In Lonnie's Shadow (18 page)

‘Great ride, mate. Nothing personal, but I’ve gotta take the horse from you. Better follow orders or I’ll be in for a roasting.’

Lonnie dismounted and handed him the reins. ‘Be sure you rub him down well before you put him in the stables for the night.’

‘Will do. Be careful. You gave it to the boss so bad he’s spitting blood.’

Lonnie nodded and gave the horse a stroke of tranquil assurance. His feelings were mixed as he realised his favourite horse was being led away forever. Pride in their achievement. Regret about his loss. Trident was Crick’s horse when all was said and done. There was nothing he could do. He wondered anxiously if the Glen had bought Trident. Because if they hadn’t, no amount of money offered in the future would. I’ll really miss that horse, he thought sadly.

He slung his arm around Carlo. ‘Meet me at number four in about half an hour with the cash. We’ll raid Pearl’s stash of grog. I’ll explain everything then.’ He’d already decided he could pretend as well as Pearl that nothing had ever happened between them. ‘Keep out of the back lanes and watch your- self. The strapper’s right, I’ve made a few too many enemies here tonight and they know you’re a mate.’

HOBBLE

Item No. 1616

Spoil heap. Location unknown. Fragment of a rope used to restrain an animal. Commonly used for a quiet night horse, kept outside overnight on a homestead
and used to muster the other horses in the morning.

Lonnie should have listened to his own advice. He made his way alone down a street that had been in full life during the race. But in the early hours of the morning the air had turned chill, the windows were latched, the curtains drawn, the onlookers departed.

Life’s changes were coming thick and fast for Lonnie and he wanted to do some hard thinking. The win had spelt an abrupt end to his working days at Golden Acres. All his attachments with those detestable Cricks were severed. Good riddance to the lot of them. All being well, Mr Alcock would let him start work soon at the Glen.

If Lonnie had been able to traverse distance and time, he would have understood the effect his winning ride was already having on the Crick dynasty; been able to eavesdrop on the dressing-down Crick senior was about to give his son – Thomas skulking into his

father’s office in the early hours of that same Sunday morning, not expecting his father to be there. Crick senior sitting in a chair by the fire, his head down, in apparent calmness. Holding his palms forward towards to the flames, rubbing them vigorously to warm them, repeating the action in mindless repetition.

Thomas removing his greatcoat and walking despondently towards the warmth of the fire. Standing by his father’s chair. Breaking the silence that was hanging like a nerve end between them.

‘How shall I face all my friends tomorrow?’

His father looking up in disgust and opening his mouth in one long and seething complaint. ‘Your friends? Does the whole world revolve around you? Only an imbecile loses a rigged, unlosable race to a half-wit kid from the slums! I told everyone I know of importance to back you. Henry Payne lost a small fortune. And he put more on you minutes before the off. You’ve ruined our reputation. Our credibility’s gone. No one in Melbourne will want to deal with us. All because of your blindness and stupidity. And to top it all off, you let me sell Trident to the Alcocks for a pittance.’

Thomas uttering a few miserable words in self- defence: ‘I tried to stop you selling, you know I did.’

‘You tried to stop me selling a nag for one hundred guineas. That would have been a good price for a nag. Only it wasn’t a nag, was it? It’s the horse who beat our champion. And you were too stupid to see. You wouldn’t know a champion from a night horse.’ His ranting temper moving to a crescendo: ‘You dare call yourself a son of mine! Get out of my sight!’

If only Lonnie could have witnessed this carry-on for himself. But the reality was he was still making his way down the street towards Pearl’s, and by this time feeling mighty proud of himself. One thing was for sure, his dream of becoming a professional jockey had taken a giant leap forward. Those riders were no amateurs. They were all first-class horsemen and gentlemen. Fancy little Lonnie McGuinness, the stableboy, beating the likes of them.

He chuckled, imagining a procession of trainers calling by and asking for the jockey named McGuinness, in the hope of engaging him to ride their very best horses. Maybe one day he would have the pick of their best stables. Maybe one day, with a bit more luck, he’d be dressed in cap and racing silks and bringing home the winner of the Melbourne Cup. Leading it into the unsaddling enclosure to the cheers of the crowd. Standing up in the irons victorious. Waving his whip in salute. He could even hear the unmistakeable sound of pounding hoofs – of horse and rider in full gallop, as if it were happening – closing from behind, closing in on him.

He spun around, the breath of a horse almost upon him. Too slow to recognise the danger; too late to avoid the rope tossed skilfully over his head and shoulders, the slipknot tightening around him, pinning his arms fast against his sides; too helpless to withstand the final power and momentum of the passing horse as it lurched him clean off his feet.

