Read Online Racing Manhattan by Terence Blacker - Free Book Online Page B

‘Trouble is, they were a bit of a long time ago. Racing’s moved on, and he hasn’t.’
    In the gloomy evening light, she tells me that these days there is only one decent owner who has horses with Mr Wilkinson, a Saudi prince, and that even he is rumoured to be about to take his horses away.
    â€˜Too many has-beens and losers,’ she says rather cheerfully. ‘And that’s just the humans.’
    â€˜What about the horses?’
    â€˜Couple of half-decent two-year-olds, but there’s a lot of rubbish in those stables. They’re just kept for the—’ She rubs the fingers of her left hand together.
    â€˜The grey, Manhattan,’ I say casually. ‘Is she rubbish?’
    â€˜Worse than rubbish. You don’t want to waste your time on that big freak. She’s the joke of the yard, Nelly.’
    â€˜Nelly?’
    â€˜That’s what we call her. Someone said she looks like a giraffe. Someone remembered that kids’ song “Nelly the Elephant”. So Nelly it was.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with her?’
    â€˜You’ll find out.’ Laura stands up and drains her tea. She suddenly seems a bit uncomfortable by the way our conversation has gone. ‘New lads get a little bit of a test. It involves the mare.’ She speaks in a low voice, as if one of Auntie’s neighbours could be listening in.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Don’t worry about it. Just keep your nose clean and you’ll be all right. I’ll see you in the morning.’
    Alone in the little garden, I listen to the distant sounds of Newmarket – some music, a train racing by, the occasional raised voice.
    I have a job. I am in racing. There are all sorts of mysterious tests ahead of me. And I’m not a stable lass.
    One.
    Of.
    The.
    Lads.

S PECIAL RULE
    AND SO MY life as a stable lad begins.
    I feel odd and out of place at first. The breeches, boots and crash-hat Deej has found for me in the tack room are slightly too big and have the stale smell of someone else’s sweat.
    Deej and Laura look out for me, but always quietly. I sense that if I make a mistake I will be on my own.
    Although they mostly ignore me, I get to know the other lads.
    There’s Liam, an Irishman in his twenties who was once a promising apprentice but became too heavy to make it as a jockey, and Tommy – older, balding – who tells bad jokes. Amit is a good-looking Indian guy who looks neat on a horse but has soft, scared eyes. Davy, one of the younger lads, can never stop talking.
    Then there is Pete, broad-shouldered and with a harsh buzz-cut which makes his head look like some kind of missile. He is older than I first thought – probably in his late thirties – and there is something about him which seems to scare the other lads. They laugh at his jokes, step out of his way when he enters the tack room.
    I’m curious about him. He doesn’t seem to like horses and, to judge by the way he slumps in the saddle, he sees riding as a chore. Deej is reluctant to talk about him. ‘Comes from London,’ he says, adding as a casual afterthought, ‘it’s best to keep on the right side of old Pete.’
    Sometimes as I go about my work, I notice that Angus, the head lad, is watching me. He has given me the heaviest, nastiest jobs. I lug bales of hay my first morning. When I finish, Angus hands me a bucket and scrubbing brush.
    â€˜Toilet duty,’ he says. ‘Give the lads’ lavatory a good going over, will you, lassie?’
    As he walks away, he passes Pete and says something which makes them both laugh.
    There is no riding for those first two days. I watch as the early-morning string of horses – ‘first lot’, it is called – go to the covered yard where Mr Wilkinson waits for them, a matchstick in the side of his mouth. I see them walk out to the heath.
    Second lot, for the horses that are not racing in the near future, goes out