by K. M. Grant
‘And lose Hartslove?’ There was silence. Garth softened. ‘Look. Think of it this way. I’m using the brandy like medicine, and as soon as the race is over, I’ll give it up.’
Garth was so logical, so plausible. Daisy also knew he was quite wrong, because now that he no longer bothered to disguise it, she could see nothing but their father’s look in her brother’s eye and hear their father’s bravado in his voice. He even smelled like Charles, and just like Charles would have an answer for everything. She asked only one question. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Garth lied. ‘It’s like your crutches. It just appears.’ He was pleased with this.
‘It’s not like my crutches. I need my crutches because there’s something wrong with me.’ She kicked some straw, then burst out, ‘Garth! You’re not a coward. You could ride without the brandy. I think you’d even ride better.’
Her voice smote him. But she was not right. He knew that, even if she did not.
The following morning, Daisy left Garth to brush the horse and walked down the main street of the town, tormented by a dilemma. Should she leave Garth to drink until after the Derby or should she do something to stop him? The first option was the easier, although it felt to Daisy like the coward’s way out. Moreover, if Garth, drunk, won the Derby, drink would always be the friend he would turn to when faced with a challenge. And soon he would not even need a challenge. After all, their father, who must have started to drink for some reason Daisy did not know, now needed a drink just to face the day. She pictured Garth a desiccated wreck standing by a library fireplace. She pictured him sitting in a pictureless dining room, his children tiptoeing past with pitying glances. She pictured him lying face down on his bed, a daughter pulling off his boots. She could not be even the tiniest bit responsible for that. She came to an apothecary’s shop, went in, and after some discussion with the proprietor, emerged with a bottle of her own. She returned at once to the stables and, when Garth was fetching water, found his bottle, tipped out a good quantity of brandy and replaced it with the mixture she had been given. ‘I just can’t bear it,’ she told The One. ‘Everything’s jinxed. Except you, of course.’ He sniffed her hands and wrinkled his lip.
The next day, Garth was a little quieter but still climbed easily on to The One. He was surprised that Daisy let him: surprised and grateful. As they walked to the downs, Daisy engaged him in detailed conversations about how the Derby might go. ‘Some say that you should take The One slowly at first and pick up speed in the last quarter-mile. The course is much hillier than it looks, so you’ve got to keep enough in reserve to put on an extra uphill spurt. He’ll have different shoes on – did you know that? Racing plates instead of these heavy ones. Those will help.’ The more Garth had to remember, the less he would notice the diminishing rush of the diluted brandy.
Every day for the next five days, Daisy tampered with Garth’s bottle, sometimes nervous that she had gone too far. However, Garth’s old terrors did not seem to return. She supposed, rightly, that this was partly because he no longer expected them. She did not try to analyse any more. It was enough that Garth was riding almost sober, and that when the race was over and he learned that he had ridden without drink, he would know that he was not a coward; that he was, indeed, as brave – braver – than she was. ‘Just two more days,’ she whispered to The One. ‘Just two.’
Sitting on a chair in his hostel room, Skelton was holding a whip. There was a problem – a big problem. Though he had now supplied at least five bottles of brandy, it was clear that for some reason he could not fathom Garth was no longer drunk, and if Garth was not drunk, he would not be fuddled enough to take the whip, and if he did not take the whip, he would not beat the horse, and if he did not beat the horse, the horse was very likely to go his own sweet way, and horses that went their own sweet way did not win the Derby.
Skelton got out the piece of paper on which Charles’s promise was written and laid it on the rickety table. Occasionally, he rose and cracked the whip hard across it. The table rocked. In the end, he folded the paper and put it back in his inside pocket. He would not be thwarted. He would not. He pulled on his coat and made his way to the racetrack. Five or six jockeys were hanging about, gossiping about their Derby prospects. They called Skelton over. He was going to refuse until they waved a bottle of whisky. It winked at him, and after a moment’s reflection, he stuck the whip into his boot and walked across to join them.
