Blind Beauty

by K. M. Peyton

  When the field came down towards the stands on the first circuit they were beginning to string out. A group of six or so were bunched in front, led by San Lucar, and then a straggle to another bunch amongst which was Buffoon. Tom had got him on the inside now, saving ground, and he seemed to be going very easily, his long stride making him look relaxed compared with some of the others. As they came to the biggest jump on the course, the Chair, in front of the stands, Tessa found herself shaking again. She saw Tom sit down and drive, asking him, and Buffoon flew, once more landing well out. He danced over a fallen jockey, gathered his long legs together and powered on.

  “He’s a natural,” Jimmy said. “Whoever’d have thought it?”

  They went past towards the water-jump, right in front of where they were standing… close enough now to see that Buffoon was pulling quite hard, to see the grimace on Tom’s face as the horse took off a full stride too soon and sailed over the water with another vast jump. Now he was closing on the leading bunch, belting round the bend near the start and out into the country again on the second circuit. Behind them on the wind came the receding frenzy of pounding hooves and the cries of stable lads trying to catch loose horses pulling up near the stables. Tessa tried to calm herself, but it was hard to stand still, breathe, not have hysterics. Just to stay sane … Even Jimmy was showing signs of excitement.

  “He’s doing you proud, Tessa. Whatever happens, he’s shown class.”

  Bechers loomed again. Tessa watched the television screen and saw San Lucar go down on his knees on landing. His jockey clutched frantically at the horse’s ears but Lukey ducked his head again, the jockey flew off over his shoulder and the big horse continued alone.

  Tessa screamed with joy. Buffoon flew over, making the jump look like a pole on the ground.

  “Well, that’s the opposition gone. It’s anybody’s now,” Peter said.

  The field was now well and truly strung out. Out in the far country the spruce flew from the big hedges as tired horses ploughed through them. Buffoon was now in the leading group, with only three horses ahead of him. Tessa was unashamedly clutching Jimmy’s arm, but he said quietly to her, “Don’t bank on it, Tessa. This is where three days without food will find him out.”

  All the horses were tired now, jumping raggedly, their jockeys holding them together. Tom was sitting quietly, niggling with his heels, but Tessa could see that the big horse was failing, the heart going out of him. His stamina, his great strength, had been sapped by the misery of the past three days. He came round the home turn and into the long straight to the finish, but three other horses were in front of him and going farther away, and as he struggled in their wake two more overtook him. Tessa’s heart died with him and the tears ran down her cheeks, but she was smiling at the same time for his bravery. He had given his all. Tom did not ask him for any more, but just held him together to help him over the last two jumps, going for the big holes cut out by his predecessors. The horse came home with his ears pricked, loping slowly up the run-in to finish seventh.

  They all ran out on the course to meet him. Not winning did not matter at all any more. The horse had done brilliantly.

  “My God, I reckon he could have won! If that damned pony had stayed around!”

  Peter was his old self, all the worries of the past few days rubbed out. Tessa was dancing, hugging the sweaty neck, hugging Tom as he slipped wearily from the saddle.

  “What a ride! He was great, really great!”

  Tom tugged off his saddle and the cloths, his face wreathed in smiles. Peter, remembering his duties, was looking round for the Cressingtons, but there was no sign of them in the crush, so he turned back to the horse, patting his neck, looking him over for injury.

  “He could have won, I reckon,” Tom said, “without that Lucky business. Next year, eh?”

  “Next year. I’m booking you now,” Peter said.

  “I made the right choice. What a bollocking Ferdy’s going to get from our friend Morrison! I wouldn’t be in his shoes now!” He turned back to Buffoon and kissed him on the nose. “He’s a wonder, Tess! And you too – such faith!” And he gave her a kiss too, gathered up his gear and went off to weigh in.

  “He gave him a great ride,” Jimmy said.

