Ashes In the Wind (22 page)

‘Ten o’clock?’

‘No women in Oxford colleges after ten o’clock. It has been scientifically established that ten o’clock is the moment when undergraduates, and dons for that matter, become unstoppably priapic. How’s my horse?’

Robert’s horse has finished well down the field in two races since his third at Huntingdon.

‘We think he likes heavy going. There’s a little conditions race at Newton Abbot in a couple of weeks that might suit him. If it rains continuously between now and the off.’

‘Excellent.’

Two weeks later they are at Cheltenham to see Knocknarea run in the Champion Novice Chase. John is too busy getting the horse ready to go to Billy Vincent’s box at the top of the grandstand, and the first time he sees Chantal with her husband since they became lovers is in the parade ring. Chantal looks smart, beautiful, distant; Billy has his arm through hers. They shake hands, then John gives Michael Molloy, who doesn’t need them, his riding instructions, and follows the Vincents and Tom O’Brien up to the box to watch the race.

‘It’s soft ground, softer than Chepstow, and this is a stiffer course,’ says John.

‘Four of the sixteen are in with a good chance,’ says Tom.

‘Including my boy?’ asks Chantal.

‘Including your boy. He and Maltese Cross are joint second favourites to Kilreckle, the Irish mare; she’s unbeaten in five starts.’

In spite of the going, the race is run at a fast gallop from the off; there are three early fallers, including the favourite. Two out, Knocknarea and Maltese Cross are together going into the fence. Knocknarea hits the fence hard, somersaults in the air and lies still; Michael Molloy is thrown clear. Chantal cries out and buries her face in Billy Vincent’s shoulder. John runs out of the box, down several flights of stairs and out onto the course to the second last fence.

Michael Molloy is sitting up, his right hand holding the top of his left shoulder.

‘Collarbone,’ says Michael. ‘He slipped on take-off. I think he’s broken his neck.’

Knocknarea is still breathing, surrounded by a little crowd that includes the course vet.

‘He’d be dead already if it was the neck,’ says the vet. ‘We’ll splash him with a couple of buckets of water, see if that brings him round.’

After two or three minutes and the water Knocknarea lifts up his head, tries to rise, falls back.

‘Give him a bit more room and time,’ says John, who holds the horse’s head down. ‘He’s badly winded, but he’ll be all right.’

Five long minutes go by, then with help from half a dozen men Knocknarea struggles to his feet.

‘I’ll take him to the box behind the stand,’ says John, and they walk slowly back, Knocknarea unable to put much weight on his off-fore.

They pass the winner’s enclosure, where Maltese Cross’s connections are still celebrating; their trainer comes over as John walks by. ‘Glad to see he’s up; he’s a good horse. I thought you’d lost him.’

John thanks him and they walk on; Tom is in the box, but there is no sign of the Vincents.

‘She was in a terrible state, she thought they were the both of them killed. Mr Vincent has taken her home. At least Michael’s not badly hurt, and the horse is alive.’

‘Alive, but feel the heat and look at the swelling in his off-fore. We won’t know till morning, but it’s probably a tendon. We may have to fire him and turn him out for a year. Let’s get him home.’

Back at Lambourn, John leads Knocknarea, still stiff and sore after the fall, into his box. Tom O’Brien runs his hand slowly down Knocknarea’s leg.

‘It’s filled up below the knee. Stand the leg in a bucket of cold water for an hour, and again in the morning. He’ll not see the racecourse again this season. Will you call the Vincents?’

John feeds Knocknarea and stays in the box for an hour to make sure that Knocknarea doesn’t kick the bucket over. Then he puts a bandage soaked in cold water around the leg, straps on a leather guard and goes back to the office. He rings Chantal; the phone is answered by Billy.

‘Mr Vincent, the horse is all right. Badly winded, and he took a while to get up. I’m afraid he’s damaged his off-fore, and it’ll be some time before he’s sound again, even if all goes well. Michael Molloy’s fine, apart from a broken collarbone. He’ll be riding again in three weeks.’

‘Thank you. I’ll tell Chantal. She’s very upset; she thought the horse and the jockey were goners, couldn’t bear to stay. She’ll be relieved – she’s gone to bed, taken a sleeping pill.’