24
On the morning of the Derby, Daisy was up before dawn. Not that there was anything to do apart from keep The One calm, and getting up early was unlikely to help with that. To soothe her own nerves, she walked into the waking town. In ones and twos, the carriages were arriving and small clumps of people were trickling out of the railway station. In an hour, the carriages would be arriving in tens, twenties and finally in their hundreds until it was impossible to cross the street, and the small clumps of railway travellers would balloon into vast crowds, pouring on to the downs, chattering, quarrelling, pontificating and predicting as they jostled to get a good spot from which to view one of the greatest races on earth.
Garth was draining a new bottle when Daisy got back to the stables. He needed so much more of the stuff now. Never mind. He dropped the bottle when he saw Daisy, expecting a row. But Daisy only said, ‘Promise me just one thing, Garth – that you’ll stick to the brandy and not drink anything else.’
Garth found it easy to promise. They did not speak of the drink again, only of how he would ride – not getting in front too early if he could manage. ‘Don’t worry, though,’ Daisy reassured, ‘The One knows what to do, and he can out-gallop anything. Just make sure he starts properly and sit tight.’ She touched Garth’s arm. ‘You can do it, you and The One.’
The morning was endless, broken only by the arrival of the farrier to nail on the racing plates. Daisy stood close to The One’s head as the man bent to his work, Skelton fussing and checking. When the shoeing was finished, The One raised his weightless feet like a cat on a hot roof. It was a comical sight. Skelton laughed. Daisy and Garth did not.
At lunchtime, they walked The One from his stable to the racetrack and took up a place near the Rubbing House. Finding her crutches leaning against the corner of one of the refreshment booths, and so as not to stress the horse by her twitching, Daisy left The One with Garth. Even with the swelling crowds, the crescendo of noise and the endless cry of ‘Get your Derby souvenirs here!’ it was still hard to believe that the day she had dreamed of, argued for and imagined for so long had actually arrived. She had expected to feel – what had she expected to feel? She was not sure, only that what she did feel was nothing like it. Several times she had to pinch herself. Hardly realising what she was doing, she kept leaning down to pick up the bits of rubbish a brisk wind was tossing about. Nothing must distract The One.
As she was making her way back to Garth, a hired carriage swerved towards her. She stepped aside. There were cries. The carriage stopped and out poured Rose, Lily, Clover and Columbine, with Arthur holding back slightly. Clover or Columbine was waving a newspaper in which was a report of the Two Thousand Guineas. ‘Daisy! Daisy!’ they called. Until she saw her sisters, Daisy did not realise how much she had missed them or just how much she needed them today. She did not ask how they had come. She did not smile. She did not say their names. She simply seized the side of the cart and clung to it. Arthur Rose patted her shoulder. Dear Arthur Rose! He had kept his promise. She should have known he would.
Words tumbled out. ‘Skelton’s taken away The One’s water because he says it’s bad to drink before the race. Is that right? He says we should get to the paddock late so that The One doesn’t get excited. What do you think?’
‘I’d say he’s right on both counts, absolutely right,’ Arthur said. ‘Trust him on this, Daisy. He knows what he’s doing.’
Lily gestured at their clothes. ‘From Aunt Barbara,’ she said.
‘What?’ It was the first time D
aisy noticed what her sisters were wearing.
Lily did not say more. She simply drew Daisy into the carriage. ‘There are clothes for you.’
‘No time,’ Daisy said.
‘Yes, you’ve time,’ Lily countered gently. ‘You’ve a runner in the Derby. The One looks the part and so must you.’ Daisy bit her lip, and as Arthur directed the carriage to the horse-booths, she allowed Lily to dress her and tidy her hair, the twins forming a screen. She climbed down directly afterwards. She must rush back to The One. She must rush back to Garth.
Arthur and her sisters came with her. They nodded to Skelton, smiled nervously at Garth and wished The One good luck. Arthur shook Garth’s hand, then Daisy’s, then ushered the other girls away.
Garth was nervous, more nervous than he could have imagined, not about climbing on to The One – he felt the brandy must kick in today, surely. He was suddenly absolutely terrified of riding badly and losing. He fidgeted and fretted and nearly drove Daisy mad. About an hour before the race, three jockeys approached. ‘Got your silks?’ one asked. Garth nodded.
‘Anxious?’ Garth nodded.
‘Always hard for a green jockey. Stick with us. We’ll get you through. Come to the weighing room. It’s a steadying place before a big race.’
