Bonecrack

Alessandro subsided, satisfied. But I reflected that levers could work both ways, and Enso unlike me did have someone for whose sake he could be forced to do things against his will. Suppose, I daydreamed idly, that I abducted Alessandro and shut him up in the convenient cellar in the flat in Hampstead. I would then have Enso by the short and curlies in a neat piece of tit for tat.

I sighed briefly. Too many problems that way. And since all I wanted from Enso was for him to get off my back and out of my life before my father came out of hospital, abducting Alessandro didn't seem the quickest way of doing it. The quickest way to the dissolution of Rowley Lodge, more like. Pity, though-

Alessandro was impatient for the journey to be over, but was otherwise calmer than I had feared. Determination, however, shouted forth from the arrogant carriage of his head down to the slender hands which clenched and unclenched at intervals on his knees.

I avoided an oncoming oil tanker whose driver seemed to think he was in France, and said casually, 'You won't be able to threaten the other apprentices with reprisals if you don't get it all your own way. You do understand that, don't you?'

He looked almost hurt. 'I will not do that.'

'The habits of a lifetime,' I said without censure, 'are apt to rear their ugly heads at moments of stress.'

'I will ride to win,' he asserted.

'Yes- But do remember that if you win by pushing someone else out of the way, the Stewards will take the race away from you, and you'll gain nothing.'

'I will be careful,' he said, with his chin up.

'That's all that is required,' I confirmed. 'Generosity is not.'

He looked at me with suspicion. 'I do not always know if you are meaning to make jokes.'

'Usually,' I said.

We drove steadily north.

'Did it ever occur to your father to buy you a Derby prospect, rather than to insert you into Rowley Lodge by force?' I enquired conversationally, as we sped past Wetherby.

He looked as if the possibility were new to him. 'No,' he said. 'It was Archangel I wanted to ride. The favourite. I want to win the Derby, and Archangel is the best. And all the money in Switzerland would not buy Archangel.'

That was true, because the colt belonged to a great sportsman, an eighty-year-old merchant banker, whose life-long ambition it had been to win the great race. His horses had in years gone by finished second and third, and he had won every other big race in the Calendar, but the ultimate peak had always eluded him. Archangel was the best he had ever had, and time was running short.

'Besides,' Alessandro added, 'My father would not spend the money if a threat would do instead.'

As usual when referring to his father's modus operandi, he took it entirely for granted and saw nothing in it but logic.

'Do you ever think objectively about your father?' I asked. 'About how he achieves his ends, and about whether the ends themselves are of any merit?'

He looked puzzled. 'No-' he said uncertainly.

'Where did you go to school, then?' I said, changing tack.

'I didn't go to school,' he said. 'I had two teachers at home. I did not want to go to school. I did not want to be ordered about and to have to work all day-'

'So your two teachers spent a lot of time twiddling their thumbs?'

'Twiddling-? Oh, yes. I suppose so. The English one used to go off and climb mountains and the Italian one chased the local girls.' There was no humour, however, in his voice. There never was. 'They both left when I was fifteen. They left because I was then riding my two horses all day long and my father said there was no point in paying for two tutors instead of one riding master- so he hired one old Frenchman who had been an instructor in the cavalry, and he showed me how to ride better. I used to go and stay with a man my father knew and go hunting on his horse- and that is when I rode a bit in races. Four or five races. There were not many for amateurs. I liked it, but I didn't feel as I do now- And then, one day at home when I was saying I was bored, my father said, very well, Alessandro, say what you want and I will get it for you, and into my head came Archangel, and I just said, just like that, without really thinking, I want to win the English Derby on Archangel- and he just laughed, how he sometimes does, and said, so I should.' He paused. 'After that, I asked him if he meant it, because the more I thought about it the more I knew there was nothing on earth I wanted more. Nothing on earth I wanted at all. He kept saying all in good time, but I was impatient to come to England and start, so when he had finished some business, we came.'

For about the tenth time he twisted round in his seat to look out of the back window. Carlo was still there, faithfully following.

Tomorrow,' I said, 'He can follow us again, to Liverpool. After Buckram for you tomorrow we have five other horses running at the meeting, and I'm staying there for the three days. I won't be coming with you to Teesside for Lancat.'

He opened his mouth to protest, but I said, 'Vic Young is going up with Lancat. He will do all the technical part. It's the big race of the afternoon, as you know, and you'll be riding against very experienced jockeys. But all you've got to do is get quietly up on that colt, point it in the right direction, and tell it where to accelerate. And if it wins, for God's sake don't brag about how brilliant you are. There's nothing puts backs up quicker than a boastful jockey, and if you want the Press on your side, which you most certainly do, you will give the credit to the horse. Even if you don't feel in the least modest, it will pay to act it.'

He digested this with a stubborn look which gradually softened into plain thoughtfulness. I deemed I might as well take advantage of a receptive mood, so I went on with the pearls of wisdom.

'Don't despair if you make a right mess of any race. Everyone does, sometime. Just admit it to yourself. Never fool yourself, ever. Don't get upset by criticism- and don't get swollen-headed from praise- and keep your temper on a racecourse, all of the time. You can lose it as much as you like on the way home.'

After a while he said, 'You have given me more instructions on behaviour than on how to win races.'

'I trust your social manners less than your horsemanship.'

He worked it out, and didn't know whether to be pleased or not.

After the glitter of Doncaster, Catterick Bridge racecourse disappointed him. His glance raked the simple stands, the modest weighing room, the small-meeting atmosphere, and he said bitterly, 'Is this- all?'

'Never mind,' I said, though I hadn't myself known what to expect. 'Down there on the course are seven important furlongs, and they are all that matters.'

The parade ring itself was attractive with trees dotted all around. Alessandro came out there in yellow and blue silks, one of a large bunch of apprentices, most of whom looked slightly smug or self-conscious or nervous, or all of them at once.

Alessandro didn't. His face held no emotion whatsoever. I had expected him to be excited, but he wasn't. He watched Pullitzer plod round the parade ring as if he were of no more interest to him than a herd of cows. He settled into the saddle casually, and without haste gathered the reins to his satisfaction. Vic Young stood holding Pullitzer's rug and gazing up at Alessandro doubtfully.

'Jump him off, now,' he said admonishingly. 'You've got to keep him up there as long as you can.'

Alessandro met my eyes over Vic's head. 'Ride the way you've planned,' I said, and he nodded.

He went away without fuss on to the course and Vic Young, watching him go, exclaimed to me, 'I never did like that snooty little sod, and now he doesn't look as though he's got his heart in the job.'

'Let's wait and see,' I said soothingly. And we waited. And we saw.

Alessandro rode the race exactly as he'd said he would. Drawn number five of sixteen runners he made his way over to the rails in the first two furlongs, stayed steadfastly in fifth or sixth place for the next three, moved up slightly after that, and in the last sixty yards found an opening and some response from Pullitzer, and shot through the leading pair of apprentices not more than ten strides from the post. The colt won by a length and a half, beginning to waver.