Blind Beauty Page 9

  It was incredibly rude and Raleigh, to his eternal credit in Tessa’s eyes, recovered from his embarrassment, turned to Myra and said, “I would be pleased to train a horse in your name, certainly, should the opportunity arise.” And gave her a sympathetic smile.

  But the damage was done and Tessa saw Myra shrivel up, tears coming into her eyes. Her happiness was drenched, her ego flattened. She put down her glass and stared at her plate, her face drained and ugly. Diana Raleigh changed the subject to give her a break, and the difficult moment passed, but there was now a coolness in the atmosphere and the party broke up early.

  Bryant, the bloodstock agent, would bid for the horses.

  Bryant the jockey whispered to Tessa as he left, “Buffoon, you said. That’s the one?”

  “Yes.”

  Six weeks later, Tom Bryant saw a large ugly chestnut horse pass his own tiring mount in the last hundred yards of a hurdle race at Newbury, heard its number called the winner and looked up its name.

  “Buffoon.”

  So the little girl was right. He remembered her shining eyes, her plea for secrecy, and laughed out loud.

  Buffoon pulled down a mouthful of hay from the rack and munched steadily. Lucky waited at his shoulder for the chunks he dropped, and snuffled them up out of the deep straw. He had already eaten his ration, dropped on the floor.

  It was three years since his first race. He was seven now. His ant-like carer was fifteen, but no one would have guessed.

  She had to stand on a chair to fold back Buffoon’s rugs for grooming. She had grown, but was still small and slight. She was never going to have to waste to make the weight in her chosen profession, unlike most jockeys. Tom Bryant, tall by nature, had a hard time keeping down to ten and a half stone, and often looked gaunt and pale.

  “Only another year to go, Buffoon, and I can get my licence.” She talked incessantly to the horse. The others laughed at her, but Tessa knew Buffoon liked her company. It was only for her that he pricked his ears and softly whinnied over the half-door as she went past, even when it wasn’t feeding time.

  “You love me, don’t you, Buffoon? You and me, we’re a pair. Perhaps I will ride you in a race one day, you never know your luck. Although not while Tom wants the ride, I dare say. I’ll never be as good as Tom, it’s just not possible. Save you know me, you run for me, don’t you? I always knew you’d make it, and all the others laughed, and we’ll show beastly Maurice, we’ll grind him into the mud, Buffoon, we’ll make him sick. Him and his hundred thousand horse – and Tom likes you better, Buffoon. Tom wants to ride you, he says so, but he’s got to ride beastly Maurice’s horse…”

  She chuntered away and Buffoon twitched back one long red ear to take in her voice, which he recognized amongst all others. Although Wisbey was his lad at racetracks, Tessa was always there, always waiting for him when he came back (she now had a stable pass with her security photo on it, and didn’t get thrown out as she once had), waiting with Lucky beside her to tell him what a good boy he’d been. When he had battled his great heart out and come from behind to grind down the quick boys out front, listening to the crowds’ cheers… how Tessa wept and screamed amongst the other lads as her horse came home… he knew all this as Tessa’s voice droned on in the stable. Up on her chair she strapped his gleaming hide with all the vigour of her stringy arms. She was thin but rippled with hard muscle, not an ounce of softness anywhere. “Like cuddling barbed wire,” as Wisbey said in the tack-room, having tried a pass or two. They all laughed. “She’s not taking to you when Tom Bryant’s about,” they said.

  Or Jimmy, Sarah thought, but didn’t say.

  Slight as she was, Tessa had learned to groom with the best, throwing all her strength behind her brushes, so that Buffoon, in spite of still being the ugliest horse in racing, was never criticized for his appearance. His great gaunt frame was covered with a coat so bright that every hair seemed to sparkle; his pale legs were immaculate, his stringy tail plaited impeccably. Fully mature he was now seventeen hands high, but his legs still seemed to go in all directions and his wide-blazed face was still considered more appropriate to the circus than the paddock. He was well named. Had Declan christened him? Tessa suspected he had, and was always waiting for the day when he would turn up at the racecourse to claim credit for breeding this strange horse. But he never did.

