Ashes In the Wind (20 page)

‘It’s not surprising there’s a Catholic backlash. It’s their turn after years of repression, years of famine, years of paying tithes to a church they didn’t belong to. We’ve only ourselves to blame.’

‘Perhaps, but I don’t have to admire the result. You know there’s an extended Dublin version of the Papal Index, and
Ulysses
is on it.’

‘
Ulysses
?’

‘James Joyce’s
Ulysses
. The most important novel of the twentieth century. I’ll send you a copy.’

As the guests leave, Chantal holds John’s hand for a moment. ‘I enjoyed sitting next to you. Can I come over again soon?’

‘Of course.’

Ulysses
adds another dimension to John’s self-improvement. He finds the book bewildering at first, perseveres and is picked up and carried along on the torrent of Joyce’s language, almost a foreign language, against the background of a Dublin he knew well. And he understands why the Dublin hierarchy banned the book.

Spurred on by Robert, he becomes more adventurous in his choice of reading. He finds in ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ the two lines Grania sent him on a postcard from the Gaeltacht:
Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still.

He still has the postcard tucked away in his wallet. The Cliffs of Moher have faded. This is his only tangible reminder of Grania Mannion, other than a dull ache in his right leg when it gets cold and a crooked nose. A faded postcard, an ache and a broken nose seem little enough to have left of such an intensity of feeling. The dreams and the nightmares both have gone.

Every Friday, two books arrive from Harrods in a cardboard box, in which the two that arrived the week before are returned. Only
The Critique of Pure Reason
, a suggestion of the Senior Tutor’s, goes back unfinished.

John spends at least one afternoon a fortnight in Oxford. Robert has become a good friend; they are drawn to each other by the common bonds of literature, racing and Ireland. Robert urges John to drop into Peckwater any evening, and this becomes part of John’s Oxford routine. He spends a lot of time buying books in Blackwell’s, and persuades his way into all the great Oxford libraries, Duke Humfrey’s in the Bodleian, the Radcliffe Camera, the Codrington in All Souls and the Upper Library in the Queen’s College.

‘They’re all wonderful,’ he says. ‘But Trinity is even better, and we have the Book of Kells.’

‘I wish my pupils were half as dedicated,’ says Robert. ‘We’ll make a scholar of you yet.’

‘On the same day that you become a racehorse trainer.’

They are talking over a drink in the Mitre Hotel.

‘I like it here,’ says Robert. ‘No undergraduates, not like the pubs. How’s my horse getting on?’

In spite of John’s attempts to put him off, Robert has bought a horse and put him into training in the O’Brien yard.

‘Picked him out myself – second in a selling hurdle at Stratford. Only paid two hundred pounds for him. The owner didn’t seem to mind seeing the horse go. He should make a chaser, don’t you think?’

The horse is a flashy chestnut with little else to recommend him beyond his colour.

‘He’ll need a fair bit of schooling,’ says John.

‘Just like you.’

John laughs. ‘Fair enough. But he isn’t going to win a Gold Cup.’

Christmas in the yard is merry; half the lads can’t or won’t afford the fare back to Ireland, Scotland or the North, and the owners’ contribution to the staff fund is spent on a mammoth lunch that begins at noon and ends well after midnight when the last lad lurches into the dormitory.

‘We’ve three runners tomorrow,’ says Tom. ‘Actually, it’s now today. You roust out the lads and get the horses ready. I’ll take Sandown, you take Huntingdon.’

Robert’s horse is having his first run over fences at Huntingdon. It is a modest novice chase with only seven runners. In spite of taking diabolical liberties with four of the twelve fences, the O’Brien apprentice sits tight and finishes third. Robert is delighted.

‘First time out and in the frame. I’ll get my money back in no time.’

‘Twenty pounds for third place. And you ought to give a fiver to Liam. Not many jockeys would have stayed in the saddle after the way your fellow uprooted the last fence.’

‘He’d have won if he’d jumped better – only ten lengths off the winner.’

Robert parts willingly with the fiver for Liam and spends the rest of the prize money on dinner with John at the Randolph in Oxford.

‘I wish all owners were as realistic and as easy to please,’ John says to Tom the next morning.

‘So do I. We’ve lost eight horses in the last month, owners either taking them to cheaper stables or else selling out altogether. The slump is beginning to hit racing, all right. Let’s hope Billy Vincent’s brewery holds up. Mrs V. telephoned to say she’d like to come over to see Knocknarea Saturday.’

