I Own the Racecourse! (6 page)

Mike was shaking his head. ‘No. If it was a dog, he'd tell us.'

Evening came, and pale lights swung between tree-tops in the park. The boys went home through streets that were roaring and humming with the sound of cars and where white-coated men had sprung up like a crop of Saturday-night mushrooms. Later, when the giant voice was speaking with calm authority into every ear in Appington Hill, Andy arrived in the O'Days' back yard before it was half filled and drove everyone frantic with his impatience.

‘They're too slow tonight, aren't they, Mike? You won't wait for 'em if they don't come soon, will you? Don't you wish they'd hurry up, Terry? This is nearly enough now, isn't it?'

‘Stand in that corner,' said Mike, exasperated, ‘and don't move or
talk
.'

At last the yard was filled. ‘Coming, Terry? You coming, Joe? Hey, Matt!' For once, Andy's friends followed him; and he swelled with pride and mystery as he led them, with many quiet chuckles, through the darkening streets. Halfway along the little passage he stopped suddenly, made shy by the very importance of his secret. ‘You're my friends,' he reminded them. ‘That's why I'm showing you.'

‘Get on with it, then,' said Mike unsympathetically.

They groped their way out to the cliff-top, and Andy felt the presence of shadowy forms on verandahs. ‘Sh-sh,' he whispered mysteriously, and led the way down the rocks.

None of the others had the least idea of what was coming. Then Andy said ‘There!' and threw out a hand to the wide circle of brilliance and movement below, they stared in a puzzled way. Andy sat on a rock shelf and chuckled in the dark. ‘That's it,' he said at last, peering at them. Reflected light from below washed faintly over their faces. He could see that they were still mystified. ‘It's mine,' he explained. ‘I bought it.' He stood up suddenly and leaned forward in the night, clinging with his hands to the cliff-face. ‘
I own Beecham Park!
' cried Andy triumphantly.

The other boys were completely silent. Andy chuckled and gazed, and chuckled again. On the splendid stage below, the crowd drifted and swirled; the bookmakers shouted; the band marched and played.

‘Three dollars and cheap at the price,' said Andy. ‘I only got two in my box. I had to get another one.' He was talking dreamily, half to himself. ‘It took a time. Mum doesn't know I opened the money-box…Don't you wish it was yours?' He looked at the shocked faces of his friends. ‘You can come and look at it any time,' he assured them. ‘It's just the same as if it was yours.'

Still they were silent, unable to realize that Andy had bought Beecham Park Trotting Course for himself. The tide of people flowed away, the bookmakers sputtered, the great voice spoke out.

‘The horses!' cried Andy, his eyes wide in the pale, reflected light. ‘They're coming! Can't you hear their feet, Joe?'

The dark, shining horses whirled their jewelled drivers round under the floodlights. Andy watched them, his face alight with pride and love. This was his, this bright circle in the dark night. He had bought it for three dollars.

Around him on the cliff, his friends stirred uneasily. Matt muttered, ‘Cripes!' Terry was frowning. Mike and Joe exchanged a look, worried on Joe's side and stern on Mike's. It was clear that someone had ‘taken' Andy for three dollars, and that he was going to be let down. That was all that the two younger boys saw—and, with Andy's face dreaming in the dim light from below, that was enough. Mike and Joe were beginning to sense something more; some bigger problem, not so simple to grasp.

Joe tried once. ‘Look, Andy, you know you couldn't really buy Beecham Park for three dollars. It'd cost thousands and thousands.'

‘The old chap sold it cheap,' Andy explained. ‘A packet of trouble, that's what he said. He wanted to sell it cheap.'

Old chap! That was unexpected. Not some mean-hearted member of the high-school set, then; someone older, from whom Andy should have been safe. ‘Cunning old coot,' muttered Terry, and spat.

Andy turned to them, full of delight, the spikes of hair standing up on the back of his head. ‘Good, isn't it?' he breathed.

‘I can't stand this,' muttered Mike. ‘Let's get out of here. We need a bit of time.'

