Kat Gordon - The Hunters

Sylvie swung around to face us, eyes black in anger.

‘I know, I know,’ Freddie said, although she hadn’t said anything. ‘I feel sorry for Bubbles.’ He took his hand off me, and I felt a surge of relief – Freddie was still my friend, he’d saved me from Carberry.

‘Are you alright, Theo?’ Sylvie asked.

‘Is he alright?’ Freddie said. ‘I had to physically restrain him, or he might have beaten Carberry to a pulp.’

I looked down and saw my body was shaking, and my hands were in fists. I hadn’t even realised.

The races started just after one pm, by which point my head was pounding from the gin and the closeness of the air. I’d no idea what excuse I could give my mother for staying out so long – that was a problem some other Theo would have to deal with. This Theo sat between Nicolas and Freddie in the grandstand, with Sylvie on Freddie’s other side. First up, Nicolas told me, was the divided pony handicaps. I could barely watch. The thundering of the horses’ hooves as they swept past made my headache a thousand times worse, and I closed my eyes so their blurred forms wouldn’t make me feel too sick. I desperately wanted some water, but no one had offered me any, and it seemed childish to ask.

Next was the jumps racing. Nicolas and Freddie argued good-naturedly over whether it was called steeplechasing or National Hunt racing. I dozed off in my seat, and woke even thirstier than before.

The feature race was the Jardin Lafitte Cup, a 1400m course. Wiley Scot was running.

‘What about a bet on him, Theo?’ Freddie asked. ‘A simple win-bet?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, still sleepy. ‘What are the other horses like?’

They laughed.

‘Very smart,’ Nicolas said.

‘A disgusting level of pragmatism,’ Freddie said. ‘Where’s your faith?’

‘Will they let me bet?’ I asked.

‘I’ll place it for you,’ Freddie said. He stood up and held out his hand. I gave him the notes my father had slipped me on Christmas Day. Freddie counted them, then slapped me on the back.

‘You’re either a bloody idiot or a confident genius,’ he said.

Sylvie leaned over and put her hand on my arm. My skin tingled where she was touching me. ‘Don’t do it if you don’t want to,’ she said.

‘It’s just a bit of fun, darling,’ Freddie said to her.

‘It’s fine,’ I said.

She moved closer to me to let Freddie pick his way out of the grandstand, and her thigh came to rest against mine. I prayed I wouldn’t make a fool of myself, and tried to think of distracting images – suet pudding, my grandmother’s bunions, my father in his undergarments.

‘I hear you had a run-in with Carberry, Theo,’ Nicolas said on my other side.

‘I don’t think he liked me.’

‘He was despicable as usual,’ Sylvie said. She took out a cigarette and Nicolas lit it for her.

‘Maia’s pregnant, you know,’ he said.

‘Oh God. The poor woman.’

‘What did he say to you?’ Nicolas asked me.

‘He was talking about my appearance.’

‘He did that to me as well,’ Nicolas said. ‘The first time we met, he insinuated I was a closet homosexual. I said, if only I were that interesting.’

He smiled at me and I returned it.

‘You’re a hundred times more interesting than John Carberry,’ Sylvie said.

Their easy conversation confused me, knowing what I did about Sylvie feeling trapped. Nicolas was the nicest person I’d met, I thought, and I wondered what it was about him that was wrong for her.

Freddie returned with more pink gin for everyone and a ticket for me. ‘They’re leading them on now,’ he said.

I looked over and saw the eight horses being walked onto the course, saddled and draped with rugs to keep their muscles warm. I recognised Wiley Scot immediately. Even from a distance he seemed to be quivering.

‘ Bonne chance ,’ Nicolas said.

I made the effort to tear my eyes away from the animals to look at him and offer a smile, although it felt more like a grimace. The blood was thundering through my body as loudly as the horses had sounded earlier, but otherwise everything was strangely quiet. The crowd was waiting, tense. When the grooms removed the rugs and the jockeys sprang up into the saddles, I was convinced I could hear the creak of the leather, and the murmurs as the men tried to calm their mounts. Wiley Scot bucked and did a side-step, looking like he was trying to shake his rider off.

‘He doesn’t want to race,’ Sylvie said.

‘Of course he wants to race,’ Freddie said. ‘It’s all he knows how to do. He’s just picking up on the atmosphere.’

The jockeys were lining up on the other side of the course now like coloured specks of dust; red, green, yellow, and Wiley Scot’s in dark blue. Nicolas handed me a pair of binoculars and I trained them on the figures with wet hands.

‘They’re off,’ someone called. People were clambering to their feet around me and I jumped up too. The horses were all clumped together at first, but soon they separated out and I picked out Wiley Scot in third place.

Now I saw the elegance in the horses’ movements. Their bodies hardly seemed to move at all; heads and chests thrust forward they cut a streamlined shape through the air as their legs curled and stretched out below, each hoof only touching the ground for a fraction of a second before they were flying again.

‘Come on, Wiley Scot,’ Freddie shouted near me.

He was coming up on the outside of the horse in second place. Now they were closer I could see the sweat darkening his brown coat, and his muscles rippling with each stride, and my throat began to close up with a lump of excitement and fear. I was keenly aware of the ticket between my fingers, the enormity of the money it represented for me. The ground was shaking and the wind that had sprung up blew back the jockeys’ jackets like sails. I tightened my hold on the ticket, half-hoping, half-afraid it would be carried away.

Wiley Scot’s jockey kicked at him and he passed the second horse. He was gaining on the horse in first place now, with less than fifty yards to go. I was clenching my entire body, my teeth pressed together as if that would spur my horse on, when I saw the first horse stumble and fall, the jockey rolling off his back right into the path of Wiley Scot. I heard Sylvie cry out just as Wiley Scot leaped gracefully, gathering up his legs to clear the figure in front of him, and then he was galloping past us in a cloud of red dust, his head bent down as if for a charge. I only realised I’d stopped breathing when he passed the finishing post and I found myself gasping for air.

‘You’re rich, young man,’ Freddie said, clapping me on the back as the grandstand erupted around us.

The outside of the Muthaiga Club was pink pebbledash and white stone, turning red and gold in the setting sunlight. Freddie guided me up its colonnaded walkway and paused for a moment so I could lean against one of the ivy-covered pillars. After my win, and with Freddie’s encouragement, I’d had several more gins, and now the ground seemed dangerously unsteady beneath my feet. Any thought of getting home soon had long since vanished.

‘Come on, I’ll give you the tour,’ Freddie said.

We pushed through the glass door into an airy lobby with a parquet floor and cool cream and green walls. Freddie continued towards the back; I tried to follow him without falling, Sylvie and Nicolas walking behind me.

‘Ballroom,’ he said, pointing through a set of double doors. ‘Bar – no tall stools allowed. Squash courts here, and golf course at the back.’ We stepped through a set of French doors onto a covered veranda, and I had an impression of a perfectly manicured lawn, sprinkled with banana plants, ferns, flowerbeds and avenues of eucalyptus trees. Several people were in the middle of a croquet game, and the thud of the mallet meeting the ball carried over to us as we hovered on the step leading down to the garden. I clutched my head and hoped it would stop reeling soon.