Ballerton frowned and complained as one of them powdered the bald patch on his head. The girl insisted politely. ‘It’ll shine too much otherwise, you see,’ she said, and went on patting his head with the cotton wool.
He caught me grinning at him and it clearly made him furious, raising a dark flush under the sun-tone make-up. There was no question of his ever sharing a rueful joke at his own expense, and I should have known it. I sighed to myself. This made twice that I had seen him at what he considered a disadvantage, and though I had not meant at all to antagonise him, it seemed that I had made a thorough job of it.
We went back into the studio and Kemp-Lore beckoned to us to take our places in the chairs on the platform.
‘I’ll just run through the order of the programme,’ he said, ‘so that you will know what to expect. After the introductory music I am going to talk to you first, John, along the lines we discussed. After that, Rob will tell us what his sort of life entails. We have some film of a race you rode in, Rob, which we are using as an illustration, and I plan to fit that in fairly near the beginning of our talk. It will be thrown on to that screen over there.’ He pointed.
‘For the last few minutes, John will have a chance to comment on what you have said and we might have a final word or two from you. We’ll see how it goes. Now, the great thing is to talk naturally. I’ve explained that too much rehearsal spoils the spontaneity of a programme like this, but it means that a lot of the success of the next quarter of an hour depends on you. I’m sure you will both do splendidly.’ He finished his pep talk with a cheerful grin, and I did in fact feel confidence flowing into me from him.
One of the sports-jacketed assistants stepped on to the shallow platform with a coffee pot in one hand and a brandy bottle in the other. He poured hot black coffee into the three cups, and put the pot down on the tray. Then he uncorked the brandy and wet the bottom of the balloon glasses.
‘No expense spared,’ he said cheerfully. He produced three cigars from the breast pocket of the sports jacket and offered them to us. Ballerton accepted one and sniffed it and rolled it between his fingers, curving his bad-tempered mouth into what passed with him for a smile.
‘Two minutes,’ shouted a voice.
The spotlights flashed on, dazzling as before, blacking out everything in the studio. For a moment the monitor set showed a close-up of the coffee cups: then it went dark and the next picture on it was an animated cartoon advertising petrol. It was tuned now to what was actually being transmitted.
‘Thirty seconds. Quiet please. Quiet please,’ Gordon said.
A hush fell over the whole area. I glanced at the monitor set in front of us. It was busy with a silent advertisement for soap flakes. Dimly seen beyond the lights, Gordon stood with his hand raised. There was dead silence. Steam rose gently from the three coffee cups. Everyone waited. Kemp-Lore beside me arranged his features in the well-known smile, looking straight ahead at the round black lens of the camera. The smile stayed in position for ten seconds without wavering.
On the monitor set the superimposed horses galloped and faded. Gordon’s hand swept down briskly. The camera in front of Kemp-Lore developed a shining red eye and he began to speak, pleasantly, intimately, straight into a million sitting-rooms.
‘Good evening... tonight I am going to introduce you to two people who are both deeply involved with National Hunt racing, but who look at it, so to speak, from opposite poles. First, here is Mr. John Ballerton...’ He gave him a good build-up but overdid the importance. There were about forty-nine other members of the National Hunt Committee, including Kemp-Lore’s own father, all at least as active and devoted as the fat man now basking in praise.
Skilfully guided by Kemp-Lore, he talked about his duties as one of the three stewards at a race meeting. It involved, he said, hearing both sides if there was an objection to a winner and awarding the race justly to the more deserving, and yes, summoning jockeys and trainers for minor infringements of the rules and fining them a fiver or a tenner a time.
I watched him on the monitor set. I had to admit he looked a solid, sober, responsible citizen with right on his side. The aggressive horn rims gave him, on the screen, a definite air of authority; also for the occasion his habitually sour expression had given way to a rather persuasive geniality. No one watching the performance Kemp-Lore coaxed out of him would have suspected him to be the bigoted, pompous bully we knew on the racecourse. I understood at last how he had come to be voted on to the National Hunt Committee.
Before I expected it, Kemp-Lore was turning round to me. I swallowed convulsively. He smiled at the camera.
‘And now,’ he said with the air of one producing a treat, ‘here is Rob Finn. This is a young steeplechase jockey just scratching the surface of his career. Few of you will have heard of him. He has won no big races, nor ridden any well-known horses, and that is why I have invited him here tonight to meet you, to give us all a glimpse of what it is like to try to break in to a highly competitive sport...’
The red light was burning on the camera pointing at me. I smiled at it faintly. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
‘First,’ he went on, ‘here is a piece of film which shows Finn in action. He is the rider with the white cap, fourth from last.’
We watched on the monitor set. I was all too easy to pick out. It was one of the first races I ever rode in, and my inexperience showed sorely. During the few seconds the film lasted the white cap lost two places, and as an illustration of an unsuccessful jockey it could not have been bettered.
The film faded out and Kemp-Lore said, smiling, ‘How did you set about starting to be a jockey, once you had decided on it?’
I said, ‘I knew three farmers who owned and trained their own horses, and I asked them to let me try my hand in a race.’
‘And they did?’
‘Yes, in the end,’ I agreed. I could have added, ‘After I had promised to return the riding fees and not even ask for expenses’; but the method I had used to persuade a string of farmers to give me rides was strictly against the rules.
‘Usually,’ Kemp-Lore said, turning towards the camera, which immediately glowed with its red eye, ‘jumping jockeys either start as amateur steeplechase riders or as apprentices on the flat, but I understand that you did neither of these things, Rob?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I started too old to be an apprentice and I couldn’t be an amateur because I had earned my living riding horses.’
‘As a stable lad?’ He put it in the form of a question but from his intonation he clearly expected me to say yes. It was, after all, by far the commonest background of jockeys riding as few races as I had been doing.
‘No,’ I said.
He was waiting for me to go on, his eyebrows a fraction raised in a tinge of surprise mingled with what looked like the beginning of apprehension. Well, I thought in amusement, you wouldn’t listen when I said I was hardly typical, so if my answers are not what you expect, it’s entirely your own fault.
I said, ‘I was away from England for some years, wandering round the world, you know? Mainly in Australia and South America. Most of the time I got jobs as a stockman, but I spent a year in New South Wales working as a hand in a travelling rodeo. Ten seconds on the bucking bronc: that sort of thing.’ I grinned.
‘Oh.’ The eyebrows rose another fraction, and there was a perceptible pause before he said, ‘How very interesting.’ He sounded as if he meant it. He went on, ‘I wish we had more time to hear about your experiences, but I want to give viewers a picture of the economics of a jockey in your position... trying to make a living on a race or two a week. Now, your fee is ten guineas a time, that’s right?...’