Lonnie was helpless, being dragged face down along the full length of the cobbled street. The roughness of the road drove like nails through his trousers, skinning his knees raw. The skin on his face was burning.

Just when he thought he was a goner, he heard the horse’s iron shoes pull up. The rope loosened. He levered his head painfully upwards, trying to identify the rider. Nothing more than a black outline, a phantom. Lonnie clenched his fist, set for some hard hitting.

The whip cracked. The horse moved back and forth, restless and uneasy. An angry order urged it to trample. Disobediently, the horse reared. Such a murderous act wasn’t instinctive. The rider spurred the horse away, spinning it hard around, galloping back up the street.

Lonnie waited for the inevitable: his assailant coming back for another go. The frightened animal would have little or no choice but to obey the command. He wasn’t wrong. The rider was already turning his horse around and heading back towards him. The anticipation turned the noise into a pounding echo. Lonnie threw the loose rope over his head. Too injured and weak to even crawl, he rolled himself into a ball and covered his face with his arms. With the side of his head half buried in the dirt he could feel the vibrations of the approaching hooves. He braced himself for the impact.

So this was how it would end. Not from any mongrel dog or pickaxe handle; no Uncle Dick with his screwed neck and sucking blood, nor bodies lying around the rick; no stabbings by Slasher Jack; no cut by Billy Bottle; no swinging at the end of a rope in the Melbourne Gaol alongside George. Of all things, he was going to be trampled by a horse in the shadows of Little Lon. His thoughts flew to his mam and how she would receive the news of his death. He would trust Carlo to see her right from the winnings. There was enough to tide her over for a while.

Lonnie felt a whoosh of air above him. The disobedient horse, still unwilling to trample, had launched itself high and long into the air, clearing him with ease. A vicious crack of the whip made the horse rear. Whinnying in terror, the stallion stood almost vertical on hind legs. It tried to dislodge its tormentor from the saddle. Lonnie heard a venomous curse. The whip cracked again. The rider was too experienced and strong a horseman. He subdued the resentful animal. When the horse was finally standing quietly, the rider dismounted.

Lonnie tried to drag himself out of the way. The footsteps closed in. A savage kick landed in his lower back, another drove into his shoulderblades; no mercy shown, the man was intending to teach him a lesson.

Lonnie was swept away on a cloud of impressions entirely disconnected from his own body. Scream, after scream, after scream. The pounding of a galloping horse. The rush of feet on stones. A soft hand brushing his face. A cold wind blowing over him. He caved into an overwhelming desire to drift away.

FLAT IRON

Item No. 21

Heavy cast iron. Heated and used to smooth freshly laundered clothe
s.

A light touch on Lonnie’s face sent a rush of feverish heat through his cheek. As gentle as it was, it felt red hot, as though someone had pressed a flat iron down hard.

From far away in the distance, a voice that sounded dimly recognisable was asking him a question.

‘Lonnie, can you hear me?’

He longed to reply. He worked his way through a range of words as if he were speaking them aloud. He came from behind, lassoed me, he was trying to say, but the words forming deep inside came out only as dribbles of air and blood.

The voice sounded annoyed. ‘Will you stop blubbering and give me a hand, you cowardly custard.’

‘But he looks so heavy,’ came the answer. ‘I can’t carry the poor lug all the way to Casselden Place. Leave him be. We have to get back.’

‘You brainless scallywag, we can’t leave him here.

Anyways, we only have to get him through the door, past the curtain and up the stairs. Help me, or I swear I’ll tell Madam about how you’ve been drinking the French wine, and watering it down. And don’t think I haven’t seen, because I have, you moocher.’

‘But you told me to do it and you’re the one adding the water.’

‘Then you won’t mind me telling Madam how much you’ve been drinking, will you? Last week alone I counted five missing bottles. We’ll see who she believes the most.’

While Pearl cast a crafty look at Ruby, Lonnie started to count five empty bottles standing on a mantle. But where had he seen them? A childhood voice trilled at the back of his head. ‘One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive.’ Pain was a peculiar thing. It turned solid into liquid and slowed down time; split body and mind; changed the here and now into the imagined.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Try me. Stop loafing like the dense lump of lard you are and help. Mind you lift him gently.’

Lonnie’s vague attention drifted to the hands he could feel pressing and cradling his armpits, attempting to lift him. He stared blankly at those butterfly hands. He felt a flutter and a tickle. He could have been laughing. His insides hurt. A moan came rattling from his chest.

‘Easy does it, Lonnie.’

If only he could place the voice.

‘We’ll take him upstairs. Don’t let Madam see.’

