For Kicks Part 12

All through my first month there the freezing weather was not only a discomfort but also a tiresome delay. While racing was suspended Humber could dope no horses, and there was no opportunity for me to see what difference it made to his routine when the racing was scheduled for any of the five courses with long run-ins.

On top of that, he and Jud Wilson and Ca.s.s were always about in the stables. I wanted to have a look round inside Humber's office, a brick hut standing across the top end of the yard, but I could not risk a search when any one of them might come in and find me at it. With Humber and Jud Wilson away at the races, though, and with Ca.s.s gone home to his midday meal, I reckoned I could go into the office to search while the rest of the lads were eating.

Ca.s.s had a key to the office, and it was he who unlocked the door in the morning and locked it again at night. As far as I could see he did not bother to lock up when he went home for lunch, and the office was normally left open all day, except on Sunday. This might mean, I thought, that Humber kept nothing there which could possibly be incriminating: but on the other hand he could perhaps keep something there which was apparently innocent but would be incriminating if one understood its significance.

However, the likelihood of solving the whole mystery by a quick look round an unlocked stable office was so doubtful that it was not worth risking discovery, and I judged it better to wait with what patience I could until the odds were in my favour.

There was also Humber's house, a whitewashed converted farm house adjoining the yard. A couple of stealthy surveys, made on afternoons when I was bidden to sweep snow from his garden path, showed that this was an ultra-neat soulless establishment like a series of rooms in shop windows, impersonal and unlived-in. Humber was not married, and downstairs at least there seemed to be nowhere at all snug for him to spend his evenings.

Through the windows I saw no desk to investigate and no safe in which to lock away secrets: all the same I decided it would be less than fair to ignore his home, and if I both drew a blank and got away with an entry into the office, I would pay the house a visit at the first opportunity.

At last it began to thaw on a Wednesday night and continued fast all day Thursday and Friday, so that by Sat.u.r.day morning the thin slush was disintegrating into puddles, and the stables stirred with the re-awakening of hunting and racing.

Ca.s.s told me on Friday night that the man who owned the hunters I looked after required them both to be ready for him on Sat.u.r.day, and after second exercise I led them out and loaded them into the horse box which had come for them.

Their owner stood leaning against the front wing of a well polished Jaguar. His hunting boots shone like gla.s.s, his cream breeches were perfection, his pink coat fitted without a wrinkle, his stock was smooth and snowy. He held a sensible leather-covered riding stick in his hand and slapped it against his boot. He was tall, broad and bare-headed, about forty years old, and, from across the yard, handsome. It was only when one was close to him that one could see the dissatisfied look on his face and the evidence of dissipation in his skin.

'You,' he said, pointing at me with his stick. 'Come here.'

I went. He had heavy lidded eyes and a few purple thread veins on his nose and cheeks. He looked at me with superior bored disdain. I am five feet nine inches tall; he was four inches taller, and he made the most of it.

'You'll pay for it if those horses of mine don't last the day. I ride them hard. They need to be fit.'

His voice had the same expensive timbre as October's.

'They're as fit as the snow would allow,' I said calmly.

He raised his eyebrows.

'Sir,' I added.

'Insolence,' he said, 'will get you nowhere.'

'I am sorry, sir, I didn't mean to be insolent.'

He laughed unpleasantly. 'I'll bet you didn't. It's not so easy to get another job, is it? You'll watch your tongue when you speak to me in future, if you know what's good for you.'

'Yes sir.'

'And if those horses of mine aren't fit, you'll wish you'd never been born.'

Ca.s.s appeared at my left elbow, looking anxious.

'Is everything all right, sir?' he asked. 'Has Roke done anything wrong, Mr Adams?'

How I managed not to jump out of my skin I am not quite sure. Mr Adams. Paul James Adams, sometime owner of seven subsequently doped horses?

'Is this b.l.o.o.d.y gipsy doing my horses any good?' said Adams offensively.

'He's no worse than any of the other lads,' said Ca.s.s soothingly.

'And that's saying precious little.' He gave me a mean stare. 'You've had it easy during the freeze. Too d.a.m.ned easy. You'll have to wake your ideas up now hunting has started again. You won't find me as soft as your master, I can tell you that.'

I said nothing. He slapped his stick sharply against his boot.

'Do you hear what I say? You'll find me harder to please.'

'Yes, sir,' I muttered.

He opened his fingers and let his stick fall at his feet.

'Pick it up,' he said.

As I bent to pick it up, he put his booted foot on my shoulder and gave me a heavy, over-balancing shove, so that I fell sprawling on to the soaking, muddy ground.

He smiled with malicious enjoyment.

'Get up, you clumsy lout, and do as you are told. Pick up my stick.'

I got to my feet, picked up his stick and held it out to him. He twitched it out of my hand, and looking at Ca.s.s said, 'You've got to show them you won't stand any nonsense. Stamp on them whenever you can. This one,' he looked me coldly up and down, 'needs to be taught a lesson. What do you suggest?'

