The Enchanted Read online

  ‘Not much of him, is there?’ the vet remarked with a backward nod of his head as he walked away from the stable. ‘Got quite decent quarters, but there’s not really a lot of him.’

  ‘Stand by for surprises,’ Rory said. ‘This horse has got a motor.’

  ‘What were you saying about flying pigs?’ Noel returned, getting into his cluttered car. ‘Anyway, since he is coughing, I wouldn’t go entering him up for a while.’

  ‘Shall I move Boyo to one of the bottom boxes, boss?’ Teddy asked, when he heard the news.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother, Teddy,’ Rory replied, trudging back towards his office. ‘If I were you I’d just start looking for another job.’

  Certainly as far as Rory was concerned, had today been a fish, as he remarked to Maureen, he’d have thrown it back. Maureen told him about the call he’d missed without being able to enlighten him any further and in return Rory told her about his father.

  ‘He looked better than I thought he would,’ he said. ‘All those awful tubes and feeders are out, or most of them, at any rate. He’s still on a drip because of the infection, and he’s also got one of those newfangled oxygen things. But still – he looks a better colour, and he even managed a cheery wave or two. The problem is that they think the infection might have gone to his chest, which is just the place they don’t want it to go.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ his secretary said. ‘Everyone’s so fond of your father.’

  ‘Right,’ Rory replied. ‘Me included. And now on top of everything, just as the little horse was coming to hand, he goes down.’

  Rory made himself a cup of coffee and then sat at his desk to do a bit of metaphorical head-scratching. First of all he consulted the list of entries he had already earmarked for the horse and wondered whether he should just throw in the towel and forget about them, since if Boyo really did have the cough he wouldn’t be seen on a racecourse for at least two months, or whether he should select a few choice entries just in case it was nothing serious. Then there was the problem of how much he should tell the new owners, if anything at all. Like his father Rory believed that owners had a right to know everything about their horses, good and bad, and that they should be part of the decision-making process, because they owned the animals and paid the bills for their keep. Yet because this partnership was not yet fully and officially formed he could see a reason for not letting them know just yet, not because he was afraid of losing them as potential owners but because he couldn’t quite see the point since they hadn’t yet paid out anything. Then if the horse was found to be suffering from something minor – which Rory still believed was possible since no one else was coughing in the yard – they could simply carry on from where they had left off, which was three legs in and one to go.

  In that case, Rory told himself, he would make some select entries, which at least would look good on the cards he would then send out to his new but still nominal owners, and might even encourage someone to buy the fourth leg since as soon as entries were made attitudes changed immediately. It was the moment when reality took over from fantasy.

  As it happened, as far as filling the partnership went, reality had all but been achieved, thanks to the sales pitch Grenville had delivered to Constance on their return journey to London from Wincanton. He had used Lynne as his unwitting accomplice, discussing with her how much fun and excitement they were going to have as owners, over-egging the pudding as much as he dared by even going as far as to suggest that if the horse was anywhere near as good as Rory said, he could see them ending up at Cheltenham being presented with some cup or other by the Queen Mother. Since he also made sure that the speedometer never went over forty miles an hour, his sales pitch had of course – just as he had hoped it would – finally proved irresistible to Constance, while his driving speed had – as he had feared it might – totally bewildered not only Lynne but any motorist unlucky enough to get stuck behind him on the narrower parts of the A303.

  Even so, by the time they reached Knightsbridge, Lady Frimley had declared herself to be the buyer of the fourth leg in the now perfectly formed racing partnership. Grenville’s only remaining concern was how exactly he was going to extract any monies from the most senior partner.

  ‘All my money is tied up in some wretched trust or other in one of those equally wretched islands or other,’ she had told him when he invited Lynne and her up to his flat for a celebratory glass. ‘It’s an utter bore since it only allows one a certain amount of loot at a time, but then I’m such a spendthrift it’s probably a very good thing, all told.’

