'Holy hell!' he said explosively.
'Good,' I said cheerfully.
'You wouldn't trust me then?'
'Not as far as I could throw that wardrobe.'
'What other impressions do I make on you? Would you give me a job?'
'You wouldn't get through the front door here, for a start. Basement entrance, if any. I'd check your references carefully before I took you on; and I don't think I'd have you at all if I wasn't desperate.
You look shifty. and a bit. well. almost dangerous. '
I unzipped the leather jacket and let it flap open, showing the checked shirt collar and tan pullover underneath. The effect was altogether sloppier.
'How about now?' I asked.
He put his head on one side, considering.
'Yes, I might give you a job now. You look much more ordinary. Not much more honest, but less hard to handle.'
'Thank you, Terence. That's exactly the note, I think. Ordinary but dishonest.' I smiled with pleasure.
'I'd better be on my way.'
'You haven't got anything of your own with you?'
'Only my watch,' I assured him.
'Fine,' he said.
I noticed with interest that for the first time in four days he had failed to punctuate any sentence with an easy, automatic 'sir', and when I picked up the cheap suitcase he made no move to take it from me and carry it himself, as he had done with my grip when I arrived.
We went downstairs to the street door where I shook hands with him and thanked him for looking after me so well, and gave him a five-pound note. One of October's. He took it with a smile and stood with it in his hand, looking at me in my new character.
I grinned at him widely.
'Goodbye Terence.'
'Goodbye, and thank you… sir,' he said; and I walked off leaving him laughing.
The next intimation I had that my change of clothes meant a violent drop in status came from the taxi driver I hailed at the bottom of the square. He refused to take me to King's Cross station until I had shown him that I had enough money to pay his fare. I caught the noon train to Harrogate and intercepted several disapproving glances from a prim middle-aged man with frayed cuffs sitting opposite me. This was all satisfactory, I thought, looking out at the damp autumn countryside flying past;
this assures me that I do immediately make a dubious impression. It was rather a lop-sided thing to be pleased about.
From Harrogate I caught a country bus to the small village of Slaw, and having asked the way walked the last two miles to October's place, arriving just before six o'clock, the best time of day for seeking work in a stable.
Sure enough, they were rushed off their feet: I asked for the head lad, and he took me with him to Inskip, who was doing his evening round of inspection.
Inskip looked me over and pursed his lips. He was a stingy, youngish man with spectacles, sparse sandy hair, and a sloppy-looking mouth.
'References?' In contrast, his voice was sharp and authoritative.
I took the letter from October's Cornish cousin out of my pocket and gave it to him. He opened the letter, read it, and put it away in his own pocket.
'You haven't been with racehorses before, then?'
'No.'
'When could you start?'
'Now.' I indicated my suitcase.
He hesitated, but not for long.
'As it happens, we are short-handed.
We'll give you a try. Wally, arrange a bed for him with Mrs. Allnut, and he can start in the morning. Usual wages,' he added to me, 'eleven pounds a week, and three pounds of that goes to Mrs. Allnut for your keep. You can give me your cards tomorrow. Right?'
'Yes,' I said: and I was in.
CHAPTER THREE
I edged gently into the life of the yard like a heretic into heaven, trying not to be discovered and flung out before I became part of the scenery. On my first evening I spoke almost entirely in monosyllables, because I didn't trust my new accent, but I slowly found out that the lads talked with such a variety of regional accents themselves that my cockney-Australian passed without comment.
Wally, the head lad, a wiry short man with ill-fitting dentures, said I was to sleep in the cottage where about a dozen unmarried lads lived, beside the gate into the yard. I was shown into a small crowded upstairs room containing six beds, a wardrobe, two chests of drawers, and four bedside chairs; which left roughly two square yards of clear space in the centre. Thin flowered curtains hung at the window, and there was polished linoleum on the floor.
My bed proved to have developed a deep sag in the centre over the years, but it was comfortable enough, and was made up freshly with white sheets and grey blankets. Mrs. AUnut, who took me in without a second glance, was a round, cheerful little person with hair fastened in a twist on top of her head. She kept the cottage spotless and stood over the lads to make sure they washed. She cooked well, and the food was plain but plentiful. All in all, it was a good billet.
I walked a bit warily to start with, but it was easier to be accepted and to fade into the background than I had imagined.
Once or twice during the first few days I stopped myself just in time from absent-mindedly telling another lad what to do; nine years' habit died hard. And I was surprised, and a bit dismayed, by the subservient attitude everyone had to Inskip, at least to his face: my own men treated me at home with far more familiarity. The fact that I paid and they earned gave me no rights over them as men, and this we all clearly understood. But at Inskip's, and throughout all England, I gradually realized, there was far less of the almost aggressive egalitarianism of Australia. The lads, on the whole, seemed to accept that in the eyes of the world they were of secondary importance as human beings to Inskip and October. I thought this extraordinary, undignified, and shameful. And I kept my thoughts to myself.
Wally, scandalized by the casual way I had spoken on my arrival, told me to call Inskip 'Sir' and October ' My lord' and said that if I was a ruddy Communist I
could clear off at once: so I quickly exhibited what he called a proper respect for my betters.
On the other hand it was precisely because the relationship between me and my own men was so free and easy that I found no difficulty in becoming a lad among lads. I felt no constraint on their part and, once the matter of accents had been settled, no self-consciousness on mine. But I did come to realize that what October had implied was undoubtedly true: had I stayed in England and gone to Eton (instead of its equivalent, Geelong) I could not have fitted so readily into his stable.
Inskip allotted me to three newly arrived horses, which was not very good from my point of view as it meant that I could not expect to be sent to a race meeting with them. They were neither fit nor entered for races, and it would be weeks before they were ready to run, even if they proved to be good enough. I pondered the problem while I carried their hay and water and cleaned their boxes and rode them out at morning exercise with the string.
On my second evening October came round at six with a party of house guests. Inskip, knowing in advance, had had everyone running to be finished in good time and walked round himself first, to make sure that all was in order.
