Fielding Gray

by Simon Raven

  'This way.' Peter said.

  'Don't you want to look at him in the paddock?'

  'No. This way. He'll be all right when he's out on the course, but the crowds make him nervous. I can't bear it.'

  We crossed the course from the stand and walked down over the meadows towards the water-jump, which was in a slight dip some three hundred yards after the first turn. I reflected that Peter's unwillingness to watch Tiberius in the paddock amounted almost to a dereliction of loyalty, something so unusual as to indicate that he must be very strung up indeed. I could feel the palm of his hand sweating into my arm; I must find comfort for him.

  'Betting go off all right? ' I said.

  'Betting? I suppose so. I got twos over quite a bit. then seven to four for all but thirty. I took that to the tote.'

  'Quite an investment of your father's,' Somerset said. 'Did you have anything for yourself?'

  'No,' said Peter shortly: 'it would be like blackmail.'

  'What about you. Somerset?'

  'I found rather a nice price,' said Somerset, smug but vague: 'really rather nice.'

  And now we were at the water-jump, an inoffensive natural ditch and guarded only by a foot of fence, but tricky because of the downward slope which led into it and a brief marshy patch on its far side, which might make it very hard for the horses to gain the firm footing they needed in order to make a proper onset at the sharp up-hill gradient immediately beyond it. Tiberius and the rest would have to take this jump three times. Starting in front of the stand, they would go away for two hundred yards, which included one easy plain fence, then turn, very sharply, over one hundred and thirty degrees, take another plain fence after a hundred yards, and run downhill to the water-jump; after which the course looped away, round and back, over three more fences and through two more dips, till it turned into the home run. This was about quarter of a mile from turning to winning post, included two more jumps, and completed a circuit of just on a mile. Peter had barely finished a rather jerky account of all this, when the first of the horses appeared on the course and started to parade slowly in front of the stand.

  'He seems all right,' said Peter, looking through his glasses. 'I'm worried about Johnny Pitts in the saddle though. He's only been back from the Army a few days and he can't but be a bit strange to it. Blakeney's man, Georgie Owen, didn't go to the war ...'

  The ten horses circled in front of the stand, then one by one tailed off to stand sedately behind the starting gate.

  'Well behaved bunch,' Peter said. 'I wonder we've not had trouble from Balthazar.'

  A white flag went up by the starting gate.

  'Orders ...'

  Then there was a great cheer from the stand and all the meadows around, for the flag was down and the field away. After the first hundred yards, it was the brown Balthazar, with the Blakeney cerise and argent up, a clear leader by four lengths; the rest were in a close bunch, nothing to reckon.

  'I hope he gets clear of them,' Peter mumbled; 'he doesn't like being jostled.'

  And after the first fence, the bunch behind Balthazar began to string out. Two horses stayed neck and neck, second and third, while Tiberius, a length and a half behind them, was going a placid, uncrowded fourth, a position he retained without effort round the terrible angle of the bend, to negotiate which it was necessary to slow down to an extent that made the impatient Balthazar shake his head and prick his ears in anger. Over the second fence and down the slope to the water-jump; Balthazar going very fast - 'too fast, Georgie Owen ought to know better' - but proving his cleverness by a jump which cleared the treacherous morass beyond the ditch and sent him racing up the hill the other side, to go seven lengths clear of the pair behind him, who were in turn a good three in front of Tiberius.

  There's my good boy,' called Peter softly, as Mr. Morrison's light blue and black sailed easily over the ditch and beyond the marsh. For a moment it seemed to me as if the horse turned his head very slightly to acknowledge the call; but then Tiberius was galloping serenely away up the hill, gaining, little by little and without any forcing, on the two horses between him and Balthazar.

  'It's when they start jumping short, late in the race, said Peter, pointing to the patch of marsh: 'once land in that ...'

  By the end of the first circuit, Balthazar was ten lengths in front of the second and third, outside and just behind whom Tiberius was running with a confidence which implied he would pass just so soon as he judged fit. Of the rest of the field, three had fallen on the loop, two were badly tailed off, but one, a little grey animal with a short, humorous face, was going very trimly some five lengths behind Tiberius.