  Grenville had pulled a private face to himself, remembering Constance’s taxi tactics. Her latest scam, having agreed to come into the partnership, was to promptly delegate Grenville to run her share of the affair, indicating that all telephone calls and any petty expenses incurred should be handled and met by Grenville. So be it, Grenville had privately decided between equally privately clenched teeth, if it meant that they were finally up and running – a situation he desired not because he had ever been really serious about owning a horse, let alone a share in one, but because it would give him free and constant access to his adored Lynne. No more could she threaten him with exclusion: their lives were now going to be permanently intertwined, thanks to their involvement with their new purchase. So if Constance proved to be a late or a bad payer, it was something with which he would have to deal – and most certainly would, because if there was one area in which he could steal a march over Constance it was in the running of any affairs of business. Most of all he knew that if she did prove a thorn in all their sides, or if she did indeed fail to meet her dues, then they would simply dump her overboard and find another sharer, something that he reckoned would not be very hard, provided that the horse when finally in action performed even reasonably. If the animal showed any real potential, the plus point was that they might even make some money buying Constance out.

  The following evening he called Rory to tell him the good news.

  ‘You don’t sound very happy,’ Grenville remarked when he heard Rory’s tone. ‘I thought you’d be greatly cheered, old chap.’

  ‘I am, Grenville,’ Rory replied. ‘My apologies. It’s my father. He’s had a setback.’

  Rory explained and Grenville listened sympathetically, saying that if there was anything at all he could do, Rory was to count on him. Touched, Rory thanked him and put down the telephone, feeling terrible. He had just had confirmation from the vet that the horse’s blood was wrong, and he had said nothing at all about it to Grenville.

  But as it so happened, his saviour was just about to make her way to him, once she had finished with what was to become known as the Cronagh Syndicate.

  Those in that small Cork town who had seen The Enchanted run in both his Irish races were convinced they had seen something special, but then such normally is the case in that part of the world, and in particular in the environs of Cronagh, both rural and urban. Now they were waiting for his first run in England, and since they knew that Anthony Rawlins’s small racing establishment must be a betting yard (for, as they all asked, how else do small trainers keep in business?) they were ready to note the horse’s entries and then to take advantage. In order to get the best price, they knew to a man that it would have to be a well-organised coup, the money to be placed simultaneously with various bookmakers, spot on the dot of the chosen minute of the designated hour because none of them wanted the odds to shorten before the money was down. Absolute secrecy and total discretion were the prime requisites.

  ‘Now something is afoot,’ Michael Doherty declared when they were all met late one evening in the back bar of Finnegan’s Exclusive American Cocktail Lounge. ‘Here we have a horse entered up all over the shop yet not running, so we can only assume our man is waiting for the right race. So as soon as we see him declared as a certain runner, that’s when we know, and that’s when we move in. What would really help of course is if we had a spy in the camp. For not only would we know how the horse is do
ing in his home work, we’d know well in advance when he was running, and then we could get the money down early.’

  ‘We’ve no way of tellin’ who the work rider is, I suppose,’ Napper Reilly wondered, himself a retired jockey and now a small-time bloodstock scout for a small-time British trainer.

  ‘Pity about the auld leg,’ Padraig sighed, tapping Napper’s prosthetic with his hawthorn stick. ‘Or we’d have you on the first boat over.’

  ‘There’s someone all too willing to go over, Padraig.’ Yamon spoke up from the darkness. ‘And they’re family too.’

  ‘God, man,’ Padraig groaned. ‘Aren’t I short-handed enough?’

  ‘Maybe so, but ye’ll be looking at poor men for the rest of your days,’ Michael warned him. ‘Get that streak of a boy of yours to work double for a while.’

  Padraig looked at Michael, shook his head, then drained his glass, pulled the collar on his old brown overcoat up round his ears and walked out into the cold night air, knowing that what his friends had said was true and that it was sense to do as he was advised.

  When he got home, as if ordained by the gods, he found Kathleen sitting on top of a packed suitcase, trying to squeeze it closed.

  ‘How’s this, then?’ he asked. ‘Off on your travels again, my girl?’

  ‘What travels?’ Kathleen was surprised. ‘I don’t go on travels, Da.’

