face.
She writes her top lip into an M with red lipstick and the bottom one into a U, then steps to one side for Winks. It’s their race-day system. He flicks his tie into a knot, buttons his tan waistcoat and yanks it down over his protruding belly. She leans right up to the glass and blackens her lashes into upturned hooks, plucks and pencils two ginger eyebrows into place on her forehead. He pulls his suit-coat lapel forward then bucks it off his shoulders and pulls it forward again until its weight is settled evenly across him. She paints her finger-tips red with a tiny brush and holds them clear of everything like a surgeon. He pushes a black porkpie hat very slowly onto his head, takes it off, strokes its green feather smooth, puts the hat on again. He does this three times. She pins either a white carnation or a red rose or sprig of lilac into his lapel. He takes a roll of cash from inside his coat and removes the rubber band that binds it. He counts the money into two piles: one hundred, three hundred, seven hundred, a thousand dollars in one pile. Fifty, seventy, eighty, one hundred in the other. He gives the one hundred to Heels. “That enough, love?” She calls it chicken-feed so he counts out some more and tells her to go easy on the firewater because it’s a hot day. She tells him to mind his own business and concentrate on backing a winner not on lecturing her. He says he’s got the good oil on two certainties that weren’t trying last start. He worries about pickpockets so his money is divided into three lots. One for tucking inside his coat. One for his back pocket. One in the side pocket beneath his handkerchief. In case he has a bad day on the punt he folds a twenty-dollar bill into his sock for cab fare home. Heels inspects that his hat is tilted at a nice angle. He makes sure her teeth are clear of lipstick. She cleans them with a rub of her pinkie and says, “OK God, let us play” for the benefit of me the preacher-man. Not even a man, but a half-man. A boy.
The bible I’ve been reading, the white leather one with gold cross on the cover, was a baptism present from Aunty Dorothy. It says the best way to live is to be poor. The worst way is to be rich. In its pictures the people have long hair and beards like the demonstrators on TV, the bludgers, drug-takers and layabouts I’m not allowed to be when I grow up. Money changers are particularly frowned upon in the bible. The bible is designed to turn me against everything I know. Just as Heels and Winks turned me against horis and Heritage and Greeks, the bible is turning me against the rest. It would turn me against my new uncles. They aren’t related to me but are my uncles nonetheless because they’re friends of Winks and to a lesser extent Heels. Are they money changers? They certainly seem to be. They stand on boxes at the races at a place called The Rails between the public area and fenced-off Members. They twiddle a venetian blind of numbers and carry over their shoulders a big doctor’s bag full of money. Uncle Keith, Uncle Chicka, Uncle Jack. They yell “five thousand to two thousand, Gourmet Guest. Eight hundred to two hundred, Engine Room. Two to one the favourite, Beez Neez. In from sixes to fours, Sir Simeon” a minute before a race begins. Punters push forward waving cash. They bellow bets or mouth a horse’s name and signal with their fingers to add a one-thousand or two-thousand dollar wager to their tab. My uncles record the bets with a furious scribble on the top card of a deck of cards. Their pens are a blue or red crayon stick. Just what they scribble only they can understand.
The bible has turned me against horseracing itself. I wish I could forget about God. I love the racing, the bugle calling horses to canter to the barriers. The earthquake of hooves. When cheerers in the grandstand stomp and scream home the winner their guttural madness thrills me. I scream and stomp with them until breathless and emptied out. I
She writes her top lip into an M with red lipstick and the bottom one into a U, then steps to one side for Winks. It’s their race-day system. He flicks his tie into a knot, buttons his tan waistcoat and yanks it down over his protruding belly. She leans right up to the glass and blackens her lashes into upturned hooks, plucks and pencils two ginger eyebrows into place on her forehead. He pulls his suit-coat lapel forward then bucks it off his shoulders and pulls it forward again until its weight is settled evenly across him. She paints her finger-tips red with a tiny brush and holds them clear of everything like a surgeon. He pushes a black porkpie hat very slowly onto his head, takes it off, strokes its green feather smooth, puts the hat on again. He does this three times. She pins either a white carnation or a red rose or sprig of lilac into his lapel. He takes a roll of cash from inside his coat and removes the rubber band that binds it. He counts the money into two piles: one hundred, three hundred, seven hundred, a thousand dollars in one pile. Fifty, seventy, eighty, one hundred in the other. He gives the one hundred to Heels. “That enough, love?” She calls it chicken-feed so he counts out some more and tells her to go easy on the firewater because it’s a hot day. She tells him to mind his own business and concentrate on backing a winner not on lecturing her. He says he’s got the good oil on two certainties that weren’t trying last start. He worries about pickpockets so his money is divided into three lots. One for tucking inside his coat. One for his back pocket. One in the side pocket beneath his handkerchief. In case he has a bad day on the punt he folds a twenty-dollar bill into his sock for cab fare home. Heels inspects that his hat is tilted at a nice angle. He makes sure her teeth are clear of lipstick. She cleans them with a rub of her pinkie and says, “OK God, let us play” for the benefit of me the preacher-man. Not even a man, but a half-man. A boy.
The bible I’ve been reading, the white leather one with gold cross on the cover, was a baptism present from Aunty Dorothy. It says the best way to live is to be poor. The worst way is to be rich. In its pictures the people have long hair and beards like the demonstrators on TV, the bludgers, drug-takers and layabouts I’m not allowed to be when I grow up. Money changers are particularly frowned upon in the bible. The bible is designed to turn me against everything I know. Just as Heels and Winks turned me against horis and Heritage and Greeks, the bible is turning me against the rest. It would turn me against my new uncles. They aren’t related to me but are my uncles nonetheless because they’re friends of Winks and to a lesser extent Heels. Are they money changers? They certainly seem to be. They stand on boxes at the races at a place called The Rails between the public area and fenced-off Members. They twiddle a venetian blind of numbers and carry over their shoulders a big doctor’s bag full of money. Uncle Keith, Uncle Chicka, Uncle Jack. They yell “five thousand to two thousand, Gourmet Guest. Eight hundred to two hundred, Engine Room. Two to one the favourite, Beez Neez. In from sixes to fours, Sir Simeon” a minute before a race begins. Punters push forward waving cash. They bellow bets or mouth a horse’s name and signal with their fingers to add a one-thousand or two-thousand dollar wager to their tab. My uncles record the bets with a furious scribble on the top card of a deck of cards. Their pens are a blue or red crayon stick. Just what they scribble only they can understand.
The bible has turned me against horseracing itself. I wish I could forget about God. I love the racing, the bugle calling horses to canter to the barriers. The earthquake of hooves. When cheerers in the grandstand stomp and scream home the winner their guttural madness thrills me. I scream and stomp with them until breathless and emptied out. I
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