  A lot of people were standing round, gawping and eavesdropping, and now one of them came forward and stood by Buffoon’s head. But it was Tessa he was looking at.Tessa looked up, stared, trembled. The shock hit her like a bolt of lightning.

  “Tessa?” he said, not sure either.

  “Yes?” A whisper.

  “This is Shiner’s boy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bred him. And you too!”

  The sudden breaking of the lop-sided smile showing the tooth broken in a fight, the amazing sparkling eyes laughing at her… Tessa could not believe it. After all this time, her father! After years of dreams, odd quirks of memory, the terrible regret, the anger at his defection… it all rolled away now in what felt like a blast of golden sunshine. She was too stunned to speak.

  Declan put his arms round her and covered her face with whisky-smelling kisses. She could tell he was fairly drunk as usual, but it didn’t matter. She buried her face in his dirty jacket, not wanting to come up, not wanting anyone to see her out-of-control face. But they were surrounded by a crowd, and Buffoon’s reins were in her hands.

  Declan was happily proclaiming to all and sundry, “My little girl! This is my girl Tess, and this is the horse we bred from her little old mare, eh Tess? The little old mare with no eyes. My, how she loved that mare. Didn’t you love old Shiner, Tess, when you was just a little girl?”

  Tessa wanted to die.

  She loved him just as much, but not here, for God’s sake! Blathering away, on a whisky and Guinness high, he was revealing all the good reasons for the family break-up. Peter and Jimmy were looking on, astonished.

  “Declan Blackthorn?” Jimmy enquired.

  “The very same, sorr!”

  He was sounding now just like a television Irishman, away on one of his spiels. “And this is my own little Tess, my little lost girl, my baby – and my horse too, the ugly great brute I cried over the night he was born–”

  “Oh Dad! Shut up!” Tessa muttered, surfacing. “Not in front of all these people.”

  She could see Peter and Jimmy smiling. The Cressingtons were trundling towards them, no doubt to talk about the loss of their life’s savings. Peter turned away with a groan.

  “We’ve got to take him back to the stables, Dad,” Tessa said desperately. “Can we talk later?”

  “I’ll be in the bar, my darling. Come back to the bar and have a word before you go. My little long-lost girl–”

  A group of equally happy and inebriated Irish friends were waiting to take him away, and Tessa watched him depart with a feeling of relief mixed with terrible pain. What a man! It was like the past coming up and slamming her between the eyes, nothing like the romantic dream she had nurtured of her father all these years. It was how he was, had always been, why her mother had left. Why ever had she dreamed otherwise? It was all plain now.

  Jimmy said, “All you need, your long-lost daddy after a day like this! Take it easy, Tessa.”

  He could see her state.

  “He’s drunk!”

  “It’s a great drinking day for the Irish, Aintree. Give him a chance. You can look for him before we go, when we’ve done the horse.”

  Tessa stumbled back to the stables, leading Buffoon. People jostled them on all sides. Somewhere in the crush she saw another face from the past – Mrs Alston. Was she dreaming? But no, at her side was the Battleaxe, and as they went by the two ladies waved their race-cards at her and shouted, “Well done, your horse, Tessa!”

  Were they drunk too?

  Tessa felt more drunk than any of them.

  Buffoon! What a horse! Could w
inning feel any better, when he had run his great heart out like that? But for losing Lucky, who knew…?

  The quiet Jimmy was wreathed in smiles.

  “We all laughed at him, didn’t we, when he came? Your beauty! Did you know your dad bred him? Is that why you wanted him?”

  “Only when I saw his passport. Not the night he arrived. The dam, Shiner, was my dearest –” She choked.

  Covering up, Jimmy chatted quietly. “Declan’s name isn’t in the passport as breeder. Only a stud name.”

  “He called it a stud. Just a row of tin sheds. The rain came through… ” She went there when her parents quarrelled, she remembered, and sat under the tin sheets in one of the few dry spots, talking to Shiner.

