Outside Chance (13 page)

‘Oh, no. It is just these horses still think they're at the races. They run round and round and one of them catches his foot and phoom! – the fence is down.'

As if to illustrate his report, one or two of the horses started to move again, snaking their heads at the others to get them moving, and suddenly the whole herd were in motion, streaming across the field to the fence and then turning at the last moment to run round the perimeter. Ben watched them appreciatively.

‘There's some quite nice stock there.'

Nico nodded. ‘Sadly it's not looks that win races, but something in here.' He put his clenched fist against his chest. ‘And none of these horses has it. Each one of these is somebody's broken dream.'

‘Why, Nico, you're quite a poet,' Ben teased. ‘Do you know where Jakob is?'

‘He's at the stables helping Tamás with the shire. The horse – how would you say? – he stepped on himself in the lorry.' Nico made the ‘s' in Tamás soft, as in sugar. ‘It is no problem but a stitch is put in; yes?'

‘I understand. I'll go and find him.'

Jakob Varga (pronounced Yackob) was a retired performer, now head trainer and part of the road crew, and he was the troupe member whom Ben
knew best. Tamás Istvan, his son-in-law, was a qualified vet as well as being one of the riders. Ben had a great deal of respect for this quiet man, having watched him perform an extremely delicate operation, under local anaesthetic, to extract a splinter from the vicinity of a horse's eye.

He set off in the direction indicated by Nico's carelessly waved hand, passing the towering horse-transporters, each of which provided travelling accommodation for four horses and three or four of the troupe. Static, the horseboxes were roomy enough to comfortably house one or even two of the horses, and they had generous living space for their human occupants.

He found Jakob and Tamás tending the massive grey shire in one of the loose boxes they were renting from the equestrian centre. The yard was a busy place, with what seemed to Ben a surprisingly large number of resident staff in evidence, their faces alight with excited curiosity over their exotic visitors.

‘Ben. We thought you had deserted us.' Of wiry build and somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, Jakob was no more than five feet seven inches tall, but it was five-feet seven of whipcord toughness. Shrewd black eyes looked out of a face with leathery brown skin, and his smile had a hole at its top right corner. He was the patriarchal figure among the Csikós, loved and respected by all, and the natural choice as group ambassador in dealings with press and the public. Ben had liked him immediately.

‘It's only been three days,' Ben protested. ‘How's the horse?'

‘He's good. Tamás has performed his miracles, as usual. Melles will be fit to perform tonight. Is that not so?' He addressed this last to his compatriot, who was packing surgical instruments away in his bag.

Tamás looked up and nodded with a slight smile.

‘Melles?' Again the soft ‘s'. Ben rolled the word around his tongue. ‘What does it mean?'

‘Big-chested. Like me,' Jakob joked, putting a hand on his upper torso. ‘Will you be here for the performance tonight?'

Ben said he would, ruthlessly suppressing any stirrings of conscience regarding his agreement to work for Truman.

‘Good, good. Come and watch Ferenc ride Duka.' He gave the big grey a friendly slap on the shoulder and came to where Ben waited, by the door. ‘This will be for you a big treat.'

‘It will be a big treat
for me
,' Ben corrected him, with a smile. Jakob's English was already better than many of the others' but he was keen to improve, and had asked for Ben's help as soon as they were introduced. ‘But you're right, it
will
be a big treat. Lead on, my friend.'

Ferenc Kovac – who, with his sister Anna, was the only member of the troupe who was not related to either the Bardus or Vargas – was schooling the white Andalusian stallion, Duka, in a sanded round-pen behind the centre's indoor arena. The area was ringed by several raised tiers of bench seating and covered by a felted roof supported on what looked like sawn-off telegraph poles; the whole effect was something like an
auction ring. Ben and Jakob slipped into seats two rows back and watched, for the most part in admiring silence, as horse and rider went through their paces.

