Race Girl Read online

  At least it appears I don’t have to share a room, Tully thought, setting her bags down beside the bed. She searched the built-in robe and found a flat, yellow-stained pillow, set of royal blue sheets and a thin doona. Quickly made her bed, then pulled out her duffel bag and set her tiny Breyer up on the windowsill, against the grated security screen.

  Tully fished out a photograph of her mother, then one of Brandon standing next to her and Dahlia in the winner’s enclosure of The Brisbane Cup and several more of Dahlia and Frangipani grazing in their turnout paddocks at Avalon, set them all in a line along the window ledge. She wished she had a pic of Bear Dog, and Calypso, too, and made a mental note to find a shop to print them off tomorrow.

  Her body started to shake as she stood back, drinking in the photographs – the goosebumps growing to spikes beneath her clothes. Tully dug her mum’s pink scarf out of her bag, wrapped it around her neck, then sat down on the bed, the springs letting out a loud creak.

  Well, I’m here, Mum, she thought, lifting her chin and taking a brave glance around the room. And I’m going to make the most of it – even if my new home is a freezing cold, drafty box with one tiny window looking out at the brick wall of the identical building next door, and no green in sight . . .

  Tully shuddered at the cinder-block walls and the strange, artificial spew-smell – so cold and dead, an absolute world away from the earthy warmth of the timber VJ boards in her family’s Queenslander. Those were walls that re-charged her, with an energy and history all of their own. The main homestead of Avalon may have been left to grow tired and rusty, but Tully remembered with a warm glow of nostalgia how it had looked in its heyday, with its wide white verandah, ornate hoods over all the windows, twin gables in maroon and green under the peaks of the proud rooflines. The way it had looked in the few photos of her mother’s that she’d found tucked in the bottom of one of her drawers. Its Queenslander, fairy-tale charm.

  The dull ache from the cold biting at her ribs and the suffocating smell of smoke seeping in from somewhere nearby pulled Tully back into reality. The sun had vanished and she stood up, searching out the window for the light of a star. But the city was too bright. Tully yearned for the full spread of twinkling magic across an ink black, serene rural sky.

  Tears pricked at her eyes, and Tully’s soul thrashed against the bars of this prison – like a horse confined to a stall full time. Melbourne was glitzy and Flemington was exciting – just like Tully had always imagined they would be. But the gloss of this lifestyle was already chipping at the edges and she hadn’t even attempted a race yet.

  33

  Green Demon

  Tully rushed across the yard when her filly finally arrived a few days later, her heart bursting with relief like it had been weeks since she’d seen a familiar face.

  Dahlia strutted down off the back of the Germaine Racing Horse Transporter in her tall padded travel boots, thickest winter rug and full hood with ears and eye holes cut out, her head high, snorting and prancing at the strange sights and sounds. A striking blonde girl held her head, pushing into her to keep the mare from taking off when she spotted Tully.

  ‘Hey, superstar!’ Tully cried, breaking into a run towards her filly, who was nearly old enough now to be considered a mare. Dahlia let out a shrill whinny, pawing at the dirt and tossing her head to be released.

  Tully flung her arms around Dahlia, patting her neck and her face through the thick blankets. ‘You look like an Eskimo, all rugged up!’ she said, kissing Dahlia on her white snip and feeding her a lump of sugar out of the back pocket of her jeans.

  ‘I was instructed to keep her warm,’ the girl said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tully beamed, ‘Ashlea?’

  She nodded, handing Tully the brand new rope lead.

  Tully grinned, chewing her bottom lip to keep the tears in. She’d missed her girl just as much as she missed her man. ‘Thanks for taking such good care of her.’

  ‘You’re right,’ the girl said. She offered a brief smile before turning with a flick of blonde ponytail for the truck.

  ‘C’mon, you.’ Tully had to jog a few steps, pulling hard to get the excited thoroughbred under control. ‘Can’t wait to show you around!’

  Fia blew in just as Tully was leading Dahlia down to her stall in the barn where the fillies were housed. She hopped out of her Range Rover, rushed around to have a look over the super filly and get her over to the scales. They discovered that in the stress of the trip Dahlia had already dropped a few hundred grams from her ideal race weight. Fia suggested some extra corn and chaff for the next few weeks as she got acclimatised to the new environment and colder climate. Tully thanked her. Fia kissed the filly on the nose and disappeared into her office, followed by a flustered Mr. Dodd.