  Mr Cressington should be well-pleased with his buy. “Freakish,” Peter said, shaking his head in disbelief when Buffoon came home in front. The longer the distance, the more likely he was to win. It took him over a mile to get his legs sorted out.

  “You old fool,” Tessa whispered to him, slamming her brush down over the bone of his mountainous withers. “Peter says you’re a Grand National horse, did you know that, you old fool? The longest, hardest race in the book. That’s where we’re going next year, we’re going to win the Grand National, and Mr Cressington will leap out of his wheelchair and dance all the way to the bank.”

  The old daughter had changed her tune since Buffoon had won a few races and she had pocketed the change left over from his training fees. She didn’t talk about selling him any more. Tessa was mightily relieved. Sometimes she dreamed that Buffoon would win the Grand National and Mr Cressington in gratitude would leave her the horse in his will, and drop dead.

  “Tom is coming to work you this morning, dear Buffoon. He likes you, he likes you! He wants to ride you in a race. He wants you to be his horse. Tom – the best, the greatest – his ride –”

  “Jeez, you’re a real nutcase, Tessa Blackthorn.”

  Wisbey, in passing, had stopped to listen to her chunter.

  “It’s God Almighty he wants to ride, you know that. Tom Bryant thinks our little stable is worth taking notice of, because of God Almighty.”

  “Because of Buffoon!”

  “Perhaps he likes them both.” Wisbey knew it was useless arguing with Tessa. “But he can only ride them when he hasn’t got to ride for his own stable. And how often is that? We’re lucky to get him tomorrow.”

  God Almighty was running at Newbury the next day and Tom was free to ride him. There were other jockeys, of course, but Tom was the magic name of the moment, acknowledged as the best.

  “He’s a horseman,” Jimmy said. “More than you can say for some.”

  Tom was to meet them up on the gallops. Tessa tacked up Buffoon, and put Lucky out in his paddock as usual. Lucky turned and stuck his head over the gate and whinnied a fond farewell. Buffoon turned his long neck and whickered in return.

  “You gump,” said Tessa, leading him up to the mounting block. “What would you do without him, you old idiot? You’d go bananas, wouldn’t you?”

  She felt perfectly at home on the big horse now, and had no trouble in keeping him up with the rest of the string, although he was still lazy at exercise. Nobody disputed that she was an ace rider, although they all said she would never make it as a jockey.

  “Tell me one girl who has?” Peter challenged her.

  “Mrs Henderson was ninth in the Grand National and she was old. Charlotte Brew on her own horse got to the twenty-seventh fence… Lorna Vincent and Gee Armytage–”

  “Yes. But lasted, year after year with winners every week, like the big boys–”

  “Me. I will.”

  They all jeered. It was a cold, sunny day in February and they rode up the valley in a gang as usual. The last of the frost crunched underfoot in the bottom by the river and the reeds serried stiffly in white coats, standing to attention. Buffoon blundered into a fallen branch and nearly had Tessa off over his shoulder.

  “Clumsy beast,” she chided him. “Look where you’re going!”

  Tom’s smart MG was parked up at the top beside Peter’s clapped out Land Rover. The MG had Tom’s name and sponsor on the side – not very good for when he was doing a tonne in the outside lane, late for a race. They trotted the horses steadily up the long h
ill; they were all super-fit and went easily, pulling as the gradient steepened. They pulled up beside the trainer and jockey.

  Tessa grinned at Tom. She hero-worshipped him and was wildly jealous of the girls that came and went in his life, and had no compunction in telling him so. He didn’t brush her off, he wasn’t big-headed like some of the successful ones. He respected her for her guts and for her riding and he never patronized her.

  They had to swap horses, first Wisbey for Tom to ride God Almighty, then Tessa for Buffoon. After fast work, Tom schooled both horses over a line of jumps beside the gallops. He had never ridden God Almighty before, and Buffoon only once, because of his commitments to Raleigh. God Almighty had won his three last races in a row, and was the favourite for tomorrow’s race. He was a strapping great horse and a bold front runner, and very kind at home. He was the stable star and they all loved him for it. And for himself. Wisbey glowed with pride and pleasure when Tom slipped off and said, “He feels great.”

