Part 11 (2/2)

'I want you to ride Datepalm,' he said.

'Well, I can't.'

'The Ostermeyers will want it. I told them you'd be here.'

'Gerry rides Datepalm perfectly well,' I said, Gerry being the lad Who rode the horse at exercise as a matter of course most days of the week.

'Gerry isn't you.'

'He's better than me with a groggy ankle.'

Milo glared. 'Do you want to keep the horse here or don't you?'

I did.

Milo and I spent a fair amount of time arguing at the best of times. He was pugnacious by nature, mercurial by temperament, full of instant opinions that could be reversed the next day, didactic, dynamic and outspoken.

He believed absolutely in his own judgement and was sure that everything would turn out all right in the end.

He was moderately tactful to the owners, hard on his work-force and full of swearwords for his horses, which he produced as winners by the dozen.

I'd been outraged by the way he'd often spoken to me when I first started to ride for him three years earlier, but one day I lost my temper and yelled back at him, and he burst out laughing and told me we would get along just fine, which in fact we did, though seldom on the surface.

I knew people thought ours an unlikely alliance, I neat and quiet, he restless and flamboyant, but in fact I liked the way he trained horses and they seemed to run well for him, and we had both prospered.

The Ostermeyers arrived at that point and they too had a chauffeur, which Milo took for granted. The bullishness at once disappeared from his manner to be replaced by the jocular charm that had owners regularly mesmerized, that morning being no exception. The Ostermeyers responded immediately, she with a roguish wiggle of the hips, he with a big handshake and a wide smile.

They were not so delighted about my crutches.

'Oh dear,' Martha Ostermeyer exclaimed in dismay.

'What have you done? Don't say you can't ride Datepalm.

We only came, you know, because dear Milo said you'd be here to ride it.'

'He'll ride it,' Milo said before I had a chance of answering, and Martha Ostermeyer clapped her small gloved hands with relief.

'If we're going to buy him,' she said, smiling, 'we want to see him with his real jockey up, not some exercise rider.'

Harley Ostermeyer nodded in agreement, benignly.

Not really my week, I thought.

The Ostermeyers were all sweetness and light while people were pleasing them, and I'd never had any trouble liking them, but I'd also seen Harley Ostermeyer's underlying streak of ruthless viciousness once in a racecourse car-park where he'd verbally reduced to rubble an attendant who had allowed someone to park behind him, closing him in. He had had to wait half an hour. The attendant had looked genuinely scared.

'Goodnight, Derek,' he'd croaked as I went past, and Ostermeyer had whirled round and cooled his temper fifty per cent, inviting my sympathy in his trouble.

Harley Ostermeyer liked to be thought a good guy, most of the time. He was the boss, as I understood it, of a giant supermarket chain. Martha Ostermeyer was also rich, a fourth-generation multi-millionaire in banking.

I'd ridden for them often in the past years and been well rewarded, because generosity was one of their pleasures.

Milo drove them and me up to the Downs where Datepalm and the other horses were already circling, having walked up earlier. The day was bright and chilly, the Downs rolling away to the horizon, the sky clear, the horses' coats glossy in the sun. A perfect day for buying a champion chaser.

Milo sent three other horses down to the bottom of the gallop to work fast so that the Ostermeyers would know where to look and what to expect when Datepalm came up and pa.s.sed them. They stood out on the gra.s.s, looking where Milo pointed, intent and happy.

Milo had brought a spare helmet with us in the bigwheeled vehicle that rolled over the mud and ruts on the Downs, and with an inward sigh I put it on. The enterprise was stupid really, as my leg wasn't strong enough and if anything wild happened to upset Datepalm, he might get loose and injure himself and we'd lose him surely one way or another.

On the other hand, I'd ridden races now and then with cracked bones, not just exercise gallops, and I knew one jockey who in the past had broken three bones in his foot and won races with it, sitting with it in an ice bucket in the changing room betweentimes and literally hopping out to the parade ring, supported by friends.

The authorities had later brought in strict medical rules to stop that sort of thing as being unfair to the betting public, but one could still get away with it sometimes.

Milo saw me slide out of the vehicle with the helmet on and came over happily and said, 'I knew you would.'

'Mm,' I said. 'When you give me a leg up, put both hands round my knee and be careful, because if you twist my foot there'll be no sale.'

'You're such a wimp,' he said.

Nevertheless, he was circ.u.mspect and I landed in the saddle with little trouble. I was wearing jeans, and that morning for the first time I'd managed to get a shoe on, or rather one of the wide soft black leather moccasins I used as bedroom slippers. Milo threaded the stirrup over the moccasin with unexpected gentleness and I wondered if he were having last-minute doubts about the wisdom of all this.

One look at the Ostermeyers' faces dispelled both his doubts and mine. They were beaming at Datepalm already with proprietary pride.

Certainly he looked good. He filled the eye, as they say. A bay with black points, excellent head, short st.u.r.dy legs with plenty of bone. The Ostermeyers always preferred handsome animals, perhaps because they were handsome themselves, and Datepalm was well-mannered besides, which made him a peach of a ride.

He and I and two others from the rest of the string set off at a walk towards the far end of the gallop but were presently trotting, which I achieved by standing in the stirrups with all my weight on my right foot while cursing Milo imaginatively for the sensations in my left.

Datepalm, who knew how horses should be ridden, which was not lopsided like this, did a good deal of head and tail shaking but otherwise seemed willing to trust me. He and I knew each other well as I'd ridden him in all his races for the past three years. Horses had no direct way of expressing recognition, but occasionally he would turn his head to look at me when he heard my voice, and I also thought he might know me by scent as he would put his muzzle against my neck sometimes and make small whiffling movements of his nostrils. In any case we did have a definite rapport and that morning it stood us in good stead.

At the far end the two lads and I sorted out our three horses ready to set off at a working gallop back towards Milo and the Ostermeyers, a pace fast enough to be interesting but not flat out like racing.

There wasn't much finesse in riding a gallop to please customers, one simply saw to it that one was on their side of the accompanying horses, to give them a clear view of the merchandise, and that one finished in front to persuade them that that's what would happen in future.

Walking him around to get in position I chatted quietly as I often did to Datepalm, because in common with many racehorses he was always rea.s.sured by a calm human voice, sensing from one's tone that all was well. Maybe horses heard the lower resonances: one never knew.

'Just go up there like a pro,' I told him, 'because I don't want to lose you, you old b.u.g.g.e.r. I want us to win the National one day, so s.h.i.+ne, boy. Dazzle. Do your b.l.o.o.d.y best.'

I shook up the reins as we got the horses going, and in fact Datepalm put up one of his smoothest performances, staying with his companions for most of the journey, lengthening his stride when I gave him the signal, coming away alone and then sweeping collectedly past the Ostermeyers with fluid power; and if the jockey found it an acutely stabbing discomfort all the way, it was a fair price for the result. Even before I'd pulled up, the Ostermeyers had bought the horse and shaken hands on the deal.

'Subject to a veterinarian's report, of course,' Harley was saying as I walked Datepalm back to join them.

'Otherwise, he's superb.'

Milo's smile looked as if it would split his face. He held the reins while Martha excitedly patted the new acquisition, and went on holding them while I took my feet out of the stirrups and lowered myself very carefully to the ground, hopping a couple of steps to where the crutches lay on the gra.s.s.

'What did you do to your foot?' Martha asked unworriedly.

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