I Own the Racecourse! (14 page)

Andy sniffed the smell of ether and heard the fierce little engine sputter and whine.

‘Tail's right this time. That wing needs a bit more weight.'

‘It's not the wing. The engine's not dead even. I told you that.'

‘Well, we're not going to take it out again unless we have to, are we? Put a bit more weight on the wing.'

Andy listened, and watched the little plane fly free and brave above the railway arches. Not until the sun had gone and they were walking home did he speak; and then he called softly from behind.

‘Joe! Hey, Joe…you're the owner, aren't you?'

It was still early when he reached home, so he wandered out to the laundry to rummage in the cupboard under the tubs. There were no tools like those in O'Days' workshop; but he found a set of small spanners, an old rusted tin of paint, and a paintbrush with short, scraggy bristles. He took them inside to ask his mother if he might have them.

‘That old stuff?' said his mother. ‘I shouldn't think it's much good for anything. What do you want it for?'

Andy's eyes went vacant, and his mouth dropped open a little. His mother gave a tiny sigh.

‘Something the boys are making, is it? I had an idea you weren't seeing so much of the boys lately. You haven't had a row with them, have you, love?'

‘Mike and Joe had a row,' said Andy, frowning. Then he chuckled. ‘They made it up now.'

‘Oh, was
that
it? Well, at least it's soon made up. Take that old stuff if you want it, but don't make a mess for Mrs O'Day.'

Andy took his things out to the back yard and managed to prise the lid off the tin with one of the spanners. There was a thick, wrinkled coat on top of the paint, and under that a lot of yellow oil. He lifted off the scum with a stick and tried to stir it. It was very thick and heavy, but the stick came out fresh and white. He remembered the white rails at Beecham Park, and the white benches for the band to sit on. He kept on stirring the paint till his hand was tired, then tipped the rest of the oil gently off. He was chuckling, thinking how pleased the men would be if he gave those benches a fresh coat of paint. He remembered helping his mother to paint the kitchen table once. You had to give it time to dry. They hadn't been able to use the table for a day and a night.

He kept the little spanners in his pocket, where they jingled now and then as he moved. It was nearly as good as having a workshop, like the O'Day boys who could build a plane. He took the paint and brush down to Beecham Park on Wednesday afternoon when the gates were locked so that no one should see him at work. He wanted his painting to be a surprise for everyone, like the streamers. With the brush and tin stuffed into the front of his shirt, he climbed over the gate. The spanners jingled as he jumped down.

The big grandstand loomed over him, empty and stern. He had to dodge under the rails and cross the track to reach the benches. There were three of them. Their white paint was yellowed and stained with patches of rust and black. Andy frowned importantly at them and went to work. He did the job as quickly as he could, simply pouring the thick paint out of the tin and spreading it with his stubby brush. When it was finished he stood back and looked at it proudly.

‘That's wet paint, that is,' he said, and went hunting for something to make a sign.

He found an old sheet of cardboard against the fence behind one of the buildings and, screwing up his face intently, scrawled
WET PAINT
on it with his brush. He propped it near the benches, dropped the brush and paint-tin into a garbage bin, and climbed back over the gate.

By now it was growing dusk; and just as Andy reached the ground a voice spoke out of the dusk and made him jump.

‘What's a young feller like you doing in this place of wickedness?' said the voice. It was hollow and accusing.

‘Eh?' said Andy, staring.

A thin, angry-looking man was gazing darkly back at him, leaning against the wall. ‘Haven't you got nowhere better to go, boy?' he demanded sternly. ‘This here's no place for you. The abode of evil, that's what it is. You want to keep away from it.'

Andy laughed. ‘You're wrong there, mister. This is Beecham Park racecourse, this is. I thought everyone knew that.'

The thin man leaned forward, so that his pale face hung over Andy in the dusk. He was frowning. ‘You take notice of your elders that's sent to guide you, boy. This is the abode of evil, all right, and a snare for your innocent young feet. This is where the wicked man flourishes with his lies and deceits, taking the bread out of the children's mouths so that he can ride around in his big car, all black and shiny. You don't want to let him catch you. You keep away from here.'

Andy was troubled. ‘I never seen him, mister. I got a lot of good friends here. Are you sure you got the right place?' He could tell from the pale, stern face that the man was sure, so he went on quickly. ‘I'll watch out for that feller with the big black car. If I see him I'll set Bert Hammond on him.
He'll
fix him.'

