James Axminster smiled his disconcerting, heavy-jawed smile in the parade ring and introduced me to the owner of the horse I was to ride. He shook hands and we made the usual desultory pre-race conversation. The middle-aged handicap hurdler plodding sleepily round the ring was the third Axminster horse I had ridden during the week, and I had already grown to appreciate the sleekness and slickness of his organisation. His horses were well schooled and beautifully turned out, and there was nothing makeshift or second-best in any of his equipment. Success and prosperity spoke from every brightly initialled horse rug, every top quality bridle, every brush, bandage and bucket that came to the meetings.
In the two earlier races that week I had been riding the stable’s second string while Pip Pankhurst took his usual place on the better horses. Thursday’s handicap hurdle, however, was all my own because Pip could not do the weight.
‘Anything under ten stone six, and it’s yours,’ he told me cheerfully, when he found I was riding some of his stable’s horses. ‘Anything under ten six is hardly worth riding, anyway.’
By eating and drinking very little I had managed to keep my riding weight down to ten stone for a whole week. This meant a body weight of nine stone eight, which was a strain at my height, but with Pip in that ungrudging frame of mind it was well worth it.
James Axminster said, ‘At the fourth hurdle, you want to be somewhere in the middle. About three from home, providing they’re not too strung out, you want to lie about fourth. He takes some time to get into top gear, so start him moving going into the second last. Keep him going, try to come up to the leader at the last and see how much you can gain in the air there. This horse is a great jumper, but has no finishing speed. Very one-paced. See what you can do, anyway.’
He had not given me such detailed instructions before, and it was the first time he had mentioned anything about what to do at the last obstacle. I felt a deep quiver of excitement in my stomach. At last I was about to ride a horse whose trainer would not be thoroughly surprised if he won.
I followed my instructions to the letter, and coming into the last hurdle level with two other horses I kicked my old mount with all the determination I could muster. He responded with a zipping leap which sped him clean past the other horses in mid-air and landed us a good two lengths clear of them. I heard the clatter of the hurdles as the others rapped them, and basely hoped they had made stumbling, time-wasting landings. It was true that the old hurdler could not quicken. I got him balanced and ran him straight to the winning post, using my whip hardly at all and concentrating mainly on sitting still and not disturbing him. He held on gamely, and still had half a length in hand when we passed the post. It was a gorgeous moment.
‘Well done,’ said Axminster matter-of-factly. Winners were nothing out of the ordinary to him. I unbuckled the girths and slid the saddle off over my arm, and patted the hurdler’s sweating neck.
The owner was delighted. ‘Well done, well done,’ he said to the horse, Axminster and me indiscriminately. ‘I never thought he’d pull it off, James, even though I took your advice and backed him.’
I looked quickly at Axminster. His piercingly blue eyes regarded me quizzically.
‘Do you want the job?’ he asked. ‘Second to Pip, regular?’
I nodded and dragged in a deep breath, and said, ‘Yes.’ It sounded like a croak.
The hurdler’s owner laughed. ‘It’s Finn’s lucky week. John Ballerton tells me Maurice is interviewing him on his television programme tomorrow evening.’
‘Really?’ Axminster said. ‘I’ll try and watch it.’
I went to weigh in and change, and when I come out Axminster gave me another list of horses, four of them, which he wanted me to ride the following week.
‘From now on,’ he said, ‘I don’t want you to accept any rides without finding out first if I need you. All right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, trying not to show too much of the idiotic delight I was feeling. But he knew. He was too old a hand not to. His eyes glimmered with understanding and friendliness and promise.
I telephoned to Joanna. ‘How about dinner? I want to celebrate.’
‘What?’ she asked economically.
‘A winner. A new job. All’s right with the world,’ I said.
‘You sound as if you’ve been celebrating already.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Any drunkenness you can hear in my voice is due to being hit on the head by good luck.’
She laughed. ‘All right then. Where?’
‘Hennibert’s,’ I said. It was a small restaurant in St James’s Street with a standard of cooking to match its address, and prices to match both.
‘Oh yes,’ said Joanna. ‘Shall I come in my golden coach?’
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I’ve earned forty pounds this week. I want to spend some of it. And besides, I’m hungry.’
‘You won’t get a table,’ she said.
‘It’s booked.’
‘I’m sold,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there at eight.’
She came in a taxi, a compliment to me as she was a girl who liked walking. She wore a dress I had not seen before, a slender straight affair made of a firm, deep-blue material which moved with a faint shimmer when the light fell on it. Her springy dark hair curved neatly down on to the nape of her neck, and the slanting outward tapering lines she had drawn on her eyelids made her black eyes look bigger and deep set and mysterious. Every male head turned to look at her as we walked down the room: yet she was not pretty, not eye-catchingly glamorous, not even notably well dressed. She looked... I surprised myself with the word... intelligent.
We ate avocados with french dressing and boeuf stroganoff with spinach, and late crop strawberries and cream, and a mushroom and bacon and prune savoury. For me, after so many bird-sized meals, it was a feast. We took a long time eating and drank a bottle of wine, and sat over our coffee talking with the ease of a friendship which stretched back to childhood. Most of the time, after so much practice, I could keep my more uncousinly feelings for Joanna well concealed from her; and it was necessary to conceal them because I knew from past experience that if I even approached the subject of love she would begin to fidget and avoid my eyes, and would very soon find a good reason for leaving. If I wanted to enjoy her company, it had to be on her terms.
She seemed genuinely pleased about the James Axminster job. Even though racing didn’t interest her, she saw clearly what it meant to me.
‘It’s like the day the musical director at the Handel Society picked me out of the choir to sing my first recitative. I felt like a pouter pigeon and so full of air that I thought I would need guy-ropes to keep my feet on the ground.’
‘Heady stuff,’ I agreed. My first elation had settled down to a warm cosy glow of satisfaction. I did not remember ever having felt so content.
I told her about the television programme.
‘Tomorrow?’ she said. ‘Good, I think I’ll be free to watch you. You don’t do things by halves, do you?’
I grinned. ‘This is just the start,’ I said. I almost believed it.
We walked all the way back to Joanna’s studio. It was a clear crisp night with the stars blazing coldly in the black sky. Depth upon depth of infinity. We stopped in the dark mews outside Joanna’s door and looked up.
‘They put things into proportion, don’t they?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ I wondered what it was that she needed to see in proportion. I looked at her. It was a mistake. The up-tilted face with starlight reflected in the shadowy eyes, the dark hair tousled again by our walk, the strong line of throat, the jut of breasts close to my arm, they swept me ruthlessly into the turmoil I had been suppressing all evening.