I Own the Racecourse! Read Online Free Page B

marched on the track, playing music that made Andy laugh. Within the track was a pool of shadows rippling with the gleam of parked cars. Outside it, where the crowds were drifting, there was a crop of little red-topped stands where bookmakers were giving their short, sharp cries. Outside the circling walls of the course, rows of buses and crowds of parked cars spread away into streets and parkland.
    Behind Andy, on the row of little dark verandahs, there was sometimes a stir or a murmuring voice. Other people, who belonged here, were watching the lively magic of race night. To be away from them, Andy climbed over the edge of the cliff to a shelf of sandstone two or three feet down. He sat there, poised above the light and colour of Beecham Park.
    The band marched away, and the voice from the amplifiers began to intone. It no longer sounded like the voice of a giant speaking from the roof-tops. Here it was in proportion to all the rest, the right sort of voice to speak from the lighted stage of the racecourse. The crowd flowed into the stands or were washed into a line along the rails. The bookmakers’ cries stuttered loudly like firecrackers, then fell silent. Everything was silent except the voice singing its chant of names. There came a whispering along the track, and a soft beating like silken drums—the horses swept by in a dark, shining mass drawn out along the rails. The wheels of their gigs whirled and whispered; the drivers’ silks shone like jewels, scarlet, sapphire, gold and green; the horses lifted their proud, cockaded heads, their legs shone and flashed to the soft thudding of drums. Whips beat, and the whole mass vanished behind a stand. The voice sang on: Magic Circle…Falling Star…Southern Rose…Sunfire… Again the horses flashed and passed. A third time they came, and this time a great, roaring crowd-voice travelled round the course with them. The chanting rose to a frenzy, lights flashed, the mass of horses broke into scattered, flying units. The race was over.
    Andy leaned back against the wall of the cliff. He was too breathless to chuckle or mutter. The light from the racecourse threw a pale gleam over his face: his eyes staring, full of warmth and wonder, his mouth open, spikes of hair sticking up on the back of his head. Hardly knowing where he was, he sat on his high perch and watched for a long time.
    After a while he began to feel cold and stiff. His head was dazed with colour and movement, but the stone of the cliff was hard and cold. He climbed up stiffly, stumbled through the darkness until he found the narrow passage by which he had come, and went home. There was still a coming and going of cars in the streets, and the white coats of the attendants glimmered under the street-lights; but Andy passed them without seeing. His mother was still working in their front room, and she had the kitchen clock on the table where she could see it.
    â€˜You’ve been a long time,’ she said, putting her work away while the lines smoothed out of her face. ‘What have you all been up to? Concocting some wonderful thing in O’Days’ toolshed, I suppose.’
    Full of secrets and splendour, Andy smiled at her dimly and went to bed.
    He woke up early, while Mrs Hoddel was still asleep. The secrets and splendour were still there. He wanted to go back to the cliff and look down by daylight; but he knew it was Sunday and he was supposed to go to church. He dressed, worrying about his mother and whether she would be late for church because of waiting for him. He decided to leave her a message. He found a pencil and paper, wrote ‘Gone’, and left this message on the kitchen table. Then he took a banana and a piece of cake and went out by the front door.
    The street was empty and very quiet. A small girl in pyjamas sat in one of the doorways and pushed her doll’s pram backwards and forwards across the pavement. An old woman, shapeless in a cotton gown and