For Kicks - Страница 26

Through the windows I saw no desk to investigate and no safe in which to lock away secrets: all the same I decided it would be less than fair to ignore his home, and if I both drew a blank and got away with an entry into the office, I would pay the house a visit at the first opportunity.

At last it began to thaw on a Wednesday night and continued fast all day Thursday and Friday, so that by Saturday morning the thin slush was disintegrating into puddles, and the stables stirred with the reawakening of hunting and racing.

Cass told me on Friday night that the man who owned the hunters I looked after required them both to be ready for him on Saturday, and after second exercise I led them out and loaded them into the horse box which had come for them.

Their owner stood leaning against the front wing of a well polished Jaguar. His hunting boots shone like glass, his cream breeches were perfection, his pink coat fitted without a wrinkle, his stock was smooth and snowy. He held a sensible leather covered riding stick in his hand and he slapped it against his boot. He was tall, broad, and bare-headed, about forty years old, and, from across the yard, handsome. It was only when one was close to him that one could see the dissatisfied look on his face and the evidence of dissipation in his skin.

"You," he said, pointing at me with his stick.

"Come here."

I went. He had heavy lidded eyes and a few purple thread veins on his nose and cheeks. He looked at me with superior bored disdain. I am five feet nine inches tall; he was four inches taller, and he made the most of it.

"You'll pay for it if those horses of mine don't last the day. I ride them hard. They need to be fit."

His voice had the same expensive timbre as October's.

"They're as fit as the snow would allow," I said calmly.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Sir," I added.

"Insolence," he^pa, 'will get you nowhere. "

"I am sorry, sjifi didn't mean to be insolent."

He laughed unpleasantly.

"I'll bet you didn't. It's not so easy to get another job, is it? You'll watch your tongue when you speak to me in future, if you know what'srgood for you."

"Yes, sir."

"And if those horses of mine aren't fit, you'll wish you'd never been born."

Cass appeared at my left elbow, looking anxious.

"Is everything all right, sir?" he asked.

"Has Roke done anything wrong, Mr. Adams?"

How I managed not to jump out of my skin I am not quite sure. Mr. Adams. Paul James Adams, sometime owner of seven subsequently doped horses?

"Is this bloody gipsy doing my horses any good?" said Adams offensively.

"He's no worse than any of the other lads," said Cass soothingly.

"And that's saying precious little." He gave me a mean stare.

"You've had it easy during the freeze. Too damned easy. You'll have to wake your ideas up now hunting has started again. You won't find me as soft as your master, I can tell you that."

I said nothing. He slapped his stick sharply against his boot.

"Do you hear what I say? You'll find me harder to please."

"Yes, sir," I muttered.

He opened his fingers and let his stick fall at his feet.

"Pick it up," he said.

As I bent to pick it up, he put his booted foot on my shoulder and gave me a heavy, over-balancing shove, so that I fell sprawling on to the soaking, muddy ground.

He smiled with malicious enjoyment.

"Get up, you clumsy lout, and do as you are told. Pick up my stick."

I got to my feet, picked up his stick, and held it out to him. He twitched it out of my hand, and looking at Cass said, "You've got to show them you won't stand any nonsense. Stamp on them whenever you can. This one," he looked me coldly up and down, 'needs to be taught a lesson. What do you suggest? "

Cass looked at me doubtfully. I glanced at Adams. This, I thought, was not funny. His greyish blue eyes were curiously opaque, as if he were drunk: but he was plainly sober. I had seen that look before, in the eyes of a stable hand I had once, for a short time, employed, and I knew what it could mean. I had got to guess at once, and guess right, whether he preferred bullying the weak or the strong. From instinct, perhaps because of his size and evident worldliness, I guessed that crushing the weak would be too tame for him. In which case it was definitely not the moment for any show of strength. I drooped in as cowed and unresisting a manner as I could devise.

"God," said Adams in disgust.

"Just look at him. Scared out of his bloody wits." He shrugged impatiently.

"Well Cass, just find him some stinking useless occupation like scrubbing the paths and put him to work. There's no sport for me here. No backbone for me to break. Give me a fox any day, at least they've got some cunning and some guts."

