Dick Francis: 10 lb Penalty

“You’ve promised yourself a gap year, is that it?”

A gap year, so called, was the currently fashionable pause between school and university, much praised and prized in terms of growing up in worldly experience before graduating academically. A lot to be said for it... little against.

“You agreed I should have a gap year,” I protested.

“I didn’t prohibit it. That’s different.”

“But... can you prohibit it? And why do you want to?”

“Until you are eighteen I can legally do almost anything that’s for your own good or, rather, that I consider is for your own good. You’re no fool, Ben. You know that’s a fact. For the next three weeks, until your birthday on August thirty-first, I am still in charge of your life.”

I did know it. I also knew that though by right I would receive basic university tuition fees from the state, I would not qualify for living expenses or other grants because of my father’s wealth. Working one’s way through college, although just possible in some countries, was hardly an option in Britain. Realistically, if my father wouldn’t pay for my keep, I wouldn’t be going to university, whether Exeter or anywhere else.

I said neutrally, “When I asked you, ages ago, you said you thought a gap year was a good idea.”

“I didn’t know that you intended your gap year to be spent on a racecourse.”

“It’s a growing-up experience!”

“It’s a minefield of moral traps.”

“You don’t trust me!” Even I could hear the outraged self-regard in my voice. Too near a whine. I said more frostily, “Because of your example, I would keep out of trouble.”

“No bribes, do you mean?” He was unimpressed by my own shot at flattery. “You’d throw no races? Everyone would believe in your incorruptibility? Is that it? What about a rumor that you take drugs? Rumors destroy reputations quicker than truth.”

I was silenced. An unproven accusation had that morning rent apart my comfortable illusion that innocence could shield one from defamation. My father would no doubt categorize the revelation as “growing up.”

A knock on the door punctuated my bitter thoughts with the arrival of a breakfast designed to give me a practically guilt-free release from chronic hunger. The necessity of keeping down to a low racing weight had occasionally made me giddy from deprivation. Even as I fell on the food ravenously I marveled at my father’s understanding of what I would actually eat and what I would reject.

“While you eat, you can listen,” he said. “If you were going to be the world’s greatest steeplechase jockey, I wouldn’t ask... what I’m going to ask of you. If you were going to be, say, Isaac Newton, or Mozart, or some other genius, it would be pointless to ask that you should give it up. And I’m not asking you to give up riding altogether, just to give up trying to make it your life.”

Cornflakes and milk were wonderful.

“I have a suspicion,” he said, “that you intended your gap year to go on forever.”

I paused in mid-munch. Couldn’t deny he was right. “So go to Exeter, Ben. Do your growing up there. I don’t expect you to get a First. A Second would be fine; a Third is OK, though I guess you’ll manage good results, as you always have done, in spite of the disadvantage of your birth date.”

I zoomed through the bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms and accompanied them with toast. Because of the rigid education system that graded schoolchildren by age and not ability, and because I’ d been born on the last day of the age-grading year (September 1 would have given me an extra twelve months), I had always been the youngest in the class, always faced with the task of keeping up. A gap year would have leveled things nicely. And he was telling me, of course, that he understood all that, and was forgiving a poor outcome in the degree stakes before I’d even started.

“Before Exeter,” he said, “I’d like you to work for me. I’d like you to come with me to Hoopwestern and help me get elected.”

I stared at him, chewing slowly but no longer tasting the mouthful.

“But,” I said, swallowing, “I don’t know anything about politics.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t want you to make speeches or any policy statements. I just want you to be with me, to be part of my scene.”

“I don’t... I mean,” I more or less stuttered, “I don’t understand what I could do.”

“Eat your apple,” he said calmly, “and I’ll explain.”

He sat in one of the armchairs and crossed his legs with deliberation, as if he had rehearsed the next bit, and I thought that probably he had indeed gone over it repeatedly in his mind.

“The selection committee who chose me as their candidate,” he said, “would frankly have preferred me to be married. They said so. They saw my bachelor state as a drawback. I told them therefore that I had been married, that my wife had died, and that I had a son. That cheered them up no end. What I’m asking you to do is to be a sort of substitute wife. To come with me in public. To be terribly nice to people.”

I said absentmindedly, “To kiss babies?” “I’ll kiss the babies.” He was amused. “You can chat up the old ladies... and talk football, cricket and racing to the men.”

I thought of the wild thrill of riding in races. I thought of the intoxication of risking my neck, of pitting such skill as I had against fate and disaster, of completing the bucketing journeys without disgrace. A far cry from chatting up babies.

I yearned for the simple life of carefree, reckless speed; the gift given by horses, the gift of skis; and I was beginning to learn, as everyone has to in the end, that all of life’s pleasures have strings attached.

I said, “How could anyone think I would bother with drugs when race riding itself gives you the biggest high on earth?”

My father said, “If Vivian said he would take you back, would you go?”

“No.” My answer came instinctively, without thought. Things couldn’t be the same. I had gone a long way down reality’s road in those few hours of an August Wednesday. I could acknowledge grimly that I would never be my dream jockey. I would never win my Grand National. But patting babies instead? Good grief!

“The polling day,” he said, “is more than three weeks before term starts at Exeter. You will be eighteen by then...”

“And,” I said, without either joy or regret, “I wrote to Exeter to say I wouldn’t be taking up the place they’d offered me. Even if you instruct me to go, I can’t.”

“I overruled your decision,” he told me flatly. “I thought you might do that. I’ve observed you, you know, throughout your young life, even if we’ve never been particularly close. I got in touch with Exeter and reversed your cancellation. They are now expecting your registration. They have arranged lodging for you on campus. Unless you totally rebel and run away, you’ll go ahead with your degree.”

I felt a lurching and familiar recognition of this man’s power as a force that far outweighed any ordinary family relationship. Even Exeter University had done his bidding.

“But, Father...” I said feebly.

“Dad.”

“Dad...” The word was wholly inappropriate both for the image of him as the conventionally supportive parent of a schoolboy and for my perception of him as something far different from an average man in a business suit.

The Grand National, for him, I saw, was the road to Downing Street. Winning the race was the prime ministership in Number Ten. He was asking me to abandon my own unobtainable dream to help him have a chance of achieving his own.

I looked at the untouched apple and banana and had no more appetite.