Garth looked at Daisy. She was very uncertain. ‘It’s a bit early,’ she said.
‘As you like,’ said the oldest of the jockeys. ‘Everybody has their own way of coping. Just trying to help. You can learn a lot from old-timers when the pre-race nerves bite. If you don’t want to, though . . .’ He and his friends began to walk off.
‘I wonder if I should go with them,’ Garth said to Daisy. ‘I think it would help to be with other jockeys.’ Daisy was still uncertain. Garth was picking at his nails. His nerves were terrible. Daisy relented. It seemed mean. What could be the harm?
‘Go,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Of course,’ she said, and she forced herself to smile. ‘You’re the jockey.’
Garth stopped picking his nails. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am.’
‘Just be careful.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
Daisy stayed with The One.
‘Ah, Miss Daisy,’ Skelton said, his eyes darting about. ‘Master Garth not with you?’
‘He’s gone to the weighing room with some of the other jockeys. He’ll meet us in the paddock.’
‘Good idea,’ said Skelton at once. ‘The other jockeys’ll look after him.’ Something in his voice was not reassuring. Daisy wished the race would start.
Garth caught up with the jockeys and sat with them under the pegs in the changing room. One produced a bottle of whisky. ‘Horses have a purge; we have a dram,’ he said, and pulled out the cork. He offered it to Garth. ‘New blood first.’ Garth shook his head. The jockeys did not press him. They took a small pull each – a pity to waste what Skelton had provided. One of the older jockeys wiped his mouth. ‘Well, young man,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky to be with us. Stacker here’s won two Derbys.’
‘Aye,’ Stacker said, ‘and never without a tot of whisky.’ He pretended to take another pull. ‘The thing about whisky, lad, is that it’s not like other drinks. Whisky really clears the head, and a clear head’s vital in a race like this.’
‘My head’s quite clear,’ Garth said, and thought it horribly true. His head was far too clear. He could feel no brandy rush.
‘Six add six!’ said Stacker suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Head not that clear, boy!’ Stacker laughed softly. ‘It’ll need to be clearer.’ Still he did not press the drink. Instead, he and his fellows, as instructed by Skelton, began to swap stories of falls they had had. ‘Worse on the flat, boy,’ Stacker mused. ‘So easy to slip, and those hooves . . . Hit you in the wrong place and – poof – your legs are gone. Only last week I visited a friend. Hasn’t walked for – oh, it must be fifteen years.’
Garth’s stomach heaved. When the bottle came round again, he took a swig. When it came again, he took another. After four rounds he felt brave. After five, he felt braver. After six, he felt on the edge of something extraordinary. When the time came, he sat in his silks on the weighing chair in a trance. Only when the saddling bell sounded and he stood up, clutching his weight cloth, did the world topple and spin. He heard the other jockeys laughing. He tried to laugh himself, then realised with horror that they were not laughing with him but at him. ‘Drunk!’ Stacker said softly. ‘You poor booby!’
Two jockeys took his arms and steered him out. Garth could not speak. Everything was floating, everything but one fact that he could neither face nor deny: he was drunker than he had ever been in his life and there was nothing he could do about it. In one cold corner of his mind he remembered his father’s gun. He wished he could use it now. Skelton appeared and took the weight cloth from him. When the groom returned to Daisy and slung it over The One’s back, his expression was inscrutable. ‘Master Garth’ll meet us in the paddock,’ he said.
Daisy was checking the girth. She would check it again in the paddock, and again after Garth was mounted. Nothing should be left to chance. She attached a lead-rein to The One’s bit. The horse seemed interested though largely unmoved by all the activity around him. Whilst the horse nearby lathered and fretted, he ate a feather from Daisy’s hat. She removed it from his mouth. ‘Not today,’ she said. Her crutches were ready for her but she did not want them. This was it. She swallowed hard. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
Pressed from all sides by punters wanting to get a good look at The One, Daisy found the short journey to the paddock the most alarming of her life. Several times she was nearly crushed. In the paddock itself things eased a little and she was able to find a space in which to stand still. She searched anxiously for Garth. The One was almost too relaxed. A large knot formed in Daisy’s throat. She saw her sisters and Arthur pressing against the rail. She could not acknowledge them.
