Dick Francis - For Kicks

He knew very well that this meant having no dinner at all. I glanced at his face. He was looking at me with calculation, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed.

I looked down.

"Yes, sir," I said meekly. Damn it, I thought furiously; this was too soon. I had been there not quite eight weeks, and I ought to have been able to count on at least three more. If he were already intent on making me leave, I was not going to be able to finish the job.

"For a start," said Adams, 'you can fetch out that bucket and put it away. "

I looked into the box. Mickey's bucket still stood by the manger. I opened the door, walked over, picked it up, turned round to go back, and stopped dead.

Adams had come into the box after me. He held Humber's walking stick in his hand, and he was smiling.

I dropped the bucket and backed into a corner. He laughed.

"No tranquillizers today, eh, Roke?"

I didn't answer.

He swung his arm and the knobbed end of the stick landed on my ribs.

It was hard enough, in all conscience. When he lifted his arm again I ducked under it and bolted out through the door. His roar of laughter floated after me.

I went on running until I was out of sight, and then walked and rubbed my chest. It was going to be a fair-sized bruise, and I wasn't too keen on collecting many ould be thankful at least that they selves of me in the ordinary way, s in a burning car.

long, hungry afternoon I tried to t to do. To go at once, resigned didn't finish the job, or to stay the lid without arousing Adams' suspicions 8epressedly wondered, could I dis- for days that I had been unable to cs.

It was Jerry, of all people, who decided for me. After supper (baked beans on bread, and not enough of it) we sat at the table with Jerry's comic spread open. Since Charlie had left no one had a radio, and the evenings were more boring than ever. Lenny and Kenneth were playing dice on the floor. Cecil was out getting drunk. Bert sat in his silent world on the bench on the other side of Jerry, watching the dice roll across the concrete.

The oven door was open, and all the switches on the electric stove were turned on as high as they would go.

This was Lenny's bright idea for supplementing the small heat thrown out by the paraffin stove Humber had grudgingly provided. It wouldn't last longer than the arrival of the electricity bill, but it was warm meanwhile.

The dirty dishes were stacked in the sink. Cobwebs hung like a cornice where the walls met the ceiling. A naked light bulb lit the brick-walled room. Someone had spilled tea on the table, and the corner of Jerry's comic had soaked it up.

I sighed. To think that I wasn't happy to be about to leave this squalid existence, now that I was being given no choice!

Jerry looked up from his comic, keeping his place with his finger.

"Clan?"

"Mmm?"

"Did Mr. Adams bash you?"

"Yes."

"I thought he did." He nodded several times, and went back to his comic.

I suddenly remembered his having looked out of the box next to Mickey's before Adams and Humber had called me over.

"Jerry," I said slowly, 'did you hear Mr. Adams and Mr. Humber talking, while you were in the box with Mr. Adams' black hunter? "

"Yes," he said, without looking up.

"What did they say?"

"When you ran away Mr. Adams laughed and told the boss you wouldn't stand it long. Stand it long," he repeated vaguely, like a refrain, 'stand it long. "

"Did you hear what they said before that? When they first got there, and you looked out and saw them?"

Thistroubledhim. Hesatupandforgottokeephisplace.

"I didn't want the boss to know I was still there, see? I ought to have finished that hunter a good bit before then."

"Yes. Well, you're all right. They didn't catch you."

He grinned and shook his head.

"What did they say?" I prompted.

"They were cross about Mickey. They said they would get on with the next one at once."

"The next what?"

"I don't know."

"Did they say anything else?"

He screwed up his thin little face. He wanted to please me, and I knew this expression meant he was thinking his hardest.

"Mr. Adams said you had been with Mickey too long, and the boss said yes Itwas a bad… a bad… um… oh, yes… risk, afBILyoiKhad better leave, and Mr. Adams said yes, geT on wythsthat as quick as you can and we'll do the next ^ene as soon as he's gone." He opened his eyeswklem triumph at, this sustained effort.

"Say that again; I said.

"The last bit, that's all."

One thing Jerry could do, from long practice with the comics, was to learn by heart through his ears.

Obediently he repeated, "Mr. Adams said get on with that as quick as you can and we'll do the next one as soon as he's gone."

"What do you want most on earth?" I asked.

He looked surprised and thoughtful, and finally a dreamy look spread over his face.

"Well?"

"A train," he said.

"One you wind up. You know. And rails and things.

And a signal. " He fell silent in rapture.

"You shall have them," I said.

"As soon as I can get them."

His mouth opened.

I said, "Jerry, I'm leaving here. You can't stay when Mr. Adams starts bashing you, can you? So I'll have to go. But I'll send you the train.

I won't forget, I promise. "

The evening dragged away as so many others had done, and we climbed the ladder to our unyielding beds, where I lay on my back in the dark with my hands laced behind my head and thought about Humber's stick crashing down somewhere on my body in the morning. Rather like going to the dentist for a drilling, I thought ruefully: the anticipation was worse than the event. I sighed, and went to sleep.

Operation Eviction continued as much as expected, the next day.

When I was unsaddling Dobbin after the second exercise Humber walked into the box behind me and his stick landed with a thud across my back.

I let go of the saddle which fell on a pile of fresh droppings and swung round.

"What did I do wrong, sir?" I said, in an aggrieved voice. I thought I might as well make it difficult for him, but he had an answer ready.

"Cass tells me you were late back at work last Saturday afternoon. And pick up that saddle. What do you think you're doing, dropping it in that dirt?"

He stood with his legs planted firmly apart, his eyes judging his distance.

Well, all right, I thought. One more, and that's enough.

I turned round and picked up the saddle. I already had it in my arms and was straightening up when he hit me again, more or less in the same place, but much harder. The breath hissed through my teeth.

I threw the saddle down again in the dirt and shouted at him.

"I'm leaving. I'm off. Right now."

"Very well," he said coldly, with perceptible satisfaction.

"Go and pack. Your cards will be waiting for you in the office." He turned on his heel and slowly limped away, his purpose successfully concluded.

How frigid he was, I thought. Unemotional, sexless, and calculating.

Impossible to think of him loving, or being loved, or feeling pity, or grief, or any sort of fear.

I arched my back, grimacing, and decided to leave Dobbin's saddle where it was, in the dirt. A nice touch, I thought. In character, to the bitter end.

I took the polythene sheeting off the motor-cycle and coasted gently out of the yard. All the lads were out exercising the third lot, with yet more to be ridden when they got back; and even while I was wondering how five of them were possibly going to cope with thirty horses, I met a shifty-looking boy trudging slowly up the road to Humber's with a kit bag slung over his shoulder. More flotsam. If he had known what he was going to, he would have walked more slowly still.