Racing Manhattan Read online

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  DRESS-DOWN FRIDAY

  A PONY ON THE NOSE

  CUCKOO IN THE NEST

  A GHOST ON THE RACETRACK

  THE BEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD

  TROT ON

  PRIVATE CHARITY CASE

  TIME TO GO

  HEADQUARTERS

  MAGIC

  A BACK YARD SORT OF PERSON

  AUNTIE

  SPECIAL RULE

  COME IN, NUMBER NINE

  WHO IS BUG?

  HOODOO HORSE

  RED FIRE

  TOO FAR

  HOOKED

  OLD STONEFACE

  VICIOUS BRUTE

  BULL-PEN

  POPTASTIC

  NO FUNNY BUSINESS

  INSTRUCTIONS

  FIRST TIME OUT

  ALSO-RANS

  PRINCE

  PAYBACK TIME

  A BIT OF A CHARACTER

  JOCKEYS HAVE WHIPS

  BEGINNER’S LUCK

  UNREASONABLE

  A BIT OF A PLAN

  FAMILY HERITAGE

  GOOD GIRL

  LIFE’S NOT RACING

  KING GEORGE

  GOOD HORSES DON’T HAVE EXCUSES

  SQUARE PEG

  HEARTBROKEN TEEN

  A LINE IN THE SAND

  AMERICAN DIRT

  A PIECE OF WORK

  THE BIG QUESTION

  CHANGES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781448188437

  Version 1.0

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  First published in 2016 by

  Andersen Press Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.andersenpress.co.uk

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Terence Blacker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Copyright © Terence Blacker, 2016

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

  ISBN 978 1 78344 401 4

  To the memory of my good pal, Paul Sidey

  DRESS-DOWN FRIDAY

  A TALL, GREY-HAIRED man in a heavy sheepskin coat is standing on the edge of his lawn. Beyond him there are fields, leading down into a wood. Now and then he puffs at a cigar in his hand.

  My uncle. Bill Barton. Uncle Bill.

  I watch him for a moment, a hay-net over my shoulders, as I stand by his gold and black horsebox. The two ponies in the lorry are going racing today. There are three more ponies, and a horse belonging to Uncle Bill’s wife Elaine, in a row of stables beyond.

  I can hear, above the early morning birdsong, the sound of Uncle Bill’s groom Ted as he mucks out one of the stables.

  Across a gravel yard stands Uncle Bill’s big modern house, Coddington Hall. An old, historic building with that name used to be here but, shortly after my uncle bought it, a fire just accidentally happened to break out in the kitchen and the place burnt to the ground.

  ‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’ Uncle Bill says now when he talks about it. ‘Collected the insurance. Built a new house. Modern. Great facilities. Games room. More my style. Bish bosh done.’

  That’s Uncle Bill’s way. He is a determined man. Things don’t stand in his way for long. If someone disagrees with him, he gives them the look. There’s something about Uncle Bill’s look that persuades people to change their mind.

  He turns, zipping himself up (that’s what he was doing there, like a big silver fox marking his territory). I hurriedly put the hay-net in the back of the horsebox.

  A few moments later, Michaela – Uncle Bill’s daughter, my cousin and my most-of-the-time best friend – ambles from the house towards the horsebox. She looks amazing. Breeches. Shining boots. Silks in Uncle Bill’s black and gold colours. She could be a real jockey, except in miniature and with long blonde hair.

  She checks her reflection in one of the wing mirrors.

  ‘Looking good, M,’ I say.

  ‘Cheers, Jay.’ She smiles, then notices what I’m wearing. Trainers. Jeans. Faded black T-shirt. The crash-hat on my head has a moth-eaten velvet covering and an old-fashioned peak. It looks like something out of The Antiques Roadshow.

  ‘I could have lent you some stuff,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m comfortable.’

  Michaela does an odd little pouty thing with her mouth, a gesture she has picked up recently at her new school.

