Almost Twenty-twenty

Almost Twenty-twenty

That's me, sharp, clear vision; I can see the wood as well as the trees
- not like some. Barney Phillips for instance, who, you might say, was
my benefactor. Food and clothes were still rationed then, fivers were
big white things you aspired to owning, and fiddling was the only
decent living. OK, I used Barney, but he had money to burn and I was
potless.

Like me, he was an Eastender, but, unlike me, Barney dodged national
service. He went down to Kent to become a miner, being probably the
only bloke in Limehouse who knew where coal came from. He sneaked back
during the blitz, escaping death by a whisker when his house was the
only one left standing following a doodlebug raid. The other nineteen
were flattened, while I was stuck in Bletchley Park deciphering codes,
missing all the action. But it's all about luck, ask any punter.

After the war he used his contacts in Kent to make a killing in black
market beef. I resented that. I mean, I was the brainy one, yet all I
could aspire to was bookie's runner, while Barney was coining it so
fast, it was criminal.

We would meet in the George &; Dragon, just off Commercial Road. He
might've been a great darts player, but he could only finish on double
tops. Twenties, you see. Being little and podgy, numbers below the bull
would've be easier to hit, but Barney was obsessed with that house
number. Left on any other finishing double, his shoulders drooped and
he lost interest.

When I took his first wager to the betting shop, I thought he was
having a laugh - or testing me maybe. Not that I'd blame him, not since
the Miracle Yankee. You see, although I don't bet, I know quite a lot
about the nags. I started taking notice just after this fella Titman -
a nom de plume, in case the betting slips were impounded by the Old
Bill - started using my services. I'd meet him in the caf? every
morning about ten and he'd hand me the betting slip and eleven
shillings stake money. My routine was to collect bets, then take them
to Ernie Tabor's back street shop about twelve. When he'd checked the
wagers with the cash I'd collected, he'd bung me my commission. I'd
meet up with him next morning and he'd give me the winning tickets and
payout money. All I had to do was put a face to the aliases, reimburse
the lucky punters, and collect more bets.

Titman seemed to have a knack for picking losers, consistently: not a
brilliant achievement I admit, but he had a run of three months with
nothing back but a few bob for non-runners. So I studied the Sporting
Life and Timeform until I knew all there was to know about the game.
Titman's money went straight into my hip pocket, unless I could see
that any of his selections had the remotest chance of winning.

Six months on came my daylight nightmare - Titman's four no-hopers
first past the post, at odds of ten to one through to thirty-threes -
six doubles, four trebles and a four-horse accumulator! With shilling
bets, it would've come to well over a grand, reduced to a monkey by
Ernie Tabor's make-them-up-as-you-go winnings limits.

I was struggling to keep my eyes open so I could wash down the last of
the sleeping tablets with bootleg malt whisky, when Ernie's heavies
broke my front door off its hinges.

It's a slippery slope, trust me. And the top man wants your money, not
your life. So I had to duck and dive even more, for no wages. Titman
got his five hundred smackers, and I got a deadline I couldn't
meet.

Gullible Barney was my first incentive to consider fiddling again,
after my disastrous middleman-takes-all initiative. The bruises healed
quickly, but the fractures were taking longer. Janette, Ernie's
cashier, felt sorry for me and took me to the pictures occasionally; I
think she liked dark places. I mean, we were just getting over the
blackout, yet there she was working in a windowless, illegal gaming
shop! Still, she was my insurance against another pummelling, through
her insider knowledge. So I allowed myself to think of Barney as a
means of clearing my enormous debt.

It was slow going. For one thing Barney would only bet on handicaps
with twenty or more runners. Did he go for number twenty on the card or
the horse drawn twenty, or should he wait until both numbers matched?
"Twenty on the card," I insisted, forgetting to tell him about the
'high numbers in handicaps' watchwords, which restricted his selections
to the lower weighted gee gees. They have low weights because, firm or
soft going, they're 'also rans,' with form figures like a row of duck
eggs - the donkeys of the equine world.

Still, I played it safe. OK, Barneys bets never reached Ernie's till,
but I kept a few quid under the lino - dreading another Titman
phenomenon.

We were in the George when he sprung it on me. "Change of plan, Tom."
He handed me his betting slip. "I've had a tip. I sold a few carcasses
for cash to a bloke who knows a trainer in Newmarket. Put it on the
nose eh?" He handed me a wad of big ones. "Not a fiver today - five
hundred! Better check it out with your guv'nor."

I let him hear me verify the bet - with Janette. It was a bad line. I
asked for the odds on offer. Totally unfancied, worth the risk.

-----ooooo-----

Walking the beach near our tumbledown shack on the rain-lashed Outer
Hebrides, Janette and I still argue about it.

"For the last time, Pet, when I said 'what's Effintime?' I meant what
price! Maybe your watch said twenty to one, but Effintime was five to
effin' one favourite. A racing certainty!"

Ends.