Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey

"Please tell me what I should do." Oscar was being polite. He had no intention of following earthly, directions. But Wardley-Fish was so serious and tense that Oscar wished, with the salve of politeness, to ease whatever it was that gripped him.

"Firstly we will make a quiet entrance to the ring. Dressed as we are we will attract no attention. We will keep our own counsel, Odd Bod. We will ask no one's advice and when it is offered we will not respond. No one shall induce us to have a bet on a 'real jam.' "

"Jam?"

"An alleged certainty. A jam. We collect our information from our own sources. We keep to the system. We store up treasures for a future

Oscar and Lucinda

day- ^ow this is the system. We never back the favourite. We back and second and ^^ favourites. We never bet on a race when the betting & odtis.on or even." This advice continued without a break. Most of it made no sense to Oscar at all. In spite of which he stayed calm and h^PPy. He was pleased to see Fish so scientific and careful about his gambling He was surprise(j j,y his responsible air. It did not match his reckless yellow handkerchief at all. It clashed with his hound s-tootj, j

"If you wjsh to win five shillings in a day, then you must invest five I shilling8 on every race j am wr,ting all this down for you. If you I are to make some money you must adhere to this. Are you listen-1 ing to» e?" I

"Yes, " said Oscar, and tried to concentrate.

As they arrjveci outside the track, Wardley-Fish took a large swig of his brandy. «j am damned, of course," he said. "But Mr Temple and Mr Fouies both argue that it cannot be eternal." Then he l^gj up and saw the Odd Bod He was sa^jngi but ne

Was not listening. His green eyes were too large and bright. |

29

Epsom Downs

I

It was almost Ascension Day but there was a piercing wind and a low bruised sky-OScar hunched his shoulders forward as if he wished to roll up his thin body like a sheet of cartridge paper. His temples hurt with cold. |he tip Of his nose was red. He was so excited he could barely breathe. fje t^ jong ungaj^jy steps around the mud and puddles, lifted nis head at the scent of pipe tobacco and horse dung, brandy and ladies' eai,de_toilette

He had r>ever been anywhere like this before. It seemed incredible that this-an entire kingdomhad existed all the time he had lived in Her» nacOmbe. It seemed even more incredible that redcliffed 94

Epsom Downs

sleepy little Hennacombe could now exist at all, so much did the racetrack expand, like a volatile gas, to take up every available corner of the living universe. He saw mutton-chopped bookmakers with big bellies ballooning out against their leather bags of money. At this very moment the sea was fizzing across the sand. How good it was not to be near it. The Baptist boys threw stones at rooks somewhere in the myopic haze upon the moors. But he was here. He thought of Mr Stratton, of the damp, long, gloomy room where he and his wife would shortly eat their lunch, and although he was fond of them, and prayed that they might be granted happiness, he preferred to be here, bumping shoulders with gentlemen in grey toppers. And then he thought of his father, and he stopped the train of thought, uncoupled the engine from the troublesome carriages and reversed at full speed in his mind while, with his body, he pressed urgently forward, following Wardley-Fish towards the next row of stables where he would-in the straw-sweet alleys of this wonderful new world-obtain what he swore was "first-rate information."

Oscar knew this was not first-rate information at all. He was still more Plymouth Brethren than he liked to think, and the way he looked at the man who brought this information was not, to any substantial degree, different from the way Theophilus would have looked at the same individual. He was a stunted stable hand with the whiskerless face of a boy. He was pinched up around the nose and eyes and suggested with all his talk, guv'nor, about which horse would "try" and which would not-the vilest stench of corruption.

Oscar thought this fellow damned. He would no more listen to his advice than he would invite the devil to whisper in his ear.

And yet Wardley-Fish seemed to see none of this. He nodded eagerly and clucked wisely. He leaned towards the ferret-faced informer and Oscar suddenly saw that he was so eager to believe that he would believe anything at all.

Wardley-Fish did not appear to be a man who had worked a system. There was no longer anything systematic about him. He was in the grip of a passion which made him, literally, overheat. He was quite pink above the collar and red on the cheeks above his beard. His earlobes were large and fleshy and now they shone so brightly red that Oscar was reminded of the combs of the fowls he had decapitated for Mrs Stratton.

Oscar and Lucinda

Wardley-Fish unbuttoned his overcoat and, by plunging his hands in his pockets, held the heavy garment out away from his chest. He looked like a rooster. He jiggled sovereigns in his pockets just as he had instructed Oscar not to. The stable hand looked towards this noise expectantly. He suggested that Madding Girl was a "jam."