Ca.s.s looked at me doubtfully. I glanced at Adams. This, I thought, was not funny. His greyish blue eyes were curiously opaque, as if he were drunk: but he was plainly sober. I had seen that look before, in the eyes of a stable hand I had once for a short time employed, and I knew what it could mean. I had got to guess at once, and guess right, whether he preferred bullying the weak or the strong. From instinct, perhaps because of his size and evident worldliness, I guessed that crushing the weak would be too tame for him. In which case it was definitely not the moment for any show of strength. I drooped in as cowed and unresisting a manner as I could devise.

'G.o.d,' said Adams in disgust. 'Just look at him. Scared out of his b.l.o.o.d.y wits.' He shrugged impatiently. 'Well Ca.s.s, just find him some stinking useless occupation like scrubbing the paths and put him to work. There's no sport for me here. No backbone for me to break. Give me a fox any day, at least they've got some cunning and some guts.'

His gaze strayed sideways to where Humber was crossing the far end of the yard. He said to Ca.s.s, 'Tell Mr Humber I'd like to have a word with him,' and when Ca.s.s had gone he turned back to me.

'Where did you work before this?'

'At Mr Inskip's, sir.'

'And he kicked you out?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Why?'

'I... er...' I stuck. It was incredibly galling to have to lay oneself open to such a man; but if I gave him answers he could check in small things he might believe the whopping lies without question.

'When I ask a question, you will answer it,' said Adams coldly. 'Why did Mr Inskip get rid of you?'

I swallowed. 'I got the sack for er... for messing about with the boss's daughter.'

'For messing about...' he repeated. 'Good G.o.d.' With lewd pleasure he said something which was utterly obscene, and which struck clear home. He saw me wince and laughed at my discomfiture. Ca.s.s and Humber returned. Adams turned to Humber, still laughing, and said, 'Do you know why this c.o.c.kerel got chucked out of Inskip's?'

'Yes,' said Humber flatly. 'He seduced October's daughter.' He wasn't interested. 'And there was also the matter of a favourite that came in last. He looked after it.'

'October's daughter!' said Adams, surprised, his eyes narrowing. 'I thought he meant Inskip's daughter.' He casually dealt me a sharp clip on the ear. 'Don't try lying to me.'

'Mr Inskip hasn't got a daughter,' I protested.

'And don't answer back.' His hand flicked out again. He was rather adept at it. He must have indulged in a lot of practice.

'Hedley,' he said to Humber, who had impa.s.sively watched this one-sided exchange, 'I'll give you a lift to Nottingham races on Monday if you like. I'll pick you up at ten.'

'Right,' agreed Humber.

Adams turned to Ca.s.s. 'Don't forget that lesson for this lily-livered Romeo. Cool his ardour a bit.'

Ca.s.s sn.i.g.g.e.red sycophantically and raised goose pimples on my neck.

Adams climbed coolly into his Jaguar, started it up and followed the horse box containing his two hunters out of the yard.

Humber said, 'I don't want Roke out of action Ca.s.s. You've got to leave him fit for work. Use some sense this time.' He limped away to continue his inspection of the boxes.

Ca.s.s looked at me, and I looked steadily down at my damp, muddy clothes, very conscious that the head lad counted among the enemy, and not wanting to risk his seeing that there was anything but submissiveness in my face.

He said, 'Mr Adams don't like to be crossed.'

'I didn't cross him.'

'Nor he don't like to be answered back to. You mind your lip.'

'Has he any more horses here?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Ca.s.s, 'And it's none of your business. Now, he told me to punish you, and he won't forget. He'll check up later.'

'I've done nothing wrong,' I said sullenly, still looking down. What on earth would my foreman say about this, I thought; and nearly smiled at the picture.

'You don't need to have done nothing wrong,' said Ca.s.s. 'With Mr Adams it is a case of punish first so that you won't do anything wrong after. Sense, in a way.' He gave a snort of laughter. 'Saves trouble, see?'

'Are his horses all hunters?' I asked.

'No,' said Ca.s.s, 'but the two you've got are, and don't you forget it. He rides those himself, and he'll notice how you look after every hair on their hides.'

'Does he treat the lads who look after his other horses so shockingly unfair?'

'I've never heard Jerry complaining. And Mr Adams won't treat you too bad if you mind your p's and q's. Now that lesson he suggested...'

I had hoped he had forgotten it.

'You can get down on your knees and scrub the concrete paths round the yard. Start now. You can break for dinner, and then go on until evening stables.'

I went on standing in a rag-doll att.i.tude of dejectedness, looking at the ground, but fighting an unexpectedly strong feeling of rebellion. What the h.e.l.l, I thought, did October expect of me? Just how much was I to take? Was there any point at which, if he were there, he would say 'Stop; all right; that's enough. That's too much. Give it up.' But remembering how he felt about me, I supposed not!

Ca.s.s said, 'There's a scrubbing brush in the cupboard in the tack room. Get on with it.' He walked away.

