She put her mouth to the foam, drank long, and when she took the glass away she was breathing quickly and a canker at the edge of her lip was wet. “Join me,” she said. “Why don’t you join me, mates?”
“We’ll see you in the bows,” said Hencher.
“Really?”
“Good as my word.”
It was all noise of people wanting a look at the world and a smell of the sea, and the woman was midships with her basket; soon in the shadow of the bow anchor she would be trying to find a safe spot for her folding chair. Hencher was winking. A boy in a black suit danced by their table, and in his arms was a girl of about fourteen. Banks watched the way she held him and watched her hands in the white gloves shrunk small and tight below the girl’s thin wrists. Music, laughter, smells of deck paint and tide and mustard, sight of the boy pulled along by the fierce white childish hands. And he himself was listening, touching his tongue to the beer, leaning close as he dared to Hencher, beginning to think of the black water widening between the sides of the holiday ship and the quay.
“What’s that, Hencher? What’s that you say?”
Hencher was looking him full in the face: “… to Rock Castle, here’s to Rock Castle, Mr. Banks!”
He heard his own voice beneath the whistles and plash of bilge coming out of a pipe, “To Rock Castle, then. …”
The glasses touched, were empty, and the girl’s leg was only the leg of a child and the woman would drink her black tea alone. He stood, moved his chair so that he sat not across from Hencher. but beside him.
“He’s old, Mr. Banks. Rock Castle has his age, he has. And what’s his age? Why, it’s the evolution of his bloody name, that’s what it is. Just the evolution of a name— Apprentice out of Lithograph by Cobbler, Emperor’s Hand by Apprentice out of Hand Maiden by Lord of the Land, Draftsman by Emperor’s Hand out of Shallow Draft by Amulet, Castle Churl by Draftsman out of Likely Castle by Cold Masonry, Rock Castle by Castle Churl out of Words on Rock by Plebeian — and what’s this name if not the very evolution of his life? You want to think of the life, Mr. Banks, think of the breeding. Consider the fiver bets, the cheers, the wreaths. Then forgotten, because he’s taken off the turf and turned out into the gorse, far from the paddock, the swirl of tom ticket stubs, the soothing nights after a good win, far from the serpentine eyes and bowler hats. Do you see it, Mr. Banks? Do you see how it was for Rock Castle?”
He could only nod, but once again — the Artemis was rolling — once again he saw the silver jaw, the enormous sheet, the upright body of the horse that was crashing in the floor of the Dreary Station flat. And he could only keep his eyes down, clasp his hands.
“… Back sways a little, you see, the color of the coat hardens and the legs grow stiff. Months, years, it’s only the blue sky for him, occasionally put to stud and then back he goes to his shelter under an old oak at the edge of a field. Useless, you see. Do you see it? Until tonight when he’s ours — yours — until tonight when we get our hands on him and tie him up in the van and drive him to stables I know of in Highland Green. Yours, you see, and he’s got no recollection of the wreaths or seconds of speed, no knowledge at all of the prime younger horses sprung from his blood. But he’ll run all right, on a long track he’ll run better than the young ones good for nothing except a sprint. Power, endurance, a forgotten name — do you see it, Mr. Banks? He’s ancient, Rock Castle is, an ancient horse and he’s bloody well run beyond memory itself. …”
Flimsy frocks, dancing children, a boy with the face of a man, a girl whose body was still awkward; they were all about him and taking their pleasure while the feet tramped and the whistle tooted. But Hencher was talking, holding him by the brown coat just beneath the ribs, then fumbling and cupping in front of his eyes a tiny photograph and saying, “Go on, go on, take a gander at this lovely horse.”
Then the pause, the voice less friendly and the question, and the sound of his own voice answering: “I’m game, Hencher. Naturally, I’m still game. …”
“Ah, like me you are. Good as your word. Well, come then, let’s have a turn round the deck of this little tub. We’ve time yet for a turn at the rail.”
He stood, trying to scrape the shards of the smashed mustard pot from his shoe, followed Hencher toward the white sea doors. The back of Hencher’s neck was red, the checked cap was at an angle, they made their slow way together through the excursion crowd and the smells of soap and cotton underwear and scent behind the ears.
“We’re going to do a polka,” somebody called, “come dance with us. …”
“A bit of business first,” Hencher said, and grinned over the heads at the woman. “A little business first— then we’ll be the boys for you, never fear.”
A broken bench with the name Annie carved into it, a bucket half-filled with sand, something made of brass and swinging, a discarded man’s shirt snagged on the horn of a big cleat bolted to the deck and, overhead, high in a box on the wall of the pilot house, the running light flickering through the sea gloom. He felt the desertion, the wind, the coming of darkness as soon as he stepped from the saloon.
She’s home now, she’s thinking about her hubby now, she’s asking the cat where’s Michael off to, where’s my Michael gone to?
He spat sharply over the rail, turned his jacket collar up, breathed on the dry bones of his hands.
Together, heads averted, going round the deck, coming abreast of the saloon and once more sheltered by a flapping canvas: Hencher lit a cigar while he himself stood grinning in through the lighted window at the crowd. He watched them kicking, twirling, holding hands, fitting their legs and feet to the steps of the dance; he grinned at the back of the girl too young to have a girdle to pull down, grinned at the boy in the black suit. He smelled the hot tobacco smell and Hencher was with him, Hencher who was fat and blowing smoke on the glass.
“You say you have a van, Hencher, a horse van. …”
“That’s the ticket. Two streets over from this quay, parked in an alley by the ship-fitter’s, as good a van as you’d want and with a full tank. And it’s a van won’t be recognized, I can tell you that. A little oil and sand over the name, you see. Like they did in the war. And we drive it wherever we please — you see — and no one’s the wiser.”
He nodded and for a moment, across the raven-blue and gold of the water, he saw the spires and smokestacks and tiny bridges of the city black as a row of needles burned and tipped with red. The tide had risen to its high mark and the gangway was nearly vertical; going down he burned his palm on the tarred rope, twice lost his footing. The engines were loud now. Except for Hencher and himself, except for the officer posted at the foot of the gangway and a seaman standing by each of the hawsers fore and aft, the quay was deserted, and when the sudden blasting of the ship’s whistle commenced the timbers shook, the air was filled with steam, the noise of the whistle sounded through the quay’s dark cargo shed. Then it stopped, except for the echoes in the shed and out on the water, and the man gave his head a shake as if he could not rid it of the whistling. He held up an unlighted cigarette and Hencher handed him the cigar.
“Oh,” said the officer, “it’s you two again. Find the lady in question all right?”
“We found her, Captain. She’s comfy, thanks, good and comfy.”
“Well, according to schedule we tie up here tomorrow morning at twenty past eight.”
“My friend and me will come fetch her on the dot, Captain, good as my word. …”
Again the smothering whistle, again the sound of chain, and someone shouted through a megaphone and the gangway rose up on a cable; the seamen hoisted free the ropes, the bow of the Artemis began to swing, the officer stepped over the widening space between quay and ship and was gone.