Oscar knew this information was worth nothing, but had he shared this opinion with WardleyFish it would not, of course, have been listened to. For this was what Wardley-Fish most enjoyed about the track-the whispered conversations, the passing of "tips for tips," the grubby low-life corners, the guilt, the fear of damnation, the elation, it all dissolved together in the vaporous spirit of his hip-flask. He took off his overcoat and gave it to Oscar.

"Come on, Odd Bod, we will be just in time to see them in the paddock." They ran then, Wardley-Fish in front. He had big buttocks and thick thighs. Oscar could imagine him sitting on a horse. He ran heavily, but quickly. Oscar came behind with his knees clicking painfully, his borrowed coat flapping around him, and was-with his wild red hair in its usual unruly state-such a scarecrow that some aging Mohawks called out after him. He did not mind. He was intoxicated.

This intoxication was quite different from Wardley-Fish's. Oscar had no guilt at all. He knew that God would give him money at the races and thereby ease the dreadful burden that the Strattons had placed upon themselves. Now they would be released. God would do this just as He had told Moses to divide the land among the tribes of Israel: "According to the lot shall the possession thereof be divided between the many and the few." The Almighty would be Oscar's source of

"information."

"Look at her," said Wardley-Fish when Madding Girl was brought into the ring. Madding Girl was in a lather of sweat. It had a white foam inside its hind legs. The horse showed a peculiar look in its eye.

"Look at her," said Wardley-Fish. He took Oscar by the coat sleeve and dragged him so quickly forward that Madding Girl reared, danced sideways, turned, and then backed back, perhaps deliberately, towards them so they had to step back into the whiskered crowd or else have their feet crushed.

"Look at the backside," said Wardley-Fish.

It was difficult to avoid it.

"That, Odd Bod, is the first thing to look at in a horse, and when the track is wet, it's a day for a powerful bum like that one."

<K

I

Epsom Downs

Oscar remembered how lonely and lacklustre he had felt this morning. He had been cold, and miserable. Now he was warm inside Wardley-Fish's coat. He was a boy comforted by the sweetsour wrappings of a larger man, the tweed-prickly armour of an elder brother, uncle, father. He was "looked after" and was content-in the mud of Epsom-as a dog curled inside an armchair. He grinned at Wardley-Fish.

"See. You have caught the germ," said Wardley-Fish who saw in the grin the symptoms of his own hot condition. "You should not be here. I am corrupting you." But Oscar did not feel at all corrupted. God had already spoken to him. Sure Blaze would win this race. Tonight he would have the money to pay his buttery account. He would buy long woollen socks and send two guineas and some coffee to Mr and Mrs Stratton. Perhaps he could open an account at Blackwell's. He would like to purchase his own copy of Mr Paley's Evidence.

"Look at you," said Wardley-Fish. "You look like a grinning scarecrow." Oscar frowned. He had no sense of humour about his appearance. In fact he never had any real idea of it. He thought himself "quite plain and average" in build and physiognomy, and as for clothes, he now imagined himself quite reasonably, if humbly, dressed.

"Of course," he said at last, "I am wearing your coat. Doubtless it creates an odd effect." Wardley-Fish looked at the Odd Bod's wild red hair, his neat triangular face, his earnest prayingmantis hands clasped on his breast and-just when he began to laugh-saw that Oscar was not joking. The Odd Bod imagined himself quite normal.

When they pushed through the crowd towards the paddock, Wardley-Fish was still laughing. He could not stop himself. He laughed while he made his bets. Oscar watched him, smiling. He thought the laugh to do with betting. Wardley-Fish placed his bets in total disregard for the system, going from bookmaker to bookmaker, laying everything on Madding Girl with tears streaming down his face.

My great-grandfather watched him long enough to see how a bet was made and then, selecting Perce Gully, he laid three guineas on Sure Blaze at 9–1.

My great-grandfather won his first bet. In the case histories of pathological gamblers you find the same story told time and time again.

3 °Covetousness

When Mr Stratton entered the comfortable rooms of his Oxford friends-and he was better connected than you would think, and better liked than yo^ might imagine-he was like a dog in front of a fire, having crawled ihto a chair it knows forbidden it, but lying there anyway, farting, whizing, affecting deafness. How he loved Oxford. How he loathed Hennacombe. How cruel was the contrast between them. He did not think his distinguished friends any better than himself. He drank their brancty with a clear conscience. He ate like a horse and allowed himself to accept small "loans"-a crown or two, nothing substantial, although Mr Temple liked to claim it would have been sufficient for an Oxford mansion had Stratton not frittered it all away on train tickets. Once he hiad been differentiated from his friends by his tendency towards High Seriousness. Now he was "poor Stratton" and they made the little loans as imarks of gratitude, that it was he, not they, who had allowed himself lto be mired in Devon by means of an unfortunate marriage-for it vvas Betty Stratton (the daughter of the controversial don) whom they blamed for the poor chap's predicament.

