Twice Shy

'Yeah.'

'Good God.'

'It seems to have worked.'

'Mm. I can't help being sorry that Angelo has that system after all.'

'I know. I'm sorry too, after all you did to keep it from him. I really hated giving it to him. But you were right, he's dangerous, and I don't want to vanish to California, the life I want is right here on the English turf. And about the system… Don't forget, it isn't enough just to possess it, you'd have to operate it discreetly. Angelo knows just about nothing about racing, and he's impetuous and undisciplined, not cunning and quiet.'

'He may also,' Jonathan said, 'think that the system gives a winner every time, which it doesn't. Old Mrs O'Rorke said it steadily gave an average of one winner in three.'

'Angelo versus the bookies should be quite a match. And by the way, I told him you were dead.'

'Thanks very much.'

'Well you didn't want him turning up one day on your sunny doorstep, did you?'

'He'd never get a visa.'

'You can walk across the Canadian border,' I said, 'without anyone being the wiser.'

'And the Mexican,' he agreed.

I told him in detail about Ted Pitts's house, and he sounded truly pleased. 'And the little girls? How are they?'

'Grown up and pretty.'

'I envied him those children.'

'Did you?' I said.

'Yes. Well… there you are. It's the way life turns out.'

I listened to the regret in his voice and understood how much he himself had wanted a daughter, a son… and I thought that I too would regret it one day if I didn't… and that maybe it would be terrific fun if Cassie…

'Are you still there?' he said.

'Yeah. If I get married, will you come over to the wedding?'

'I don't believe it.'

'You never know. I haven't asked her yet. She might not want to.'

'Keep me posted.' He sounded amused.

'Yeah. How's Sarah?'

'Fine, thanks.'

'So long,' I said, and he said, 'So long,' and I put down the receiver with the usual feeling of thankfulness that I had a brother, and specifically that he was Jonathan.

More days passed. By the end of the first week's sales I'd bought twelve yearlings for Luke and lost five more to higher bidders, and I'd consulted with Sim until he was sick of it and given Mort a filly that was on her toes if not actually a dancer, and spent two evenings in the Bedford Arms with the Irish trainer Donavan, listening to his woes and watching him get drunk.

'There's more good horses in Ireland than ever come out,' he said, wagging an unsteady finger under my nose.

'I'm sure.'

'You want to come over, now. You want to poke around them studs, now, before you go to the sales.'

'I'll come over soon,' I said. 'Before the next sales, two weeks from now.'

'You do that.' He nodded sagely. 'There's a colt I have my eye on, way down below Wexford. I'd like to train that colt, now. I'd like for you to buy that little fella for Luke, that I would.'

In that particular year, as a trial, the first Newmarket Yearling Sales had been held early, at the beginning of September. The Premium Sales, when most of the bluest-blooded youngsters would come under the hammer, were as usual at the end of the month. The colt Donavan had his eye on was due to be sold two weeks ahead, but unfortunately not only Donavan had his eye on it. The whole of Ireland and most of England seemed also to have their optics swivelled that way. Even allowing for Irish exaggeration, that colt seemed the best news of the season.

'Luke would want that fella, now,' Donavan said.

'I'll bid for it,' I said mildly.

He peered boozily into my face. 'What you want to do, now, is to get Luke to say there's no ceiling. No ceiling, that's the thing.'

'I'll go to Luke's limit.'

'You're a broth of a boy, now. And it's write to Luke I did, I'll admit it, to say you were as green as a pea and no good to man nor horse, not in the job he'd given you.'

'Did you?'

'Well now, if you get me that little colt I'll write again and say I was wrong.' He nodded heavily and half fell off the bar stool. He was never drunk on the gallops or at the races or indeed by the sale-ring itself, but at all other times- probably. The owners didn't seem to mind and nor did the horses: drunk or sober, Donavan produced as many winners year by year as anyone in Ireland. I didn't like or dislike him. I did business with him before ten in the morning and listened intently in the evenings, the time when through clouds of whisky he spoke the truth. Many thought him uncouth, and so he was. Many thought Luke would have chosen a smoother man with tidier social manners, but perhaps Luke had seen and heard Donavan's intimate way with horses, as I now had, and preferred the priceless goods to a gaudier package. I had come to respect Donavan. Two solid days of his company were quite enough.

When the flood of purchasing trainers and agents and go-it-alone owners had washed out of the town temporarily, Sim gave a brown short-necked filly a final work-out and afterwards rather challengingly told me she was as ready as could be to win the last race on St Leger day, on Saturday.