I Own the Racecourse! Read Online Free

where the O’Day boys lived was lined with cars like all the others, and another white-coated man watched over them. Andy went beyond the street to the lane behind. Being unusually narrow and dark, with high back fences looming above it, there were only a few cars in it yet. Far down in the darkness Andy could see the light of a torch, as he had expected. He knew what the O’Day boys would be doing just now. Sure enough, their double gate was open, and Terry and Matt stood by it with the torch. There were six cars parked in the paved yard, and space for only one more. The back door was also open, and the long, lean form of Mr O’Day lounged in the doorway against the light. Mike and Joe were inside the gate, waiting for a seventh car to fill the yard.
    â€˜Lot of Sunday drivers,’ Mr O’Day was grumbling. ‘There’s room for nine or ten, if they knew how to park a car. Who’s that?’
    â€˜Andy Hoddel.’
    â€˜You get out of the way behind that utility, Andy.’
    Andy slipped into the safe corner that Mike showed him, and waited. The enticing of cars into the O’Days’ back yard on race nights was to him a business venture as important and exciting as anything that went on in the city. Headlights crept into the lane, and Terry began to beckon with the torch. The car approached, turned in, and was directed by Mike to its place under the rotary clothesline. As the driver dimmed his lights, and as Mr O’Day came down towards him, Mike muttered, ‘That’s the lot. Let’s go.’ Terry pushed the torch into his father’s hand. They went out to the lane.
    The apricot light had faded into dusk. Pavements had become narrow alleys between front fences and lines of parked cars. In Blunt Street, where the skateboard had gone dipping and singing in the quiet afternoon, the gates and ticket windows of Beecham Park were open and people came and went in little groups. Bus after bus turned into Wattle Road. A horse-float came slowly down the hill. The tops of the grandstands, where they showed above the wall, were edged with golden drops of light from strings of electric bulbs. The wordless hum of many voices was drowned by the voice from the amplifiers. Beginning with calm authority it passed into a chant, mounted to a frenzy, and was drowned in the roaring of a crowd.
    â€˜Looks like a big night,’ said Joe knowledgeably. They wandered to two or three points from which they might see into the course, but as usual every place was filled by silent groups of men. Most of the groups had large paper bags filled with bottles.
    â€˜The kids that sell programmes make a bit of cash,’ said Matt with envy. ‘I’d have a go, but my old man goes mad about it.’
    â€˜What do you want cash for?’ said Mike. ‘You’ve got enough for a bag of chips.’
    They turned away from Beecham Park and went up the hill towards Ma Eaton’s dim little corner shop.
    Set in a row of dark cottages, the windows of the little shop glowed softly. Even inside, it was only dimly lit. Ma Eaton, short and stout, leaned on the counter and watched the street with sharp interest. She gave the boys her smile that was too wide and too sweet, and supplied five packets of potato crisps. The boys carried them round the corner to the little room behind the shop. Here Ma Eaton had installed a juke-box and three pin-ball machines. She said it was to give the young people somewhere to go, and to keep them off the streets.
    â€˜You can’t expect them to sit home with us old fogies,’ she would say, smiling too widely. ‘And what else is there but mischief? They’re all right in my little room. There’s nothing nasty like poker machines of course—no prizes or any of that. Just real games of skill.’ And her cash register clanged busily as she changed their pocket money into coins to use in the machines.
    The older girls and boys did make a