John and Chantal don’t meet again for three weeks. And when Chantal next comes to the cottage John feels their relationship has shifted. They were brought together by the win at Chepstow; Knocknarea’s fall at Cheltenham seems to have pushed them apart.

‘We shouldn’t have run him,’ says Chantal. She sounds angry. ‘It was too tough, that race, that course in heavy going.’

‘Listen, he was alongside the winner two out, with plenty in the tank, according to Michael. He slipped on take-off. That can happen over a schooling fence. It was bad luck, and there’s plenty of that in chasing. Knocknarea could have broken a leg, or his neck. You’ve still got a horse, and he should be back for next season.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

When they meet at the cottage, they have dinner, share a bottle of wine, play some music, go upstairs and make love. They talk, but their worlds of racing and Oxfordshire society are parallel universes, and the early excitement has disappeared.

On one Thursday evening Chantal says, ‘I’ve got a plan for next weekend. Billy’s away in Amsterdam on brewery business, and our housekeeper’s on holiday. Can you get away? I’ll come and collect you on Saturday morning, and you can bring Bella.’

John can get away, and is excited at the thought of a weekend with Chantal.

‘We’re not going very far,’ says Chantal; when they turn in through the gates of the Vincents’ manor house, John is taken aback.

‘Have you forgotten something?’

‘We’ve the house to ourselves for two days. I couldn’t face being Mr and Mrs Robinson in some suspicious hotel, or risk running into anyone we knew. It’s very comfortable here, you’ll see, and at least I know my way around. And you’ve been able to bring Bella.’

The weather is fine, and they go for a long walk after lunch with Bella and Chantal’s lurcher Moss; in the evening they have dinner in a small candlelit dining room looking out over the park, and then move to the panelled library. John hasn’t dined in such splendour since he stayed with his grandfather after Derriquin was burned down.

‘I’ve looked up your grandfather’s house. Middleton Park was designed by James Gandon, painted ceilings by Zuccarelli, famous Italian plasterwork. You’re far more used to big houses than I am. We’re new money in Oxfordshire.’

‘That was a long time ago – I’ve been living above and around the stables ever since. I still worry I smell of horses.’

‘I like the smell of horses. Come upstairs and let me show you.’

Chantal takes him up to the master bedroom, and the large four-poster bed she normally shares with Billy. On the dressing table there is a silver-framed wedding photograph of the Vincents; Chantal turns it face down. She is stimulated by the thought of making love in this bed. John is not.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I know you’re another man’s wife, but sleeping with you in this bed seems...’

‘Look, he spends most of his time in his dressing room. It’s ages since Billy and I slept together. And a week since you and I made love.’

After ten minutes Chantal says, ‘Perhaps the guest bedroom would work better,’ and they go down the passage to an equally handsome room, but one empty of any traces of Billy Vincent. The guest bedroom doesn’t work any better, and over breakfast the next morning John apologizes.

‘Don’t worry. I understand,’ says Chantal, although it is not clear to John that she does. They are both quiet over breakfast. Chantal has to collect Billy Vincent from the airport at lunchtime, and her kiss is perfunctory as she drops John and Bella off at the cottage.

Since leaving Ireland John has kept in touch with Charles Burke, and young Charlie has travelled over with horses and stayed with John in Lambourn. Charles has encouraged John to return in a phone call the previous month.

‘Johnnie Mannion died last week of a heart attack. Big IRA funeral in Glasnevin. There’s no one else who’d be interested in you, and it’s all a lot calmer in Ireland now. Cis and I would love to see you again, and you’ll do a better job if you pick the horses yourself.’

‘You and Charlie have chosen well for this yard. But it’s time I came to see you, time I came back.’

John begins his return journey in Kerry – he has written regularly to Josephine, who is still teaching in Drimnamore. She bursts into tears when he arrives at the front door of her cottage.

‘I thought I’d never see you again; I thought you’d become English, that visiting Kerry and Drimnamore and Derriquin was too painful altogether.’

‘Too painful not to come back, it turned out. But I don’t want to see Derriquin.’

‘It’s still standing, it refuses to fall down. The hotel have built a little golf course in the demesne.’

‘Good luck to them. Is Ambrose still alive?’

‘He is, of course, and he’ll be happy to see you. He knows you’re the big trainer in England. Are you married yet?’

‘I am not. What about you? My mother always had plans.’

