HartsLove (26 page)

Garth was draining a new bottle when Daisy got back to the stables. He needed so much more of the stuff now. Never mind. He dropped the bottle when he saw Daisy, expecting a row. But Daisy only said, ‘Promise me just one
thing, Garth – that you'll stick to the brandy and not drink anything else.'

Garth found it easy to promise. They did not speak of the drink again, only of how he would ride – not getting in front too early if he could manage. ‘Don't worry, though,' Daisy reassured, ‘The One knows what to do, and he can out-gallop anything. Just make sure he starts properly and sit tight.' She touched Garth's arm. ‘You can do it, you and The One.'

The morning was endless, broken only by the arrival of the farrier to nail on the racing plates. Daisy stood close to The One's head as the man bent to his work, Skelton fussing and checking. When the shoeing was finished, The One raised his weightless feet like a cat on a hot roof. It was a comical sight. Skelton laughed. Daisy and Garth did not.

At lunchtime, they walked The One from his stable to the racetrack and took up a place near the Rubbing House. Finding her crutches leaning against the corner of one of the refreshment booths, and so as not to stress the horse by her twitching, Daisy left The One with Garth. Even with the swelling crowds, the crescendo of noise and the endless cry of ‘Get your Derby souvenirs here!' it was still hard to believe that the day she had dreamed of, argued for and imagined for so long had actually arrived. She had expected to feel – what had she expected to feel? She was not sure, only that what she did feel was nothing like it. Several times she had to pinch herself. Hardly realising what she was
doing, she kept leaning down to pick up the bits of rubbish a brisk wind was tossing about. Nothing must distract The One.

As she was making her way back to Garth, a hired carriage swerved towards her. She stepped aside. There were cries. The carriage stopped and out poured Rose, Lily, Clover and Columbine, with Arthur holding back slightly. Clover or Columbine was waving a newspaper in which was a report of the Two Thousand Guineas. ‘Daisy! Daisy!' they called. Until she saw her sisters, Daisy did not realise how much she had missed them or just how much she needed them today. She did not ask how they had come. She did not smile. She did not say their names. She simply seized the side of the cart and clung to it. Arthur Rose patted her shoulder. Dear Arthur Rose! He had kept his promise. She should have known he would.

Words tumbled out. ‘Skelton's taken away The One's water because he says it's bad to drink before the race. Is that right? He says we should get to the paddock late so that The One doesn't get excited. What do you think?'

‘I'd say he's right on both counts, absolutely right,' Arthur said. ‘Trust him on this, Daisy. He knows what he's doing.'

Lily gestured at their clothes. ‘From Aunt Barbara,' she said.

‘What?' It was the first time Daisy noticed what her sisters were wearing.

Lily did not say more. She simply drew Daisy into the carriage. ‘There are clothes for you.'

‘No time,' Daisy said.

‘Yes, you've time,' Lily countered gently. ‘You've a runner in the Derby. The One looks the part and so must you.' Daisy bit her lip, and as Arthur directed the carriage to the horse-booths, she allowed Lily to dress her and tidy her hair, the twins forming a screen. She climbed down directly afterwards. She must rush back to The One. She must rush back to Garth.

Arthur and her sisters came with her. They nodded to Skelton, smiled nervously at Garth and wished The One good luck. Arthur shook Garth's hand, then Daisy's, then ushered the other girls away.

Garth was nervous, more nervous than he could have imagined, not about climbing on to The One – he felt the brandy must kick in today, surely. He was suddenly absolutely terrified of riding badly and losing. He fidgeted and fretted and nearly drove Daisy mad. About an hour before the race, three jockeys approached. ‘Got your silks?' one asked. Garth nodded.

‘Anxious?' Garth nodded.

‘Always hard for a green jockey. Stick with us. We'll get you through. Come to the weighing room. It's a steadying place before a big race.'

Garth looked at Daisy. She was very uncertain. ‘It's a bit early,' she said.

‘As you like,' said the oldest of the jockeys. ‘Everybody has their own way of coping. Just trying to help. You can learn a lot from old-timers when the pre-race nerves bite. If you don't want to, though . . .' He and his friends began to walk off.

