Дик Фрэнсис - Rat Race

There was a small buffet on the side of the fuselage and the jar and sound of someone stepping up on to the wing. The slightly open door was pushed wide with a crash, and into its space appeared a girl, bending at the waist and knees and neck so that she could look inside and across at me.

She was slim and dark haired and she was wearing large square sunglasses. Also she had a blue linen dress and long white boots. She looked great. The afternoon instantly improved.

‘You lousy bloody skunk,’ she said.

It really was one of those days.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Wrong man.’ She took off the sunglasses and folded them away in the white handbag which hung from her shoulder by a thick red, white and blue cord.

‘Think nothing of it.’

‘Where’s Larry?’

‘Gone to Turkey.’

‘Gone?’ she said blankly. ‘Do you mean literally gone already, or planning to go, or what?’

I looked at my watch. ‘Took off from Heathrow twenty minutes ago, I believe.’

‘Damn,’ she said forcibly. ‘Bloody damn.’

She straightened up so that all I could see of her was from the waist down. A pleasant enough view for any poor aviator. The legs looked about twenty-three years old and there was nothing wrong with them.

She bent down again. Nothing wrong with the rest of her, either.

‘When will he be back?’

‘He had a three year contract.’

‘Oh, hell .’ She stared at me in dismay for a few seconds, then said, ‘Can I come in there and talk to you for a minute?’

‘Sure,’ I agreed, and moved my maps and stuff off Golden-berg’s seat. She stepped down into the cockpit and slid expertly into place. By no means her first entrance into a light aircraft. I wondered about Larry. Lucky Larry.

‘I suppose he didn’t give you... a parcel... or anything... to give me, did he?’ she said gloomily.

‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’

‘He’s an absolute beast then... er, is he a friend of yours?’

‘I’ve met him twice, that’s all.’

‘He’s pinched my hundred quid,’ she said bitterly.

‘He pinched...?’

‘He bloody has. Not to mention my handbag and keys and everything.’ She stopped and compressed her mouth in anger. Then she added, ‘I left my handbag in this aeroplane three weeks ago, when we flew to Doncaster. And Larry has been saying ever since that he’ll bring it on the next trip to the races and give it to Colin to give to me, and for three solid weeks he’s kept on forgetting it. I suppose he knew he was going to Turkey and he thought if he could put it off long enough he would never have to give my bag back.’

‘Colin... Colin Ross?’ I asked. She nodded abstractedly.

‘Is he your husband?’

She looked startled, then laughed. ‘Good Lord, no. He’s my brother. I saw him just now in the paddock and I said, ‘Has he brought my handbag?’ and he shook his head and started to say something, but I belted off over here in a fury without stopping to listen, and I suppose he was going to tell me it wasn’t Larry who had come in the plane... Oh damn it, I hate being robbed. Colin would have lent him a hundred quid if he was that desperate. He didn’t have to pinch it.’

‘It was a lot of money to have in a handbag,’ I suggested.

‘Colin had just given it to me, you see. In the plane. Some owner had handed him a terrific present in readies, and he gave me a hundred of it to pay a bill with, which was really sweet of him, and I can hardly expect him to give me another hundred just because I was silly enough to leave the first one lying about...’ Her voice tailed off in depression.

‘The bill,’ she added wryly, ‘Is for flying lessons.’

I looked at her with interest. ‘How far have you got?’

‘Oh, I’ve got my licence,’ she said. ‘These were instrument flying lessons. And radio navigation, and all that jazz. I’ve done about ninety-five hours, altogether. Spread over about four years, though, sad to say.’

That put her in the experienced-beginner class and the dangerous time bracket. After eighty hours flying, pilots are inclined to think they know enough. After a hundred hours, they are sure they don’t. Between the two, the accident rate is at its peak.

She asked me several questions about the aeroplane, and I answered them. Then she said, ‘Well, there’s no point in sitting here all afternoon,’ and began to lever herself out on to the wing. ‘Aren’t you coming over to the races?’

‘No,’ I shook my head.

‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘Do.’

The sun was shining and she was very pretty. I smiled and said ‘O.K.,’ and followed her out on to the grass. It is profitless now to speculate on the different course things would have taken if I’d stayed where I was.

I collected my jacket from the rear baggage compartment and locked all the doors and set off with her across the track. The man on the gate duly let me into the paddock and Colin Ross’s sister showed no sign of abandoning me once we were inside. Instead she diagnosed my almost total ignorance and seemed to be pleased to be able to start dispelling it.

‘You see that brown horse over there,’ she said, steering me towards the parade ring rails, ‘That one walking round the far end, number sixteen, that’s Colin’s mount in this race. It’s come out a bit light but it looks well in its coat.’

‘It does?’

She looked at me in amusement. ‘Definitely.’

‘Shall I back it, then?’

‘It’s all a joke to you.’

‘No,’ I protested.

‘Oh yes indeed,’ she nodded. ‘You’re looking at this race meeting in the way I’d look at a lot of spiritualists. Disbelieving and a bit superior.’

‘Ouch.’

‘But what you’re actually seeing is a large export industry in the process of marketing its wares.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘And if the industry takes place out of doors on a nice fine sunny day with everyone enjoying themselves, well, so much the better. ’

‘Put that way,’ I agreed, ‘It’s a lot more jolly than a car factory,’

‘You will get involved,’ she said with certainty.

‘No.’ I was equally definite.

She shook her head. ‘You will, you know, if you do much racecourse taxi work. It’ll bust through that cool shell of yours and make you feel something, for a change.’

I blinked. ‘Do you always talk like that to total strangers?’

‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘I don’t.’

The bright little jockeys flooded into the parade ring and scattered to small earnest owner-trainer groups where there were a lot of serious conversations and much nodding of heads. On the instructions of Colin Ross’s sister I tried moderately hard to take it all seriously. Not with much success.

Colin Ross’s sister...

‘Do you have a name?’ I asked.

‘Often.’

‘Thanks.’

She laughed. ‘It’s Nancy. What’s yours?’

‘Matt Shore.’

‘Hm. A flat mat name. Very suitable.’

The jockeys were thrown up like confetti and landed in their saddles, and their spindly shining long-legged transportation skittered its way out on to the track. Two-year-olds, Nancy said.

She walked me back towards the stands and proposed to smuggle me into the ‘Owners and Trainers’. The large official at the bottom of the flight of steps beamed at her until his eyes disappeared and he failed to inspect me for the right bit of cardboard.

It seemed that nearly everyone on the small rooftop stand knew Nancy, and obvious that they agreed with the beaming official’s assessment. She introduced me to several people whose interest collapsed like a soufflé in a draught when they found I didn’t understand their opening bids.