The concrete pathways were six feet wide and ran round all sides of the yard in front of the boxes. They had been sc.r.a.ped clear of snow throughout the month I had been there so that the feed trolley could make its usual smooth journey from horse to horse, and as in most modern stables, including Inskip's and my own, they would always be kept clean of straw and excessive dust. But scrubbing them on ones knees for nearly four hours on a slushy day at the end of January was a miserable, back-breaking, insane waste of time. Ludicrous, besides.

I had a clear choice of scrubbing the paths or getting on the motor-cycle and going. Thinking firmly that I was being paid at least ten thousand pounds for doing it, I scrubbed: and Ca.s.s hung around the yard all day to watch that I didn't rest.

The lads, who had spent much of the afternoon amusing themselves by jeering at my plight as they set off for and returned from the cafe in Posset, made quite sure during evening stables that the concrete paths ended the day even dirtier than they had begun. I didn't care a d.a.m.n about that; but Adams had sent his hunters back caked with mud and sweat and it took me two hours to clean them because by the end of that day many of my muscles were trembling with fatigue.

Then, to crown it all, Adams came back. He drove his Jaguar into the yard, climbed out, and after having talked to Ca.s.s, who nodded and gestured round the paths, he walked without haste towards the box where I was still struggling with his black horse.

He stood in the doorway and looked down his nose at me; and I looked back. He was superbly elegant in a dark blue pin-striped suit with a white shirt and a silver-grey tie. His skin looked fresh, his hair well brushed, his hands clean and pale. I imagined he had gone home after hunting and enjoyed a deep hot bath, a change of clothes, a drink... I hadn't had a bath for a month and was unlikely to get one as long as I stayed at Humber's. I was filthy and hungry and extremely tired. I wished he would go away and leave me alone.

No such luck.

He took a step into the box and surveyed the mud still caked solid on the horse's hind legs.

'You're slow,' he remarked.

'Yes, sir.'

'This horse must have been back here three hours ago. What have you been doing?'

'My three other horses, sir.'

'You should do mine first.'

'I had to wait for the mud to dry, sir. You can't brush it out while it's still wet.'

'I told you this morning not to answer back.' His hand lashed out across the ear he had hit before. He was smiling slightly. Enjoying himself. Which was more than could be said for me.

Having, so to speak, tasted blood, he suddenly took hold of the front of my jersey, pushed me back against the wall, and slapped me twice in the face, forehand and backhand. Still smiling.

What I wanted to do was to jab my knee into his groin and my fist into his stomach; and refraining wasn't easy. For the sake of realism I knew I should have cried out loudly and begged him to stop, but when it came to the point I couldn't do it. However, one could act what one couldn't say, so I lifted both arms and folded them defensively round my head.

He laughed and let go, and I slid down on to one knee and cowered against the wall.

'You're a proper little rabbit, aren't you, for all your fancy looks.'

I stayed where I was, in silence. As suddenly as he had begun, he lost interest in ill-treating me.

'Get up, get up,' he said irritably. 'I didn't hurt you. You're not worth hurting. Get up and finish this horse. And make sure it is done properly or you'll find yourself scrubbing again.'

He walked out of the box and away across the yard. I stood up, leaned against the doorpost, and with uncharitable feelings watched him go up the path to Humber's house. To a good dinner, no doubt. An arm-chair. A fire. A gla.s.s of brandy. A friend to talk to. Sighing in depression, I went back to the tiresome job of brushing off the mud.

Shortly after a supper of dry bread and cheese, eaten to the accompaniment of crude jokes about my day's occupation and detailed descriptions of the meals which had been enjoyed in Posset, I had had quite enough of my fellow workers. I climbed the ladder and sat on my bed. It was cold upstairs. I had had quite enough of Humber's yard. I had had more than enough of being kicked around. All I had to do, as I had been tempted to do that morning, was to go outside, unwrap the motor-cycle, and make tracks for civilization. I could stifle my conscience by paying most of the money back to October and pointing out that I had done at least half of the job.

I went on sitting on the bed and thinking about riding away on the motor-bike. I went on sitting on the bed. And not riding away on the motor-bike.

Presently I found myself sighing. I knew very well I had never had any real doubts about staying, even if it meant scrubbing those dreadful paths every day of the week. Quite apart from not finding myself good company in future if I ran away because of a little bit of eccentric charring, there was the certainty that it was specifically in Mr P. J. Adams' ruthless hands that the good repute of British racing was in danger of being cracked to bits. It was he that I had come to defeat. It was no good decamping because the first taste of him was unpleasant.

His name typed on paper had come alive as a worse menace than Humber himself had ever seemed. Humber was merely harsh, greedy, bad-tempered and vain, and he beat his lads for the sole purpose of making them leave. But Adams seemed to enjoy hurting for its own sake. Beneath that glossy crust of sophistication, and not far beneath, one glimpsed an irresponsible savage. Humber was forceful; but Adams, it now seemed to me, was the brains of the partnership. He was a more complex man and a far more fearsome adversary. I had felt equal to Humber. Adams dismayed me.

Someone started to come up the ladder. I thought it would be Cecil, reeling from his Sat.u.r.day night orgy, but it was Jerry. He came and sat on the bed next to mine. He looked downcast.