The white horse wore only his workaday tack, his mane hanging in loose braids and his tail doubled up and bandaged to keep it clean. Ferenc also, in grubby jeans and a sweatshirt, was a far cry from the glamour of his showtime persona, but to Ben the effect was just as magical. Horse and rider moved in perfect harmony, performing the intricate moves with seemingly effortless ease, never giving a sign of the cues that passed between them. The cold wind whistling around the back of Ben's neck was forgotten and when, at length, they stopped in the centre of the circle and saluted an imaginary audience, he broke into spontaneous applause.

Ferenc looked up, apparently having been unaware of their presence, and repeated the bow.

Jakob and Ben made their way down to open the entrance gate as horse and rider made their way over, and Jakob called out something to Ferenc in his own tongue.

Ben saw a touch of annoyance flash across the rider's swarthy, hawk-like face, and he threw up one hand in a gesture of frustration.

‘What did you say to him?' he asked, stepping back slightly as Duka passed on his way out.

‘I told him the horse was a little stiff on some of his right turns; he was – what's the word? – pulling away, er . . .'

‘Resisting,' Ben supplied. ‘
I
couldn't see it.'

‘No, neither could I,' Jakob confessed,
laughing. ‘But Ferenc has the big head. If you praise him he becomes lazy and thinks he does not have to try so hard the next time.'

‘Who is the better rider: Ferenc or Nico?' In the few days he had known them, Ben had picked up on a thread of tension between the two and he suspected that Ferenc, who was the senior by some five or six years, envied Nico his position as star of the show.

‘Ah, now you could get me into trouble,' Jakob said, shaking his head. ‘I have for years refused to answer this question.'

‘It's not for the article, and I won't tell anyone,' Ben promised.

‘I suspect you already know the answer. Tell me, if I asked you the question, what would you say?'

‘I'm no expert and I couldn't really say why, but I think . . . Nico.'

‘Hmm. Actually, as riders there is little between them. Indeed, Ferenc is perhaps the more correct . . . er, sharp?'

‘Accurate? Precise?'

‘Yes, precise. But Nico,' his face softened fractionally. ‘Nico is the better horseman. He is a natural. He is not complete until he is on a horse. It is a God-given gift and it shines from him when he performs. It is something that you cannot teach. Nico has it and Ferenc has not; he knows he has not but I will never tell him so and he keeps hoping that one day . . .'

They were making their way back across the field in the general direction of the catering caravan as they talked. Passing the first of the
horse-transporters they heard a voice raised in what sounded like an angry growl, and a horse's chestnut rump backed rapidly into view just feet from the two of them. It was one of the Arab horses and it stopped with head and tail high, showing the whites of its eyes and stretching its top lip forward in obvious agitation. Hanging on to the other end of its lead rope was the man who'd been helping Nico earlier. As quickly as the whole thing had started, it was over. The handler had the horse under control and, patting its neck to relieve the tension, gave them a rueful smile.

‘Trouble, András?' Jakob enquired mildly.

András rattled off something unintelligible, adding in a tragic voice for Ben's benefit, ‘He bites me!'

Ben laughed as they moved on.

‘Vadas is a wicked horse,' Jakob said, shaking his head. ‘Vadas,' he spelt it out for Ben, ‘means “hunter”. You turn your back for just a moment and he will stretch out his neck and bite you. It is a big joke to him but it hurts a little.'

Ben, who was well-acquainted with the size of equine teeth, imagined it hurt a lot.

Beside the last lorry Ferenc was washing the sweat off Duka with a sponge. Relaxed, the Andalusian looked a shadow of his showy self. Jakob went across to speak to the horse, finding something in his pocket to feed to him. The damp, whiskery nose snuffled his palm for more.

Jakob looked round to where Ben stood, still some feet away.

‘He's handsome, is he not?'

‘Beautiful.'

Jakob's gaze lingered thoughtfully on Ben's face for a moment, then he turned his attention back to the horse, giving him another titbit before moving on to the catering wagon with Ben.

‘You interest me, Ben Copperfield.'

‘I do?' Ben said warily.

They had collected coffee and hot pies and were sitting at one of the plastic tables under the wagon awning. ‘Yes. You love horses – I can see it in your eyes – and yet you shrink from them. You seek them out but you don't want to be near them.'

Ben was taken aback.