  Tully had prepared Dahlia’s stall with a nice thick blanket of shavings, set up her hay bag in the back corner and cleaned out her waterer. She stayed with the filly all afternoon and well into the evening, currying and brushing her coat and feeding her apple, chatting about track work and all the horses she’d met and especially about Calypso. None of the other horses, with the exception of Tully’s new mate Calypso, of course, knew what an apple was, or how to eat it. Tully had learned the treat of choice in racehorse stables was sugar cubes, but she was pleased that Dahlia preferred apple.

  She couldn’t bring herself to leave the barn that night and slept on a bed of blankets out the front of Dahlia’s stall. She found it almost warmer – and certainly friendlier with the horses in the drafty barn than with the pretty little sharks back at the flat. Tully prayed she wouldn’t get in trouble if she slept here more often.

  Shannon the farrier arrived just after morning feed the next day to do all Fia’s Melbourne-based horses. He grabbed his gear out of Fia’s office, greeting Tully with a warm smile and a hug.

  ‘Finding a good farrier is half the battle in training racehorses to win, Tully,’ Fia said, following Shannon down the aisle, laptop and form guide in hand. She eyed Tully’s grubby, day-old jeans and drool-stained Germaine Racing jumper. Tully smoothed at the front of it, her eyes casting down to her scuffed boots. Don’t let her know that you’re struggling, Tully, she told herself, her heart rate accelerating. Don’t let her down . . . She let out a shallow breath when Fia finally glanced back to Shannon. ‘This here fine gentleman flies all over the country for me, don’t ya, bloke?’

  He grinned a cheeky, lopsided grin that reminded Tully painfully of her far away boyfriend.

  ‘She manages to lure me here a few days a week,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Reckons it’s too cold to base here full-time, though, don’t ya?’

  ‘That’s right —once a Queenslander, always a Queenslander, hey Tulls.’ He winked. ‘For life.’

  Fia narrowed her eyes, shook her head in mock despair, but eventually grinned. Tully shifted on her feet, Dahlia’s halter and lead rope in hand. She knew exactly what Shannon meant. Her heart bled for home.

  Shannon nodded at the girls, then he nudged Fia in the side with his farrier’s kit and looked back over his shoulder and winked as he swaggered down the aisle of the barn in his chaps, work shirt and Blundstones. Fia had claimed to Tully before that their relationship ‘wasn’t intimate’, but Tully seriously doubted it. Man, do I ever miss Brandon. She couldn’t wait to call him tonight and tell him all about her first week at Flemington.

  Dahlia quickly claimed diva status in the barn, and drew more of a crowd every time Tully rode her out for gallops. She was an impressive horse, a spirited, special, spectacular horse. Tully was asked regularly by people around the track when her first Melbourne start would be and she always smiled proudly, thanked them for the compliments, then referred them to Fia, who was making the training and racing decisions. But the truth was, Tully was dying to race. And Dahlia was too.

  The filly settled into the Melbourne swing of things just fine, happy as long as she got to run regularly, got plenty of treats and didn’t have to be stabled directly adjacent to any ot
her horses. Tully had succeeded in introducing her to Calypso, however, and she’d responded with only one nip and a token squeal at the gentle colt. Tully waited a few more weeks before moving them side by side, though – once she did, Dahlia raised an eyebrow, but wouldn’t reduce herself to fretting when Calypso left her sight, which was fairly regularly as Fia believed in continual barrier practice. By the end of the second week Dahlia wasn’t even batting her lovely lashes at being led in and when that gate opened, Tully knew she’d better be ready to ride. Her barrier speed was really getting there and Fia was certain that there were few horses in the country who could run her down.

