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  Augustine remembers his forefathers

  Every afternoon hundreds of years ago a gentle breeze blows misty rain across the many chimneys of the great house whose shape is beginning to fade at last from the silver watch-case in the leather stud-box in Augustine Killeaton’s wardrobe. Augustine’s grandfather arrives in Melbourne from Ireland and travels northwards until he reaches a town where the afternoon sun is an awesome orange colour behind the dust from the goldfields. Drunken Scotsmen and scheming Englishmen trick him out of his money just before he dies in a town the miners are leaving for other places where the veins of gold run more truly. Augustine’s father straightens his back and looks across grey-green paddocks in south-western Victoria and watches Irish rain drifting in from the ocean. He quarries pale sandstone from a coastal hill and builds within sight of the cliffs that are the southern boundary of his farm a large house whose front gable is copied from one wing of the house in Ireland that his father was supposed to have lived in. Augustine Killeaton at the age of twenty-five still lives in the Western District where he was born. He works on his father’s farm on the coast near Kurringbar. He has never tasted strong drink or wanted a girl or been on a racecourse. Each summer when the first north winds arrive he plans a journey in the only direction that has ever attracted him – north across the miles of grazing lands, then past the sheep and wheat districts, and last through the dusty Mallee to the great inland zone that is coloured orange-red on maps. One morning Augustine sets out to see the annual Cup meeting at the Kurringbar racecourse. All the way from his father’s farm to the races he sits tensely in the windy back seat of a neighbour’s motorcar, fingering the leafless trees around the silvery house that his ancestors might have gambled away.

  Augustine meets a professional punter

  After the Kurringbar Cup has been run, many of the dairy-farmers from outlying districts quietly leave the course to be home in time for the evening milking. Augustine Killeaton stays on at the races. His brothers, who have never been to a race-meeting, have agreed to let him off the milking in return for a shilling each from Augustine’s share of the wages that their father pays them all each month. Augustine’s racing bank for the day is five pounds, all saved from his wages for months past. He makes no effort himself to pick winners, but follows unobtrusively a small group of men from Melbourne. The Kurringbar Cup meeting has attracted many Melbourne stables and their followers, but Augustine has singled out one little band of punters as the smartest of all. He tries to master their trick of whispering a bet to a bookmaker and then melting into the crowd to avoid being noticed, and he admires their way of watching each race impassively while the crowds around them yell and gesticulate. After the last race Augustine has won nearly fifteen pounds, while the Melbourne punters have won hundreds between them. Augustine walks boldly up to the leader of the band and introduces himself. The punter shakes hands coolly and says his name is Len Goodchild. Augustine says – I was wondering Mr Goodchild Len if I could be of any use to you and your friends as an agent at Western District meetings. Goodchild thanks him and says – see me some Saturday at the races in Melbourne. As he walks away, Augustine hears two of Goodchild’s men talking. The men call Goodchild the Master. That night when his brothers ask him about the races, Augustine says – I won a few pounds myself but the Master told me he won a couple of hundred.

