that woman who the hell was she? asking questions... If he married her, of course, it wouldn't be for long: only as a last resort to close her mouth and give him time. He didn't want that relationship with anyone: the double bed, the intimacy, it sickened him like the idea of age. He crouched in the corner away from where the ticking pierced the seat, vibrating up and down in bitter virginity. To marry it was like ordure on the hands.
'Where's Dallow and Cubitt?' Spicer asked.
'I didn't want them here today,' the Boy said.
'We've got something to do today the mob are better out of.' Like a cruel child who hides the dividers behind him, he put his hand with spurious affection on Spicer's arm. 'I don't mind telling you. I'm going to make it up with Colleoni. I wouldn't trust them. They are violent. You and I, we'll handle it properly between us.'
'I'm all for peace,' Spicer said. 'I always have been.'
The Boy grinned through the cracked windscreen at the long disorder of cars. 'That's what I'm going to arrange,' he said.
'A peace that lasts,' Spicer said.
'No one's going to break this peace,' the Boy said.
The faint singing died in the dust and the bright sun: a final bride, a final bouquet, a word which sounded like 'wreath.'
'How do you set about getting married?' the Boy unwillingly asked. 'If you've got to in a hurry?'
'Not so easy for you,' Spicer said. 'There's your age.' He ground the old gears as they climbed a final spur towards the white enclosure on the chalky soil, the gipsy vans. 'I'd have to think about it.'
'Think quick,' the Boy said. 'You don't forget you're clearing out tonight.'
'That's right,' Spicer said. Departure made him a little sentimental. 'The eight-ten. You ought to see that pub. You'd be welcome. Nottingham's a fine town. It'll be good to rest up there awhile. The air's fine, and you couldn't ask for a better bitter than you get at the Blue Anchor.' He grinned. 'I forgot you didn't drink.'
'Have a good time,' the Boy said.
'You'll be always welcome, Pinkie.'
They rolled the old car up into the park and got out.
The Boy passed his arm through Spicer's. Life was good walking outside the white sun-drenched wall past the loudspeaker vans, the man who believed in a second coming, towards the finest of all sensations, the infliction of pain. 'You're a fine fellow, Spicer,' the Boy said, squeezing his arm, and Spicer began to tell him in a low friendly confiding way all about the Blue Anchor. 'It's not a tied house,' he said; 'they've a reputation. I've always thought when I'd made enough money I'd go in with my friend. He still wants me to.
I nearly went when they killed Kite.'
'You get scared easy, don't you?' the Boy said. The loudspeakers on the vans advised them whom to put their money with, and gipsy children chased a rabbit with cries across the trampled chalk. They went down into the tunnel under the course and came up into the light and the short grey grass sloping down by the bungalow houses to the sea. Old race cards rotted into the chalk: 'Barker Will Bet You,' a smug smiling nonconformist face printed in yellow; 'Don't Worry, I Pay,' and old tote tickets among the stunted plantains. They went through the wire fence into the halfcrown enclosure. 'Have a glass of beer, Spicer,' the Boy said, pressing him on.
'Why, that's good of you, Pinkie. I wouldn't mind a glass,' and while he drank it by the wooden trestles, the Boy looked down the line of bookies. There were Barker and Macpherson and George Beale ('The Old Firm') and Bob Tavell of Clapton, all the familiar faces, full of blarney and fake good-humour. The first two races had been run; there were long queues at the tote windows. The sun lit the white Tattersall stand across the course, and a few horses galloped by to the start. 'There goes General Burgoyne,' a man said, 'he's restless,' starting off to Bob Tavell's stand to cover his bet. The bookies rubbed out and altered the odds as the horses went by, their hoofs padding like boxing gloves on the turf.
'You going to take a plunge?' Spicer asked, finishing his Bass, blowing a little gaseous malted breath towards the bookies.
'I don't bet,' the Boy said.
'It's the last chance for me,' Spicer said, 'in good old Brighton. I wouldn't mind risking a couple of nicker. Not more. I'm saving my cash for Nottingham.'