‘If she does, I’ll blame you,’ Ruby snapped.

‘Just do what you’re told!’ Pearl fumed back. ‘Carry him inside before he bleeds to death all over us.’

Ruby shot her a terrified look. ‘He won’t, will he? What if he does? What if his insides spill out over my dress and his eyes pop out? What if his heart bursts open?’ Her voice went shrill at the horror. ‘What if he dies?’

‘I swear you better shut up before I punch your podgy brain out with my own bare hands.’

To the sound of Ruby heaving and puffing and ever complaining, and before they had taken three unsteady steps, Lonnie heard the sounds of their argument blur. He spun down into a deep dark well of nothingness.

VELVET COVERLET

Item No. 6772

Purple coverlet. Blood stains.

Carlo had an uneasy premonition about leaving Lonnie by himself after the race. An awful feeling that crept up on him as if a black cat had crossed his path. Like he’d broken a mirror and was facing seven years’ bad luck.

‘What’s happened to him?’ he yelled, when he came upon the two girls struggling to carry his injured mate up the steps into the Big House.

‘Shut your trap or Madam’ll hear us,’ gasped Pearl. ‘Take over Ruby’s end. She’s about as useless as a cart without wheels.’

Pearl sent Ruby ahead to dog out, which the girl happily did, more than willing to trade places with Carlo and be out of harm’s way. Lonnie was too heavy and Pearl’s tongue far too vicious for comfort. When all was clear, she waved them inside. Without so much as a sniff from Madam Buckingham, they managed to support their battered friend into the Big House and up the spiralling staircase.

Lonnie’s limp hand rested on a dark pad of velvet. He took in the sweet smells of rose petal and lavender. He reasoned with cool detachment that he must be inside a lined coffin. Dead as a doornail. At his own funeral. Mourners were tiptoeing past, unaware he was here with them in spirit as well as body. He was an echo, a whisper of his old self, but here nonetheless. It was a moving farewell which made him want to spill some tears of his own. He found his eyes blinking their way around a tiny dusty room hardly bigger than a closet. He wondered who had forgotten to put the coins on his eyelids. He looked in vain for the marbled columns of the crypt. If only his mind would keep a hold of things.

A voice too sick with remorse and sounding more like Carlo than a welcoming angel burst out, ‘I’ve been a fool. I shoulda known Crick would settle the score. Not that he’d dirty his hands. More likely sent one of his bully boys.’

With a puzzled frown, Lonnie slowly came around to Pearl dabbing his face with a wet towel. She waved off Carlo’s accusation. ‘You don’t know who attacked him so pipe down.’ When she realised the patient himself was awake, she smiled down tenderly. ‘So you’re back with us in the land of the living. How’re you feeling?’

‘Thought I’d died and gone to heaven,’ Lonnie managed to croak out.

Pearl plumped up the cushions and velvet coverlets that she’d brought in and bundled together as a mattress, quite frankly relishing her role as Florence Nightingale. Lonnie tried to force himself into a sitting position, unsuccessfully as it were, his shoulder and back stiff from the kicking and the chafes rubbing like nettles on his skin.

‘Rest easy. You’re out of harm’s way.’

Having no choice but to be left to Pearl’s fussing, Lonnie settled back down into his coffin. She took him through the full story about how she had discovered him left almost for dead. It was lucky she’d found him in time – Pearl deciding there was no need to give any glory to Ruby, the undeserving little tabby cat – because the rider had been intent on murder. He’d hightailed it when he’d heard the hullabaloo. ‘If I hadn’t come out when I did that madman would’ve kicked you into the next kingdom.’

‘There’s only one madman capable of it. And you want to know why I reckon it’s all down to Crick?’ said Carlo. ‘Because Lonnie beat him in the horse race.’

Pearl raised an eyebrow. ‘I could name a few other madmen around here. Hang on,’ she said, giving him a look of astonishment as the penny dropped.

‘Are you telling me he beat Crick? We won?’

Carlo was still going off half-cocked over Lonnie’s beating. ‘Go on, tell her I’m right. And when I find him I’ll kick his bloody head in.’

‘Stop pumping him for answers, yer chump. Can’t you see he’s groggy?’ Pearl patted Lonnie’s hand sympathetically. ‘Don’t go worrying over who done it.’

Lonnie was being coaxed back into a clammy fog of sleep, away from his pain. Pearl was speaking but her declaration was hushed. ‘I wish us two could’ve been together, yer chump. But I can never be what you want me to be. Even with your bunged-up face, you’re still far better looking than any lad has a right to be.’ Murmurings half-heard, half-imagined. An out of kilter phonograph, fuzzily playing. For his ears only.