Racing
Kamikaze woman
Jeffrey Bernard
I'm keing followed and I don't like it. Almost every time I strike a bet with my unlicensed bookmaker in my local pub the wager is duplicated by this woman called Eva. She has a sort of faith in me that is more dumb than blind. It started last spring. I called round to her flat—it's more of a salon than a 'flat actually—to discuss the previous day's appalling behaviour and to borrow some money from her. She asked me if there was, by any chance, a particular nag I fancied that day. I told her that I'd been waiting for a hurdler called Tsuru which was running that afternoon and she gave me a tenner to put on for her. That evening, I presented her with £100 and it was that evening that she got the idea that winning £100 on a horse was as easy as falling out of a taxi.
In fact, I suspect that she got the idea that winning £100 was something that could be done on every race, never mind once a day. Well, we had our ups and ups, did Eva and and that was the beginning of the best run of luck I've had since Anglo won the Grand National at 50-1 and made me independent of the most horrendous wardress I've ever lived with. But that's another story and far too seamy for the likes of Spectator readers. So, anyway, Eva and I took to having snacks in the Connaught and I went on making inspired guesses and, d'you know, vve just couldn't go wrong.
Since then, as readers of this column must know, I haven't picked anything that's been In the frame, never mind won. Well, nearly. Hut the plucky little woman still follows me. It puts me in something of a quandary and this is what I want to talk to you about. In the first place the said Eva hereinafter re ferred to as the PLW (for plucky little woman) has the extraordinary idea that money is pieces of paper. In view of that you might think it odd of me to have a conscience about tipping her losers, but it doesn't work like that.
It's something that you just can't help feeling bad about. The nitty gritty of the business is the fact that I can't bear putting money on for someone else even when it's their wretched choice. If you're betting on credit and sticking on for other people you can do your money by the time they send out the cheques or the bills and you've still got to find the readies for your friends. Is that quite clear? I thought it was a terrible sentence. Another thing that's unbearable about getting involved with others is the person who has a go at you when they lose. It's unforgivable in fact. The PLW doesn't do that; she's as good as gold, or in her case platinum. What she does do when we lose is to bathe me in one of those looks that labradors give you after you've kicked them and which mean, 'T hope you didn't hurt your foot.'
No, what's troubling my conscience now is the fact that my luck's turned again and I didn't put the PLW in on it. In spite of the abandonment of so much racing recently I've had two very nourishing touches on horses trained by J. Webber and ridden by his son A. Webber. On both occasions I snuck off round the corner to put the money on, having told the PLW that I wasn't betting that day. Now I'm almost in her boots because I was tipped both animals and the man who gave them to me is furious that I didn't put more on. Megalomania rears its ugly head. Winning tipsters want to play at God a little.
Can you imagine it, this man is actually angry that his tips haven't made me rich ? I can understand it in a N;vay because I can remember feeling slightly irritated with the PLW when I've given her a winner and she's said I'm wonderful but hasn't gone on and on saying it. Then, of course, there's superstition and the more you try and despise that the more superstitious you get. On the quiet, I'm beginning to think that the PLW might be a jinx on me. I know logically that what she happens to be doing at closing time can't possibly affect the performance of a horse in the three o'clock at Teeside, but I feel it. Mind you, I don't think that there's much I can do about it. She's hellbent on throwing these pieces of paper at the bookmaking fraternity and if one is doomed to make this kamikaze trip to Carey Street then one might as welt have company.
That reminds me. Just about the most honest thing that could ever have been uttered in a bankruptcy court was the classic remark made by the actor Valentine Dyall. The Recorder asked him, 'To what do you attribute your downfall?' Mr Dyall replied, 'Two and a half mile handicap hurdles.' What I'd like to know is what about the bloody sprint handicaps in the summer? Come to that, what about the Bollinger in the Members' Bar, and the novice chases, and the hunter-chasers? It's one hell of a struggle, isn't it ?
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