  'That grey,' Peter said. 'Fancy Man ... There's a lot of running there.'

  Once again, as he rounded the great bend, Balthazar pricked with annoyance. Once again he came down the slope at a very smart pace, cleared stream and marsh, and thundered off up the hill. Second and third ran more cautiously; but the second horse took off too soon, landed with hind legs almost in the ditch, slipped, kicked, veered, kicked again, and interlocked a leg with the third horse as it landed. In a moment there was a writhing, snorting mass on the ground which seemed to block the entire course. Tiberius having switched suddenly to the far side to avoid it. rapped his right rear leg sharply against the fence post as he jumped. Landing just inside the marsh, he had to struggle and change step to get going, by which time he had lost another two lengths to Balthazar and been substantially gained upon by Fancy Man, who, apparently unimpressed by the melée and giving it the smallest possible margin, improved his position yet further by jumping like a bird.

  'Never mind, boy,' called Peter. 'There's a long way to go.'

  And indeed it was now apparent that Balthazar was feeling the pace. Round the loop, back into the straight, Tiberius, unworried as it seemed by his mistake at the water, tracked him with an easy, fluid action and was visibly making up ground. The gap shortened to ten lengths and then to seven; Balthazar's jumping was beginning to lose its rhythm, while Tiberius's was still as smooth as paint; but always, three lengths behind Tiberius and giving the impression that at any moment he could an if he would, came the perky little Fancy Man. And so, when they passed the post for the second time, it was a three horse race and an open one.

  'Take two to one, Tiberius.' a bookie's call floated across the meadow.

  'Will you now?' muttered Peter, whose eyes had been fixed into his glasses. Now he lowered them to talk.

  'I don't like it,' he said; 'he's hurt. He's hiding it, bless his heart, but he's hurt. That rap last time over here ...'

  And again he lifted the glasses. Looking towards Somerset, I saw that the expression of casual condescension, which he had worn all day, had somehow deepened to one of sagacity and power.

  'What are you looking so pleased about?' I said.

  'I'm glad Tiberius is shortening the gap.'

  Which he was still doing. This time, as he rounded the bend, Balthazar seemed glad to relax his speed; he took the plain fence clumsily and came towards the water-jump without enthusiasm. Meanwhile Tiberius kept to the same powerful and, as it were, routine stride which he had used throughout the race; and always the little Fancy Man came skipping daintily behind.

  'He's hurt,' mumbled Peter again and again; 'I know it.'

  At the water-jump Balthazar checked, jumped nervously, landed with rear legs in the morass, floundered, panicked, threw Georgie Owen back into the ditch. Tiberius jumped gamely: but weariness (or was it pain, as Peter said?) showed through his immaculate style; he too landed in the marsh, kept his footing only with a desperate effort ('Good boy. my sweetheart, that's my good boy'), and was off, oh, very slowly, up the hill. He had beaten Balthazar; but Fancy Man. who had jumped both ditch and marsh as sharp and clever as a flute, was now gaining rapidly. For all the wear he showed he might have been at the beginning of the day.

  'He can't keep him off. Even if he wasn't hurt ...'

  But as Fancy Man drew up to Tiberius the brave stallion seeme
d to find new heart. A slight check in his beautiful action showed that he was indeed hurt; but he found new pace from somewhere, and even though Fancy Man was gaining it was no longer with ease. There were now five fences left. Over the first Tiberius stayed clear; then down into a dip where they could not be seen; out of the dip and over the second fence Tiberius still had his shoulders ahead; then down into another dip. Out of this and over the third fence - which was also the third from home - it was neck and neck. Into the home straight.

  'Now, boy. Does it hurt? Does it hurt you. boy? Does it hurt?'