  “Shiner had no eyes,” she said.

  “No eyes! That why your father had her? She was a reject? Should have been put down.”

  “Yes. He insisted. He raised her.”

  “Because of her bloodline? He’s not stupid, your father. She’s got a great bloodline. That’s where he gets it from. Not his sire, who was useless.”

  “Declan could never afford a decent sire.”

  Talking about it calmed her. By the time they had worked on Buffoon and got him dry and comfortable, watered and fed, Tessa was getting back on an even keel. She could see they needed to start for home, and that Buffoon was now, the excitement over, starting to fret for Lucky again, but both Peter and Jimmy knew she had to see her father again, if only to say goodbye.

  “I won’t be long,” she promised.

  But it took her ages to find him, and when she did he was surrounded by his pals and at the singing stage. She stood amongst the noisy, jostling throng in the swaying tent of one of the hard-drinking bars and watched him raising his lovely tenor voice in an obscure Irish folk-song, of which he had a huge repertory. How she remembered that song!

  And she knew she couldn’t speak to him. It would be too awful, in that company. He would be maudlin and dreadful. She watched him, and the tears of her long devotion to his memory filled her eyes. What a day! She didn’t need a Guinness to feel drunk herself, reeling in her roundabout of emotions – up, down, round and round like a circus carousel. The noise and the atmosphere were unbearable. She turned away. If he wanted her, he knew where to find her now.

  But she guessed he would never come.

  They were on a high now it was all over, the horse safe, the worries at rest. They could talk for ever about whether he would have won or not if he had had no setbacks, but for now there was the tidying up to do, the horse to be washed down, the owners to be found.

  Jimmy came back to the stables with Tessa. Tessa kept thinking with a delirious joy of Maurice seeing his jockey come off at Bechers. The thought of him losing his fortune was euphoric. Every time she remembered the poor jockey shooting off over the horse’s ears she laughed out loud. It was the loveliest thing she had seen for a long time. She would go up to Goldlands and visit, and gloat. Poor old Greevy. He would be sick.

  Peter was shaking his head over the Cressingtons.

  “They’re more upset about the money they lost than excited about the horse’s performance. That dreadful daughter – moan, moan, moan. She doesn’t even begin to understand how it works. Did I tell them to put all their savings on? I told them to have a modest bet each way. And then I told them about Lucky and the chances slipping away. What more can a man do? The old man wasn’t so cut up. He’s got more sense. But that woman!”

  And when they were on the motorway, purring for home, Peter said, “I saw Tom later and he said something about getting the vet to have a look at Buffy’s eyes. He reckons his eyesight is not all it should be. I must say I was quite surprised. We’ve always thought him clumsy, but Tom reckons there might be a reason. I hope he’s mistaken.”

  Tessa felt the cold hand close again, as the secret fear that she kept buried in her subconscious was pulled into the light again. She knew all about blind horses. No, Buffoon, not that, she prayed. But she kept her counsel, and changed the subject, saying, “Are there any sandwiches left? I’m starving.”

  Buffoon stood looking out over his door, whinnying every now and then. Something was missing in his life. He felt ill at ease, anxious. He was not used to feeling anxious. He couldn’t eat.

  “He looks like a scarecrow,” Sarah said.

  “He’s my beauty.”

  Tessa had her arms round his neck. But she wasn’t enough. A horse knows his humans, but knows his mates better. They are creatures of habit and Buffoon had had Lucky by his side ever since he was a foal. His dam Shiner had not been a good mother to him, and kicked him away from his suckling early on in his life, and Declan had given him Lucky for a pal. When he went to the sales, Lucky went too, and his lackadaisical early owners had had no problems with taking the pony too. Anything for a quiet life. Buffoon had been fortunate. But the habit of Lucky’s companionship was now so deeply ingrained that it was more than just the usual bonding.

  “He’ll get over it,” Sarah said. “Eventually. Silly old sod.”