  ‘Comfortable?’ she murmurs. ‘What’s comfort got to do with it?’

  Now Uncle Bill is by the horsebox. A proud-dad smile appears on his face when he looks at Michaela. It vanishes when he catches sight of me.

  ‘Blimey, girl,’ he says in that rasping voice of his. ‘Dress-down Friday, is it?’

  ‘I had to get the ponies ready, Uncle Bill.’

  He swears quietly and gets into the car.

  I take one last look in the back of the horsebox.

  Hey, boys. Everything all right here?

  Marius is looking restless. Dusty munches sleepily at his hay-net.

  That’s the way, Dusty.

  Uncle Bill toots impatiently at the horn.

  I close the horsebox door. A movement in one of the house’s upstairs windows catches my eye. My aunt Elaine stands there in a silk dressing gown, her hands around a mug of tea. She is Uncle Bill’s second wife, Michaela’s stepmother, and is not exactly keen on the idea of our going racing. I wave goodbye to her. She looks away.

  I step into the cab, which is already thick with cigar smoke.

  Uncle Bill looks across at us, grinning. ‘Ready for the races, girls?’

  ‘Races, yay.’ Michaela punches the air. ‘I’m so excited.’

  ‘You’ve double-checked everything’s in the back, Jay?’ he asks, putting the horsebox into gear.

  ‘Yes, Uncle Bill.’

  Bish.

  Bosh.

  Done.

  A PONY ON THE NOSE

  WE DRIVE FOR an hour or so. Beside me, Michaela chatters about the ponies, about school, about her friends. I can tell she’s nervous.

  My mind is fixed on the race ahead. I’ve been around Uncle Bill long enough to know that whatever he is planning, there will probably be something dodgy about it. He calls it ‘working the system’.

  I turn towards him. ‘Tell us about the races, Uncle Bill,’ I say.

  He draws on his fat cigar and exhales. Gasping, Michaela puts her head out of the window.

  ‘It’s mainly a bit of fun,’ he says. ‘With a little betting on the side to make it interesting for the grown-ups.’

  Here’s a tip about my uncle. To get at the truth, you sometimes need to listen very carefully to what he says and then turn it upside-down. Or inside-out. Or back-to-front. Anything but the way he’s told it.

  These pony races, I’m now guessing, are mainly about betting
. With a little fun on the side to make it interesting for the kids.

  We bump down a long track until we reach a closed gate. Two men in combat jackets and dark glasses are standing in front of it. There is something about their body language which is not exactly welcoming. As we approach, they see who is driving and quickly stand back to open the gate.

  A big, open field stretches before us.

  ‘Where are we?’ Michaela sounds a bit scared.

  ‘This was once an air station,’ says Uncle Bill. ‘Now it’s just derelict land. All sorts of naughty stuff goes on here. Raves. Hare coursing. The odd bare-knuckle fight.’

  ‘Bare-knuckle fight?’ I look to see whether he’s joking. He isn’t. ‘What about the police, Uncle Bill?’

  He gives a little between-you-and-me laugh. ‘They don’t seem to bother with this for some reason.’ He winks at me. ‘It’s a sort of no-man’s-land, law-wise.’

  ‘Oh, right. I see.’ (I don’t but, with Uncle Bill, it’s best not to ask too many questions.)

  A few hundred metres away, there is a strip of old road where horseboxes, trailers and vans are parked. This is different from the gymkhanas Michaela and I have been to in the past. No tents. No ring surrounded by straw bales, no jolly picnics, no man with a posh voice making announcements, no proud parents leading small ponies with plaited manes.

  Round the outside of the field I can see poles and a white tape. The racetrack.

  ‘Looks a bit serious,’ Michaela murmurs to me.

  ‘It does.’ I smile to myself.

  I feel like I’ve come home.

  I get into the horsebox to check the ponies. Marius, a light chestnut Arab gelding, is trembling with excitement while Dusty – dark bay, hairy-heeled, big-bummed (my favourite pony in the world) – shows no sign of waking up.