  ‘So you’re off on no travels, then.’ Padraig nodded, sticking his pipe in his coat pocket. ‘Just like the no travels you went off on before.’

  ‘See, I have to, Da,’ she replied after a while. ‘I know the horse is sick.’

  ‘You do so?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I really do.’

  ‘But how are you affording it? Sure you can’t keep financin’ this sort of thing.’

  ‘I still have a bit left in the trousseau tin.’

  ‘You think I’ll countenance that sort of palaver?’ Padraig growled. ‘What sort of father do you think you have who’d allow his daughter up the aisle in her wedding gown with only some tired old chemise under it? What sort of father would that be? I’ll hear of no such thing. So if instead I were to give you your wages for the next month—’

  ‘No, Da!’ Kathleen protested. ‘You can’t afford that. I’ll be fine. I’ll manage.’

  ‘If managing means standing be the side of the road hitching your skirts I’ll not hear of that either,’ her father replied, taking a sheaf of notes from the top inside pocket of his trousers and counting some out. ‘Sure we made a bit on the horse, so why not invest a bit of what we made? Besides that, you can be of use to us all, girl. And not only in getting the horse right, if you mind me.’

  ‘I’m minding you, Da,’ Kathleen said. ‘When did I ever not?’

  ‘Just when you get there, when you reach Mr Rawlins, offer him your services but do it for free, saying you have to be near this horse of yours. He’ll not refuse you. What sensible man could?’

  Padraig handed her some money, then, his pipe back out, lit it, not taking his eyes off his daughter.

  ‘Ah, you want a spy in the camp, don’t you?’ She laughed. ‘You’re a wily old article, so you are.’

  ‘We only need to know how the horse is working and when he’s entered up, and who better to tell us than she who knows him best? Than she who rides him best?’

  ‘So it’s riding him I am now?’

  ‘He’s seen how you ride, that young man, and weren’t his eyes out on broomsticks? You’ll be riding him out in no time.’

  ‘I have first to make sure of his health, Da. The woman on the phone said he was bad.’

  ‘So go see, girl. If anyone can get him right, ’tis yourself.’

  Rory was waiting for Noel to arrive when he caught sight of a figure carrying a small suitcase making its way up the long tree-lined drive that led to the farm and the yard. He thought he knew who it was from its size, and from the way it was walking, but then he dismissed such a notion as fanciful or maybe even wishful thinking, for he’d been in two minds as to whether or not to put a call in to Cronagh later in the day, particularly when he had heard the news that the horse was in the vet’s opinion definitely suffering from the current equine virus. Not that he thought the call would do any definite good, because the virus was the virus. He had just thought about making the call because he thought he would very much like to hear Kathleen Flanagan’s voice again.

  Now he could see his visitor more clearly, and he felt a tug on the string of his heart, because unless his eyes and reason and understanding had all completely failed him his visitor was indeed none other than Kathleen.

  ‘Kathleen?’ he said, hurrying to greet her and to take hold of her suitcase. ‘Do you know, I thought it might be you and, good heavens, it is.’

  Relieved of her case, Kathleen straightened herself up and then extended her right hand.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Look, I was just passing so I thought I’d drop in.’

  ‘You must have heard the ker-kettle,’ Rory replied, falling into step beside her, and closing his eyes as the stammer returned – a hesitation that had completely disappeared since he had seen the girl by his side off on the train from Bristol.

  ‘The Irish,’ Kathleen said, ‘can hear a kettle going on in another county.’

  ‘So,’ Rory continued, walking towards the house. ‘So you were just passing through, on your way ter-ter-to … ?’

  ‘Just on my way through.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rory agreed, pushing open the front door with his foot. ‘And I’m right on the route.’

  ‘Hello, dog,’ Kathleen said in surprise to the large lurcher who was greeting them both. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘This is Dunkum,’ Rory told her as the huge dog suddenly jumped up to put both front paws on Kathleen’s shoulders. ‘And if you w-want to know why he’s called that it’s because of how he likes his teatime biscuits. You’ll also need to – to – to watch your things, because he’s also a full time kerleptomaniac.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Kathleen agreed, trying to keep up the pretence of the casual visitor. ‘So how’s everything?’

