Bonecrack

The Mercedes still stood on the gravel, with both Rivera and the chauffeur sitting inside it. Etty gave them a look of regulation curiosity and asked who they were.

'New customer,' I said economically.

She frowned in surprise. 'But surely you shouldn't have kept him waiting!'

'This one,' I reassured her with private, rueful irony, 'will not go away.'

But Etty knew how to treat new clients, and making them wait in their car was not it. She hustled me along the last three boxes and anxiously pushed me to return to the Mercedes. Tomorrow, no doubt, she would not be so keen.

I opened the rear door and said to him, 'Come along in to the office.'

He climbed out of the car and followed me without a word. I switched on the fan heater, sat in Margaret's chair behind the desk, and pointed to the swivel armchair in front of it. He made no issue of it, but merely did as I suggested.

'Now,' I said in my best interviewing voice, 'You want to start tomorrow.'

'Yes.'

'In what capacity?'

He hesitated. 'As a jockey.'

'Well, no,' I said reasonably. 'There are no races yet. The season does not start for about four weeks.'

'I know that,' he said stiffly.

'What I meant was, do you want to work in the stable? Do you want to look after two horses, as the others do?'

'Certainly not.'

Then what?'

'I will ride the horses at exercise two or three times a day. Every day. I will not clean their boxes or carry their food. I wish only to ride.'

Highly popular, that was going to be, with Etty and the other lads. Apart from all else, I was going to have a shop floor management confrontation, or in plain old terms, a mutiny, on my hands in no time at all. None of the other lads was going to muck out and groom a horse for the joy of seeing Rivera ride it.

However, all I said was, 'How much experience, exactly, have you had so far?'

'I can ride,' he said flatly.

'Racehorses?'

'I can ride.'

This was getting nowhere. I tried again. 'Have you ever ridden in any sort of race?'

'I have ridden in amateur races.'

'Where?'

'In Italy, and in Germany.'

'Have you won any?'

He gave me a black stare. 'I have won two.'

I supposed that that was something. At least it suggested that he could stay on. Winning itself, in his case, had no significance. His father was the sort to buy the favourite and nobble the opposition.

'But you want now to become a professional?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'll apply for a licence for you.'

'I can apply myself.'

I shook my head. 'You will have to have an apprentice licence, and I will have to apply for it for you.'

'I do not wish to be an apprentice.'

I said patiently, 'Unless you become an apprentice you will be unable to claim a weight allowance. In England in flat races the only people who can claim weight allowances are apprentices. Without a weight allowance the owners of the horses will all resist to the utmost any suggestion that you should ride. Without a weight allowance, in fact, you might as well give up the whole idea.'

'My father-' he began.

'Your father can threaten until he's blue in the face,' I interrupted. 'I cannot force the owners to employ you, I can only persuade. Without a weight allowance, they will never be persuaded.'

He thought it over, his expression showing nothing.

'My father,' he said, 'told me that anyone could apply for a licence and that there was no need to be apprenticed.'

Technically, that is true.'

'But practically, it is not.' It was a statement more than a question: he had clearly understood what I had said.

I began to speculate about the strength of his intentions. It certainly seemed possible that if he read the Deed of Apprenticeship and saw to what he would be binding himself, he might simply step back into his car and be driven away. I fished in one of Margaret's tidy desk drawers, and drew out a copy of the printed agreement.

'You will need to sign this,' I said casually, and handed it over.

He read it without a flicker of an eyelid, and considering what he was reading, that was remarkable.

The familiar words trotted through my mind '- the Apprentice will faithfully, diligently and honestly serve the Master and obey and perform all his lawful commands- and will not absent himself from the service of the Master, nor divulge any of the secrets of the Master's business- and shall deliver to the Master all such monies and other things that shall come into his hands for work done – and will in all matters and things whatsoever demean and behave himself as a good true and faithful Apprentice ought to do-'

He put the form down on the desk and looked across at me.

'I cannot sign that.'

'Your father will have to sign it as well,' I pointed out.

'He will not.'

'Then that's an end to it,' I said, relaxing back in my chair.

He looked down at the form. 'My father's lawyers will draw up a different agreement,' he said.

I shrugged. 'Without a recognisable apprenticeship deed you won't get an apprentice's licence. That form there is based on the articles of apprenticeship common to all trades since the Middle Ages. If you alter its intentions, it won't meet the licensing requirements.'

After a packed pause he said, 'That part about delivering all monies to the Master- does that mean I would have to give to you all the money I might earn in races?' He sounded incredulous, as well he might.

'It does say that,' I agreed, 'but it is normal nowadays for the Master to return half of race earnings to the apprentice. In addition, of course, to giving him a weekly allowance.'

'If I win the Derby on Archangel, you would take half. Half of the fee and half of the present?'

'That's right.'

'It's wicked!'

'You've got to win it before you start worrying,' I said flippantly, and watched the arrogance flare up like a bonfire.

'If the horse is good enough, I will.'

You kid yourself, mate, I thought; and didn't answer.

He stood up abruptly, picked up the form, and without another word walked out of the office, and out of the house, out of the yard, and into his car. The Mercedes purred away with him down the drive, and I stayed sitting back in Margaret's chair, hoping I had seen the last of him, wincing at the energy of my persisting headache, and wondering whether a treble brandy would restore me to instant health.

I tried it.

It didn't.

There was no sign of him in the morning, and on all counts the day was better. The kicked two-year-old's knee had gone up like a football but he was walking pretty sound on it, and the cut on Lucky Lindsay was as superficial as Etty had hoped. The elderly cyclist, the evening before, had accepted my apologies and ten pounds for his bruises and had left me with the impression that we could knock him down again, any time, for a similar supplement to his income. Archangel worked a half speed six furlongs on the Sidehill gallop, and in me a night's sleep had ironed out some creases.

But Alessandro Rivera did come back.

He rolled up in the drive in the chauffeur-driven Mercedes just as Etty and I finished the last three boxes at evening stables, timing it so accurately that I wondered if he had been waiting and watching from out on Bury Road.

I jerked my head towards the office, and he followed me in. I switched on the heater, and sat down, as before; and so did he.

He produced from an inner pocket the apprenticeship form and passed it towards me across the desk. I took it and unfolded it, and turned it over.

There were no alterations. It was the deed in the exact form he had taken it. There were, however, four additions.

The signatures of Alessandro Rivera and Enso Rivera, with an appropriate witness in each case, sat squarely in the spaces designed for them.