Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal

‘Aren’t you going to bet on this race?’ asked Hood, looking down at his programme.

‘Too late,’ said Lorna. ‘I always watch the dogs in the paddock before I bet. Here, they all look the same, but out back you can tell which ones are fast. That’s what my father used to say.’

They stood talking under the first-class enclosure which, glassed-in and high, was at the brow of the grandstand. The steamy windows were full of red-faced people who sat at tables, eating, holding pint glasses, watching the track. ‘Ron always went up there, so he could act big,’ said Lorna. She led Hood to the side of the grandstand, where people were marking programmes on the terraces and hurrying up and down the stairs. Hood found Lorna a seat near the bookies, at the rail. The bookies worked rapidly at blackboards, some on stools signalled the odds with gloved hands to the far side of the stadium — pointing and clapping like deaf-mutes, while the men beside them spat on their fingers and wiped numbers from the columns on the boards and added new ones. They gave a hectic motion to the race that was like the instant before panic. Each one had a satchel with his name on it, Sam & Alec, Jimmy Gent, Pollard Turf Acc’ts, and as the starting-time grew near the activity around these men became frenzied as cash was exchanged for tickets. In this excitement Hood saw the pleasure of risk; the very sight of the men gambling heightened his desire for Lorna.

On the track, men in white smocks were heaving the metal traps into position.

‘You’re going to win tonight,’ said Hood.

‘If I won a lot of money I’d take a holiday,’ said Lorna. ‘Not to Spain, but maybe Eastbourne or Brighton. Check into one of them big white hotels on the front and look at the sea from the balcony. I always wanted to do that, live in a posh hotel and look at the sea.’

‘We’ll do it,’ said Hood.

‘First we have to win.’

The dogs were being unleashed and helped into the traps, one by one, and Hood could hear them whimpering. They didn’t bark; because of their muzzles they gave low curiously human wails, an odd lonely sound in that festive crowd of gamblers. Then the lights went out in all the enclosures and in the darkness there was silence, a hush that amplified the moans of the dogs. In the black stadium the only light was the yellow gleaming sand of the track. And over the moans a murmur that grew to a whine: the mechanical rabbit speeding towards the traps. As the rabbit shot past the traps sprang open and the dogs leaped out, stretching themselves after it. The race itself brought a new hush to the grandstand. The only distinct sound was the rabbit singing on the wire, a humming heightened by an occasional twang.

‘Five’s ahead,’ said Lorna. Hood heard her clearly. Instead of shouts there was intense concentration. It was not like a horse race where spectators screamed at the jockeys and jumped and waved their arms. This was studied enthusiasm, a kind of breathless suspense. A man behind Hood said in what was nearly a whisper, ‘Come on you two dog.’

The dogs sprinted past, and it was still so quiet in the grandstand that Hood could hear their toiling gasps and the scrape and skid of their paws on the track. When they rounded the last bend there was a little cheer, scattered shouts of anger or glee which ended the moment the dogs crossed the finish line: relief, jostling and some laughter — and a flurry of losers scattering tickets at their feet.

‘Let’s go round to the paddock,’ said Lorna. ‘I want to pick a winner.’

‘Everyone’s looking at you,’ whispered Hood. ‘They’re saying, “Who’s that fantastic chick?” ’

She laughed. ‘You’re dreaming.’ But she looked down at her new boots in prim admiration. He had never seen her so happy, and he imagined a life with her: a safe monotony, without incident, surrendering to Deptford, the pub, the bed, the child, the dog track, the weekend in Brighton. He wanted more, but he was tempted by less, and he sometimes felt this, passing the window of a south London parlour and envying the people inside having tea with their elbows on the table. He could save her that way; he saw in her the sad ageing of every lost soul — and it was true loss, since she had no notion of how she had been widowed. But what kept him from pushing the reverie further was not that it was a retreat from the life he had planned for himself but that underlying this obvious feeling was a smaller one: pity, the feeblest mimicry of love.

He followed her behind the grandstand to the paddock. Here it was damp, enclosed and yet open to the sky. It was divided by a sturdy metal fence. On the other side was a small shed; a few over-bright bulbs inside the shed lighted patches of grass where they stood. The rest of the lights were aimed at the closed doors of thirty numbered stalls built against the brick embankment of the railway line. These narrow cupboards rattled with the whimpering of the dogs locked inside — their wails carried, as they had from the traps, and Hood was alarmed by their frantic pawings on the wooden doors. The paddock was empty, but the cries of the dogs, and the dampness, the spiked fence and the spotlights that showed nothing but locked doors, gave it the appearance of a tortuous jail compound. Hood wanted to go. Lorna said, ‘Wait — here they come.’

Shivering, blinking and scratching at their numbered vests, the dogs were dragged into the shed by the kennel maids, who wore velvet riding caps and jodhpurs. Then a bowler-hatted man in brown gaiters — the starter — checked their collars and tried their vests to see they were securely fastened. Men, a dozen or more, had gathered at the fence to watch this simple ceremony, and they conferred in whispers, singling out particular dogs with cautious nods.

‘Number Two looks like he wants a kip,’ said Lorna. ‘But that Number Three’s a lively one. Got a strong back.’ She opened her programme. ‘Lucky Gold — nice name.’

Hood leaned to her ear. ‘Who are these apes hanging on the fence?’

‘Villains,’ said Lorna, confidentially. ‘It’s a crooked sport — attracts all the villains, like Ron and them fuckers. But my father told me what to look out for. Right here, before the race, you can spot the slow ones.’

‘That mutt looks like he’s limping.’

‘The villains step on their toes — their paws, like. That one’s probably been mashed. Or they give them a drink of water. Sometimes — straight — they put chewing gum up their arses. Anything to slow them up. But Number Three, Lucky Gold, he looks a fast one, he does. He’s going to win.’

‘All this poncing about,’ a man clutching the fence said loudly. ‘That clot’s just wasting time — they could have been around the track by now.’

‘Cheap,’ said another man, ‘filthy cheap —’

As he spoke there was a rumbling above the paddock, an approaching train. The warning was brief; the train thundered by a moment later, flashing across the arches overhead, a rapid intrusion of banging wheels drowning the voices and the dogs’ whimpers. The yellow windows blurred and lengthened to a ribbon by the speed. The paddock shook and the eyes of the dogs being led out bulged in fear over the muzzles. For seconds the paddock was darkened by the loud clatter.

The men left as the kennel maids filed out with the dogs, and Hood went with Lorna to the front of the grandstand, to a window with the sign Win and Place .

‘How much are you betting?’

She said, ‘A pound on Number Three to place.’

‘A pound to place? But you said he’s going to win!’

‘Who knows?’

‘Put your money where your mouth is,’ said Hood. ‘Play to win — why hedge?’

‘Because I might lose the lot, nitwit.’