One night after evening stables he parked his bike inside the gate of his digs, behind a hedge where no-one could see it from the road. As he took his helmet off a voice out of the darkness frightened the hell out of him.
‘Well, little brother, you’ve done brilliant for yourself, so you have! Look at that bike.’
The voice was unmistakable.
‘Liam?’
A passing set of headlights lit up the shadows and, leaning laconically against the wall, the figure of a young man was swept by light.
‘Jesus, Liam! Is it you?’
‘It sure is little brother.’
‘Jesus. Last I heard, you was in the Mountjoy.’
Liam stepped forward into the streetlight, dressed in a shiny old suit, carrying a full supermarket bag.
‘Long time no see little brother. So life’s treating you well. Quite a little star I hear you are.’
Tipper felt unrelaxed. There was a hard, nasty edge to his brother’s voice. Just like there’d always been. He wasn’t congratulating him. He was accusing him.
‘Well it’s not a bed of roses Liam. I can tell you that. In fact I’ve got a few problems…’
‘Yeah. Well haven’t we all. Enough of you. I need to borrow that bike. Just for a few days, like.’
‘Jesus Liam. Well. Well I need it right now. I…’
‘Look little brother, I’m not going to go down on my fockin knees okay. You’ll get it back. You always were bloody spoilt.’ Liam walked towards Tipper and put his hand out flat. He glared at Tipper in the street light with all the malice of a sworn enemy.
Tipper thought about it. His mind took him back to his childhood. To all of the belts that he’d had from Liam. None of them had ever injured him physically but they’d lodged in his mind. He didn’t hate Liam. He just wanted nothing to do with him. He thought about legging it down the street. He’d out run his brother anytime. He thought about having a swing at him. But there wasn’t an ounce of his body that wanted to do either. So he just gave Liam the keys.
‘Cheers little brother. Like I said. You’ll get it back.’
Tipper knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t bother to say a word. He just turned his back and fished his door keys out of his pocket.
‘Something a bit interesting,’ Sinclair suggested to his wife one evening at about the same time. ‘Nico’s phoned to ask me about Tipper O’Reilly.’
‘O’Reilly?’
‘Yes. He asked if he could ride for us next season. Says he saw O’Reilly win the Irish Oaks on Stella Maris and his man would like the kid riding his horses. Thinks he’s the most promising young rider in Ireland.’
Alison snorted.
‘God, they’ve not been in the game five minutes and they’re already trying to tell us who to put on their horses.’
Taking a cheroot from a tin in her pocket, she lit up.
‘Anyway how would you tempt O’Reilly to come over here? He’s with Thady Doyle. Why should he come and work for a pillock like you?’
‘May I remind you, last time I looked, we were in the top ten flat yards in England? And actually O’Reilly could be the answer to one of our problems. We need a really good lightweight rider, and there doesn’t seem much doubt he’s useful in the saddle. He’ll be heading for a dead end at Doyle’s. Dermot Quigley will see to that, I’ve heard. What d’you think—should I give him a call? Someone else will grab him sooner rather than later.’
Sinclair hated asking her but he knew that it gave her a sense of power. Alison considered the suggestion as she took a deep drag of smoke. She’d seen Tipper O’Reilly in the flesh, on the day he’d ridden Stella Maris at the Curragh. He was a pretty lad all right, fresh-faced, pale skin, just the choirboy type that she liked best.
‘Yes,’ she said judiciously. ‘Yes, all right, why not? Let’s get Tipper O’Reilly over to ride for us.’
She took another satisfying drag and exhaled slowly. She loved reminding her pathetically weak husband that she was in control.
Nico had been bullshitting of course. He hadn’t seen the Irish Oaks. He’d never even heard of Tipper O’Reilly until the Duke had rung him and ‘strongly advised’ him to get O’Reilly over to ride for them.
‘Don’t worry Nico,’ the Duke had re-assured him. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him for you when he comes over.’
Tipper faced a gloomy end to the flat-racing season. It felt like it was set to be a bloody long, wet winter. His black cloud of depression had intensified as rapidly as his pillion girl had vanished when there was no bike to ride. Then, out of the blue he got a phone call. He didn’t know what to make of it; but he knew Sam would.
‘I’d a phone call from a feller in Newmarket in England. Says he’ll give me a job riding for him.’
‘Sounds great. Who is it?’
‘David Sinclair.’
Sam whistled.
‘Jeeze, that might not be bad. Big stable. You’d get some awesome rides. What did you say?’
‘Said I don’t know. Said I need to think about it. But he wants an answer in a couple of days maximum.’
‘I’d have bloody jumped at it already.’
‘See, I want to go right enough. But I’m pissing myself about being in England. I won’t know a bloody soul there.’
Sam phoned Tipper back the next morning.
‘What have you done about England, boy?’
‘Nothing. I’m still thinking.’
‘Well me Da says he’ll stand me the fare to go with you; he thinks I’ve got the experience and I’ll easily walk into a stud job over there. So what do you say? Will we go together and try our luck with the Newmarket girls?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure. I’ll miss the hurling. But my knee’s playing up so I’m probably bollocksed there anyway.’
Sam’s Da had seen a change in his son. He could see there were going to be some wild oats strewn about. And he didn’t want them seeding in his neighbourhood. So he’d been only too happy to get him across the water.
Tipper did no more thinking. What did he have to lose?
‘You’re on,’ he said.
Newmarket is a lonely, wind-swept place to the shy newcomer. Tipper had been right to have had concerns.
Settling in mid-November into a two room flat off the High Street, he and his cousin looked around for other lads to meet and talk to. In the past a young Irishman would have found that half the population of the town was from back home. Not any more. Sinclair’s yard, like most big racing stables, was a Babel of east European and Latin American tongues. They were full of Croats and Cubans, Czechs and Chileans, Ukrainians, Bolivians, Poles and Paraguayans. They were good horsemen, but not such good linguists. The English language was being pushed into third place behind Spanish and the favourite second language of eastern Europe, Russian.
At least there was Tipper’s immediate boss, Sinclair’s Head Lad Jim Delaney. Delaney was originally from County Donegal and a horseman of the old school. They could talk hurling and football and always, of course, horses. Delaney would sometimes have a pint of stout with Tipper and Sam at the Waggon and Horses or the Golden Lion in the evening. He took an avuncular interest in their well-being, and warned them about any moral pitfalls they might encounter.
‘Let