Tomas took a look through his race glasses and saw that Cassie was right. Instead of steadying and calming the very anxious horse he had under him, the boy was quite coolly and openly yanking up his irons.

  ‘Stupid little bugger,’ Tomas muttered, ‘savin’ your presence. Ah well. All we can do now is pray he rides as good as they all say he does.’

  Moments later, Reverse cantered right by the two of them on his way down to the start. Another moment later, the horse shied violently away from the rails as a newspaper blew across the track in front of him, and half a second later, O’Dowell was lying on the ground. Cassie clapped a horrified hand to her mouth and Tomas let fly some fearsome oaths in Irish, as the now 2/1 favourite galloped off across the vast expanse of the Curragh.