‘Don’t be silly.’
I looked around for the decorative Isabella, but she too had disappeared.
‘They’ve both gone to bet,’ Flora said, sighing. ‘Jack said the opposition was stiff... I’m so afraid Breezy Palm won’t win.’
We went up in the lift to the empty box. The sandwiches and tartlets were still wrapped, but the gin level had dropped considerably since we had arrived. Gin itself, I reflected, was a notorious inducer, in some people, of catty ill-humour.
Flora and I went onto the balcony to see the runners go down to the start, and Orkney arrived breathlessly, moving in front of us without apology, raising his binoculars to see what sins his jockey might already be committing. Isabella collectedly arrived with her clutched tickets and I glanced at the flickering light of the Tote board to see Breezy Palm’s odds. Seven to one; by no means favourite but fairly well backed.
There were eighteen runners, several of them past winners. Breezy Palm, well drawn, went into the stalls quietly and showed no signs of re-assaulting the assistant starter. Orkney’s slightly frantic agitation stilled suddenly to concentration and in the six-furlong distance the dark green starting gates opened in unison and spilled out their brilliant accelerating rainbow cargo.
Flora raised her own small raceglasses but I doubted if she could see much for trembling. Three-quarter-mile straight races were in any case difficult to read in the early stages as the runners were so far away and coming straight towards one, and it took me a fair time myself to sort out Orkney’s jockey in red and grey. The commentator, rattling off names,hadn’t mentioned Breezy Palm at all by the time they reached half-way but I could see him there, bobbing along in the pack, making no move either forward or backward, proving merely at that stage that he was no better and no worse than his opponents.
Flora gave up the struggle with her raceglasses, lowered them, and watched the last two furlongs simply with anxiety. The bunch of runners which had seemed to be moving slowly was suddenly perceived to be flying, the tiny foreshortened distances from first to last stretching before one’s eyes to gaps of a length, to definite possibles and positive losers. The young colts stuck out their necks and strove to be first as they would have done in a wild herd on an unrailed plain, the primaeval instinct flashing there undiluted on the civilised track. The very essence of racing, I thought. The untamed force that made it all possible. Exciting, moving... beautiful.
Breezy Palm had the ancient instinct in full measure. Whether urged to the full by his jockey or not he was straining ahead with passion, legs angular beneath the immature body, stride hurried and scratchy, the compulsion to be first all there but the technical ability still underdeveloped.
The trick of race-riding, my father had once said, was to awaken a horse’s natural panic fear and then control it. My father, of course, had had no doubt at all that he could do both. It was I, his son, who couldn’t do either. Pity...
Breezy Palm’s natural panic, jockey controlling it to the extent of letting it have its head and keeping it running straight, was still lustily aiming a shade beyond his ability. Orkney watched in concentrated silence. Flora seemed to be holding her breath. Isabella behind me was saying ‘Come on, you bugger, come on, you bugger,’ continuously under her breath, her most human reaction to date. Breezy Palm, oblivious, had his eyes fixed on the three horses still in front of him and over the last hundred yards ran as if the great god Pan were at his very heels.
Horses can only do their best. Breezy Palm’s best on that day couldn’t overhaul the winner, who went ahead by a length, or the second, who left clear space behind him, but he flashed over the line so close to the third of the leaders that from the angle of Orkney’s box it was impossible to tell the exact placings. The judge, announced the tannoy, was calling for a photograph.
Orkney, still silent, lowered his glasses and stared up the track to where his hepped-up colt was being hauled back into the twentieth century. Then still saying nothing he turned and hurried away, again leaving his companions to fare for themselves.
‘Come on, dear,’ Flora said, tugging my sleeve. ‘We must go down too. Jack said to be sure to. Oh, dear...’
The three of us consequently made the downward journey as fast as possible and arrived to find Breezy Palm stamping around in the place allotted to the horse that finished fourth, the jockey unbuckling the girths and Orkney scowling.
‘Oh, dear...’ Flora said again. ‘The jockeys always know... He must have been beaten for third after all.’
The result of the photograph, soon announced, confirmed it: Breezy Palm had finished fourth. Distances: length, two lengths, short head.
Flora, Isabella and I stood beside Orkney, looking at the sweating, tossing, skittering two-year-old and making consoling and congratulatory remarks, none of which seemed to please.
‘Ran extremely well in a strong field,’ I said.
‘The wrong race for him,’ Orkney said brusquely. ‘I’ve no idea why Jack persists in entering him in this class. Perfectly obvious they were too good for him.’
‘Only just,’ Isabella said reasonably.
‘My dear woman, you know nothing about it.’
Isabella merely smiled; fortitude of an exceptional nature.
It struck me that she herself was totally uncowed by Orkney. He treated her rudely: she ignored it, neither embarrassed nor upset. Subtly, somewhere in their relationship, she was his equal... and both of them knew it.
Flora said bravely, ‘I thought the horse ran splendidly,’ and received a pityingly glance from on high.
‘He fought to the end,’ I said admiringly. ‘Definitely not a quitter.’
‘Fourth,’ Orkney said repressively, as if fourth in itself bespoke a lack of character, and I wondered if he cared in the least how graceless he sounded.
The signal was given for the horses to be led away and Orkney made impatient movements which everyone interpreted as his own type of invitation to return to the box. There at last he busied himself with removing the wrappings from the overdue sandwiches, but without much method, finally pushing the plates towards Isabella for her to do it. Orkney himself poured fresh drinks as unstintingly as before and indicated that we might all sit down round one of the tables, if we so wished. All of us sat. All of us ate politely, hiding our hunger.
As a post-race jollification it would have done a funeral proud, but gradually the worst of Orkney’s sulks wore off and he began to make comments that proved he had at least understood what he’d seen, even if he took no joy in it.
‘He’s lost his action,’ he said. ‘Back in July, when he won, he had a better stride. Much more fluent. That’s the only trouble with two-year-olds. You think you’ve got a world beater and then they start developing unevenly.’
‘He might be better next year,’ I suggested. ‘Won’t you keep him? He could be worth it.’
Orkney shook his head. ‘He’s going to the sales next week. I wanted a win today to put his price up. Jack knew that.’ The echo of grudge was still strong. ‘Larry Trent might have leased him. He thought, as you seem to, that his action might come back once he’d finished growing, but I’m not risking it. Sell, and buy yearlings, that’s my preference. Different runners every year... more interesting.’
‘You don’t have time to grow fond of them,’ I said neutrally.
‘Quite right,’ he nodded. ‘Once you get sentimental you throw good money down the drain.’
I remembered the friendships my father had had with his steeplechasers, treating each with camaraderie over many years, getting to interpret their every twitch and particularly loving the one that had killed him. Money down the drain, sure, but a bottomless pleasure in return such as Orkney would never get to feel.