‘I’m on my own, happy, still teaching. I’m part of the landscape now. I haven’t been called the Doyle bastard for a long while. And Father Michael, he’s still going strong. He knows I’m not trying to turn his children into Protestants.’

John calls on Ambrose and Father Michael, then visits his mother’s and William McKelvey’s graves, both carefully tended by Josephine. He goes to church on Sunday and is asked to read the lesson.

‘That wouldn’t be right,’ he says to the vicar. ‘I’m visiting, I’m not coming back.’

From Kerry John makes the long journey up and across Ireland to Burke’s Fort, where his memories are equally strong, equally violent. He doesn’t ask Charles about Grania, and avoids the burned-out folly when he goes riding with Charlie, who knows enough to make the detour.

John borrows Charlie’s car to go to the sales at the Curragh and then on to County Carlow and Limerick to look at more horses. He buys an unbroken three-year-old from the Kavanaghs at Borris, spends an uncomfortable night in Limerick and in the morning goes to see three horses that Charlie has strongly recommended. He agrees a price for all three. Charlie has a good eye, able to see through the shaggy coats and muddied quarters of untried horses that are at best three-quarters thoroughbred and not in any book. Two of the horses are for Billy Vincent.

The road back from Limerick passes through Maryborough. John decides to drive straight through without stopping. Then changes his mind, parks outside the Post Office and walks around the town. He has no clear plan.

‘A railway station, two jails and the old District Lunatic Asylum is about the size of it,’ Charlie had said. ‘And they’ve changed the name – it’s Portlaoise now.’

‘I thought Mary was a Catholic.’

‘Bloody Mary was, this one was King Billy’s wife.’

Maryborough is ten times the size of Drimnamore, with a narrow main street of shops, bars, offices, two hotels and the ruin of an old bastion showing above the low roof line; John goes into a little square and sits for a while on a disused cattle trough. ‘Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association’ is carved into its side. He decides to go back to the Post Office. On the noticeboard there is a Mass card, the most recent among many, for Johnnie Mannion.

‘Much good may it do him,’ says John to himself.

John checks the telephone directory. There are two McCanns living in Maryborough, but only one Eamonn, at Cloonagh, Harpur’s Lane. He dials the number, but when it is answered by a male voice he hangs up. Outside the Post Office he stands on the pavement, knowing he should go back to Burke’s Fort. Instead he asks a passer-by the way to Harpur’s Lane.

Cloonagh is a large double-fronted detached house, one of a group of a dozen similar houses in what looks like Maryborough’s best address. John parks on the far side of the road, one house away from ‘Cloonagh’, sitting in the car for nearly an hour, afraid to do anything but watch. He is about to leave when the front door opens; Eamonn McCann comes out, followed by a woman and a small boy. They both wave him goodbye. The boy runs after his father, says something that John cannot hear, then runs back to his mother.

Grania is no longer the girl John knew in the Trafalgar Folly; she is a woman, still beautiful, even in a plain dress with a white kitchen apron. John feels a hollow in the pit of his stomach and turns his head away for a moment. When he looks back, the boy comes down the steps again onto the lawn, picks up a toy from the grass and goes back into the house. John can see that he is no more than three or four. Grania puts her hand on his head and closes the front door.

The boy is too young to be John’s child. Perhaps Grania miscarried, perhaps their child was adopted, or handed over to the laundry nuns. John is fifty yards away from an answer to these questions. It might as well be five hundred miles. He sits in the car until his heart stops pounding, then drives slowly back to the centre of town.

He goes into the office of the
Maryborough Gazette
on the other side of the street to the Post Office. It is cluttered, part editorial, part production, desks at the front, a small printing press at the back. He does some mental arithmetic, then asks the harassed young man who comes to the counter for copies of the
Gazette
for January and February 1925. The young man looks astonished.

‘Sure, we keep only the past year. The rest are thrown away. We’d have no room in the place else.’

John leaves the office, and as he turns to cross the road his eye is caught by the display of photographs in the
Gazette
’s window. They are typical of an Irish weekly – weddings, a fair, a traffic accident, the local school play. And in the middle, ‘Mr and Mrs Eamonn McCann, Cathleen and Diarmuid McCann at the County Show’. John looks carefully at the photograph, the four of them in their Sunday best, smiling a little stiffly. The girl looks as though she could be five or six years old.