  When he rode Buffoon, Tessa could see how Tom had to work at riding him, legging him into the jumps, because Buffoon thought it was a waste of time, working at home.

  Peter said to Tom, “Don’t let it worry you. After a mile or so he starts to get going. You’ve got to keep him up with the pace at the beginning, but eventually he’ll start motoring and then you can sit up there laughing. He stays for ever and can jump a house. He’s clumsy because of the way he’s built, but he’s clever with it – keeps himself out of trouble with his brains.”

  “Sounds like he could be a National horse,” Tom said.

  Peter laughed nervously. “Yes. I keep thinking that – next year, perhaps. But you know how it is… God Almighty is the best I’ve ever had. And Buffoon… possibly. Maybe our luck is turning. It goes like that, doesn’t it?”

  Tom nodded and laughed. “It’s your turn perhaps.”

  Tessa was waiting to ride back, holding Buffoon. Tom came over to give her a leg-up.

  “He’s not such a clown,” he said.

  He hesitated, and then said, “Have you ever had his sight checked?”

  “What do you mean?” Tessa looked down at him in terror. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just something in his way of going, makes me ask. My imagination probably. I’ve ridden one-eyed horses, half-blind horses – they seem to find their way around. I just wondered…”

  “No! There’s nothing! I would have noticed.”

  Tessa smiled, covering up panic. Shiner, she was thinking, Shiner! Nobody knew about Shiner, the dam. There was nothing in Buffoon’s papers to say his dam was blind.

  “Are you coming to Newbury tomorrow?” Tom asked.

  “I’d like to see God Almighty run. If Peter lets me, I’ll come–”

  Tom drove away and Tessa rode home with the string. The shock of Tom’s words was a bolt to her heart. Her hands were clammy and trembling on the reins, but not with cold. When they got down to the river and rode through the ford, the water up to the horses’ knees, she saw the fallen branch that Buffoon had stumbled against on the way down, and she tried to think whether what they always thought of as his clumsiness was anything to do with his sight. But she dared not think it! No way was she going to say anything to Peter. Tom was an idiot, imagining things!

  Peter said there was room for her in the lorry if she wanted to go to Newbury. All being well they would be back by evening stables, and it wasn’t her day for the Battleaxe. Tessa latched on to this day out to keep her mind off Tom’s remark. She could enjoy the excitement and panic of watching one of the stable’s horses win without suffering the terror she endured when it was her own Buffoon. Wisbey could do the suffering. He was just as potty on God Almighty as she was on Buffoon, and their rival jealousy was one of the ongoing jokes of the tack-room. Very few of the lads (or lasses) remained totally cool when their horse was running, Tessa had noticed. She was not out of place, gnawing her fingernails and screaming, in that small gang of spectators waiting with their armfuls of rugs and lead-reins. They all knew their horses far better than their owners did, and in many cases loved them as dearly as Tessa loved Buffoon.

  Unlike Maurice.

  “Your dear stepfather must be the most unpopular owner in the game,” Sarah remarked, reading the racing paper over coffee in the tack-room when they got back. “It says here that Tom Bryant is riding God Almighty for Peter Fellowes in the big race tomorrow and – quote – ‘Mr Morrison-Pleydell is angry that the jockey isn’t riding his forty-to-one chance, Almond River, at Market Rasen.” She laughed. “Only our Maurice would expect the top jockey to give up a big chance like that at Newbury just to partner a no-hoper at Market Rasen.”

  Tessa heard plenty about it over dinner that night.

  “I pay over the odds at Raleigh’s to have the services of the best jockey! I have a right to Bryant’s rides.”

  Even Greevy was obliged to point out: “Dad, you know Almond River’s a dud. Tom’s got a career, after all. All owners let their jockeys go for a big chance elsewhere if it’s offered – even if they don’t like it.”

  “I’m not ‘all’ owners! It’s people like me that keep the lot of them in work and they know it. I’ve made my feelings known to Raleigh.”