  Fia also exercised her horses for a touch longer on the hot walkers in the afternoons, and Tully noticed that Dahlia seemed more relaxed come bedtime. Tully would stay to help with these afternoon sessions, despite Mr. Dodd’s grumblings at what he claimed was ‘being spied on by an owner/jockey girl’. According to Mr. Dodd, he’d never known a jockey to own a promising racehorse, let alone a ‘girl one’. Tully would sweat her frustrations out at the gym, before heading back to Flemington to check that the horses had eaten all of their last meals for the day. Her mother had taught her that an empty feed bucket usually meant a healthy, happy horse, and she found Dahlia and Calypso were wolfing their dinners with vigour.

  Tully loved creeping back in after the sun went down to watch them sleep, both horses like ponies with their noses tucked into the bedding and legs curled up beneath them, or fully spread out, their hooves kicked out and heads resting back. But she hadn’t risked sleeping at the stable again, despite how miserable it was having to head back to the flat.

  It was a hectic, exhausting routine for Tully to maintain six days a week, especially where Brandon was concerned. He was busy, too – too busy to take personal calls during the day. No matter how hard she tried to stay awake to call him, Tully often fell asleep before she could dial his number, only to wake with a sick sense of loneliness seeping in like the cold. She responded by driving even harder with the horses and her times showed it, with Dahlia and Calypso quickly rising to the top of Germaine Racing’s list.

  Back at the unit one Friday night, shivering and wrapped in her doona deep in this freezing Melbourne winter, Tully had just made herself a quick chicken noodle soup from the can when the girls tumbled out of the bathroom, giggling and snapping selfies. Their hair and makeup was done, clad in tiny dresses and towering heels to hit the clubs as they regularly did Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes even Sundays, despite having to be up early and ready for work on Monday.

  Miena tottered straight past Tully like she was invisible. Ashlea offered an insincere smile. ‘Have a good night, Tully,’ she said faintly, before hurrying after Miena and another girl everyone called Sims who had short cropped black hair and treated Tully as Miena had before she’d just resigned to ignoring her – like gum stuck to the bottom of her riding boots.

  That’s alright, Tully told herself. I didn’t want to come anyway.

  She swallowed down the hurt from never being invited along and retreated to her cold concrete box of a room. Last thing I need is a hangover . . . Fia had just been telling her about a girl who rode track work for the barn opposite theirs who’d been sacked for showing up to work drunk one time too many. Rumour was the girl’s parents had booked her into rehab. ‘Gotta have your head screwed on straight to resist the city temptations,’ Fia had said, looping her arm through Tully’s. ‘Good thing I don’t have to worry about any of that with you.’

  Because I’m a loner with no friends, Tully thought, breathing down the tears.

  It was easier to keep it all in perspective when she was with Dahlia and Calypso, or when she found a rare minute to call Tam or Brandon. When Tully was on the back of a horse or speaking to her loved ones she didn’t feel so far from home.

  Tully finally took the time to put up her Horsewyse posters and pictures of Makybe Diva and Michelle Payne and her mother and grandmother, to add some colour and inspiration and life to the drab walls of her room. To remind her what she was here for.

  Filming for Real Housewives wrapped up late the next week, giving Fia the time to take Tully out, which was a lifesaver. Tam also posted Tully down a few of her favourite rural romance novels, which Tully was devouring. Reading about the countryside and rural life became the next best thing to breathing in the fresh air for herself. Jillaroo by Rachael Treasure was Tully’s favourite so far – she even got up the courage to ring her dad after finishing it. He said he’d sold all the cattle and sounded strained on the phone, but insisted they were sweet with the bank so Weston couldn’t force them out. Tully had given up asking whether he’d be coming to watch her ride. He didn’t mention the spring carnival and she wasn’t about to put her hopes out there to have them trampled on again.

  Still, Tully couldn’t contain a fresh surge of anger and disappointment after speaking to her father, for his lack of acceptance and support. She often felt a twinge of guilt when she thought about her dad, and Bucko, and at times, her farm. But doubt in her mind was like kryptonite, Tully had realised – it could get her killed on the track. She had to be fifth gear wide open in the forward direction, for her future, for Dahlia, to win enough money to free her farm.

  ★

  It was on a warm day, almost spring weather, when Fia stomped into the stables, her red hair a tangled mess, an oversized black sweater flapping out behind her. ‘That bloody little tramp!’ she cried, pulling Tully into her office. ‘You heard the news?’ Fia asked, without even taking the time to pull the door closed.