  The second fence from home was an artificial and heavily guarded water-jump. Tiberius, amidst applause that rang back from the sky, took it with all the grace and skill he had shown at the very start of the race. Fancy Man pecked slightly, lost half a length, but he was over safely, his nose still level with Johnny Pitts's thigh. And now, once more, with the last fence a hundred yards ahead, he started to gain.

  And this was when Johnny Pitts, forgetful after four years of driving a tank with his famous cavalry regiment, made his one mistake. For the first time in the race, he took his whip to Tiberius.

  'Oh God,' moaned Peter, 'oh God, oh God ...'

  For a few yards more the horses were more or less level; then Tiberius faltered and, as Pitts thrashed more and more desperately, seemed to skid to a halt. For a moment he stood upright, shaking his head slowly, then knelt (as though to pay Pitts the final courtesy of allowing him to dismount), then subsided on to his flank and lay still. Pitts, puzzled, stood looking down on him; Fancy Man prinked over the last fence and past the post; the crowd responded with a low murmur and a turning of backs; and Peter, the tears pouring from his eyes, lowered his glasses and faced his friends.

  'It's no good.' he sobbed. 'It's the whip that has broken his heart. Not the pain, the exhaustion, the defeat. But the whip ... the whip has broken his heart.'

  While Peter and his father attended to the disposal of Tiberius, Somerset left me in the drink tent on pretence of wanting a pee. Watching from the entrance to the tent, I saw him go up to a bookmaker and collect a handsome wad of notes. I stood and looked and looked straight at Somerset as he walked back.

  'Yes,' said Somerset, putting a cool face on it, 'it was not for nothing I was reared in the country. I liked the took of that little grey. Seven to one ... My family has always had an eye for horses.'

  'Well,' I said, swallowing my anger in my need, 'you can lend me some of it. I'm almost out of money and I don't want to bother Peter just now.'

  'Try him tomorrow,' Somerset answered, putting his money carefully away. 'He'll have got over it then.'

  'It's the least you can do.'

  'I don't lend money. Fielding. It makes me brood, wondering when it will come back. Peter will let you have what you want. He has stronger nerves than I have, and a more generous disposition.'

  'Of course.' said Peter the following afternoon. 'How much will you need?'

  Somerset had gone home. 'See you at the Headmaster's,' was all he had said to me before he left. No further reference to what had passed in the bus. Happily, Peter had asked me to stay one more night, so that there was now a chance to say a great deal which would otherwise have been impossible.

  'How much will you need?' Peter said.

  'Fifteen pounds, if that's all right. To see me home, then down to the head man's place and back. Ill send it on to you as soon as my mother gets home from her holiday. About September the fifteenth, she said.'

  'You'd best send it to the bank for me. Barclay's, Whereham. I shan't want fifteen pounds where I'm going.'

  'Even in the Army one gets time off.'

  'Not recruits.' He went to a drawer and produced a bundle of notes. 'So that's settled. Now what is it you've been so anxious to tell me these last days?'

  'You've noticed?'

  'I've noticed. Let's walk.'

  As we left the house, I told Peter the substance of what had been said on the bus.

  'Don't say I didn't warn you,' said Peter when I had finished. And then,

  'I don't suppose for a moment you've got anything you could throw back at Somerset?'

  '! have, oddly enough. But no one would believe me.'

  I told him about the spree at Angela Tuck's.

  'You're right,' Peter said. 'It's all too remote. It might just as well have happened in Timbuctoo. They won't believe you, and you can't prove anything, and Somerset knows it. Whereas what he's got on you ... He probably can't prove it either, but it's so close to home that he might make things very awkward.

  'I know. What shall I do, Peter?'

  We were walking down the old smugglers' path, which made straight as an arrow over the ten miles to the sea. The way was between high banks which were topped by overshadowing trees. It was dusty and rutted but it was also cool and secret, a fitting place to consider threat and devise counter.

  'Ignore the whole thing.' Peter said at last. 'Treat it as a bluff. Somerset may make himself a bloody nuisance, but unless he's got absolute proof he can't do any more. So ignore Somerset and ignore his threat. But from now on make doubly sure you keep your nose clean. You'll remember, I hope, what I said to you last quarter about that.'

