Дик Фрэнсис - Knock Down

Hell hath no fury like the vanquished getting his own back.

I said, ‘What did they want?’

‘Blimey...’ He pulled out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘Didn’t you even know?’

‘Only in general,’ I said. ‘What in particular?’

‘Eh?’ He seemed dazed.

‘What did they want?’

‘Got a fag?’

I gave him one and lit for us both. He sucked in the smoke as if it were oxygen to the drowning.

‘I s’pose you are... Jonah Dereham?’ he said.

‘Who else?’

‘Yeah... I thought you were smaller, like.’

Five feet nine inches. Eleven stone. Couldn’t be more average. ‘A lot of jump jockeys are taller,’ I said.

He began to look less stirred up. He ran his tongue round his teeth and seemed to feel a fresh flow of saliva to a dry mouth.

‘What did they want?’ I asked for the third time.

‘That one you hit... with all that fluffy sort of hair... it was him did the talking.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Rum sort of bloke. All smiley. Came up to me cab as nice as you please asking for the loan of a spanner for ‘is brokendown car.’ He stopped to look at the empty road along which the brokendown car had vanished at high speed.

‘Yeah... Well, see, I reached back to the tool kit and asked what size. Come and look see, he said. So I jumped down from me cab. And then, see, he sort of grabbed me and shoved me back against the side of the box. And he never let off smiling. Creepy bastard. So then he says, look mate, there’s someone as wants this horse more than you do.’

‘I suppose he didn’t say who?’

‘Eh? No. He just says there’s someone as wants him more than you do, so I says it isn’t mine in the first place and he says not to make jokes... and him laughing his bleeding head off all the time.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘Nothing else. ’Struth, he didn’t have time. Well, he did say as how I’d better let him take the horse peaceful like if I didn’t want me ribs kicked in... well, I ask you... who would?’

Who indeed? ‘So then what?’

‘That’s when you came belting into them like they’d raped your sister.’

‘They didn’t say just how they proposed to take the horse?’

He stared. ‘No. I didn’t ask. I s’pose they meant to drive off with the whole bleeding lot.’ The idea offended him. ‘Bleeding bastards,’ he said.

‘Did they offer to pay for it?’

‘’Struth, you don’t half have some funny ideas.’

I wondered if they would have done, if I’d given them time. I wondered if I would have found the box driver clutching the cash plus another two hundred profit, and no River God in sight.

I sighed and stubbed out my cigarette.

‘Let’s look at the cargo,’ I said, and climbed aboard the box.

The farmer had done a smartening up job along the lines of paint over rust. The feet had been seen to: the shoes were patently new, and the newly trimmed hooves had been darkened with oil. The mane and tail had been brushed out, and the coat was clean. On the other hand there was a lot too much hair everywhere which spoke of little or no regular grooming; too much mane growing between the ears, too many whiskers around the muzzle, hairs too long on the chest, hairs sticking out everywhere instead of lying down neat and flat. The whole mess was shrouded by a tatty rug with two holes in it; and there was no attendant in sight.

‘I asked the farmer to send a groom,’ I said.

‘Yeah. He said he didn’t have nobody to spare. If you ask me he isn’t fit to keep a pit pony, much less a racehorse. When I got there, you’d hardly credit it, there was this poor bleeding animal standing in the yard tied up to the outside of the stable door, and there was this big bleeding pool of water all round him on the ground. Shivering, he was. I reckon they just hosed him down to get all the muck off. The farmer said he was sweating, that was why his coat looked damp. I ask you, who did he think he was kidding. I made him give me the rug to put on the poor bleeder. He didn’t want me to take it in case I didn’t bring it back.’

‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘Let’s get him out.’

He was surprised. ‘What, out here on the road?’

‘That’s right,’ I agreed.

‘But he’s warm enough now. He’s dried off, like, on the journey up.’

‘All the same...’ I said, and helped the box driver, who said his name was Clem, unload the River God. Deus ex machina I thought irrelevantly, and nothing much about this one either was divine.

I removed the rug, folded it, and returned it to the box. Then with Clem holding the horse’s farm-stained head collar I went along to my car and took off my jacket, and in shirt sleeves collected from the boot my bag of gear.

‘What are you going to do?’ Clem asked.

‘Tidy him up.’

‘But I had to meet you at three... you were early but it’s a quarter past already.’

‘I left time enough,’ I said. ‘We’re not due until four thirty.’

‘Did you reckon he’d look this rough, then?’

‘Thought he might.’

Once I was committed to turning up with the horse I was also committed to defend what he looked like. I took out hand clippers, two pairs of scissors, a heavy steel comb and some wax tapers, and set to work.

Clem held the horse’s head and watched while with comb in one hand and lighted taper in the other I worked on the rough coat, singeing off all the too-long, sticking out hair which in a good stable would have been removed by daily brushing. The tiny candle flame was too small to disturb the horse, who felt no fear or pain, and he looked a lot less like a throwback to a carthorse when I’d finished. Next I clipped out the mane between his ears and over his withers, then snipped off the worst of the whiskers round his muzzle, and with a large pair of scissors finally straightened the bottom of his tail.

‘’Struth,’ Clem said. ‘He looks a different horse.’

I shook my head. Nothing but care, good food and brushing could bring a shine to that coat. He looked like a poor boy after a haircut, tidy but still poor.

Before we loaded him up again I wound neat dark blue bandages round his forelegs and buckled on the clean rug I’d brought from my own yard. Eliza Doolittle off to the ball, I thought, but it was the best I could do.

Kerry Sanders looked from Nicol to Constantine in carefully camouflaged anxiety while they inspected her gift. One of Brevett’s own men was showing him off, trotting him now and then or making him stand with his legs arranged as for a photograph.

River God could move, I’d give him that. A good strong walk and a straight collected trot. Nothing to be ashamed of in that department.

Constantine was saying comfortingly, ‘My dear girl, I realise you got him at very short notice. I’m sure he’ll make up into a very good performer one of these days. Look at those legs... the bone is there.

‘I hope he’ll win for Nicol,’ she said.

‘Of course he will. He’s a very lucky boy to be given such a generous present.’

The lucky boy himself drew me aside and said abrasively ‘Couldn’t you have found me something better?’

I had ridden against him often enough in races, at the end of my career and the beginning of his, and he knew me as well and as little as any jockey in the changing room.

‘She gave me two days... and its form isn’t bad.’

‘Would you have ridden it?’

‘Definitely. And if it turns out no good, I’ll sell it for you later.’

He sucked his teeth.

‘It did quite well in a bad stable,’ I said. ‘It should improve a mile in yours.’

‘D’you think so?’

‘Give it a try.’