Warned Off (24 page)

2

The
oval horsewalk was empty but the runners for the first would soon be in and the
crowds would form around the ring to watch them parade. Then the bell would
ring in the changing room and the jockeys would come out and make their way
through the admiring throng into the arena.

They’d huddle with trainer and owner and
friends and talk tactics, make plans. Then they’d mount and be led out, staring
straight ahead above the crowds, feeling that tight little thrill that comes
from being different from the masses, from knowing that among the millions who
love racing you are one of the main players.

And I wouldn’t be there.

Not after today. That gut-sick feeling
of hopelessness came back and I suddenly knew how drug addicts must feel when
they realise there’s never going to be another fix.

When someone touched my elbow and spoke
my name I turned.

Her face was thin, hair dark and
luxuriantly thick, eyes brown and distinctly oval, good mouth with well-shaped
lips, my height, she looked at me. ‘You okay?’

I nodded, dredging up a half-smile.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

She said, ‘Carter told me what you did
to Layton. I just wanted to say I wish I’d been there.’

Lisa Ffrench was being pretty
forthright. I didn’t know her much beyond saying hello. Her job barred her from
‘consorting’ with jockeys and she was probably leaving herself open to
criticism even talking to me now. Lisa was a stenographer. She worked for The
Jockey Club, noting everything that was said during Stewards’ Enquiries.

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t really do anything
... just put him in his place.’

‘Well and truly, the way I heard it.’
Her smile was wide.

I said, ‘You’re not a member of his fan
club then?’

‘Watched him lying through his teeth too
many times, and sucking up to the stewards.’

I nodded, anxious to be alone again so I
could be as miserable as I wanted. I said, ‘Well, it won’t take him long to
bounce back, nasty as ever.’

‘No doubt, but his ego will stay bruised
for a while so you’d better watch yourself.’

‘Shouldn’t be too hard. This is my last
day.’

‘Last day at what?’

‘Race-riding. I’m quitting.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t make a living at it any
more.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘That’s
tough. Bad luck. You’re a good jockey.’

‘You think so?’

She nodded.

‘Pity you don’t own a string of twenty.’
I looked away again across the parade ring expecting her to politely excuse
herself before the conversation got embarrassing.  ‘What are you going to
do?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet, but I
know what you’d better do before your bosses see you talking to lowlife like
me.’

‘Is it safe to leave you?’

Puzzled, I turned toward her again. She
was still smiling. ‘I’m scared in case you overdose on self-pity.’

That made me smile. She turned and
headed for the weighing room walking athletically in her flat shoes, skinny
bottom swinging in her tight knee-length skirt

I watched her disappear through the
door. Two minutes later she came marching back, making straight for me again.
Half surprised, half apprehensive, I waited.

When she reached me she offered a piece
of information that could save my career and ruin hers.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.

‘Because I don’t want you to quit.’

‘What does it matter to you, you don’t
even know me?’ It sounded hostile and she raised her hands in surrender and
took a step back. ‘Okay, okay, sorry for interfering.’

‘Look, Lisa, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to
sound ungrateful. I appreciate what you’re doing ... we hardly know each other
...’ I tailed off lamely

She looked perplexed. The wind caught
her heavy shoulder-length hair and lifted it to show a small gold ear-ring. Her
brown oval eyes told me her patience was waning. She said, ‘Fine, do what you
like.’ She walked away with that confident head-up stride.

Hubert Barber trained Cragrock, the
favourite in the big race. His stable jockey hadn’t turned up and Lisa had
overheard Barber tell the clerk of the scales that he planned to withdraw the
horse.

She’d just been trying to persuade me to
approach Barber and ask him to run the horse and let me ride.

I had ridden for him a few times during
my Championship season and we’d got on well together but he’d never offered me
anything since my comeback. Watching Lisa disappear into the crowd I thought,
what the hell, I might as well try. With no confidence and little hope I went
to look for Barber.

I found him outside the main gate
shuffling impatiently, peering at cars coming in, squinting into taxis as they
pulled up.

Barber was an easy man to recognise: in
his mid-sixties, heavy, maybe eighteen stones, big red nose, prominent ears,
moist blue eyes and a clump of pure white hair tucked under a tweed cap.
Superstitious like many racing folk, he wore the same huge army-issue overcoat
he’d worn when he trained his first winner.

