Decider. Part 19

In the morning, a fine one, the boys opened all the windows to air out the bus, and I gave them the Easter presents Amanda had packed into the locker under my bed. Each boy received a chocolate Easter egg, a paperback book and a small hand-held computer game, and all spoke to their mother to thank her.

'She wants to talk to you, Dad,' Alan said, handing me the telephone, and I said, 'Hi,' and 'Happy Easter,' and 'How's Jamie?'

'He's fine. Are you feeding the boys properly, Lee? Sandwiches and tinned spaghetti aren't enough. I asked Christopher... he says you didn't buy fruit yesterday.'

'They've had bananas and cornflakes for breakfast today.'

'Fruit and fresh vegetables,' she said.

'OK.'

'And can you stay out a bit longer? Say Wednesday or Thursday?'

'If you like.'

'Yes. And take their clothes to a launderette, won't you?'

'Sure.'

'Have you found a good ruin yet?'

'I'll keep looking.'

'We're living on savings,' she said.

'Yes, I know. The boys need new trainers.'

'You could get them.'

'All right.'

Conversation, as usual, confined itself mostly to child-care. I said, trying my best, 'How did your sister's party go?'

'Why?' She sounded almost, for a moment, wary: then she said, 'Great, fine. She sends you her love.'

'Thanks.'

'Take care of the boys, Lee.'

'Yes,' I said, and 'Happy Easter,' and 'Goodbye, Amanda.'

'She asked us to phone her tomorrow night,' Christopher said.

'She cares about you. She wants us to go on hunting ruins for another day or two.'

None of them objected, surprisingly. They were eyes-down, of course, to their bleep-bleeping flickering games.

There was a bang on the door, which was opened without pause by Roger, who stuck his head in while still standing outside.

'Your pal Henry,' he told me, 'has himself arrived with a crane on a low-loader and brought the big top on about six vast lorries and he won't unload a thing without talking to you first.'

'Henry's big top!' Christopher exclaimed. 'The one we had over the pub, before you built our house?'

'That's right.'

The boys shut the windows instantly and presented themselves fast in the driveway, looking hopeful. Roger resignedly gestured towards the jeep and they all packed into the back, jostling and fighting for their favourite seats.

'Sit down or get out,' Roger commanded in his best parade-ground bark and, subdued, they sat down.

'I'll swop you the boys for Marjorie,' I suggested.

'Done.' He careered in battle fashion up the private road, did a flourish of a four-wheel drift stop outside his office, and informed my progeny that any sign of disobedience would incur immediate banishment to the bus for the rest of the day. The troops, very impressed, took the warning respectfully, but ran off to greet Henry with out-of-school whoops.

Henry, huge, bearded, always made me feel short. He lifted Neil effortlessly to sit on his shoulders and beamed in my direction, walking frame and all.

'Nearly got yourself squelched, then?' he said.

'Yeah. Careless.'

He gestured with a huge hand to his heavily laden monster trucks, currently cluttering the tarmac.

'I brought the whole razzmatazz,' he said, pleased with it.

'Yes, but, look here ' Roger began.

Henry looked down on him kindly. 'You trust Lee, here,' he said. 'He knows what people like. He's a b.l.o.o.d.y wizard, is Lee. You let him and me set you up here for tomorrow, and six weeks from now, when you've got another Bank Holiday meeting I looked it up, so I know you won't have enough room in the car parks. Word of mouth, see? Now, do you want crowds here, or don't you?'

'Er... yes.'

'Say no more.'

Roger said to me despairingly, 'Marjorie...'

'She'll love it. She wants the racecourse to prosper, above all.'

'Are you sure?'

'Hundred per cent. Mind you, she'll take five seconds to get over the shock.'

'Let's hope it takes longer for her to drop down dead from a heart attack.'

'Did you get those electrical cables laid?' Henry asked him. 'Heavy duty?'

'As you specified,' Roger said.

'Good. Then... site plans?'

'In the office.'

For most of the day Roger directed his groundsmen to help where they could and himself stood in long spells of wonderment as Henry and his crew built before his eyes a revolutionary vision of grandstand comfort.

First, they erected four pylon-like towers in crane-lifted sections, towers strong enough, Henry told Roger, for trapeze artists to swing from: then with thick wire cables and heavy electric winches they raised tons of strong white canvas and spread them wide. The final height and the acreage matched those of the old stands, and easily outdid them for splendour.

Henry and I discussed crowd movement, racegoers' behaviour, provision for rain. We set out the essentials, rubbed out the bottlenecks, made pleasure a priority, gave owners their due, allocated prime s.p.a.ce for Strattons, for Stewards, for trainers' bars. Throughout the big top we planned solid-seeming flooring, with a wide centre aisle, firm part.i.tion walls, and tented ceilings in each 'room' of pale peach-coloured thin pleated silk-like material, 'I buy it by the mile,' Henry a.s.sured a disbelieving Roger. 'Lee told me sunlight shining through canvas and peach was more flattering to old faces than yellow, and it's seniors who pay the bills, mostly. I used to use yellow. Never again. Lee says the right light is more important than the food.'