‘Come on, boy,' said Joe, putting a gentle hand on Andy's shoulder. ‘Time we went home.'

Andy followed them up the cliff. ‘I'll show you tomorrow too,' he promised. ‘It's real quiet, and you can see the men sweeping her out.'

They saw Andy to his own street and watched him loping home. Then, since Joe's front yard was the nearest private place, they wandered that way.

‘We never should have let him loose for a whole week,' said Joe. Andy was a responsibility they accepted.

A woman came to a dimly lit door and shrieked,
‘Fred!
' At an upstairs window two men were shouting angrily. In the street a white-coated figure strolled among the cars.

‘We can't talk to his mother,' Mike pointed out. ‘She doesn't know he's taken the money from his money-box.' Since all their families and most of their friends had known each other for a long time and met very often, that seemed to dispose of all adult help. They filed through Joe's front gate and sat on the steps.

‘What do we want to talk to her for, anyway?' said Matt. ‘She can't do anything. Andy's been taken for three dollars, but I don't reckon
she'd
know who did it.'

‘If they get away with this,' Terry pointed out, ‘they'll be selling him the Harbour Bridge next.'

‘We'll have to see about that, won't we? Andy must know who he gave the money to. We'll have to find out from him.'

Terry smiled fiercely.

‘And how are you going to explain to Andy?' demanded Mike. ‘You saw him back there. Are you just going to tell him he doesn't own the place after all?'

‘Poor old Andy,' muttered Joe, beating his fist softly on the step. ‘He won't believe it.'

‘He'll get over it in a week or two,' Terry suggested. ‘If we take him gently till then, there won't be much harm done.'

For once Mike disagreed violently with his younger brother. ‘Don't be a lunatic! He'll go round acting as if he owned the place, making himself a laughing stock. Half the kids in Appington Hill will be having a go at him.'

Matt jumped up impatiently. ‘He
can't
really believe he owns Beecham Park! How does he think he's going to run it? All those tough types down there—
they'll
tell him pretty quick if we don't. He'll just have to listen to sense for once. I'll tell him myself tomorrow.'

‘You can try,' said Mike.

Matt was a little surprised to find the matter being left to him like this. He stalked home feeling important and very determined. He was waiting for Andy when he called early in the morning, and went out with him to the quiet streets.

‘Got to pick up the others,' said Andy happily. ‘I bet they want to come.' He headed for Joe's back gate, and Matt followed. Andy collected all his friends and took them down to the lower gate of Beecham Park to watch the men sweeping.

‘Quiet, isn't it?' he said proudly. ‘Not like last night.'

This was the moment, Matt decided. He caught Terry's glance and frowned importantly.

‘Look here, Andy,' he began, ‘where's your sense? You know you couldn't really buy this place for three dollars, don't you?'

‘I just did,' said Andy, smiling warmly and nodding hard.

‘You wasted your money, that's all. How do you think you're going to keep it going? Eh?'

Andy looked at him in a puzzled way and laughed uneasily.

‘Come on, snap out of it,' urged Matt. ‘How do you think you can run the place? What about those men, sweeping up the rubbish? They'll be wanting their money in a minute, won't they? What are you going to pay them with? Bottle-tops? And what about the men that water the track? And the ticket-sellers? You don't think they're going to run around doing your work for you for
nothing
?'

Andy thought deeply. A lot of people had bought tickets last night; and there were the men now, sweeping. ‘They
are
doing it,' he pointed out. ‘Look, I just showed you. You can see 'em, can't you, Mike? Can you see the men sweeping, Joe?' He nodded earnestly at Matt. ‘They're doing it, all right. See 'em?'

‘But what about the
money
?' shouted Matt.

‘Steady on,' said Joe. Andy's face was beginning to look stormy. He struggled for words, and tried to explain to Matt.

‘I
said
about the money already. I told you three dollars, and a long time getting that last one.'

Matt took a deep breath and tried coaxing. ‘Andy, old boy, three dollars is just crazy. Why, what about the new stand, the one they've just put up? That cost
thousands
of dollars, just by itself.'