‘Mister Barber,’ I said. He turned
quickly, suddenly hopeful, but his features sagged when he saw it wasn’t his
stable jockey.

‘Hello, Eddie,’ he said gruffly then
went back to scanning incomers who were becoming scarcer as the first race drew
near.

I wasn’t much good at asking for rides
at the best of times and there had been so many refusals in recent months that
my confidence was shot to bits. The fact that this was my last gasp didn’t make
it easier.

‘Mister Barber, I heard Tommy Gilmour
hasn’t turned up.’

He gave me his full attention. ‘Who told
you that?’

‘Well, we sort of noticed it in the
weighing room.’ I lied.

‘Any of you lads see Tommy last night?’
he asked.

‘I don’t think so. Nobody mentioned it.’

He stared down the long tree-lined drive
again and said, ‘Can’t understand it. He’s always been a hundred per cent
reliable.’

‘It’s not like him,’ I agreed. ‘Have you
rung his hotel?’

‘Rang his hotel and his house. The
owner’s husband even drove to his hotel to see if he’s broken down on the way.’

‘Mister Barber, if he doesn’t appear,
have you thought about a replacement?’

He looked down at me, blue eyes watering
in the wind. ‘Eddie, I’ve thought about nothing else but the horse’s owner
won’t have it, she wants to withdraw.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the silly cow’s convinced that
nobody but Tommy can win on the horse. He’s a difficult ride and takes a bit of
knowing but we’ve had a right few quid on ante-post, her husband and me, and
we’re desperate to run him.’

He really got going then, gesticulating,
jerking at his cap. ‘She’s a nice lady, Loretta, but she’s wrong on this one.
Thinks because Tommy is Champion Jockey he’s a stone better than the rest of
you. Someone else rode the horse last year and Cragrock fell and didn’t get up
for five minutes, Loretta was hysterical, threatened to take the horse out of
training altogether. Crazy woman.’

‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

Barber dabbed at his big nose with a
hankie. ‘Back in her box. Paul, her husband’s trying to talk her into accepting
a substitute but he’s fighting a losing battle. I had to get out of there
before I strangled her.’

‘Do you think she’d accept another Champion
Jockey as replacement?’

He stared down at me. I shrugged, ‘Okay,
so it was five years ago,’ I said, ‘but it’s worth a try.’

Still morose, he shook his head then
suddenly his eyes lit up. ‘You might be right, Eddie! You might just be right!
Come on!’

Checking his watch he turned and hobbled
into the course. An accident a few years back had left him badly lame in his
right leg. Barber always claimed it had happened when he came off a horse on
the gallops but Muriel, his wife, said he broke it when he ‘fell down the
stairs, pissed’.

I walked alongside him conscious of the
steep rise and fall of his left shoulder as he tried to hurry through the
puddles. The commentary on the first race pulsed from the speakers. Barber,
face beaming, kept saying quietly, ‘The very man! The very thing!’

He told me to stay by the weighing room
as he disappeared into the main stand.

I waited, trying not to hope too hard.
Within five minutes Barber hove back into view, his face telling me all I
needed to know. Smiling wide he slapped my shoulder and said, ‘We’re back in
business! I’ll send someone along with the colours and I’ll see you in the
paddock.’

Stunned, surprised, delighted, I grasped
his hand. ‘Hubert, I know it’s an old cliché but this means a hell of a lot to
me.’

He gripped my forearm with his free
hand. ‘Me too,’ he said, ‘me too. Listen, do me one favour, Eddie, try and make
sure the TV cameras don’t catch your face before the race starts.’

I stared at him. ‘Why?’

He smiled. ‘Just do it. I’ll explain
later.’

It took me a minute to figure out what
he’d done, then I twigged it. If I lost Barber would be in deep trouble with
Loretta Whitehead.

3

Emotions
bubbling, brain buzzing with plans and hopes, high on the prospect of showing thousands
of racegoers and millions of TV viewers I could still cut it, I strode back
into the changing room, grabbed Tom, my valet, by the shoulders, shook him and
said, ‘I ride Cragrock in the big one!’

He stared at me. ‘By the looks of you
you’d think you’d already won it!’

Wearing green and blue colours, Bill
Brandon, one of the veterans, saw my smile as he passed and said, ‘You look as
if you’ve won the pools, Eddie.’

I fought to contain my excitement.
‘Hubert Barber just asked me to ride the favourite in the big race.’ I had
tried to say it calmly but it came out loud and boastful. Most of the jocks
heard me.