  You can probably guess which one I’m riding.

  From the outside, Uncle Bills calls out, ‘Let’s walk the course, jockeys.’

  He strides towards the white tape. As the three of us follow the track around the field, he points out to Michaela where the good ground is. He tells her that our race is longer than most, that she must wait to make her move. Marius has a turn of foot – he can beat any pony for speed at the finish – but he gets bored when he’s in front.

  I listen. Sometimes it can be useful, not being noticed.

  There are three races before ours. Michaela stays at the horsebox with Marius. I watch the bigger ponies carefully. Most of the kid jockeys are going too fast too soon. They have forgotten that it has rained during the week. The track is narrow in places and already the ground is muddier. With every race, the final bend is looking more and more like a ploughed field in a thunderstorm.

  Where the cars are parked, money is changing hands, and there seems to be quite a lot of drinking going on too. This isn’t playtime, that’s for sure. It’s serious.

  I like that.

  When we get Marius out of the horsebox and saddle him up, one or two of the gamblers come over to look at him.

  ‘What race is he in, mate?’ one calls out to Bill.

  ‘The fourth.’

  ‘Worth a pony on the nose, is he?’

  Uncle Bill is tightening the girth. He ignores them.

  ‘What’s a pony, Dad?’ asks Michaela.

  ‘Just a little bet, love – twenty-five quid,’ says the man watching us. ‘What d’you say, pal?’ He calls out more loudly to Uncle Bill. ‘Worth a tickle, is he?’

  ‘Save your money, mate,’ says Uncle Bill. ‘He’s got no chance.’

  The men lose interest, and wander off.

  ‘He might win, Dad,’ mutters Michaela. ‘You never know.’

  ‘Might?’ Uncle Bill laughs. ‘Will, more like.’

  ‘So why did you say he had no chance?’

  There is a tight little smile on Uncle Bill’s face, and suddenly I understand his plan.

  ‘The fewer people who bet on you, the better your odds will be at the bookmakers,’ I say. ‘So, if you win, anyone who has bet on you makes more money.’

  ‘Never mind all that.’ Uncle Bill gives Michaela the leg-up, and, as she puts her feet in the stirrups, Marius looks about him with a slightly superior air. Horse and jockey look magnificent.

  ‘Jog him about a bit, love,’ Uncle Bill says to Michaela. ‘Warm him up.’ He watches her go, then turns to me. ‘You know too much, girl,’ he mutters.

  Smiling, I go to fetch Dusty. He looks about him, taking an interest in his surroundings at last. Uncle Bill slips the bridle over his head and I saddle him up, talking to him all the while.

  This is your day, boy. You’re the one nobody thinks will win. We’ve got a little surprise for them, haven’t we?

  Dusty nuzzles me. A stranger might think he’s after a sugar lump. I know it’s because he’s listening to me.

  As Uncle Bill takes the reins and holds his head, I brush some straw out of his thick tail with a dandy brush, then run a hand down his flank behind the saddle. Half-Connemara and half-thoroughbred, he is no looker, but he is faster than he looks.

  ‘Beauty is as beauty does,’ Ted likes to say.

  I jump onto Dusty’s back and put my feet in the stirrups.

  Looks aren’t everything, are they, boy?

  Uncle Bill shakes his head. ‘You and that pony – you’re as daft as each other,’ he says.

  Ignore him, Dusty. He doesn’t know you like I know you.

  ‘Listen up, kid.’ Uncle Bill speaks in a low casual voice as he checks my girth is tight enough. ‘You keep out of Michaela’s way, right? If she’s coming up on the inside, let her through. Do not take her ground. Just don’t get in her way. Understood? Be a good girl. Today’s Marius’s day.’

  ‘You want me to lose?’

  ‘I want Michaela to win.’ He gives one of his trademark winks.

  I feel a familiar lurch of rage within me. It is like a match being put to petrol.

