John Hawkes - The Lime Twig

“Down you go, you little Cheapside gambler!”

The old man struck him full in the chest, once in the face, and once again on skin and cartilege of the aching chest. He fell, lay still — blindly reaching out for the little girl in green — and the constable drew back the boot furnished by the village constabulary and kicked him. After a moment of wheezing and blood-wiping, the old man strapped on the helmet, fixed his brass and replaced the warm revolver, took up his pipe from the mossy curb, and rubbing his arms and shins, disappeared to slowly climb the footbridge that was a hump of granite beneath the electric cables and ancient dripping trees.

It’ll be a jolly evening, Mike , he dreamed, and the sun was shining on his lip when Jimmy Needles came out and dragged him to the safety of the house.

SIDNEY SLYTER SAYS

Freak Accident Halts Famous Race …

Thousands Witness Collision at End of Day …

Fatal Crash Brings Solemn Cry from Crowd …

… A beautiful afternoon, a lovely crowd, a taste of bitters and light returning to the faces of heroic stone — one day there will be amusements everywhere, good fun for our mortality. He has whistled; he has flicked his cigarette away; alone amidst women he has gone off to a fancy flutter at the races. And redeemed, he has been redeemed — for there is no pathetic fun or mournful frolic like our desire, the consummation of the sparrow’s wings.…

In the paddock and only minutes before the running of the Golden Bowl on a fast track and brilliant afternoon — high above them now the sun was burst all out of shape — Michael Banks and Needles listened to the dying of the call to saddle. A plaster held Banks’ lips together at a comer of the mouth and impaired his speech; the jockey was sallow but Banks wore a large rose with leaves in his lapel; Lovely the stableboy kept whispering: “What a gorgeous crowd! Coo, what a gorgeous crowd!” They had tied down Rock Castle’s tongue and now the horse’s mouth was filled with a green scum. Round the paddock the crowd was twenty deep and silent, save for a rat-faced man at the spectator’s rail who several times cocked his eyebrows, pointed at the silver horse, and said: “Rock Castle? Go on, I wouldn’t take your money. Poor old nag.”

Farther down, a mare set up a drumming with her hind hoofs, then was calmed. Men attending in the paddock spoke soothing words; a black horse was being led in tight circles, again the chestnut mare was dancing.

Banks took the camel’s hair coat off the jockey’s back, bared the resplendent little figure to sun and crowd. “Well, Needles,” carefully hanging the coat on his arm, “Cowles always said he’d run like fire. Well, up you go, Needles.”

Before he could take the jockey’s leg in his hands, he heard the sounds of light and girlish hurrying, saw her stoop beneath the rail, saw the hair and the swinging coat similar to Needles’.

“Oh, good,” cried Annie, “you’ve not started off! I thought I’d bring you luck.”

“You can’t come in the paddock,” glancing about for the detectives, “you haven’t any business here!”

“Oh, but I have, I have.”

And Annie reached toward the jockey then, and even while Banks gripped the blown-out silken sleeve, she caught hold of Jimmy Needles’ face in both her hands, leaned down and kissed the tiny wrinkles of his lips. Drawing away, golden hair uncombed and a printed card dangling from her buttonhole, breeze carrying off her laugh: “Oh, haven’t I always wanted to? Haven’t I just wanted to?”

Somebody whistled in the crowd.

“Tell you what,” straightening the green glasses, cutting his profile across the sun, “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make it up for the twenty years. A bit of marriage, eh? And then a ship, trees with limes on the branches, niggers to pull us round the streets, the Americas — a proper cruise, plenty of time at the bar, no gunplay or nags. Perhaps a child or two, who knows?”

Arm in arm, Larry and Little Dora, one tall and tough, the other squat and tough, strode along until they approached one hired car in a line of cars and, opening the rear doors, stooping, lifted Margaret from under a shabby quilt and off the floor, and, each gripping an arm and wrapping round her body the coat that belonged to Dora, started back still talking — now across Margaret’s hanging head — about the streets and niggers and limes of the Americas.

“Coo, what a gorgeous crowd!”

But even the crowd was fixed. There were no more islands of space between the stands and the white threads of the rails upon which the slovenly men were chalking, erasing, again chalking up their slates. Yet Thick had made a way for himself and could see all he needed to of the first turn; through long dark binoculars Sybilline watched the final turn; and in the center of the oval’s roses, crouched down between two bushes, armed and grinning, Sparrow waited for signs of trouble, ready to shoot or turn as best he could to any threatened portion of the course. Sparrow always liked a race.

Banks saw nothing of the crowd but kept his eyes on Sybilline. Not once did she glance his way — though he was watched. He was being watched all right. Among the men on the rail he noticed the three who had accosted him, and wondered whether they would fling their bombs into a crowd just to bring one man down.

Then he heard the horses drifting slowly up from behind, the string of them unlimbering in the slow canter before the start. One of the jockeys was singing and Banks could not bear to raise his eyes, could not bear to see Rock Castle in that winding and nervous line, afraid to know that the horse had come this far. He kept his eyes down, began again his pushing and shoving, and there were only shoes to see: the open toes, pieces of nicked leather, buckles. Heel the color of a biscuit, slipper covered with diamond dust and glue, some child’s boot tied with string. Shoes in motion or fixed at isolated angles amidst tickets, sweet wrappers, straws, and with the bit of stocking or colored sock or bare ankle protruding — shoes which end to end would have made a terrible marching column round the track the horses were soon to charge upon. He could not bear the faces, refused to look at them. On his own face the fresh plaster held the split comers of his mouth together and he was clean — it had not been easy to visit the Baths again but he had forced himself — and his narrow cheeks were shaved and his tie was straight. The only dirt was sleeplessness and he could not rid himself of that.

“Now, Sally, you’ll see a little more from here,” somebody said.

He kept pushing, trying to get beyond the crowd, trying for the north comer, where it was thinner at least. He saw the man with the gray tea-party topper and new supply of yellow, brown, green tickets stuck in the band, and he lowered his eyes again, thought of the night before and drinking-glasses with lipstick on the rims. He thought he should like to try it, try some of that, with Margaret. Once he stopped and lifted his head, but she was not in sight.

Then he was walking easily and into the glare of the hot sun, past the ranked petrol-smelling rows of empty cars, and there were little shattering bursts of light off the wipers and chrome and door handles, and only a few other people strolling here, laughing or pausing in the weeds by the rail. He leaned against a Daimler and tried to breathe. He noticed the pock-faced girl and it was clear she had found her quid: a big man with a sandy bush of mustache and gold links in his cuffs was holding her round the buttocks with one great hand. Another man and woman had their elbows side by side on the rail.

“Look,” said the woman, and he heard no inflection, no rise or fall in her voice, “they’re off.”