‘I wonder if I should go with them,' Garth said to Daisy. ‘I think it
would
help to be with other jockeys.' Daisy was still uncertain. Garth was picking at his nails. His nerves were terrible. Daisy relented. It seemed mean. What could be the harm?

‘Go,' she said.

‘Really?'

‘Of course,' she said, and she forced herself to smile. ‘You're the jockey.'

Garth stopped picking his nails. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘I am.'

‘Just be careful.'

‘I'll be careful.'

Daisy stayed with The One.

‘Ah, Miss Daisy,' Skelton said, his eyes darting about. ‘Master Garth not with you?'

‘He's gone to the weighing room with some of the other jockeys. He'll meet us in the paddock.'

‘Good idea,' said Skelton at once. ‘The other jockeys'll look after him.' Something in his voice was not reassuring. Daisy wished the race would start.

Garth caught up with the jockeys and sat with them under the pegs in the changing room. One produced a
bottle of whisky. ‘Horses have a purge; we have a dram,' he said, and pulled out the cork. He offered it to Garth. ‘New blood first.' Garth shook his head. The jockeys did not press him. They took a small pull each – a pity to waste what Skelton had provided. One of the older jockeys wiped his mouth. ‘Well, young man,' he said. ‘You're lucky to be with us. Stacker here's won two Derbys.'

‘Aye,' Stacker said, ‘and never without a tot of whisky.' He pretended to take another pull. ‘The thing about whisky, lad, is that it's not like other drinks. Whisky really clears the head, and a clear head's vital in a race like this.'

‘My head's quite clear,' Garth said, and thought it horribly true. His head was far too clear. He could feel no brandy rush.

‘Six add six!' said Stacker suddenly.

‘What?'

‘Head not that clear, boy!' Stacker laughed softly. ‘It'll need to be clearer.' Still he did not press the drink. Instead, he and his fellows, as instructed by Skelton, began to swap stories of falls they had had. ‘Worse on the flat, boy,' Stacker mused. ‘So easy to slip, and those hooves . . . Hit you in the wrong place and – poof – your legs are gone. Only last week I visited a friend. Hasn't walked for – oh, it must be fifteen years.'

Garth's stomach heaved. When the bottle came round again, he took a swig. When it came again, he took another. After four rounds he felt brave. After five, he felt braver.
After six, he felt on the edge of something extraordinary. When the time came, he sat in his silks on the weighing chair in a trance. Only when the saddling bell sounded and he stood up, clutching his weight cloth, did the world topple and spin. He heard the other jockeys laughing. He tried to laugh himself, then realised with horror that they were not laughing with him but at him. ‘Drunk!' Stacker said softly. ‘You poor booby!'

Two jockeys took his arms and steered him out. Garth could not speak. Everything was floating, everything but one fact that he could neither face nor deny: he was drunker than he had ever been in his life and there was nothing he could do about it. In one cold corner of his mind he remembered his father's gun. He wished he could use it now. Skelton appeared and took the weight cloth from him. When the groom returned to Daisy and slung it over The One's back, his expression was inscrutable. ‘Master Garth'll meet us in the paddock,' he said.

Daisy was checking the girth. She would check it again in the paddock, and again after Garth was mounted. Nothing should be left to chance. She attached a lead-rein to The One's bit. The horse seemed interested though largely unmoved by all the activity around him. Whilst the horse nearby lathered and fretted, he ate a feather from Daisy's hat. She removed it from his mouth. ‘Not today,' she said. Her crutches were ready for her but she did not want them. This was it. She swallowed hard. ‘Let's go,' she said.

Pressed from all sides by punters wanting to get a good look at The One, Daisy found the short journey to the paddock the most alarming of her life. Several times she was nearly crushed. In the paddock itself things eased a little and she was able to find a space in which to stand still. She searched anxiously for Garth. The One was almost too relaxed. A large knot formed in Daisy's throat. She saw her sisters and Arthur pressing against the rail. She could not acknowledge them.