This promise did not seem to calm the angry man. ‘I've warned you, young feller,' he began. Andy could see there was only one way to end the argument, so he took it at once.

‘I got to go, mister,' he said, and loped heavily away. The black dog with the hairless, leathery back came sniffing after him, and Andy clicked his fingers at it.

‘I never seen that chap, the one that takes bread away from kids,' he told the dog. ‘That other old bloke, he's got it mixed up somehow. Some other racecourse, that's what it is.'

Still, he meant to keep an eye open; but by next afternoon, when he strolled down in search of Bert Hammond, he had forgotten. He went through the open gate with only a secret glance and chuckle at the white benches with their warning sign. He had a sort of hope that no one would notice the fresh paint until Saturday night—and that then they would all notice and be astonished.

In fact, several people had noticed the benches already, but no one had inspected them closely. Drivers taking trotters round the course for training had seen the white paint as they saw everything about the track; but a patch of white had no importance to horses used to the movement and colour and lights of race-nights. The Secretary of the Committee had noticed with slight irritation, because it seemed to him that old Hammond was using paint and time without authority; but the Secretary was more concerned about last Saturday night, and whether the Committee would want to hear more about it. Why the men should suddenly want to hang streamers on the old stand and threaten to go on strike about it was more than he could explain. Time enough to worry about the unauthorized use of paint when someone asked to be paid for it. Bert Hammond had also noticed the paint with irritation, but Bert too had other things to worry about. If Marsden wanted to pay someone else to do work that Bert could have done in his ordinary time, why should Bert worry? He went on watering the garden while he thought about Andy and the men.

‘Made a sort of mascot of him,' muttered Bert, and wondered what he ought to do if the whole thing was going to get out of hand—until he found himself looking at the open, friendly face, the round blue eyes and the spikes of hair of Andy himself.

‘The onion-weed's dead,' said Andy, jingling the spanners in his pocket. ‘Will it grow again, Mr Hammond?'

‘Sure as fate,' said Bert gloomily.

Andy was surprised. ‘Don't you like onion-weed, Mr Hammond?'

‘It's not the
onion-weed
bothering me,' said Bert. ‘No harm in a bit of weed.'

‘Good,' said Andy simply, and began to pull out other, less favoured, weeds. Bert watched him, frowning while he searched for the right words. At last he spoke.

‘I reckon you're too young to own a racecourse, after all.'

Andy chuckled. Then he saw how sternly Bert was frowning. His eyes slid away and he made clumsy, defiant snatches at the weeds. ‘I got one already,' he muttered. ‘That's nothing, about being too young.'

Bert was brutal. ‘I reckon it's something. I reckon you're a lot too young. You can't look after a racecourse.'

Andy turned on him stormily, eyebrows drawn down, for he had never expected to be attacked by Bert Hammond. ‘You shut up!' he raged.
‘You
don't own it! You ask anyone,
they'll
tell you if I'm the owner.'

This was only too true; and while Bert looked for an answer, Andy's rage faded. ‘See, I bought it,' he insisted in a hurt, lost voice.

Bert's face softened in spite of himself. ‘That's not enough, just buying it,' he said. ‘Nobody owns a racecourse all by himself. Nobody owns much all by himself, and that's a fact. You take a racecourse—what's the good of it without the trainers bringing their dogs and horses? And the people paying to come and watch? You got to look after it right, or they won't come—and then what have you got? A bit of land, maybe, and a few old buildings; but you haven't got a racecourse.'

‘They come, don't they? Gee, a whole lot of them come every time!'

‘You go fooling around with coloured streamers, turning the place into a toyshop, and they won't. They'll soon get tired of that. A racecourse isn't meant to be a toyshop.'

‘Those streamers, they
liked
'em. Everyone liked 'em, you ask anyone.'

‘In the Leger they might have thought it was a joke, but they didn't like it in the stand. The Committee didn't like it.'

Andy bent over the weeds, yanking them out vigorously. ‘You can't tell,' he muttered. ‘That's what it is.'

‘Of course you can't,' Bert agreed heartily. ‘You got to be at it for years, like me. You come and ask me, every single time, and I'll put you right.' After all, he thought, it was the men who caused the trouble. No use blaming the kid.