  Augustine reaches Bassett by way of inland Australia

  Augustine visits Melbourne and stands at a discreet distance from Goodchild in the betting ring at Mentone. Goodchild beckons him over and pencils a few faint crosses in Augustine’s racebook. One of the marked horses wins. On the following Saturday Goodchild questions Augustine until he satisfies himself that Augustine is not connected with any other racing men in Melbourne or the Western District. A few days later at a country meeting Goodchild asks Augustine to stay out of the betting ring all day because a man that even Goodchild sometimes takes orders from is going to surprise the bookmakers with a cash plunge and the sight of Goodchild’s men in the ring might give the game away. Augustine realises he is being tested. He stays all day in the bar sipping lemonade. After the races Goodchild offers him a seat in his car. The other men in the car talk of the hundreds they won that day. Augustine admits to them that he won nothing but he knows he is now one of Goodchild’s men. For two years Augustine lives in boarding houses in Melbourne and goes to the races sometimes two or three times a week. About once a month he helps Goodchild to place a commission and the bookmakers accept his bets on credit because they know he is one of Goodchild’s men. At other times he backs the horses that Goodchild assures him are fancied by their connections. On mornings when there are no track gallops to watch, Augustine goes to Mass and communion at St Francis’ church in the city. He spends his evenings alone and tells people he has no time to be interested in women. He knows that Goodchild and at least two others of his men are bachelors who still live with their parents. One day Goodchild introduces Augustine to a beautiful young woman who has just become his fiancée. Augustine goes back to Kurringbar for a few days to make sure that his father and brothers do not need his help on the farm. His brothers are surprised that he has managed to live off the races for two years and save nearly a hundred pounds as well. Augustine travels north. One hot day he approaches a small town in the Victorian Mallee. Dazzling silver-white wheat silos rise out of a lake of heat haze. On the edge of the town is a racecourse. The north wind from the far inland flattens the tawny grass between the white-railed fences. Augustine decides that even if his travels lead to nothing he can at least look forward to a day when he arrives at an unsuspecting town with a horse of his own in the float behind his car and a roll of banknotes in his pocket, and goes home again that evening hundreds of pounds richer. He does not know what the name of the town will be, but the horse will be named Silver Rowan after the most conspicuous tree in the pale dripping garden of a mansion that might have belonged to the Killeaton family. A few years later Augustine returns to Victoria from the north. He crosses twenty or thirty miles of plains scarcely different from those that he has crossed for years past. Then he reaches the city of Bassett. He is still nearly 200 miles from his home in the Western District and he knows no one in Bassett. He sends a telegram to someone in the Riverina district of New South Wales. A week later a three-year-old gelding arrives at the Bassett railway station, consigned to Mr Gus Killeaton. The horse from the north and the man from the Western District walk along the unfamiliar gravel footpaths of Bassett towards the loose-box that Augustine Killeaton has rented from a man recommended by the parish priest of St Boniface’s. Augustine finds a job as assistant farm manager at a mental home and decides to stay in Bassett until his horse wins a race and earns him enough to return home. He registers the horse’s name as Clementia because he is grateful to God for bringing him back alive from the north. He saves the name Silver Rowan for years to come, when he can afford to buy a well-bred yearling from some stud in New South Wales or Queensland. Whenever he looks at Clementia’s golden-brown eyes, Augustine remembers obscure stopping-places on his journey north and counts himself lucky that at least he has a young racehorse to show for all his years away from home.