The jockeys arrived in a gaggle, Garth amongst them. ‘Garth!' Daisy whispered. ‘Garth!' But Skelton took charge, shoving Daisy out of the way as he gave Garth a leg-up. It all happened so quickly. Daisy did not have time for any last-minute instructions. She did not even have time to say, ‘Good luck.' Skelton checked the girth. Skelton pressed Garth's feet into the stirrups. Skelton, Skelton, Skelton. ‘To the start,' the clerk of the course shouted. ‘Get a move on there!' Garth was facing away from her as Daisy unclipped the lead-rein. Then Skelton was urging The One out of the paddock and in an instant the great tide of humans and horses had surged off, leaving Daisy almost alone. Arthur hurried to her. ‘Quickly,' he said, and chivvied all the girls back to the carriage, helping them up so that they could stand above the crowd.

Garth was crouched in the saddle, his feet slipping in and out of the stirrups. His legs belonged to somebody else; his tongue was thick; his cap too tight on his head. He thought
Daisy was beside him. ‘I should have refused! I couldn't refuse! I tried but I couldn't!' The words did not matter because no one was listening. The One was a precarious rock in an alien sea. Garth tried to focus. There seemed to be three chestnut necks in front of him, each with three sets of ears. The crowd was not a crowd but an open mouth ready to swallow him up and spit him out. The sun was not the sun but a fat yellow finger, wagging and pointing and chanting, ‘You fool, you fool . . .' The wrestlers, the prostitutes, the three-card tricksters were dissolving into a coloured sea of smocks, shawls and scarves, and he, Garth, was falling, falling, falling into a black hole at the bottom of which lay all Daisy's dreams.

Garth might never have made it to the start at all had Skelton not been loping beside him. In the end, Garth fixed on him as the only steady thing. At the start itself, Skelton seized his moment. ‘You've got one chance, Master Garth, and one only. Do you understand?' He had his hand on the rein.

Garth sagged. Skelton forced him to sit up. ‘My God, boy!' he said, in mock horror. ‘You're drunk.
Drunk!
On this day of all days! I can't believe it.' Garth did not even try to answer. Skelton pressed on. ‘Can you use your legs?' Garth stared dumbly at him. ‘For the love of God!' Skelton shouted. Some of the other jockeys looked round. Skelton came very close. ‘You've blown it, you coward. You've blown all Miss Daisy's hopes. You've blown the future of Hartslove. You're going to lose. You're a scoundrel.'

Garth tried to move his tongue. ‘No – no!'

‘Yes, yes.
A drunken scoundrel!
'

‘What – do? Help me.' Garth was beyond pride, beyond any place he knew.

Skelton seemed to hesitate.

‘Help.'

As though very unwilling, Skelton held up something long and thin, careful to keep it out of The One's line of vision.

Something sparked. Garth pushed the whip away. ‘Won't,' he slurred.

Skelton dug his nails right through Garth's cotton breeches. There was nothing friendly about him now. ‘Do you want to win this damned race?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then take this whip and use it.'

‘No – Daisy –'

Skelton fingers were a vice. ‘You think Miss Daisy wants you to lose the race?'

‘No, but –'

‘Don't be a fool. She's depending on you. Everybody's depending on you and you're drunk. If you've any sense of honour, you'll just do as you're told.'

Everything seemed far away. Only Skelton's voice drove through the fog like a dart. ‘Do as you're told, boy, and everything will be fine.'

‘Can't –'

‘You can, boy. You must.' Skelton thrust the whip at him again, less carefully this time. ‘The horse'd have come no-where in the Guineas without the whip. You know that. Take it and use it and burn it afterwards for all I care. Just damned well win this race, d'ye hear me?
Just damned well win
.'

Skelton's face swam. The bobbing heads around Garth swam. The sky swam. All Garth could see clearly was the whip. All he could feel was that his legs would not work. Then the whip was in his hands and Skelton was gone and The One was engulfed in the barge and crash of other horses fighting for their heads.

The starter, hemmed in and jostled by the throng, was calling the runners into line. The other horses thrust their noses forward, their jockeys hunched. The One did not like the jostling and was dallying, his nose stuck in the air, always on the lookout for Daisy. The other horses shivered and jibbed. The One spied an apple core and determined to eat it.

The rough hands of the starter's boys seized his bridle, forcing him to face the front. He did not like that either. Again he looked for Daisy and listened for her voice. ‘Let them go, McGeorge!' ‘Get them away, McGeorge!' The horse was quite aware of Garth perched in the saddle, and cocked an ear back. Garth was silent. When the flag dropped and the other horses leaped off, The One sneezed and continued to chew the apple core.