  ‘So-so,’ Rory replied. ‘Unfortunately my dad’s not too good at the moment.’

  ‘God, no,’ Kathleen said, her face suddenly serious. ‘God, now, I’m real sorry to hear that. But he’s going to get better?’

  ‘If I have anything to do with it he will.’

  ‘The right and the best attitude to have. And everything else about the place?’

  ‘Your horse isn’t too bright at the moment,’ Rory said carefully, keeping an eye out for her reaction.

  ‘He isn’t working too well? Or what? What exactly?’

  ‘What exactly is – he’s been coughing.’

  ‘He has to have his hay well soaked, but then you know that.’

  ‘The hay’s always soaked,’ Rory replied. ‘All the hay. It always is. The vet thinks he’s got the v-v-virus.’

  ‘The virus or a virus?’ Kathleen wondered. ‘I never do understand why vets always call these things the virus, as if there’s just the one.’

  ‘You can ask him yourself,’ Rory told her. ‘He’ll be here shortly. Look. Look, I was just about to have a drink. Can I get you one?’

  He got them both a drink, orangeade for Kathleen and beer for himself.

  ‘I see you have a case,’ he remarked as he handed Kathleen her glass. ‘Are you staying with somebody?’

  ‘Depends on what’s required,’ Kathleen replied, raising her glass, determined not to give away too much, reminding herself that, after all, it had only been a dream. ‘Sláinte agus táinte.’

  ‘Your good health, Miss Flanagan.’

  ‘If it’s a virus, Mr Rawlins, I suppose you’ll be shooting him up with antibiotics, then?’

  ‘I suppose I shall have to do whatever the vet advises, Miss Flanagan.’

  ‘I wonder if I could see the horse, Mr Rawlins? Before I go on, that is.’

  ‘Go on as in passing t
hrough, do you mean?’

  ‘I might. Would that be possible?’

  ‘Of – of – of course, Miss Flanagan,’ Rory replied, clicking finger and thumb behind his back. ‘Soon as we’ve finished our drinks we’ll go. We’ll go as soon as we finish our drinks.’

  ‘I got you the first time round, Mr Rawlins,’ Kathleen said, eyeing him over the top of her glass. ‘And I’ve finished mine.’

  Rory nodded, downed his beer and led Kathleen out to the yard.

  ‘I don’t see him,’ she said, looking at an empty stable.

  ‘We put him in the lower case. Just in yard. We put him in the lower yard, just in case.’

  ‘Has he been coughing much?’

  ‘As far as I know, a horse doesn’t have to cough much, Miss Flanagan, to be deemed to be coughing.’

  ‘Sure I know that well enough.’

  ‘He’s been coughing enough to cause anxiety.’

  Kathleen looked over the horse’s stable door and saw him standing the way he always stood when something was amiss, with his head stuck in one corner, his ears flat and his tail tucked between his back legs. Kathleen didn’t even have to call his name. The moment she put her hands on the top of the half-door he swung his head round and looked at her.

  ‘He looks well enough, Mr Rawlins,’ Kathleen observed. ‘Looks the business, so he does.’

  ‘He’s a good doer, now he’s back eating. Never leaves an oat – thanks to his personal serenader, Mr McCormack.’

  ‘He’s eating his bedding,’ Kathleen said, having noticed the horse taking a mouthful of the straw on the stable floor.

  ‘Horses do,’ Rory replied. ‘That’s one of their th-things.’

  ‘OK – fine,’ Kathleen persisted. ‘So where do you get your straw?’

  ‘Off the farm.’

  ‘And is it sprayed, maybe?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Rory said with a shrug, followed by a frown as he saw where this might be headed. ‘I don’t run the farm, and anyway everyone sprays their crops. Don’t they?’

  ‘If they do,’ Kathleen said, ‘they shouldn’t give it to their horses as bedding. If they eat it what they get is a gutful of chemicals.’