  Clementia wins a maiden handicap

  Golden balls of dung splash in the dust. A few children stop and stare. Augustine Killeaton, a young man and not yet married, stops and waits while his small black gelding drops his turds in the exercise yard of the Bassett racecourse. Then he bends over and looks into the cracks that have opened in the four flattened spheres. As far as he can see into its bright depths the dung is crisp and fibrous. He reads the dense yellow strands as a sign that the horse is much fitter than even he, the owner-trainer, has suspected. Augustine hands the bridle to his friend Norman Brady who goes on leading the horse quietly round the exercise path. Augustine moves nimbly into the crowd around the bookmakers’ stands. He takes out of his pocket two ten-pound notes, which is all the money he has with him. He asks one of the rails bookmakers for five
pounds each way Clementia at 25 to 1. He puts the betting ticket and his remaining note into his pocket and turns towards the saddling paddock. One of the last bookmakers that he passes has Clementia at 33 to 1 win only. Augustine asks for the odds to five pounds. With his change of five pounds in his hand he pushes back into the crowd, looking up at each bookmaker’s board. Smartly-dressed commissioners, many of them from Melbourne stables, keep up a barrage of bets on the short-priced horses. Augustine hears not one bet laid against his own horse. He finds another board showing 33 to 1 win only and hands over his last note. He waits to see the bookmaker wrench the knob beside the name Clementia. When the man turns the horse’s odds down to 16 to 1 Augustine walks proudly away pretending not to notice that a few people are looking curiously at him. He collects the horse and tells Norman Brady that he only had a few bob on him because the odds were so tempting but that he still doesn’t think he’ll stand a chance having his first start in a race against a smart field of maidens, some of them well backed with Melbourne money. In the mounting yard he looks between the huddles of owners and trainers and jockeys for Harold Moy. A voice says – here we are Gus. Augustine turns and sees the little man with Chinese features standing conspicuously alone. Augustine and his jockey stand close together looking silently at Clementia’s legs. Augustine says – you know all about him Harold and his weak legs – I have to try all the time with him in case he breaks down for good – I’ve specked him at bolter’s odds so you’d better ride him right out if he looks like he’s got any sort of a chance – still if he doesn’t go well in the first couple of furlongs drop him right out – there’ll always be some little race up north somewhere that we can save him for one day. Harold says – I’ll look after him Gus – I won’t knock him around. As Augustine hoists him into the saddle Harold whispers – I made my wife have three quid on him at thirty-threes – that’s what some of them were betting you know. Augustine says – I know – I got a little bit of it myself. His hand brushes Harold’s yellow hairless hand and without thinking he squeezes the little man’s fingers and pats his smooth wrist. Harold screws up his eyes and looks out at the straight where some of the other horses are already cantering past. Augustine walks alone through the whispering secretive knots of owners and trainers and out of the yard. He finds a place on the crowded slope overlooking the straight and stares towards the line of trees at the far side of the arid racecourse. The whole of the great bare elliptical course wavers in the heat. A bunch of horses crowds against the barrier strands, and the starter pulls his cord. Several horses wheel or shy and miss the start hopelessly. Augustine deliberately sets the muscles around his mouth and scans the field for a sight of Clementia. He looks first at the stragglers then at the main bunch. Near the middle of the field Clementia’s colours, emerald green, silver-grey hoops, orange cap, catch his eye. The horse is moving at least as freely as any other. The field bunches on the sharp home turn. Clementia’s colours are lost in the ruck. The leader begins to tire. Challengers emerge from the pack. Two horses draw clear. Their riders swing their whips awkwardly and desperately. A confused roar or scream goes up from the crowd as the leaders draw level with the grandstand. Augustine presses his lips together. Absurdly wide on the hard almost grassless track, Clementia feels soft well-watered turf beneath his frail legs. Harold Moy throws himself prostrate in the saddle. His legs twitch frantically behind him. The crowd still screams at the two leaders. Augustine Killeaton does not open his mouth. Clementia passes him, almost up against the outside rail, with little more than the orange cap visible between the heads of the crowd. The leaders pass the post. Clementia is out of sight under the judge’s box. The spectators argue among themselves. No one is sure which horse has won. Some people did not even notice Clementia. A number is hauled up over the judge’s box. The name Clementia travels fitfully through the crowd. The people around Augustine pronounce it wrongly. Augustine strolls calmly back to the mounting yard and leans on the rails of the winner’s stall. The steward has to glance at his racebook to discover Augustine’s name. He calls out – A. C. Killeaton owner trainer isn’t it? Augustine nods. Some of the other owners and trainers look hard at Killeaton. He keeps his eyes on the gate through which the clerk of the course is leading Clementia. Harold Moy in green and silver does not smile. One or two people in the crowd clap briefly. Augustine takes the bridle, and Harold slides down from the saddle. He whispers – I’m sorry Gus sorry – I should have known how good he was – Jesus if only we’d known we could have been set up for life. Harold goes off to the scales. Augustine notices a swelling on the horse’s weakest leg. Clementia limps a little on his way back to the stalls. Norman Brady comes running up. He says – Gus Gus it’s a tragedy – I had thirty bob each way on him – we’ll never get a chance like that again as long as we live. Augustine points to the horse’s leg and says – we mightn’t even get another race out of him. Norman takes the proppy horse back to his stall. Augustine finds the first of his three bookmakers. The clerk takes his ticket and counts out 166 pounds 5 shillings. Augustine stuffs the notes into his trousers pocket and keeps his hand around them. He collects from the other two men and then walks to the galvanised-iron lavatory away from the hum of the crowd. He goes into a cubicle and leans against the door. He counts his money slowly and whispers aloud – 506 pounds 5 shillings. He divides it into two rolls and puts one in each side pocket. He sits down heavily on the toilet seat and starts to make the sign of the cross but instead leans forward and pumps his clenched fists backwards and forwards through the air ahead of him, hissing through his teeth as Harold Moy does when he rides a horse out. He pumps with his hands and jerks his knees until suddenly he sobs just once and a shudder crosses his body. Then he gets to his feet, sets his face into its usual shape, touches the pockets where his money is, and goes outside. That evening, when Augustine and Norman walk the horse down the ramp behind Brady’s truck they find him lame and stumbling. Later Augustine visits the untidy weatherboard house on the edge of Bassett where Jean Glossop lives with her parents. A racehorse snorts and scrapes in its straw in a loose-box beneath pepper trees at one end of a trampled dirty yard beside the house. Joe Glossop and his wife only nod to Augustine when he walks into the kitchen where they sit around their wireless set. Jean Glossop takes Augustine out to sit on the broken cane sofa on the front veranda. He tells her the story of the maiden handicap. He persuades her that they now have more than enough money to get married on, even after he has paid his feed bills for Clementia and a few other odd debts to Norman Brady and a bookmaker here and there. They decide to arrange for their wedding as soon as Jean has finished her instructions in the Catholic faith and been baptised. They walk past the horses’ sheds and into the small paddock which is all of her father’s property. Near a horse trough overhung by faintly rattling kurrajong trees they sit down on short dry grass. Crickets cry not far away. Scattered street lights shine through distant motionless trees. Jean Glossop stretches herself flat on the ground. Augustine half crouches, half lies above her. He has waited for years for an event like this and he cannot believe that these few moments on this unheralded evening may be his best chance yet. There is not time to wonder why it is this night and these few yards of meagre grass rather than one of those many other afternoons on deserted grasslands when he might have made elaborate plans for a triumph that was a fitting reward for all his years of afternoons that came to nothing. The shapes around him threaten to sweep past. When it seems almost too late he throws himself forward and lies like Harold Moy on Clementia, thrusting his hands and knees towards the noise of the crickets. He sees no more of the post as he passes than a blur of white among a throng of his rivals. There is no one to tell him whether or not he has got up to win. He knows that even if he has brought it off he will wonder for years about that other race that was going to bring him all that he could want.