'Go on,' the Boy said, 'have a good time while you can.'
They walked down the row of bookies towards Brewer's standj there were a lot of men about. 'He's doing good business,' Spicer said. 'Did you see the Merry Monarch? He's going up,' and while he spoke, all down the line the bookies rubbed out the old sixteento-one odds. 'Ten to one,' Spicer said.
'Have a good time while you're here,' the Boy said.
'Might as well patronise the old firm,' Spicer said, detaching his arm and walking across to Tate's stand.
The Boy smiled. It was as easy as shelling peas. ' Memento Mori,' Spicer said, coming away card in hand.
'That's a funny name to give a horse. Five to one, for a place. What does Memento Mori mean?'
'It's foreign,' the Boy said. 'Black Boy's shortening.'
'I wish I'd covered myself with Black Boy,' Spicer said. 'There was a woman down there saying she'd put a pony on Black Boy. It sounds crazy to me. But think if he wins,' Spicer said. 'My God, what wouldn't I do with two hundred and fifty pounds? I'd take a share in the Blue Anchor straight away. You wouldn't see me back here,' he said, staring round at the brilliant sky, the dust over the course, the torn betting cards and the short grass towards the slow dark sea beneath the down.
'Black Boy won't win,' the Boy said. 'Who was it put the pony on?'
'Some polony or other. She was over there at the bar. Why don't you have a fiver on Black Boy? Have a bet for once to celebrate?'
'Celebrate what?' the Boy said quickly.
'I forgot,' Spicer said. 'This holiday's perked me up, so's I think everyone's got something to celebrate.'
'If I did want to celebrate,' the Boy said, 'it wouldn't be with Black Boy. Why, that used to be Fred's favourite. Said he'd be a Derby winner yet. I wouldn't call that a lucky horse,' but he couldn't help watching him canter up by the rails: a little too young, a little too restless. A man on top of the half-crown stand signalled with his hand to Bob Tavell of Clapton and a tiny man who was studying the ten-shilling enclosure through binoculars suddenly began to saw the air, to attract the attention of the Old Firm. 'There,' the Boy said, 'what did I tell you? Black Boy's going down again.'
'Twelve to one Black Boy, twelve to one,' George Beale's representative called, and 'They're off,' somebody said. People pressed out from the refreshment booth towards the rails carrying glasses of Bass and currant buns. Barker, Macpherson, Bob Tavell, all wiped the odds from their boards, but the Old Firm remained game to the last: 'Fifteen to one on Black Boy'; while the little man made masonic passes from the top of the stand. The horses came by in a bunch, with a sharp sound like splintering wood, and were gone. 'General Burgoyne,' somebody said, and somebody said: 'Merry Monarch.' The beer drinkers went back to the trestle boards and had another glass, and the bookies put up the runners in the four o'clock and began to chalk a few odds.
'There,' the Boy said, 'what did I tell you? Fred never knew a good horse from a bad one. That crazy polony's dropped a pony. It's not her lucky day.
Why ' but the silence, the inaction after a race is run and before the results go up, had a daunting quality. The queues waited outside the totes: everything on the course was suddenly still, waiting for a signal to begin again; in the silence you could hear a horse whinny all the way across from the weighing-in. A sense of uneasiness gripped the Boy in the quiet and the brightness. The soured false age, the concentrated and limited experience of the Brighton slum, drained out of him. He wished he had Cubitt there and Dailow. There was too much to tackle by himself at seventeen. It wasn't only Spicer. He had started something on Whit Monday which had no end. Death wasn't an end--the censer swung and the priest raised the Host, and the loudspeaker intoned the winners: 'Black Boy.
Memento Mori. General Burgoyne.'
'By God,' Spicer said, 'I've won! Memento Mori for a place,' and remembering what the Boy had said, he added: 'And she's won too. A pony. What a break!
Now what about Black Boy?' Pinkie was silent. He told himself: Fred's horse. If I was one of those crazy geezers who touch wood, throw salt, won't go under ladders, I might be scared to Spicer plucked at him. 'I've won, Pinkie. A tenner.