  I’ll bet you have, Tessa thought smugly. She guessed that some of Maurice’s rage was because Tom was preferring her dud stable to his. She was really enjoying Maurice’s frustration. For all his huge expenditure, his horses were not being very successful. The gorgeous Crowsnest had broken down with tendon trouble and his very expensive buy at the sales, San Lucar, bred to be a long-distance horse, had so far proved disappointing.

  He had also lost money on a golf course transaction, having bought the land at great cost and failed to get planning permission. He thought money could buy everything, even planning permission, but was finding otherwise.

  Tessa was pleased, and slightly surprised, that Greevy had stood up for Tom riding God Almighty. She studied him across the table. It was true that rubbing shoulders with the nice people at Raleigh’s was making him into a nicer person. It wasn’t her imagination. At twenty-one he had started to think for himself, and perhaps he now realized, like everyone else, that his father was a rat. He had filled out and his spots had cleared up and he was – surprise, surprise! thought Tessa suddenly – quite good-looking in his quiet, dark way.

  “I’ve a good mind to move my horses from Raleigh’s,” Maurice said. “I don’t think he’d like that.”

  Tessa thought he’d be mightily relieved. She heard a lot about good and bad owners at Sparrows Wyck. Trainers liked owners who shut up and let them get on with the job, who were supportive when things went wrong and grateful when they went right. And kept out of the way. Maurice was none of those things. Most of the Sparrows Wyck owners were friendly people who wanted a bit of good sport, win or lose, a jolly day out. They didn’t bet much, which took the pressure off. Maurice betted heavily on his horses, one of the reasons Tom didn’t like riding for him.

  “Too much at stake. Very often the horse gets too hard a race. No thought for the future.”

  Greevy looked concerned at his father’s remark and said, “I shouldn’t do that, Dad.”

  “Frightened you’ll lose your job, eh?”

  Greevy said, “Who says I would? It’s going all right.”

  Even Tom had said Greevy wasn’t bad, Tessa remembered.

  Myra said nothing as usual, frightened of putting her foot in it. Her eyes went from one speaker to the other. Yet she knew twice as much as either of them. Being brought up with the game right from the beginning made an instinct for it. Tessa suspected she had it too, why it had gone well for her at Sparrows Wyck.

  She went to bed in a disturbed state, anxious for the stable’s big day tomorrow, and unable to get out of her mind Tom’s remark about Buffoon’s sight. Nobody knew about Shiner except her. She would not mention a word to Peter. But
the idea that Tom had dropped into her head was nightmarish, and she knew it would not go away.

  God Almighty marched into the paddock at Wisbey’s shoulder and looked all round at the crowd with his long ears pricked and his eyes alight. He looked magnificent and Tessa could see the pride on Wisbey’s face as he overheard the spectators’ appreciative comments. It was a cold clear day, a good day for racing, and Tessa could feel herself responding to the friendly atmosphere of the crowd, all out to enjoy seeing great horses run. God Almighty was favourite, but it was a good field. He had talented horses to beat.

  Tessa could sense Peter’s enjoyment at being in the big league for once, with the top jockey riding his horse. He had had years building up his string, working in the wilderness, but now his luck had changed. One good horse could make a stable. Today was Peter’s day. He stood in the middle of the paddock with the horse’s owners, trying to stop his excitement showing. Tessa leaned over the rail, knowing that Buffoon was going to be this good in the next year or so, savouring the pleasures ahead.

  The jockeys came into the paddock, a bunch of bright colours like a flock of tropical birds against the winter hues surrounding them. Tessa had eyes only for Tom, resplendent in orange and turquoise, politely shaking hands with the two nice farmer owners whose horse was their pride and joy. Peter gave him a leg-up, Wisbey stripped off his rugs, and led the horse on his circuit of the paddock. Tessa ran to meet them as they came out.

  “Good luck, Tom!”

  Tom grinned down at her.

  “Wait till it’s that orange elephant of yours.”

  But Tessa only laughed.

  “Just get the practice in!”

  She had never seen Tom laughing when he rode out on her stepfather’s horses. Maurice gave his jockeys instructions, although Tom had told Tessa they took no notice of them but said, “Yes, sir”, politely, to earn their bread. They did what the trainer said, or what seemed best by their own judgement. Raleigh trusted Tom, as did Peter.