The jockeys arrived in a gaggle, Garth amongst them. ‘Garth!’ Daisy whispered. ‘Garth!’ But Skelton took charge, shoving Daisy out of the way as he gave Garth a leg-up. It all happened so quickly. Daisy did not have time for any last-minute instructions. She did not even have time to say, ‘Good luck.’ Skelton checked the girth. Skelton pressed Garth’s feet into the stirrups. Skelton, Skelton, Skelton. ‘To the start,’ the clerk of the course shouted. ‘Get a move on there!’ Garth was facing away from her as Daisy unclipped the lead-rein. Then Skelton was urging The One out of the paddock and in an instant the great tide of humans and horses had surged off, leaving Daisy almost alone. Arthur hurried to her. ‘Quickly,’ he said, and chivvied all the girls back to the carriage, helping them up so that they could stand above the crowd.
Garth was crouched in the saddle, his feet slipping in and out of the stirrups. His legs belonged to somebody else; his tongue was thick; his cap too tight on his head. He thought Daisy was beside him. ‘I should have refused! I couldn’t refuse! I tried but I couldn’t!’ The words did not matter because no one was listening. The One was a precarious rock in an alien sea. Garth tried to focus. There seemed to be three chestnut necks in front of him, each with three sets of ears. The crowd was not a crowd but an open mouth ready to swallow him up and spit him out. The sun was not the sun but a fat yellow finger, wagging and pointing and chanting, ‘You fool, you fool . . .’ The wrestlers, the prostitutes, the three-card tricksters were dissolving into a coloured sea of smocks, shawls and scarves, and he, Garth, was falling, falling, falling into a black hole at the bottom of which lay all Daisy’s dreams.
Garth might never have made it to the start at all had Skelton not been loping beside him. In the end, Garth fixed on him as the only steady thing. At the start itself, Skelton seized his moment. ‘You’ve got one chance, Master Garth, and one only. Do you understand?’ He had his hand on the rein.
Garth sagged. Skelton forced him to sit up. ‘My God, boy!’ he said, in mock horror. ‘You’re drunk. Drunk! On this day of all days! I ca
n’t believe it.’ Garth did not even try to answer. Skelton pressed on. ‘Can you use your legs?’ Garth stared dumbly at him. ‘For the love of God!’ Skelton shouted. Some of the other jockeys looked round. Skelton came very close. ‘You’ve blown it, you coward. You’ve blown all Miss Daisy’s hopes. You’ve blown the future of Hartslove. You’re going to lose. You’re a scoundrel.’
Garth tried to move his tongue. ‘No – no!’
‘Yes, yes. A drunken scoundrel!’
‘What – do? Help me.’ Garth was beyond pride, beyond any place he knew.
Skelton seemed to hesitate.
‘Help.’
As though very unwilling, Skelton held up something long and thin, careful to keep it out of The One’s line of vision.
Something sparked. Garth pushed the whip away. ‘Won’t,’ he slurred.
Skelton dug his nails right through Garth’s cotton breeches. There was nothing friendly about him now. ‘Do you want to win this damned race?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then take this whip and use it.’
‘No – Daisy –’
Skelton fingers were a vice. ‘You think Miss Daisy wants you to lose the race?’
‘No, but –’
‘Don’t be a fool. She’s depending on you. Everybody’s depending on you and you’re drunk. If you’ve any sense of honour, you’ll just do as you’re told.’
Everything seemed far away. Only Skelton’s voice drove through the fog like a dart. ‘Do as you’re told, boy, and everything will be fine.’
‘Can’t –’
‘You can, boy. You must.’ Skelton thrust the whip at him again, less carefully this time. ‘The horse’d have come no-where in the Guineas without the whip. You know that. Take it and use it and burn it afterwards for all I care. Just damned well win this race, d’ye hear me? Just damned well win.’
Skelton’s face swam. The bobbing heads around Garth swam. The sky swam. All Garth could see clearly was the whip. All he could feel was that his legs would not work. Then the whip was in his hands and Skelton was gone and The One was engulfed in the barge and crash of other horses fighting for their heads.
