Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I slept like the dead when I finally got home, and woke with scant time the next morning to reach Kempton for the amateurs’ chase. After such a mangling week I thought it highly probable I would crown the lot by falling off the rickety animal I had in a weak moment promised to ride. But though I misjudged where it was intending to take off at the last open ditch and practically went over the fence before it while it put in an unexpected short one, I did in fact cling sideways like a limpet to the saddle[142], through sheer disinclination to hit the ground.

Though I scrambled back on top, my mount, who wouldn’t have won anyway, had lost all interest, and I trotted him back and apologised to his cantankerous owner, who considered I had spoilt his day and was churlish enough to say so. As he outranked my father by several strawberry leaves[143] he clearly felt he had the right to be as caustic as he chose. I listened to him saying I couldn’t ride in a cart with a pig-net over it and wondered how he treated the professionals.

Julian Thackery’s father caught the tail end of these remarks as he was passing, and looked amused: and when I came out of the weighing room after changing he was leaning against the rails waiting for me. He had brought the list of entries of his horses, and at his suggestion we adjourned to the bar to discuss them. He bought me some lemon squash without a quiver, and we sat down at a small table on which he spread out several sheets of paper. I realised, hearing him discussing his plans and prospects, that the year by year success of his horses was no accident: he was a very able man.

‘Why don’t you take out a public licence?’ I said finally.

‘Too much worry,’ he smiled. ‘This way it’s a hobby. If I make mistakes, I have no one on my conscience. No one to apologise to or smooth down. No need to worry about owners whisking their horses away at an hour’s notice. No risk of them not paying my fees for months on end.’

‘You know the snags[144]’, I agreed dryly.

‘There’s no profit in training,’ he said. ‘I break even most years[145], maybe finish a little ahead. But I work the stable in with the farm, you see. A lot of the overheads come into the farm accounts. I don’t see how half these public trainers stay in business, do you? They either have to be rich to start with, or farmers like me, or else they have to bet, if they want a profit.’

‘But they don’t give it up,’ I pointed out mildly. ‘And they all drive large cars. They can’t do too badly.’

He shook his head and finished his whisky. ‘They’re good actors, some of them. They put on a smiling not-a-care-in-the-world expression at the races when they’ve got the bank manager camping on their door-step back home. Well, now,’ he shufled the papers together, folded them, and tucked them into a pocket. ‘You think you can get next Thursday off to go to Stratford?’

‘I’m pretty sure of it, yes.’

‘Right. I’ll see you there, then.’

I nodded and we stood up to go. Someone had left an Evening Standard on the next table, and I glanced at it casually as we passed. Then I stopped and went back for a closer look. A paragraph on the bottom of the front page started ‘Derby Hope Dead,’ and told in a few bald words that Okinawa, entered for the Derby, had died on the flight from the United States, and was consequently scratched from all engagements.

I smiled inwardly. From the lack of detail or excitement, it was clear the report had come from someone like the trainer to whom Okinawa had been travelling, not from airport reporters sniffing a sensational story. No journalist who had seen or even been told of the shambles on that plane could have written so starkly. But the horse had been disposed of now, and I had helped wash out the plane myself, and there was nothing to see any more. Okinawa had been well insured, a vet had certified that destroying him was essential, and I had noticed that my name on the crew list was spelled wrongly; H. Gray. With a bit of luck, and if Yardman himself had his way, that was the end of it.

‘My dear boy,’ he’d said in agitation when hurriedly summoned to the airport, ‘it does business no good to have horses go crazy on our flights. We will not broadcast it, will we?’

‘We will not,’ I agreed firmly, more for my sake than for his.

‘It was unfortunate.’ he sighed and shrugged, obviously relieved.

‘We should have a humane killer,’ I said, striking the hot iron[146].

‘Yes. Certainly. All right. I’ll get one.’

I would hold him to that[147], I thought. Standing peacefully in the bar at Kempton I could almost feel the weight of Okinawa and the wetness of his blood, the twenty-four hour old memory of lying under a dying horse still much too vivid for comfort. I shook myself firmly back into the present and went out with Julian’s father to watch a disliked rival ride a brilliant finish.