Saturday is cold, overcast, with driving rain that now and again turns into sleet.

‘It’s the devil of a day,’ says John to Chantal Vincent. ‘You’d be better off with a cup of coffee in front of the office fire, and I can report back.’

‘You’ll do no reporting back, thank you very much. I’ve not got up at five-thirty and driven twenty miles for a cup of your rotten coffee. If Pinky can cope, so can I.’

Up on the downs there is no escaping the wind and the almost horizontal rain. There is barely a dawn, and it is hard to distinguish the horses as they come up the gallops out of the murk. They both dismount and stand in the lee of their horses. Chantal is soon wet and shivering; John puts a wing of his large poncho around her over her useless, elegant mackintosh.

‘I’m freezing,’ she says, holding out her hands, and he rubs them together between his own. Her head comes just below his chin. He is conscious of the softness of her shoulder and the smell of her hair.

As the last two come by, John says, ‘That’s Knocknarea, three lengths clear of a good seven-year-old, both giving it their all. He’ll be ready for Chepstow in ten days.’

Soaked through, they canter back to the yard and go into the office. There is a good fire. Chantal takes off her coat, jacket and sweater as John gives her a cup of coffee.

‘It’ll take me half an hour to dry out. I’ve a skirt and shirt in my bag, but everything else is damp. Do you mind?’

‘Of course not. You’ll have the office to yourself; Tom’s out with the second string. I’ll go and see Knocknarea rubbed down, talk to his lad. You can lock the door so you won’t be disturbed.’

Knocknarea, dried off and rugged up, is looking a good deal more comfortable than his owner.

‘He was hardly blowing at all at the top of the gallops,’ says his lad. ‘And the going was heavy.’

‘Give him some bran with his oats,’ says John, and goes out to check on the other horses.

After twenty minutes he goes back to the office, knocks twice, hears nothing and goes in. Chantal is by the fire in a cream slip that stops just above her knees; she turns her back to the door, but not before John sees the darkness of her nipples and pubic hair.

‘I’m nearly decent,’ she says, putting on her shirt and a wraparound skirt with her back to John. She turns around, smiling. ‘I’m dry enough now for the drive home and a hot bath. How was the horse?’

‘I’m sorry, I did knock. Knocknarea worked well up the hill, the lad says. He’s ready for Chepstow, but that’ll be a real test against some good novices.’

‘I’ll be there,’ and she goes past John, who is still standing by the door, pats him on the cheek and says, ‘Thank you for looking after me.’

J
OHN
IS
CONFUSED
and excited by holding Chantal’s hands on the gallops, the picture of her in her slip in front of the office fire never far from his mind. He talks to Robert when they meet in the week.

‘I’m hardly the man to ask,’ he says. ‘I’m a celibate history don. But there are two clear alternatives. Either she thinks of you as a son...’

‘Hold on, she’s not old enough to be my mother.’

‘All right, then as a friend. Or she’s attracted to you, and was very happy for you to see her naked in front of the fire.’

‘She wasn’t naked.’

‘She might as well have been in view of the effect it’s had on you. Anyhow, there’s only one way to find out. What’s the worst that can happen? “Mr Burke, I’m a respectable married woman.”’ This last in a high-pitched indignant voice as he slaps his own cheek.

John laughs. ‘Thank you for the rigorous analysis. You’re like the tipster in a two-horse race that tells me either of them can win.’

‘Here’s to the spirit of discovery,’ says Robert, and they clink glasses.

The big race at Chepstow takes place the following Friday. John travels down in the horsebox with George, unwilling to risk the Alvis on such a long journey. It is a cold clear day, and there has been a sharp frost, though not enough to call off the day’s racing. He meets Chantal in the owners’ and trainers’ bar, crowded and fuggy with cigarette smoke and damp tweed overcoats, the Welsh voices reminding John that he has crossed the Severn.

‘Anything to eat?’ he asks.

‘A brandy might calm my nerves.’

John produces the brandy.

‘Have you ever watched by a fence?’ he asks. ‘You get a completely different impression close up.’

‘Never. This is only the fourth race meeting I’ve been to.’

They watch the next race beside the big open ditch. The noise of fifteen horses thundering into the fence, the shouts of two or three jockeys at their mounts or their rivals, the long arc of the horses that stand back and jump big, the noise as some of them go through the top foot of the fence, leaves Chantal wide-eyed.