  ‘I don’t think so?’ Tully said, closing the door quickly, before moving to her aunt’s side. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Miena’s gone to ride exclusively for Richard, and from what I hear, their arrangement extends well beyond the stable!’

  Richard . . . Tully recalled the name. Fia’s snaky ex-husband!

  ‘She’s bloody well young enough to be to be his daughter!’ Fia said. ‘She’s too big to ever jockey, even really to track ride! I was doing her a favour, and a kick to the teeth is how she chooses to repay me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Fia,’ Tully said, resting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I know how much you did for her . . .’ Inside, Tully was doing a dance that she wouldn’t have to deal with Miena anymore. But she knew from experience that girls like Miena, like Annalise before her, could do real damage out of spite. Fia would do well to be worried about the outcome of Miena’s betrayal – for their stable, for her dream. They’d have to work that much harder to stay ahead.

  ‘Always was his style,’ Fia continued, waving her finger at the filing cabinet in the corner as if it was Richard. ‘Trying to cut me down, using the bright young things to make me jealous! I’ll crush him for this, I swear I’ll crush him.’

  ‘We will, Aunt Fia.’ Tully wrapped an arm around her aunt’s shoulders, her level gaze meeting her aunt’s wrathful one. ‘We will.’

  Fia was at the barn as much as Tully from that day forward, and their ramped up effort in the ‘Crush Richard’ campaign was sprung with spring in the Victorian racing city. Tully tried hard not to miss everyone and the farm and the frangipanis and especially the spring-time blossoms of the jacarandas, but her exhausted body and aching heart and soul needed a trip home. Soon.

  Hopefully I can steal a few days away after the spring carnival, she decided, as Brandon was planning to come down with one of the horses he was training for his father. Every day, Tully grew more excited about seeing him – to feel the warmth of his strong arms, to kiss him and hold him and share with him the excitement of Flemington and Dahlia and Calypso.

  That week, Tully and Fia pushed each other to a crushing regimen of track work and race preparations. By Friday afternoon, Tully could hardly get around the barn without collapsing. Fia was meeting late with one of her more high-maintenance Melbourne owners, so Tully finished up with the horses before trundling off for the Headquarters Tavern in the heart of Flemington’s training facilities to get th
em both a hot meal and a strong coffee.

  Tully smiled and thanked the waitress as she set down a steaming bowl of vegetable soup with fresh garlic damper and a takeaway meal for Fia, plus their coffees. Tully broke off a chunk of the soft, hot bread, dipped it in her soup. She was about to fish her phone out of her pocket to ring Brandon when a group of jockeys fell laughing through the front door. Tully recognised many of them – one she hadn’t seen in quite some time.

  The guys all smiled and said ‘hey’ to Tully, one winked. The one she hadn’t seen in over a year broke from the group, sliding in across from her. ‘Fancy seeing you here, Athens,’ Zack said, grinning across at her. The boy Tully met at Birdsville had filled out in the shoulders, Tully concluded, surprised to feel her cheeks going hot as she smiled across at him. He seemed taller than the last time she’d seen him, too.

  ‘What’re the chances two jockeys from Birdsville would meet again at Flemington?!’ Zack said with a grin. ‘Well, we’re not from Birdsville, but you know what I mean . . .’

  ‘That was an amazing race,’ Tully said, remembering the night they’d met at the campfire as clear as yesterday. ‘Have you got a ride for the carnival?’

  Zack raised his middle finger at the other guys, who’d settled with the waitress on one of their knees in the back corner and were grinning and yelling suggestive obscenities at them. Tully sunk down in her seat, taking a quick bite of her damper.

  ‘I just got a start riding track work for O’Grady, you?’

  ‘Oh, cool,’ Tully said, swallowing quickly. ‘You’re a few barns down from us. I’ve been here with Fia since the beginning of the season.’

  ‘Your aunt – of course.’ Zack waved one of the waitresses over, ordered a spirit with diet soda. He spoke with a slight drawl – Tully was pretty sure he was from far north Queensland. She found herself drinking in every one of his words. ‘How’s Dahlia going?’ he asked. ‘I saw you won the Brissie Cup. Impressive stuff.’