Andy thought uneasily of the band's seats; but it was too late to ask Bert about those now. Besides, he was still bitterly hurt by Bert's attack when everyone else had been so pleased with the streamers. He stood up and wandered off by himself along the rails, muttering resentfully.
‘He's
not the owner. He needn't go for me.' He walked on, inspecting the rails closely, examining the way they were bolted to their uprights, trying the spanners on the nuts to see if they would fit. One spanner fitted. He tugged at it, tightening nuts that were already tight.

‘What are you doing
now
?' shouted Bert nervously. He was winding up the hose and keeping an eye on Andy.

‘Nothing,' shouted Andy, tugging at another nut.

‘That can't hurt,' muttered Bert. Mumbling to himself, Andy dodged under the rail and across the track, out of sight.

Beyond the inner rail lay the grass track where the greyhounds ran, and here were the rails along which, like a train on its lines, ran the bogey that drew the mechanical hare. There were nuts here too, and Andy tugged at one or two. Suddenly he was tired of being here, angry and hurt. He went back through the rails and started to go home.

He looked at the benches as he passed. ‘That'll be all right,' he muttered. ‘Those seats, they were white before.' Then he paused in the gateway, shoulders humped and hands in pockets, jingling his spanners. Bert Hammond was putting the rolled-up hose away in a shed. Andy went loping quickly to the benches.

The fresh paint stared at him accusingly. It had wrinkled a little here and there, but he touched it with his finger and it felt quite dry. Stealthily, he crushed the cardboard sign into a small, crumpled bundle and slipped away with it, out of the gate.

He didn't go back to Beecham Park until Saturday night, for he was truly offended with Bert. Instead, he spent his spare time watching his friends fly Joe's model plane. He was fascinated by the plane, so alive and tricky, attacking the air so fiercely and coming down so dangerously; but on Saturday night, when the drone of bigger motors sounded in the street and the giant voice from Beecham Park spoke into the room, he remembered Bert Hammond frowning at him, and the band's seats. He slipped quietly away, going by the alley and the vacant ground where the stray cats lived.

There were two men there, standing near the stairs in the glow of the sunset and gazing down at the walls and gateways of the racecourse. Andy tried to pass quietly behind them, but they must have heard him. They swung round.

‘Here's the kid,' said one of them sharply. Then he spoke to Andy in a hearty, friendly voice. ‘Here's the owner himself. You
are
the owner, aren't you, mate?'

‘That's me,' said Andy, shuffling his feet. The two sharp faces, smiling so widely, made him feel uncomfortable, but they were standing between him and the stairs. ‘I gotta go now,' he said tentatively; but the men didn't move.

‘Fancy that, now, Tom,' said one of them to the other. ‘The owner himself, a young chap like this. Of course I'd heard about it; but I'd never have believed it, would you?'

‘Not me,' said Tom. ‘Going down to keep an eye on the place, are you, mate?' Andy shuffled his feet again.

The first man laughed. ‘Of course he is, Tom, he has to! Can't run a place like this without keeping an eye on it. Grounds, track, kennels, stables, feedstalls—he's into everything, this young chap. That's right, son?' When Andy only stared at him, he repeated the question sharply. ‘Go where you like down there, don't you?'

‘I can if I like,' said Andy. He didn't like these two smiling men.

‘I bet you can. Know all the horses, too, I bet. Now I wonder if you know Fair Lady? I've got a special interest in her—known her since a filly—friend of her owner.'

Andy did know Fair Lady. ‘Reg Watson drives her,' he said.

‘That's right, that's her. My word, you might be able to do me a little favour if you've got a minute to spare. I'm in a bit of a rush myself, got to go off to the country, so I'm just a bit squeezed for time. Now, I always go and see Fair Lady before a race and take her a little snack—aniseed, that's what she likes, mixed in a bit of mash. Well, being a bit rushed tonight, I just can't make it, and I'm afraid it might put her off her race if she doesn't get her aniseed. She looks forward to it, see? Well, I know a lot of people wouldn't worry about a thing like that, but that's not me. I do worry. Wouldn't be fair if she lost her race on my account, would it? Now, if you could take it down for me—I've got it here—and just put it in her feedstall—would you do that?' The man held out a small package.