  Peter sat down against the bank and I sat down beside him. The leaves rustled listlessly over our heads. They were still green, the leaves, but they already looked tired, as though they would be glad to fall in a week or two and rot away to nothing in the earth.

  'Tomorrow,' said Peter, 'you must leave here. A day or so later I go to the Army. So for the time, perhaps for a long time, we are parting; and since this is so, I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise me Fielding, for all our sakes, that you won't hurt Christopher again.'

  'What happened wasn't my fault. And I've made it up with him.'

  'Yes. But what have you got in mind for him this time?'

  'To be friends. To give him what he's always wanted.'

  'You're telling me the truth, Fielding? You promise that you won't ... take advantage of him?'

  'I'm going to be to Christopher exactly what he wants me to be,' I said. 'I shan't ask for anything more.'

  I shan't need to, I thought.

  'Good,' said Peter. 'I was afraid you might still be greedy; it's always been your trouble, you know. But now I can go away without worrying. And if you stick to what you've promised me, you'll have nothing to fear from Somerset or anyone else.'

  'I'll stick to it,' I said: 'to the last syllable.'

  So I returned to Broughton Staithe, to make ready for Wiltshire and the Headmaster; and Peter, three days later, packed one small bag and went for a soldier of the King. I felt sadder, more oppressed, at this parting than at any time since the morning I had left the school at the end of July. My ally, my old counsellor, was now gone; and I felt as some early Englishman might have felt, as he watched the long line of Romans file down to the ships, bound for tottering Rome and leaving England unmanned to face whatever might come out of the misty North.

  The first thing I saw, when I unlocked the front door of the empty house at Broughton, was a sprawling heap of letters. Three were for me; one of them from Christopher.

  'Dear Fielding,

  'No, I'm afraid you can't come and stay on your way to Wiltshire. It's no longer possible. I can't explain now.

  'Yours,

  'Christopher'

  Unfriendly, not to say mysterious. I read the other two letters: one from my mother, saying that she was having a nice holiday and confirming that she would be back on 15th September, just after I myself returned from Wiltshire; and one from Ivan Blessington.

  '... Was passing through Tonbridge the other day and called on Christopher for tea. He looked ill and very nervous. I know my arrival was unexpected, but it can't have been that. He seemed upset that his tutor, who'd been there for most of August, was now gone; but again, it can't have been just that. There's something very wrong there. I don't pretend to know what, but you if anybody should he able to find
out and help ...'

  Blunt, imperceptive Ivan. If he had spotted something wrong, then something wrong there must certainty be. I didn't care for the dictatorial tone, but Ivan surely had a point. Not only was it within my power to help, it was my plain duty. But how could I help when I had just been so brusquely warned off the grass? After some thought, I wrote to Christopher and suggested that we should meet in London for lunch and a film on the sixth of the month; we might even have dinner together, I added, as I should be staying in a hotel overnight and the journey back to Tonbridge was a short one ... or so he himself had once said. Even if this failed to flush Christopher, I thought, it must at least elicit some account of what was doing.

  Dining that night in the local hotel, I saw Mr. Tuck and Angela. They seemed morose but oddly in concert. I began to wonder, not for the first time, how and where my father had originally made Tuck's acquaintance. Tuck was indeed the dreadful sort of friend I would have expected my father to have, but I could remember no reference to him, over the years, until the evening early in the holidays when his impending visit had been announced. On the one hand, my father's knowledge of Tuck had been sketchy, for he had not known about Angela until she appeared on the doorstep: on the other hand, he had apparently had sufficient confidence in the man to accept his tea-planting proposition at face value. Driven by renewed curiosity about this odd couple and bored by the prospect of a lonely evening, I suppressed the embarrassment to which memories of my last meeting with Angela inclined me and approached the Tucks, rather warily, while they were drinking coffee in the lounge.

  Tuck was affable, Angela off-hand. When I asked if I might drink my coffee with them, no one seemed to care much either way, so I braved their indifference and sat down.