Andy laughed delightedly. ‘He said I got it cheap! It was a bargain,
I
know.' He added kindly, ‘You don't want to worry about it, Matt. I got no more money, so I can't build no more stands. That one was there already.'

Matt gripped a handful of his own dark hair and looked helplessly at the others. They had been listening in a careful, judging way; and now Mike and Joe nodded a little. It was no good badgering Andy like this. Joe felt an urge to take him away from Beecham Park, to keep him away as much as possible and wait a little.

‘Where's the skateboard?' said Joe cheerfully. ‘It's time we had another go. There's that bit of road that goes below the case factory. It's pretty steep, and no one goes there at week-ends.'

They went to fetch the skateboard. Andy went with them quite happily, and watched for the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon he wandered off alone.

Once Matt had tried to talk sense to Andy and had failed, there seemed to be nothing else that could be done just yet. Matt fumed helplessly, Terry looked dark and scornful, but neither of them could think of anything to suggest. Mike waited grimly for a sign of any new mocking or teasing; for it seemed to him that the cruellest part of this whole cruel trick was that Andy should be made to look a fool—Andy, who couldn't help himself and would never hurt anyone else. Joe's idea, that they should try to keep Andy away from Beecham Park until he forgot his obsession, was the best that anyone could suggest; but it was not as easy to carry out as it seemed. There were so many things to do. It was easy to keep an eye on Andy when he was there, doggedly and loyally following them about. It was not so easy to find him when he was missing, as he often was these days. They always watched for him when they were passing the lower corner of Beecham Park, where the gate often stood open; and once or twice, when they thought of it, they went to the cliff especially to look for him. Yet they saw very little of Andy during the next week.

Andy was not trying to avoid his friends. He would have been very glad to have them with him, but he was too much occupied just now to spend his time following them about. Early in the morning, after school and in the warm evenings, he wandered about Appington Hill finding places from which to catch a fresh glimpse of his racecourse. So far he was content to look and admire, to see everything that happened, to possess it in his mind. There was still a shyness in the way he approached it—not the shyness of uncertainty, but a shyness brought on by the size and importance of his new world. He drifted quietly from place to place, finding vantage points on both the cliffs, from the height of Wattle Road, through gaps in the fence. Chuckling with pride, he watched the track being watered or raked, seats being repaired in the stands, horses training in the early morning. And he discovered the greyhounds.

In a vague way, he had always known that greyhounds as well as trotters raced at Beecham Park. Like everyone else in Appington Hill, he had often seen them being taken for walks: lean, high-arched creatures walking delicately on long, springing legs and wearing muzzles on their pointed snouts. On the nights they raced, the crowds were much smaller than those at the trotting meetings. The big grandstand remained empty and unlit, and the high whining of the mechanical hare went on and on until it became unnoticeable. Andy was hardly aware of the greyhounds until he watched them racing from his place on the cliff.

He liked the constant baying of the dogs, and the whining and bobbing of the hare. He liked the grass track that sprang up, vividly green under its own circle of floodlights, within the other track. He was amused and touched, chuckling to himself on the cliff, at the fierceness of the dogs straining to catch that little machine that could always put on just enough speed to stay in front; and at the solemn procession of men leading them out to race. Sometimes a fight would break out among the dogs being taken from the course after a race, but it never lasted for more than a moment or two. Andy would laugh hugely, mutter encouragement to the dogs, and admire the way their trainers handled them. On the whole he found greyhound meetings, or the training nights, more homely and interesting than trotting but not so brilliantly and splendidly exciting.

Even in the streets he began to watch for the gallant creatures that used his racecourse. In the morning he might see one of the horses returning from its training, lively and gentle amid the zooming cars and thundering trucks, drawing its gig with grace and ease up the steep hills that the people climbed so heavily and slowly. In the afternoon he would meet a greyhound with cold, remote eyes, straining against the short leash that kept it in check. Andy watched them proudly, and sometimes waved to the drivers or the people leading dogs. Often they waved back; for Andy's open, simple face was warmer and more interested than the faces of most boys. He was delighted when they waved. It seemed as though they knew he belonged.