His gaze strayed sideways to where Humber was crossing the far end of the yard. He said to Cass, Tell Mr. Humber I'd like to have a word with him," and when Cass had gone he turned back to me.

"Where did you work before this?"

"At Mr. Inskip's, sir."

"And he kicked you out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"I… er…" I stuck. It was incredibly galling to have to lay oneself open to such a man; but if I gave him answers he could check in small things he might believe the whopping lies without question.

"When I ask a question, you will answer it," said Adams coldly.

"Why did Mr. Inskip get rid of you?"

I swallowed.

"I got the sack for er… for messing about with the boss's daughter."

"For messing about…" he repeated.

"Good God." With lewd pleasure he said something which was utterly obscene, and which struck clear home.

He saw me wince and laughed at my discomfiture. Cass and Humber returned. Adams turned to Humber, still laughing, and said, "Do you know why this cockerel got chucked out of Inskip's?"

"Yes," said Humber flatly.

"He seduced October's daughter." He wasn't interested.

"And there was also the matter of a favourite that came in last. He looked after it."

"October's daughter!" said Adams, surprised, his eyes narrowing.

"I thought he meant Inskip's daughter. " He casually dealt me a sharp clip on the ear.

"Don't try lying to me."

"Mr. Inskip hasn't got a daughter," I protested.

"And don't answer back." His hand nicked out again. He was rather adept at it. He must have indulged in a lot of practice.

"Hedley," he said to Humber, who had impassively watched this one-sided exchange, "I'll give you a lift to Nottingham races on Monday if you like. I'll pick you up at ten."

"Right," agreed Humber.

Adams turned to Cass.

"Don't forget that lesson for this lily-livered Romeo. Cool his ardour a bit."

Cass sniggered sycophantically and raised goose pimples on my neck.

Adams climbed coolly into his Jaguar, started it up, and followed the horse box containing his two hunters out of the yard.

Humber said, "I don't want Roke out of action, Cass. You've got to leave him fit for work. Use some sense this time." He limped away to continue his inspection of the boxes.

Cass looked at me, and I looked steadily down at my damp, muddy clothes, very conscious that the head lad counted among the enemy, and not wanting to risk his seeing that there was anything but submissiveness in my face.

He said, "Mr. Adams don't like to be crossed."

"I didn't cross him."

"Nor he don't like to be answered back to. You mind your lip."

"Has he any more horses here?" I asked.

"Yes," said Cass, 'and it's none of your business. Now, he told me to punish you, and he won't forget. He'll check up later. "

"I've done nothing wrong," I said sullenly, still looking down. What on earth would my foreman say about this, I thought; and nearly smiled at the picture.

"You don't need to have done nothing wrong," said Cass.

"With Mr. Adams it is a case of punish first so that you won't do anything wrong after. Sense, in a way." He gave a snort of laughter.

"Saves trouble, see?"

"Are his horses all hunters?" I asked.

"No," said Cass, 'but the two you've got are, and don't you forget it.

He rides those himself, and he'll notice how you look after every hair on their hides. "

"Does he treat the lads who look after his other horses so shockingly unfair?"

"I've never heard Jerry complaining. And Mr. Adams won't treat you too bad if you mind your p's and q's. Now that lesson he suggested…"

I had hoped he had forgotten it.

"You can get down on your knees and scrub the concrete paths round the yard. Start now. You can break for dinner, and then go on until evening stables."

I went on standing in a rag-doll attitude of dejectedness, looking at the ground, but fighting an unexpectedly strong feeling of rebellion. What the hell, I

thought, did October expect of me? Just how much was I to take? Was there any point at which, if he were there, he would say "Stop; all right; that's enough. That's too much. Give it up." But remembering how he felt about me, I supposed not!

Cass said, "There's a scrubbing brush in the cupboard in the tack room. Get on with it." He walked away.

The concrete pathways were six feet wide and ran round all sides of the yard in front of the boxes. They had been scraped clear of snow throughout the month I had been there so that the feed trolley could make its usual smooth journey from horse to horse, and as in most modern stables, including Inskip's and my own, they would always be kept clean of straw and excessive dust. But scrubbing them on one's knees for nearly four hours on a slushy day at the end of January was a miserable, back-breaking, insane waste of time. Ludicrous, besides.