‘It's a job, that's all,' he said dismissively.

‘There are other jobs.'

‘There are. But you're right; I do love horses. I think they're beautiful creatures but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to ride them.'

‘Have you never ridden?'

‘As a child. I lost interest.'

‘Did you?' Jakob's intense scrutiny was becoming uncomfortable.

‘Look, what does it matter? I'm here to do a job; I don't have to get involved with the horses; just write about them. And about you.'

The Hungarian nodded, lowering his eyes at last.

‘You are right. I was rude; you will forgive me?'

Immediately Ben felt remorse.

‘There's nothing to forgive. But you've reminded me. I do have a job to do and I ought to be getting some notes down.' He took a hand-held cassette recorder from the pocket of his fleece. ‘So, tell me about the Csikós.'

‘Csikós.' He pronounced it Tchikaush, as Ben had learned to. ‘It is the name given to the Magyar horse-herders. There is a saying in my country – “Hungarians were created by God to sit on horseback” – and we believe it is true.' Jakob sat back in his chair, successfully diverted and clearly happy to talk at length about his passion.

Ben sighed a secret sigh, placed the quietly whirring recorder on the table and prepared for the long haul.

The show that evening was the best Ben had seen so far. The arena was bigger than the one at their first venue and the facilities better. The troupe made good use of the extra space and had rigged up a dry-ice machine and better lighting. For the first time, Ben began to get a real taste of what it was that had made the Csikós the talk of the town all over Europe.

The show opened with low, greenish lights and all the untrained horses loose in the arena. First they were seen as just so many silhouettes shifting restlessly in the mist, then they were gathered and sent round at a gallop by one of the trained Spanish stallions, himself free and riderless.

Ben knew the herd consisted mainly of ex-racehorses, bought cheaply by Nico and Tamás a couple of weeks in advance of the troupe's arrival in England. They had chosen all geldings so the stallions wouldn't be distracted from their work, but they fulfilled no other criteria except for physical soundness and a basic willingness to mix with one another. Unbridled, though, and with long manes and tails flowing,
they gave all the impression of wildness that was necessary.

Two ridden horses joined those in the arena and what followed might have been described as an excerpt from some kind of equestrian ballet: ridden and loose horses whirling and running with supreme grace in the mist; the whole so well-timed it was almost impossible to believe that only three of the thirteen were actually under human control.

As the loose horses were allowed to escape from the arena and the three stallions came forward to make their bows, Ben joined in the rapturous applause with just as much enthusiasm as those around him. He was watching from a seat at the head of the arena, just behind the commentary position, which was manned by an overweight, retired rider called Emilian who had a flair for the dramatic.

The performance continued and, as before, Ben was enchanted by it all: displays by the three Andalusians, sometimes together, sometimes individually or in pairs; appearances by the two chestnut Arabs in the flowing robes and tasselled trappings of the desert; the novelty of Melles, the shire, performing quite intricate high-school moves with surprising grace; and Nico, garbed in black and silver, with a wide-brimmed black hat, aboard the magnificent black Dutch stallion, Bajnok.

András and Miklós – Nico's brothers – first on foot and then mounted, displayed mindboggling skill with the traditional twelve-foot-long bullwhips of the Hungarian herdsman. They then
returned later with one of the Andalusians to perform a clowning routine that disguised the difficulty of the vaulting they were doing.

A surprise for Ben was the sight of Nico's sister, Jeta, emerging first as an Eastern siren, veiled and mysterious aboard the mischievous Vadas, then later accompanied by Ferenc's sister, riding Duka and one of the other Andalusians, and exhibiting a skill and daring to rival their male counterparts.

It was clear that Jeta, like her brother, thrived on the charged atmosphere of the theatre. Dressed alike in sparkling costumes of scarlet and black, and riding matching white stallions, the two dark-eyed girls were intended to mirror one another as they performed the same routine in perfect synchronicity. In reality though, Jeta's sparkling presence drew the eye in a way that her co-star failed to. As they left the arena to tumultuous applause, Ben found that he'd been watching Nico's sister almost the whole time.