Hugh Stratton iwas not an Oxford Scholar but was a Scholar of Oxford. And as lonelly civil servants in Hong Kong may know more about the goings on in Knightsbridge than anyone who really lives there, so it was with Hutgh Stratton and Oxford. When he brought Oscar up to undergo his interview with Hawkins (the Provost of Oriel) he was also able to bring the news of a certain controversy about the election of Merton Fellowss/ which had travelled to Hennacombe more quickly than it had acros$s the slippery red cobbles of Merton Street. Yet for all this inntimacy with Oxford and its colleges, Hugh Stratton felt himself cast oi)ut. He could not so much as enter the echoing gatehouse of Oriel, coould not even glimpse the lovely bright grass of the front quad, withoout thinking, "I cannot stay." He emerged int<to the quad and felt all the eyes of Oriel's windows

Covetousness

looking down on him. His shabby clothes proclaimed him a poor clergyman with no place here. He had red mud caked on his trouser turnups and the gentlemen of Oriel, encountering him as he cut across to the chapel, averted their eyes from him, but not so much, he imagined, as not to note the fine red capillaries that had begun, just this year, to show on his nose and cheeks. When he brought Oscar through these portals he stopped him here, in the middle of the path across the quad, to tell him that he was jealous of him. But as he did it with a wistful smile upon his face, Oscar had no way of guessing the extent of it. The young man understood him as he might understand any older man pining for his youth. He did guess the jagged edges of this jealousy which had lacerated Hugh Stratton, more on every day that passed, none more than at this moment when they stood inside the quad. One would stay. One would be cast out. But jealousy was not the only serpent stirring the muddy waters of Hugh Stratton's unhappy soul. He could attempt to lay it by admitting it, but the other he could not even admit-the dreadful guilty truth was that he had made no provision for the cost of this education. When his wife had raised the question he had waved his handkerchief as if it were nothing but a march fly to be sent away. "I have told you. He can be a servitor."

"But have you written to Hawkins on the matter?"

"I would not pester the Provost with such a matter."

"Then pester Temple or Fisher, but pester someone, dear Hugh, don't you think you should?" He never did it and now he found there was no possibility of Oscar paying his way by taking a servitor's position. Oriel already had enough young men who must, if not sing, then wait a table for their supper. If Oscar was to be a servitor he must wait his turn. In the meantime the bursar was assuming that the Strattons would foot the bill. Mr Stratton had not enlightened him, but it was out of the question. So when Hugh Stratton, continuing his interrupted walk across the rainbright quad, led his protégé into that lovely little vaulted chapel where he nad once-fair-haired, apple-cheeked-been so admired for the purity °f his voice, he was not merely miserable with jealousy, teetering on the edge of grief, but also guilty about this financial matter, a thing he should not, so he felt, have to be guilty about at all. He had inended to take Oscar on a grand tour, a three-hour event he had, when Imagining it, expected to be a pleasant experience for both of them.

ut now he had a blinding headache and he turned back at the door

Oscar and Lucinda

to the library and bade his protégé good bye and good luck.

To Oscar, Mr Stratton's moods would always be a mystery, so much so that he had ceased to try to fathom them. He knew that his mentor had planned to dine with his friend Mr Temple, but now, it seemed, he was going to the railway station. It had begun to rain again.

"Your father must take responsibility," the clergyman told Oscar as they sheltered in the gatehouse. "He cannot go scot-free."

Theophilus, unlike Oscar, would have the benefit of a full revelation of Mr Stratton's thoughts on this matter, but he would not pay a penny towards sending his only son into the everlasting hellnre, and said so, plainly, not only to the pinched and put-upon clergyman, but also (in a passionate letter) to his son whom he implored to flee before it was too late. So it is in this context that one must understand the delivery of the coffee (the gift from Oscar after Sure Blaze's victory) to the vicarage at Hennacombe. Never have eight ounces of coffee produced such an electric effect upon a constitution. Not four days after the fragrant little parcel had its twopence worth of stamps pasted on its smudged face but Oscar, looking out of his window and down into the St Mary's Hall quadrangle before sitting down to his breakfast, saw none other than his patron, fastened up in his long black coat, limping (an accident with an axe) but limping quickly in the direction of Oscar's staircase.