The loudspeakers coughed and cleared their throats and said good morning everyone the sale is about to begin.
I went inside. Apart from four or five earnestly suited auctioneers in their spacious rostrum the place was deserted. Electric lights augmenting the daylight shone brightly on tiers of empty seats, and the sand on the circular track where the merchandise would walk was raked fine and flat. The auctioneers looked hopefully towards the door from the collecting ring and Lot 1 made its apologetic appearance attended by a few worried-looking people who were apparently its vendors.
There was no bid. No one there bidding. Lot 1 made its way out through the far door and the worried people went after it.
There was no bid for Lot 2 and ditto for Lot 3. British auctioneers tended to arrange their catalogues so that the potential money-makers came up in mid-session, and small studs like Antonia’s got the cold outer edges.
Lot 4 looked better under bright lights. All horses always did, like jewellery, which was why auctioneers and jewellers spent happily on electricity.
The auctioneer dutifully started his sale while clearly expecting nothing to come of it. He stretched the price up to one thousand without one genuine bid, at which point I rather undecidedly waved my catalogue. Antonia would be livid if I got it for a thousand.
‘Thank you sir,’ he said sounding surprised, and picked ‘Eleven hundred’ expertly out of the totally empty ranks of seats facing him.
Glory be, I thought. The aunt had had the sense to slap on a reserve. I made it twelve, the auctioneer said thirteen, and between us we limped up to his own bid of nineteen.
‘You’re losing him,’ said the auctioneer warningly.
Three or four people came in from the outside and stood near me on the edge of the track where Lot 4 plodded patiently round and round. Everyone outside could hear on the loudspeakers how the sale was going, and some had come in to see.
I wondered how high Antonia had made the reserve. Two thousand was all I would give for that colt. If she wanted more she could have him back.
I nodded to the auctioneer. He fractionally relaxed, said smoothly, ‘Two thousand... Selling all the time now...’ His gaze went past me to the people who had just come in. ‘Shall I say two thousand one...?’
No one said two thousand one. He made a few more efforts to no avail and Jonah Dereham got the colt.
I turned round. Behind me stood Vic Vincent, looking like thunder.
‘Jonah,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Sure, Vic, how about coffee?’
He brushed the suggestion aside. He took me strongly by the arm in a mock-friendly gesture and practically propelled me out of the door.
‘Now look,’ he said.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I told you that colt was no good.’
‘I’m grateful for your interest.’
He glared at me. ‘How much is Mrs Huntercombe giving you?’
‘It’s cold out here,’ I said.
He looked near to fury.
‘She’s giving you nothing,’ he said.
‘I haven’t asked her to.’
‘That’s the point, you stupid sod. We must all stick together. We must all let the breeders know that we all stick together. Do you understand what I’m saying? We can’t have you working for less than the rest of us. It’s not fair on us. You’ll make more money yourself too if we all stick together. It makes sense. Do you follow me?’
‘Yes,’ I said. All too well.
‘Mrs Huntercombe and people like her must be made to understand that unless they reward us properly we are not interested in buying their horses.’
‘I follow you,’ I said.
‘Good. So you’ll go along with us in future.’ A positive statement, not a question.
‘No,’ I said.
There may be quicker ways of stirring up hornets, but I doubt it. The rage flowed out of him like a tangible force. He was so near to explosive physical assault that his arms jerked and his weight shifted to his toes. Only the gathering sales crowd stopped him lashing out. He flicked glances left and right, saw people watching, took an almighty and visible grip on his feelings and put the frustrated violence into words.
‘If you don’t join us we’ll ruin you.’
There was no mistaking the viciousness in that voice, and the threat was no idle boast. People found it easy to believe Vic Vincent. The two clients I had already lost to him had believed I cheated them because Vic Vincent had told them so. He could stop the sale of a good filly just by saying she had a heart murmur. He could no doubt smash my growing business with a rumour just as simple and just as false. A bloodstock agent was only as secure as his clients’ faith.
I could think of no adequate answer. I said, ‘You used not to be like this,’ which was true enough but got me nowhere.
‘I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘You play ball or we’ll get you out.’
He turned on his heel and walked jerkily away, the anger spilling out of the hunched shoulders and rigid legs. Ronnie North and Jiminy Bell circled round him like anxious satellites and I could hear his voice telling them, low, vigorous and sharp.
Within an hour most of the bloodstock agents knew of the row and during the day I found out who my friends were. The bunch I had said I wouldn’t join drew their skirts away and spoke about me among themselves while looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. The chaps in the big firms treated me exactly as usual, and even one or two with approval, as officially they frowned on exorbitant kickbacks.
The uncommitted in the no-man’s-land between were the most informative.
I had coffee and a sandwich with one of them, a man who had been in the game longer but was in much my position, more or less established and just beginning to prosper. He was distinctly worried and cheered up not at all when I confirmed what Vic had threatened.
‘They’ve approached me as well,’ he said. ‘They didn’t say what would happen if I didn’t join them. Not like with you. They just said I would be better off if I did.’
‘So you would.’
‘Yes... but... I don’t know what to do.’ He put down his sandwich half finished. ‘They’re getting so much worse.’
I said I’d noticed it.
‘There used to be just a few of them,’ he said. ‘When I started, only a few. But lately they’re getting so powerful.’
‘And so greedy,’ I said.
‘That’s it,’ he said in eager agreement. ‘I don’t mind a little extra on the side. Who does? It’s just that... they’ve started pushing so hard. I don’t know what to do... I don’t like their methods and I can’t afford...’ He stopped, looked depressed, and went on slowly, ‘I suppose I could just not bid when the word goes round. There wouldn’t be much harm in that.’
The make-the-best-of-it syndrome. The buttress of every tyrant in history. He took his worries away and later I saw him smiling uneasily with Vic.
During the day I bought one more yearling, bidding against one of the big firms and securing it for a fair price. However extensively Vic’s tentacles might stretch they had not reached every breeder in the country, or at any rate not yet. Neither he nor his friends showed any interest in my second purchase.
Towards the end of the day one of my regular clients arrived with a flashy girl in one hand and a cigar in the other. Eddy Ingram, member of the well-heeled unemployed.
‘Staying for the week,’ he said cheerfully, waving the cigar in a large gesture. ‘How about you joining me and Marji for dinner tomorrow night?’
‘I’d like to.’
‘Great, great.’ He beamed at me, beamed at Marji. An overgrown school-boy with a nature as generous as his inheritance. I thought him a fool and liked him a lot. ‘Have you found me a couple of good ’uns, then?’ he asked.