  ‘Understood?’ Uncle Bill repeats the word with a don’t-mess-with-me harshness in his voice.

  I clench my jaw and manage to nod. My hands are tight around the reins.

  Red mist, it was called when I was younger. ‘Watch out for Jay when the red mist falls,’ my mum used to say. ‘She becomes a different person.’ But my anger, when it comes, is not a like a mist at all. It’s a red fire, raging in a forest in a high wind. It’s dangerous, unstoppable.

  Sitting there on Dusty, I hear in my mind the voices I have heard all my life at home and at school. Be a good girl. Know your place. Keep out of the way. Don’t worry about Jay. Ignore her. She’s nothing.

  The red fire still burning within me, I canter Dusty down to the start. As we circle around, I breathe deeply and then, coldly and calmly, I pull my goggles down. There are eight runners in our race – five boys, a plump, scared-looking girl I recognise from gymkhanas, Michaela and me.

  Today’s not our day, is it? Well, it is now.

  As we circle around at the start, I notice that most of the ponies are tough, shaggy customers, a bit like Dusty. Beside them, Marius looks like a film star who has just dropped into a local job centre.

  But I like the way Dusty is feeling. He’s a moody old sort, and not the fastest, but I know one thing from riding him in gymkhanas. He likes to have his nose in front when it matters. He may not look the part, but he has racing in his blood. He feels alive beneath me, as if the fire that is still roaring quietly within me has somehow reached him.

  Use your anger. That’s what Mum used to say, Dusty.

  I trace a heart shape with my finger on his shoulder.

  We’re about to give them all a surprise.

  We line up beside a man holding up a red flag. Michaela has been told to keep out of trouble, and now she takes Marius to the outside. Dusty and I, ignored by the others, are next to the tape.

  When the flag falls, the starter roars, ‘Come on!’

  Go, boy.

  I give him a dig in the ribs. He takes off as well as he can but, after a few strides
, all we can see are tails. The boys are bumping and pushing for position but it’s the girl who has the inside rail. I notice Marius and Michaela going easily, slightly away from the pack to the right, as if the chestnut is enjoying his own private canter. I’m having to push Dusty along, like someone scrubbing the floor, just to keep in touch with the others.

  Take your time. They’ll come back to us. Let them run their race.

  Dusty can’t win. Of course he can’t. The others are younger and faster than he is. Except …

  They are also going too fast for themselves. The boys are riding a finish and we’ve only just passed the halfway mark. The girl’s pony on the inside is already losing ground. Marius, though, is still cantering, well within himself.

  As we approach the final bend, I am three lengths behind the field which is tightly bunched. The ponies are tiring and so are some of the jockeys. They drift away from the inside tape towards the heavier ground. It’s our moment.

  Not that way, boy. Here we go.

  The forest fire is raging now. It makes me stronger, more focused, than anyone could believe. I pull Dusty so close to the tape that I feel the posts banging against my left foot. I don’t feel the pain. We’ve found a narrow strip of good ground which everyone else has missed.

  This is where we start racing. Come on, boy—

  Dusty seems to sense that the other ponies are faltering in the mud across the centre of the track. As he feels the firmer ground beneath him, he lengthens his stride and puts his old head down, like a hound finding the scent.

  Go!

  I yell as I change my grip on the reins, and suddenly we’re flying.

  As we enter the final straight, the other jockeys get their ponies back to the inside tape – and find themselves looking at the broad hindquarters of an old pony called Dusty. Before the bend we were last, now we’re first. It is as if some strange magic trick has taken place.

  Keep going. Don’t break your stride, boy.

  Dusty is tiring, but he’s always been a brave little pony. Two hundred metres to the post. 150. I know what to expect and am ready for it. I hear the pounding of hooves behind me and, out of the corner of my eye, a bright chestnut shape appears, gaining on us at speed.

  As Marius’s head reaches my right knee, instinct kicks in. I wave my arm and yell, ‘Yaaaaahhhh!’ like a jockey riding a finish.