'And what Lee says is gospel?'

'Have you ever seen anyone transform a derelict no-customer pub into a human beehive? He's done it twice before my eyes, and more times before that, so I'm told. He knows what attracts attracts people, see? They don't know exactly people, see? They don't know exactly what what attracts them. They just feel attracted. But Lee knows, you bet your sweet life he knows.' attracts them. They just feel attracted. But Lee knows, you bet your sweet life he knows.'

'Just what attracts people?' Roger asked me curiously.

'A long story,' I said.

'But how how do you know?' do you know?'

'For years I asked hundreds, literally hundreds of people, why they'd bought the old houses they lived in. What was the decider, however irrational, that made them choose that house and no other? Sometimes they said bits of trellis, sometimes hidden winding secondary staircases, sometimes Cotswold stone fireplaces, or mill wheels, or sometimes split levels and galleries. I asked them also what they disliked, and would change. I simply grew to know how to rebuild near-ruins so that people hunger to live in them.'

Roger said slowly, 'Like your own house.'

'Well, yes.'

'And pubs?'

'I'll show you one day. But with pubs, it's not just rebuilding. It's good food, good prices, fast service and a warm welcome. It's essential to learn the customers' faces and greet them as friends.'

'But you always move on?'

'Once they're up and running,' I nodded. 'I'm a builder, not a restaurateur.'

To Henry's men, many of them circus people themselves and accustomed to raising magic from an empty field overnight, twenty-four hours to gate-opening time was a luxury. They heaved on ropes, they swung mallets, they sweated. Henry bought a barrel of beer from the Mayflower for his 'good lads'.

Henry had brought not only the big top but a large amount of the iron piping and planking that, bolted together, had formed the basis of the tiered seating round the circus ring.

'Thought you might need it,' he said.

'Grandstands!' I breathed. 'You broth of a boy.'

Henry beamed.

Roger couldn't believe it. His own workmen, under Henry's circus men's direction, erected all the steps not round a ring but in the open air alongside the rails of the track, their backs to the big top and their slanting faces towards the action, with a wide strip of gra.s.s for access between the bottom step and the racecourse rails.

'We could do better given more time,' Henry said, 'but at least some of the customers will be able to see the races from here, without all squeezing onto the Tattersalls' steps.'

'We probably need planning permission,' Roger said faintly. 'Safety officers. Heaven knows what.'

Henry waved a couple of licences under his nose. 'I'm a licensed contractor. This is a temporary structure. Get who you like. Get them on Tuesday. Everything I do is safe and legal. I'll show you.'

Grinning, he waved a huge hand and hey-prestoed an army of fire extinguishers from one of the trucks.

'Happier?' he asked Roger.

'Speechless.'

Henry at one point drew me aside. 'Who are those a.r.s.eholes blocking the gates? We as near as b.u.g.g.e.ry knocked one of them over when we came across with the beer. He walked straight out. Raving lunatic'

I explained about Mr Harold Quest, his followers and their quest to get steeplechasing banned. 'Weren't they here when you first arrived?' I asked.

'No, they weren't. Do you want them shifted?'

'You mean physically shifted?'

'What other way is there?'

'Persuasion?' I suggested.

'Come off it.'

'If you stamp on one wasp, fifty come to the funeral.'

He nodded. 'See what you mean.' He rubbed his beard. 'What do we do, then?'

'Put up with them.'

'That's pathetic.'

'You could tell them that banning steeplechasing would mean hundreds of horses being killed, once there was no use for them. Not just one horse would die occasionally, but all of them within a year. Tell Harold Quest he's advocating equine ma.s.sacre and turning horses into an endangered species.'

'Right.' He looked as if he would do it immediately.

'But,' I said, 'quite likely he's not really fussed about the horses. Quite likely he's looking for a way to stop people enjoying themselves. He's He's enjoying himself, that's his main aim. He's been trying for days to get knocked down gently. Tomorrow he may manage to get himself arrested. If he does, he'll be ecstatic' enjoying himself, that's his main aim. He's been trying for days to get knocked down gently. Tomorrow he may manage to get himself arrested. If he does, he'll be ecstatic'

'All fanatics are nutters,' he said.

'What about suffragettes and the twelve apostles?'

'Want a beer?' he said. 'I'm not arguing with you.' you.'

'What we really want is a counter demonstration,' I suggested. 'People marching alongside Harold Quest with placards saying, "DD TO UNEMPLOYMENT", "PUT STABLELADS OUT OF WORK". "SEND ALL STEEPLECHASE HORSES TO THE GLUE FACTORY". "PUT BLACKSMITHS ON THE DOLE".'

'Farriers,' Henry said.

'What?'

'Farriers shoe horses. Blacksmiths make wrought-iron gates.'

'Let's have that beer,' I said.

Beer got postponed however by the arrival of two cars, both driven by boiling tempers as a result of near-contact with Harold Quest.