He puffed slowly at the cigar, a slim fierce-looking thing with an aroma to match. From behind the glasses his eyes considered me without haste. I hadnt a clue as to what he was thinking.
All right, he said at last. Ill take you on as an assistant to Searle, and well see how it goes.
Well. thank you, I answered. But what I really came to ask for was Peterss job.
Peterss His mouth literally fell open, revealing a bottom row of regular false teeth. He shut it with a snap. Dont be silly, my boy. You cant have Peterss job.
Searle says he has left.
I dare say, but thats not the point[26], is it?
I said calmly, Ive been in the Transport Section of Anglia for more than five years, so I know all the technical side of it, and Ive ridden horses all my life, so I know how to look after them. I agree that I havent any practical experience, but I could learn very quickly.
Lord Grey, he said, shaking his head. I dont think you realise just what Peterss job was.
Of course I do, I said. He travelled on the planes with the horses and saw they arrived safely and well. He saw that they passed the Customs all right at both ends and that the correct people collected them, and where necessary saw that another load of horses was brought safely back again. It is a responsible job and it entails a lot of travelling and I am seriously applying for it.
You dont understand, he said with some impatience. Peters was a travelling head groom[27].
I know.
He smoked, inscrutable. Three puffs. I waited, quiet and still. Youre not er in any trouble, at Anglia?
No. Ive grown tired of a desk job, thats all. I had been tired of it from the day I started, to be exact.
How about racing?
I have Saturdays off at Anglia, and I take my three weeks annual holiday in separate days during the winter and spring. And they have been very considerate about extra half-days.
Worth it to them in terms of trade[28], I dare say. He tapped off the ash absentmindedly into the inkwell. Are you thinking of giving it up?
No.
Mm if you work for me, would I get any increase in business from your racing connections?
Id see you did, I said.
He turned his head away and looked out of the window. The river tide was sluggishly at the ebb, and away over on the other side a row of cranes stood like red meccano toys in the beginnings of dusk. I couldnt even guess then at the calculations clicking away at high speed in Yardmans nimble brain, though Ive often thought about those few minutes since.
I think you are being unwise, my dear boy. Youth youth.
He sighed, straightened his shoulders and turned the beaky nose back in my direction. His shadowed greenish eyes regarded me steadily from deep sockets, and he told me what Peters had been earning; fifteen pounds a trip plus three pounds expenses for each overnight stop. He clearly thought that that would deter me; and it nearly did.
How many trips a week? I asked, frowning.
It depends on the time of year. You know that, of course. After the yearling sales, and when the brood mares come over[29], it might be three trips. To France, perhaps even four. Usually two, sometimes none.
There was a pause. We looked at each other. I learned nothing.
All right, I said abruptly. Can I have the job?[30]
His lips twisted in a curious expression which I later came to recognise as an ironic smile. You can try it, he said. If you like.
Chapter Two
A job is what you make it.[31] Three weeks later, after Christmas, I flew to Buenos Aires with twelve yearlings, the four from Anglia and eight more from different bloodstock agencies, all mustered together at five oclock on a cold Tuesday morning at Gatwick. Simon Searle had organised their arrival and booked their passage with a charter company; I took charge of them when they unloaded from their various horseboxes, installed them in the plane, checked their papers through the Customs, and presently flew away.
With me went two of Yardmans travelling grooms, both of them fiercely resenting that I had been given Peterss job over their heads. Each of them had coveted the promotion[32], and in terms of human relationships the trip was a frost-bitten failure. Otherwise, it went well enough. We arrived in Argentina four hours late, but the new owners horseboxes had all turned up to collect the cargo. Again I cleared the horses and papers through the Customs, and made sure that each of the five new owners had got the right horses and the certificates to go with them. The following day the plane picked up a load of crated furs for the return journey, and we flew back to Gatwick, arriving on Friday.
On Saturday I had a fall and a winner[33] at Sandown Races, Sunday I spent in my usual way, and Monday I flew with some circus ponies to Germany. After a fortnight of it I was dying from exhaustion; after a month I was acclimatised. My body got used to long hours, irregular food, nonstop coffee, and sleeping sitting upright on bales of hay ten thousand feet up in the sky. The two grooms, Timmie and Conker, gradually got over the worst of their anger, and we developed into a quick, efficient, laconic team.
My family were predictably horrified by my change of occupation and did their best to pry me away from it. My sister anxiously retracted the words I knew Id earned, my father foresaw the earldom going to the cousin after all, aeroplanes being entirely against nature and usually fatal[34], and my mother had hysterics over what her friends would say.
Its a labourers job, she wailed.
A job is what you make it.
What will the Filyhoughs think?
Who the hell cares what they think?
It isnt a suitable job for you. She wrung her hands.
Its a job I like. It suits me, therefore it is suitable.
You know that isnt what I mean.
I know exactly what you mean, Mother, and I profoundly disagree with you. People should do work they like doing; thats all that should decide them. Whether it is socially O.K. or not shouldnt come into it.
But it does, she cried, exasperated.
It has for me for nearly six years, I admitted, but not any more. And ideas change. What I am doing now may be the top thing next year[35]. If I dont look out half the men I know will be muscling in on the act. Anyway, its right for me, and Im going on with it.
All the same she couldnt be won over, and could only face her own elderly convention-bound circle by pretending my job was for the experience, you know, and by treating it as a joke.
It was a joke to Simon Searle too, at first.
You wont stick it[36], Henry, he said confidently. Not you and all that dirt. You with your spotless dark suits and your snowy white shirts and not a hair out of place. One trip will be enough.
After a month, looking exactly the same, I turned up for my pay packet late on Friday afternoon, and we sauntered along to his favourite pub, a tatty place with stained glass doors and a chronic smell of fug. He oozed on to a bar stool, his bulk drooping around him. A pint for him, he said. I bought it, and a half for me, and he drank most of his off with one much practised swallow.