Whip Hand Part 18

'She wants us to go on.'

'Then you know what this is, Sid,' he said, flicking the stack.

'Guilt money. To spur you on when you want to stop.'

'Well, it works.'

We spent some of Rosemary's incentive in staying overnight in Newmarket and going round the bars, Chico where the lads hung out and I with the trainers. It was Tuesday evening and very quiet everywhere. I heard nothing of any interest and drank more than enough whisky, and Chico came back with hiccups and not much else.

'Ever heard of Inky Poole?' he said. 'Is that a song?'

'No, it's a work jockey. What's a work jockey? Chico my son, a work jockey is a lad who rides work on the gallops.'

'You're drunk,' I said.

'Certainly not. What's a work jockey?'

'What you just said. Not much good in races but can gallop the best at home.'

'Inky Poole,' he said, 'is George Caspar's work jockey. Inky Poole rides Tri-Nitro his strong work at home on the gallops. Did you ask me to find out who rides Tri-Nitro's gallops?'

'Yes, I did,' I said. 'And you're drunk.'

'Inky Poole, Inky Poole', he said.

'Did you talk to him?'

'Never met him. Bunch of the lads, they told me. George Caspar's work jockey. Inky Poole.'

Armed with racegla.s.ses on a strap round my neck I walked along to Warren Hill at seven-thirty in the morning to watch the strings out at morning exercise. A long time, it seemed, since I'd been one of the tucked-up figures in sweaters and skull cap, with three horses to muck out and care for, and a bed in a hostel with rain-soaked breeches for ever drying on an airer in the kitchen. Frozen fingers and not enough baths, ears full of four-letter words and no chance of being alone.

I had enjoyed it all well enough, when I was sixteen, on account of the horses. Beautiful, marvellous creatures whose responses and instincts worked on a plane as different from humans' as water and oil, not mingling even where they touched. Insight into their senses and consciousness had been like an opening door, a foreign language glimpsed and half learned, full comprehension maddeningly baulked by not having the right sort of hearing or sense of smell, nor sufficient skill in telepathy.

The feeling of one-ness with horses I'd sometimes had in the heat of a race had been their gift to an inferior being; and maybe my pa.s.sion for winning had been my gift to them. The urge to get to the front was born in them; all they needed was to be shown where and when to go. It could fairly be said that like most jump jockeys I had aided and abetted horses beyond the bounds of common sense.

The smell and sight of them on the Heath was like a sea breeze to a sailor. I filled my lungs and eyes, and felt content.

Each exercise string was accompanied and shepherded by its watchful trainer, some of them arriving in cars, some on horseback, some on foot. I collected a lot of 'Good morning, Sid's. Several smiling faces seemed genuinely pleased to see me; and some that weren't in a hurry stopped to talk.

'Sid!' exclaimed one I'd ridden on the Flat for in the years before my weight caught up with my height, 'Sid, we don't see you up here much these days.'

'My loss,' I said, smiling.

'Why don't you come and ride out for me? Next time, you're here, give me a ring, and we'll fix it.'

'Do you mean it?'

'Of course I mean it. If you'd like to, that is.'

'I'd love it.'

'Right. That's great. Don't forget, now.' He wheeled away, waving, to shout to a lad earning his disfavour by slopping in the saddle like a disorganised jellyfish. 'How the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l d'you expect your horse to pay attention if you don't?' The boy sat decently for all of twenty seconds. He'd go far, I thought, starting from Newmarket station.

Wednesday being a morning for full training gallops, there was the usual scattering of interested watchers: owners, pressmen, and a.s.sorted bookmakers' touts. Binoculars sprouted like an extra growth of eyes, and notes went down in private shorthand. Though the morning was cold the new season was warming up. There was a feeling overall of purpose, and the bustle of things happening. An industry flexing its muscles. Money, profit, and tax revenue making their proper circle under the wide Suffolk sky. I was still a part of it, even if not in the old way. And Jenny was right. I'd die in an office.

'Morning, Sid.' I looked round.

George Caspar, on a horse, his eyes on a distant string walking down the side of the Heath from his stable in Bury Road.

'Morning, George.'

'You staying up here?'

'Just for a night or two.'

'You should've let us know. We've always a bed. Give Rosemary a ring.' His eyes were on his string: the invitation a politeness, not meant to be accepted. Rosemary, I thought, would have fainted if she'd heard.

'Is Tri-Nitro in that lot?' I said.

'Yes, he is. Sixth from the front.' He looked round at the interested spectators. 'Have you seen Trevor Deansgate anywhere? He said he was coming up here this morning from London. Setting off early.'

'Haven't seen him.' I shook my head.

'He's got two in the string. He was coming to see them work.' He shrugged. 'He'll miss them if he isn't here soon.'

I smiled to myself. Some trainers might delay working the horses until the owner did arrive, but not George. Owners queued up for his favours and treasured his comments, and Trevor Deansgate for all his power was just one of a crowd. I lifted my racegla.s.ses and watched while the string, forty strong, approached and began circling, waiting for their turn on the uphill gallop. The stable before George's had nearly finished, and George would be next.

The lad on Tri-Nitro wore a red scarf in the neck of his olive-green husky jacket. I lowered the gla.s.ses and kept my eye on him as he circled, and looked at his mount with the same curiosity as everyone else. A good-looking bay colt, well grown, with strong shoulders and a lot of heart room; but nothing about him to shout from the housetops that here was the wildly backed winter favourite for the Guineas and the Derby. If you hadn't known, you wouldn't have known, as they say.

'Do you mind photographs, George?' I said.

'Help yourself, Sid.'

'Thanks.' I seldom went anywhere these days without a camera in my pocket. Sixteen millimetre, automatic light meter, all the expense in its lens. I brought it out and showed it to him, and he nodded. 'Take what you like.'

He shook up his patient hack and went away, across to his string, to begin the morning's business. The lad who rode a horse down from the stables wasn't necessarily the same one who rode it in fast work, and as usual there was a good deal of swapping around, to put the best lads up where it mattered. The boy with the red scarf dismounted from Tri-Nitro and held him, and presently a much older lad swung up onto his back.

I walked across to be close to the string, and took three or four photographs of the wonder horse and a couple of closer shots of his rider.

'Inky Poole?' I said to him at one point, as he rode by six feet away.

'That's right,' he said. 'Mind your back. You're in the way.'

A right touch of surliness. If he hadn't seen me talking to George first, he would have objected to my being there at all. I wondered if his grudging against-the-world manner was the cause or the result of his not getting on as a jockey, and felt sympathy for him, on the whole.

George began detailing his lads into the small bunches that would go up the gallops together, and I walked back to the fringes of things, to watch.

A car arrived very fast and pulled up with a jerk, alarming some horses alongside and sending them skittering, with the lads' voices rising high in alarm and protest.