  Tessa had work to do. She wasn’t allowed to spend all day mooning over her horse. Buffoon watched her go, as far as he could see her, which wasn’t very far. He was looking through a grey mist, but didn’t think it was anything unusual. He fell over things if they were in the way, but mostly there was only a grass way ahead. He never went anywhere else. He had got used to the sudden appearance of large fences, and jumped as big as possible in his surprise. He had a careful nature, and a well-developed sense of self-preservation, learned from his foalhood. It had stood him in good stead so far.

  “He ran such a cracking race,” Sarah said. “We were going mad, watching the box.”

  “Tom thought he would have won if—”

  “We all thought so too.”

  He still wouldn’t eat, save for desultory picking. He would not eat the bran-mash they made him, nor even a handful of carrots. At least he had stopped box-walking. Or was it because he was tired? Tessa was tired too and her head was reeling. But she could not resist going up to Goldlands to see her mother. And Maurice.

  It was late, and when she set off up the valley the stars were out and a bright half-moon lit her path. A slight frost hardened the way, the grass crisp and sharp under her shabby boots. So many thoughts and emotions jumbled in her mind that the walk in the cold air was welcome and she did not hurry. The threat about Buffoon’s sight, surfacing again, was something she did not want to think about, and again she tried to sink it under the good memories of the day. If Lucky had not disappeared, would her horse have won? They would never know, but she knew Jimmy thought he would have kept on going. “He stays for ever, that one.” The memory of his great golden galloping legs eating up the ground as he came round past the stands on the first circuit would stay in her mind for ever. And his courage, his generosity, his kindness… she had stayed with him in his box to settle him, as if she were the piebald pony, and he had rubbed his big bonehead against her shoulder affectionately, to tell her he had done his best. What did he know about the Grand National and what it meant to win the biggest race in the world? He only did as he was asked. She could not imagine her life without Buffoon.

  As she approached Goldlands she felt a thrill of delight go through her. She could almost find it in her heart to be sorry for Maurice, remembering his poor jockey’s frantic effort to stay in the saddle. Tom might have sat it. Maurice would know that. Tessa hoped he wasn’t going to take it out on her poor mother.

  They were sitting in the lounge, waiting for dinner, drinking. Tessa could feel the wrath even as she opened the door, a heavy air of tension. They were both well into the whisky. Tessa saw that her mother had been preparing herself for Maurice’s homecoming and was now in a loony maudlin state, her eyes full of tears. Maurice looked wiped out, his face sunk in, like an old man, Tessa saw. Her reaction was of savage pleasure.

  “Greevy
not home yet?” She felt she must tread carefully.

  “No. What do you want? Come to show your sympathy?” A heavily sarcastic query.

  “No. I came to see Mum. And get some dinner, with luck.”

  “I shall have words with your boss tomorrow, about getting his hands on my jockey. Very underhand, and Tom broke his contract. I’ve a mind to complain to the authorities –”

  “It was nothing to do with Peter. Tom chose.”

  “Tom would have sat that peck. The horse didn’t fall, for God’s sake! I was robbed of that race. The bloody jockey…”

  It was all that Tessa had expected. No word of praise for their horse, no suggestion that he might have handled the situation better, no joy at Lukey’s great performance, no sympathy for his jockey… only self-pity and blame. The atmosphere was so bad that she wondered if it was worth staying after all. She had seen what she wanted. But when Maurice went off to the bathroom her mother said desperately, “Do stay for a while. I can’t bear it when he’s like this! He’s lost a fortune and this mood will last for weeks. He can’t afford to lose so much money. I told him he was mad, but he was so adamant that he had the winner.”

  “Well, he had too, I imagine, if Ferdy had stayed aboard. The horse ran a blinder.”

  “And your horse ran so well! You must have been pleased.”

  “Yes, he was great. But there’s always next year. Neither of the horses got hurt and Lukey’s fantastic. What more does he want?”