full length of any board. Planing with the right instrument, a rock-solid body holding a precisely aligned heavyweight blade honed like a samurai sword, is the sex of joinery. All the rest is mere companionship, satisfying but not ecstatic.
I woke up with the aircraft sharply tilted.
‘Bit of rain here,’ said the pilot. ‘Had a sorry on a strip like this up in Queensland. Looked good, nice grass. Potholes like bomb thingies under the stuff. Can’t see the bastards. Arse over kettle bout seven times. Well, three. Shakes you a bit. Rang the boss, he goes, “How’s the kite?’’ I go, “Bad, comin home on a truck, boss.’’ He goes, “Fine day for travellin, Donny.’’ Didn’t know that meant the arse. Liked that job.’
I closed my eyes again, resumed Father O’Halloran’s breathing exercises. Take-off had been hard enough. Landing tested every fibre. And found each and every one wanting.
I opened my eyes when we stopped. We were on an old racetrack, derelict grandstand on our right, patched up old rail to the left, all around us flat stubble lands.
‘Anythin else to eat?’ asked Mickey Moon.
‘Here to ride not eat,’ said Harry. ‘This McCurdie’s ready for us. Healthy sign.’
We got out and walked over towards the derelict grandstand where a Toyota four-wheel-drive and a horse truck were parked. Three horses were out, saddled: a big grey being walked by a plump young woman in jeans, two smaller animals in the care of teenage boys.
A man in his forties, greying red hair, came over, hand outstretched to Harry. They shook hands, an incongruous pair: small Harry, close-shaven, scrubbed, sleek hair, three-piece midweight Irish tweed suit, spotted tie, glowing handmade brogues; large McCurdie, toilet-paper patch on a shaving cut, finger-combed hair, grubby check shirt, stomach overflowing the belt that held up his filthy moleskins, scuffed, down-at-heel workboots.
‘Thanks for comin, Mr Strang,’ McCurdie said.
‘My pleasure,’ said Harry. ‘Introduce these fellas. Jack Irish, my lawyer, does the things I can’t do. Cameron Delray, does the things I won’t do. Which is not much. Mick Moon, y’might remember him, rode a few.’
‘Do indeed. Jack, Mick.’ We shook hands.
McCurdie took us around the horse handlers. The young woman, big, open, freckled country face, was his daughter, Kate. The small and sinewy boys were his nephews, Geoff and Sandy.
Harry and Cam studied Vision Splendid, walking around him. He was a big creature, placid and with the wise look older horses get.
Harry gave him a nose rub. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘best you can say, he’s got surprise in his favour.’
‘How’d you want to do it?’ asked McCurdie.
‘This track safe?’ said Harry.
‘Oh yeah. There’s twenty-two hundred rolled and walked every inch. Don’t risk me horses. Nor the boys. Grass’s a bit long, that’s all. There’s a startin thing we welded up down there at the eighteen hundred. Ten stalls. Well, they’re like stalls. Works pretty good.’
‘Ten,’ said Harry. ‘What’d ya have in mind?’
McCurdie scratched his head. ‘At the moment,’ he said, ‘I can’t remember.’
‘These three,’ Harry said. ‘Pretty forward.’
McCurdie nodded. ‘Other two racin at Gunbower Thursdee week.’
‘They friendly?’
‘Oh yeah. The old bloke’s the boss.’
Harry nodded. ‘Boots on, Mick,’ he said. To McCurdie, ‘Send em around the eighteen. Put em in four, five and six, the grey in the middle. These boys ride a bit?’
‘Ridin since they was little. Ride anythin. Fast work since eleven, twelve. Their dad was a jock, got too big. Tractor fell on him. Me sister’s brought em up on her own. We give her a bit of help.’
Harry nodded. ‘Mick’ll hang around the back. Cam tells me the horse used to like it just off the pace, bit of a kick at the end. Then he lost it.’
‘Got it back. He can kick.’
‘Tell the young fellas to try to drop him off in the last four, five hundred.’
McCurdie went to give the boys their instructions.
Mickey came back, booted, helmeted, sad as Hamlet. Harry put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Mick, few questions. This McCurdie reckons the old retired bugger can still street these youngsters. Now that’s good out here in the nothin. Could mean fanny in town. Relyin on you to rate him for us, say in a pretty ordinary eighteen hundred in town? Get the drift?’
Mickey sighed assent.
‘Settle in behind, stay out wide, don’t care for this rail. See how he handles the pace. He’s happy stayin with em, three, four hundred from home, see if he can show em his bum, shut the gate. He does that, it’s over. Bugger the post. And don’t flog him. He’s got the heart or he hasn’t.’
Mickey screwed up his eyes, looked as if he’d been asked to write a sonnet, a haiku, the preamble to a new constitution.
McCurdie hoisted the riders up, little flick, flick, flick and they went off like a small riding school group. Then he drove off in the Toyota to operate the gate.
‘Okay to get on the truck?’ Cam asked Kate.
‘Oh. Sure. Yes.’ She looked at him in a shy and electrified way that said all requests for permission would get serious consideration. At the very least.
Cam stepped onto the front bumper, walked up the horse truck, stood on the cab. From his inside suit pocket, he took binoculars, about the size of a compact disc, thick as a paperback. A thumb-button on the bottom activated a built-in electronic stopwatch with a digital display for the user.
‘Stroll down a way,’ said Harry.
We walked about a hundred metres and found an intact piece of fence to lean on. ‘Largely a waste of time this,’ Harry said. ‘Not like a race. Nothin’s like a race except a race. But you find out a bit about the animal. Mostly whether he wants to be the boss horse. Horse race’s just a stampede, y’know, Jack. Some horses always want to be the leader. If they’ve got the power, jockey’s job’s the timin. Get em there when it counts. Some want to but there’s not enough under the hood. Pick the right races, jockey can do a bit, place em, settle em, hope the others bugger it up. Then there’s animals just don’t want to. Give up. Happens with the best bred. Bugger all the jock can do. And some want to be boss when they’re young and then they say, stuff it. Great horses, they never stop tryin, but the opposition keep gettin younger. This one give it away early.’
Harry lifted his binoculars, an ancient pair, fifteen magnification, made by Steiner of Bayreuth. ‘There they go,’ he said.
When they reached the turn, about a thousand metres from us, Mickey Moon was following instructions to the letter, sitting well outside the second horse. The pace was good and the leader picked it up in the turn. In the straight, about six hundred out, the second horse went up to the leader and they came towards us stride for stride. Mickey moved Vision Splendid out a bit further, well away from the horse to his left.
At the four hundred, the second horse’s rider went for it, got a head in front, half a length, drew clear.
‘Time, Mick,’ Harry said.
Mickey appeared to hear the instruction, touched Vision with the whip, not a hit, just a wake-up call.
The response was immediate.
The big grey lengthened stride, put its head down, flattened, had pulled back the nearest horse within twenty metres, hunted down the leader in another thirty. Kicked past it, one length, two lengths, three, four, five, six, full of running.
Mickey straightened up, looked back at the horses behind him, began to rein in Vision. At the post, he was still three lengths ahead.
‘Game old bugger,’ said Harry thoughtfully.
Cam came up behind us, leaned on the fence next to Harry. ‘Not short of kick,’ he said, expressionless.
‘Today,’ said Harry. ‘Today.’
13