‘You were right, it is completely different from up there,’ she says, pointing to the stands. ‘Much more dangerous than I’d realized, much more exciting.’

In the parade ring, Chantal listens as John talks to Michael Molloy.

‘The going is good, slippery in places. The pace will be hot, so you can’t afford to lie out of your ground. He’s up against two good horses. We’d like to win.’

Michael Molloy nods, touches his cap to Chantal, is jumped up into the saddle by John and trots off with the other runners out of the parade ring.

‘Knocknarea looks wonderful. It must be that gallop in the rain. Oh, I do hope he wins.’

‘He’s ready all right, and we’ll see how good he is. I saw Maltese Cross win at Warwick. He’s a decent horse, and he’s got a good jockey aboard.’

They watch from the top of the stand. Chantal grabs John’s hand in hers and holds it tightly through the race. Knocknarea jumps well, barring a slight slip on landing four out, when Chantal buries her face in John’s shoulder for a moment. Three horses come together at the last. Michael Molloy sees a stride and asks Knocknarea to stand back. He lands level with Maltese Cross as the horse between them hits the top of the fence hard and loses two lengths. Knocknarea and Maltese Cross drive together for the line; Michael Molloy has the whip out, and at the finishing post it is Knocknarea by a head.

‘He did win, didn’t he?’ says Chantal, who has been shouting her horse home from the last fence.

‘A near thing, but I think he got up,’ and when the announcer confirms Knocknarea as the winner John is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and a warm hug. He doesn’t try to hide his own pleasure and relief.

Knocknarea returns to the winner’s enclosure, flanks heaving, nostrils flaring red, the marks of Michael’s whip visible on his quarters.

‘He looks exhausted,’ says Chantal.

‘George, go you and get him a bucket of water. I’ll walk him around. He’s had a real race, you can see that. But he won, and beat a couple of good ones. We’ll see how he is tomorrow morning.’

‘His jumping was perfect again,’ says Michael Molloy, face spattered with mud. He looks only a little less exhausted than Knocknarea. ‘I’ve not ridden many better.’

Chantal collects the winner’s silver cup and says to John, ‘We’re going to celebrate. I’ll give you a lift and we’ll have dinner on the way, if George’ll be all right taking the horse back on his own?’

‘George’ll be fine if he leaves now – it’s starting to snow.’

A few flakes have fallen and settled on the ground; the sky to the north is a level iron-grey.

‘I’ll put Knocknarea into the horsebox and meet you at the entrance.’

John sees the horse off; when Chantal pulls up outside the entrance to the racecourse she gets out of the car, tosses the keys to John and says, ‘Would you mind driving? I’m still too excited to concentrate. We’ll have an early dinner at the Rose Revived at Barton and beat the snow home.’

On the journey Chantal relives the race several times over. ‘Wasn’t that a fantastic jump at the last fence? He’s a strong jockey, Michael.’

‘It had to be if he was going to win – Maltese Cross matched him in the air. Knocknarea’s a Cheltenham prospect if he’s sound in the morning.’

As they park outside the Rose Revived, it has started to snow in earnest.

‘We’ll need to be quick over dinner; the snow’s definitely settling.’

‘Don’t be an old woman. I’m not going to let the weather spoil our celebration.’

She doesn’t; they share half a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Burgundy.

‘Do you mind if I order the wine? I’ve eaten here before. And I’m half French.’

John doesn’t mind. Dinner with an older married woman, but not old enough to be his mother, he reminds himself and Robert, is a new experience.

Chantal picks John’s hand up off the table, turns it over and traces the lines in his palm with her index finger. Her nail varnish is pink.

‘What do I see?’ she looks thoughtful and lets go of John’s hand. ‘A winner at Chepstow.’

‘I saw that too,’ says John, taking a gulp of red wine. ‘Tell me how you’re half French.’

‘My mother was the daughter of an admiral. The French navy is very grand, you know, they’ve long forgotten Trafalgar, and blame the Spanish for that anyway. She met and married, beneath her, my grandmother thought; she wanted a
duc
. Daddy was in the British Embassy in Paris, a career diplomat. They’re both in Berlin now. I went to school here, did some courses at the Sorbonne but didn’t graduate. My mother believed in educating women.’