Pulse(39)

This time the barman did look at me with a questioning expression but I just nodded at him and waved my hand around in encouragement.

What on earth are you doing? the sensible half of my brain asked.

Getting drunk, of course, replied the delinquent half with a laugh. Sod the lot of them.

And I was getting drunk, and very quickly. Not only had I lost my long-established tolerance for alcohol but I’d had nothing to eat for breakfast. Unaccustomed booze on an empty stomach – the perfect recipe for disaster.

I watched the barman dispense two more measures of the golden liquor.

Whisky. Whisky.

My scrambled brain wondered if it contained dissolved cocaine.

Even in this state, every line of thought came back to the unnamed man, my friend Rahul, and why he’d died.





15


The sensible half of my brain started to win.

I was sitting on a stool in the Vestey Bar with my fifth double Whisky Mac untouched on the high table in front of me, almost as if it were goading me to drink it like the bottle of magic liquid in Alice in Wonderland. But this particular potion certainly wouldn’t make me shrink – indeed, it would quite likely make me fall over – so I sat looking at it, unable to move and determined not to stray any further from my tightrope.

I stayed put throughout the first race, not daring even to let go of the table in case I should stagger around like an animal with mad-cow disease. Surely, I thought, one should be able to think oneself sober if one focused hard enough. My medical training told me otherwise but I went on trying nevertheless.

I tried to watch the race on one of the many TV sets fixed to the walls of the bar but the jockeys’ silks seemed to blend together into a colourful kaleidoscopic mass before my intoxicated eyes. Only when the horses had jumped the last and were on the run-in to the finish line did I distinguish the leader’s red-and-white stripes – Dick McGee.

I remembered back to his massive reaction to seeing the picture of the unnamed man. He must know more than he was telling.

I remained where I was in the bar for the next two races as the worst effects of the alcohol gradually began to diminish and I found that I could stand unaided with only a minor wobble.

I asked a fellow drinker to save my seat and then slowly weaved my way to the ladies. I poured the last demon drink down the toilet before splashing some cold water onto my face at the sink.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t think that I appeared very drunk, but appearances could be deceiving.

And I now realised I had another big problem.

How was I going to get home?

I couldn’t drive in this condition and it would be many hours until the alcohol in my blood dropped to a legal level.

I seemed to have three choices: I could walk the four and a half miles home; I could call Grant and ask him to collect me; or I could get a lift from someone going my way.

Whichever method I chose, my car would have to stay overnight in the racecourse car park and Grant would be certain to find out that I’d been drinking again. It would give him even more reason to believe I should be back in Wotton Lawn.

God, you’re a fool, I told my reflection in the glass.

A goddamn bloody fool.

I safely made my way back to the bar to find that the person I’d asked to keep my seat had gone and so had the stool I’d been sitting on, snaffled by a large group of young twenty-somethings having a great day out.

I stood by the table and looked across at them as they laughed and joked with one another.

Where had my youth gone?

When I’d been their age I’d spent all my waking hours working or studying. I don’t remember having had the time, or the money, for days at the races, or anywhere else for that matter. I suppose that everyone over forty must eye the young with a touch of envy. They still have their whole lives ahead of them, their dreams and aspirations untainted by experience and disappointment.

The fourth race of the day was the Grade One Stayers’ Hurdle, run over two complete circuits of the course. At three miles it was one of the longest hurdle races on the calendar with all twelve runners carrying the same weight at eleven stone ten pounds. It was a true test of a horse’s stamina, especially as the going was officially ‘soft’.

I stood by the window of the Vestey Bar and watched over the heads of the crowd as the horses walked around the parade ring and the jockeys were given leg-ups onto them. Someone had left a racecard lying on the table and I looked to see who was riding: Dick McGee was not, but Jason Conway and Mike Sheraton were both present, Jason in a red jacket with yellow cap, while Mike sported blue-and-white checks. They were easy to spot as they made their way down the horse-walk towards the course.

Many of those in the bar, including the youngsters, went outside to view the race live and cheer home their fancies, so I reclaimed my stool and sat on it watching the contest unfold on the television screen, concentrating hard through the haze of intoxication.

Jason Conway was at it again.

As soon as the starter released the field, Jason was off at a great rate of knots, jumping the first hurdle a good four lengths in front. However, this time, he reined back and settled into mid-division, before his horse tired coming down the hill second time round and was pulled up before the last.

Mike Sheraton, meanwhile, rode the whole race in about third, fourth or fifth place, never seriously challenging the winner, which went away from the others over the last two flights to win easily by six lengths.