Bill looked puzzled. ‘Where’s Tommy
Gilmour?’

I shrugged. ‘Hasn’t turned up. They
weren’t going to run him but they’ve had a few quid on and decided to have a
go.’

‘Good luck to you, then,’ Bill said
ungrudgingly. Then Con Layton’s furtive Irish tones came from behind me.
‘Gilmour could handle that horse, Malloy, but you couldn’t ride one side of
him. You’ll make an arse o’ yersel.’

I turned to face Layton, it hadn’t taken
him long to recover from our earlier scrap. I stared at him and got back the
usual taunting look from his small, pale, close-set eyes.

I said, ‘Well, you’d certainly recognise
an arse before most people, Layton, since you see one when you’re shaving every
morning.’

Everyone heard. The place went silent.
They watched Layton who’d lost his mischievous look and was glaring at me. He
spoke, trying to sound menacing. ‘Pretty full of yourself, Malloy, on the
strength of one good ride, ain’t you? Pretty full of yourself for a has-been.’

I smiled warmly just to irritate him.
‘I’d sooner be a has-been than a never-was.’

‘Listen, Malloy – ‘

‘You listen! How long does it take you
to learn a lesson? How many second prizes have you got to get?’

Realising he was quickly losing this
round too he was sensible enough not to risk further humiliation. Obviously
raging, he growled, ‘You’ll get yours, Malloy!’ and marched out. One of his
sidekicks, Ben Meese again, a swaggering little runt with bad skin, tried a bit
too theatrically to fill the brief silence by pointing the end of his whip at
me and saying, ‘You’d better be very very careful, Malloy!’

Taking two strides toward him I bent
over till our noses were almost touching and said, ‘Meese, if the organ-grinder
doesn’t scare me, what chance has the monkey got?’

He didn’t care for that nor for the
burst of laughter from the lads. He reddened, glared at me, then turned and
whacked my saddle hard with his whip before scuttling away after Layton.

Ten minutes before the off, three of us
stood in the paddock feeding off each other’s tension. I was on edge, aware it
was my big chance. Barber’s money was on the line along with his judgement in
letting the horse run. Paul Whitehead had a big financial stake too and he
stood close as Barber gave me riding instructions, Paul repeating them,
nodding, tugging at his ear-lobe.

‘Where’s Mrs Whitehead?’ I asked.

Barber said, ‘Eh, we persuaded Loretta
to watch it on telly. Muriel’s under instructions to keep her occupied.’

I smiled up at him. ‘You told Loretta
Tommy had arrived, didn’t you?’

Barber said, ‘Ask no questions, hear no
lies. A Champion Jockey’s a Champion Jockey. Just get out there and ride like
you used too.’

At the start, Fred Harbour, the
assistant starter, moved among us checking girth straps which always became
loose as horses stretched on the canter down the track. Fred was an ex-jockey
staying in touch with the game as best he could. Accumulated injuries had
forced him into early retirement. Fused vertebrae and dislocated shoulders had
slowly curled his nine stone body up till he looked sixty rather than forty.

It was the horses he loved; he spoke
little to the jockeys, resenting the fact that he wasn’t one of us anymore. He
moved toward me and I pulled Cragrock to a halt. Fred twanged the girths to
test for slack. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Okay.’

From up here you only ever saw the top
of his cloth cap. His injuries made it difficult for him to straighten his
neck. Fred grunted as he strained to get my girths one hole tighter then, head
still down, he said, ‘Watch yourself, I think Layton and Meese are going to try
and put you out of the race.’

It was the first time he’d spoken more
than two words to me.

‘Thanks,’ I said. He didn’t acknowledge,
just patted Cragrock’s neck and moved on. I looked around. The others circled
me, chatting, trying to discover each other’s tactics, who was going to make
the running, who would be dropping out early. Layton and Meese were together.
Layton laughed harshly, rolling his head back. Meese smiled up at him.

The starter called us into line. I moved
Cragrock toward the rail. Someone barged up my inside, shoving me to the right.
I glanced across. It was Layton, pale smiling eyes watery-looking behind his
goggles. I glimpsed to my other side. Meese was there, smiling too.

They knew Cragrock had to be held up in
the middle of the field and they’d obviously decided to waste no time in trying
to intimidate us. I had a little surprise planned.