  Augustine becomes a husband and father

  Each weekend Augustine takes Jean Glossop to the local presbytery to be instruc
ted in the Catholic faith. In the last week before she is to be baptised he takes Clementia to the Bassett racecourse at daybreak for his first hard gallop since he broke down after his win in the maiden plate. Clementia tries to jump the long wide shadow of a clump of trees at the back of the course and breaks a leg. Augustine runs to the course ranger’s house and brings back a rifle and shoots dead the horse that raced only once for one great win. Harold Moy struggles to unfasten the bridle and saddle from the dead body. Augustine puts one arm around the man’s thin shoulders. Harold says – now we’ll never know what he might have been Gus – what he might have done for us. Augustine says – I’ll take home the bridle and gear at least and keep it hanging in his loose-box – you never know – we might get another one half as good as him one day. After Jean is baptised she tells Augustine she feels as if she has a new body of creamy-yellow silk that no one has ever seen or touched. Before she makes her first confession she tells him she might be going to have a baby after what they did that night when Clementia had just won his race, which was the only time they committed that sin together. He explains to her how they can use each day of their married life to do small penances for their past mistakes and to earn treasures of grace for the future. He plans to have a horse in training always. He will potter around the backyard carrying buckets of oats and forkfuls of straw, whistling softly between his teeth to coax the horse to pee or leaning on railings for hours in the quiet sunshine far from the crowds and the dust of racecourses, knowing that each little task in his backyard is one small step towards another day like Clementia’s day at the Bassett racecourse. He will hang the photograph of Clementia’s win in the lounge-room. Jean has already bought for the bedroom the picture that she loves of Our Lord in red and white robes with his satiny sacred heart bleeding where the thorns made by sins of impurity have pierced it. When they kneel together at the altar-rails on her first communion day he asks God to help him explain to her something about the long journeys that have made his life so different from other men’s and the wide strange places that he may still have to go on looking for even after they are married and he has explored all over her body, and to make her patient and strong enough to live in a cheap rented weatherboard house while her husband waits for a message from the inner circle of professional punters in Melbourne or lays his own careful plans for a fierce plunge at long odds on a distant windy racecourse. A few weeks before their marriage they buy some cheap new furniture for a house that they plan to rent in a newer part of Bassett. There is still plenty left of the hundreds of pounds that Augustine won on Clementia. Augustine has a long talk by telephone with Len Goodchild in Melbourne. He tells Len about the wedding and says what a good thing it would be if he could have a decent win to give him a start as a married man. Len tells him about a horse that his men are going to back in Melbourne. Without worrying Jean about it, Augustine takes a hundred pounds from the bank and puts it on the horse. It leads almost to the post, but a lightly-weighted horse that Augustine himself has seen racing around the Bassett district gets up and beats it. There is still enough money left for Jean and Augustine to spend a week in Melbourne after the wedding. They go to Mass and communion every morning at St Francis’ church. Each of them buys a candle and lights it and sets it among the blazing rows on the brass stand. Jean whispers that now she is a proper Catholic they can go to the same heaven at last. Augustine asks her what she thinks heaven will be like. She says – there’s a huge staircase or a sort of grandstand on a steep hill that shines like brass or gold and after that a wide smooth place like a green carpet where we’ll all wear colours like priests’ vestments. Augustine watches his candle on the blazing ridge. Its flame flickers and falters but somehow keeps going while others that were lit later die down and go out. Outside the church he tells Jean that even his candle gave the others a start and went on to win at long odds. On their last day in Melbourne Jean asks to go to the races just for a day’s fun. She reminds her husband that she has never once been to a race-meeting. Augustine politely refuses to go and explains that the races are a waste of time and money unless you go to back a horse that you know something about or to see your own colours carried in a race. Soon after Clement Killeaton is born his father decides to move to a cheaper rented house. His wife urges him to ask Len Goodchild or his other old friends in Melbourne for a small loan so that they need not leave their comfortable house. Augustine tells her that although he mixes with Goodchild and his men on the racecourse, it may be years before they admit him to their inner circle. These are the men who share his joys and sorrows. Augustine supposes that these men might ask each other for a loan sometimes when things are tough, but he tells his wife she must never talk like that again about loans as if her husband’s racing colleagues are just a bunch of mates dipping into each other’s pockets.