Lindy Kato (Writer)

I am off to the frozen north for Mum’s funeral and to give Dad a hug. It means I will have to explain to him (again) why I left. I can hardly tell him that it was because of a horse race. To be fair it started as a joke. If Maori Venture won the Grand National we would emigrate to New Zealand. It would have been irresponsible to put money on a 50:1 outsider when we were broke. So we didn’t. Just our future (yes it won!).

Our youngest (whose name I have changed to protect his anonymity) was jumping and screaming because the rest of us were jumping and screaming—but I watched the others—while practically every other horse fell, it was clear that we wanted to go.

A couple of years later, when phones were still stuck to walls and handsets tethered by coils, I had what seemed like, a crank call. This is exactly the conversation that followed.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Whoever will be ringing that this time of day?
“Can one of you get that?” I yell…….Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Apparently not.
I wipe my hands, leave the spuds and go to the hallway.
“Hello can I help you?” I ask politely even though I am a tad annoyed.
“Gamblers Anonymous, can you talk?”
Hhhmmm, they either want money or it is some kind of survey. In either event they are likely to call back if I put them off.
“I guess you will just call me back if I don’t talk to you now?”
“Well yes”
“Ok, I don’t know much about gambling but fire away”.
“Do you gamble?” It’s a simple question but I have to think hard. As a child on a rainy day my brother and I would gamble with matchsticks on horse racing on the TV but I wasn’t sure if that was what she meant. Our family were great fans of card games but I don’t recall any money changing hands. I have never been to a casino so my answer is “no”.
“Really, never?” the Gamblers Anonymous lady sounds incredulous so I start racking my brains.
“Oh yes, we gambled our entire future on Maori Venture winning the Grand National, it came in 50 to 1, we didn’t have any money on it though. Oh and I go to the local races, they have a race every six weeks, an outing really, but yes, I do bet on the races with money”.
I am relieved and a bit less tetchy because it doesn’t seem that she is after a donation.
I am thinking about race day, it is such a treat for Anthony and me. Even though he is almost five, he is rake thin and I pop him into the kiddie seat on my pushbike and cycle to the racecourse. It is downhill a lot of the way so it doesn’t take much effort and we sing together the Camptown races song to get us in the mood.
The gambling lady bursts into my thoughts “does your husband know that you gamble?”
“What? Yes, well of course he does, well he knows that we go to the races”.
“Oh so you don’t go alone?”.
“Well no, I go with my four year old, it is our treat, when the races are on, the older two are at school. It is just Ant and I, out together, quality time.”
“I’m not sure that taking a child gambling counts as quality time”.
I am trying now to justify myself.

“We choose the grey, if there isn’t a grey then we choose the rider with the brightest outfit so that we can follow our horse around the track easily. He jumps up and down on the bench seat—screaming for our horse. I am pretty sure he thinks it is a great day out”. I’m thinking that this is a pretty poor survey.

“Do you write bouncing cheques?”
I am not sure how to answer, does she mean have I ever written a bouncing cheque or do I generally write bouncing cheques? Are we still talking about gambling or has this survey moved on to a different topic?
The gambling lady clarifies things “to support your gambling habit”.
We put a dollar each way on one horse in each of three races. This totals $6 every six weeks.
“I think that you need to know that my habit as you call it, costs me precisely one dollar per week at the most”. The racetrack is not open all year so my total gambling spend, in reality, is much less, I am guessing around $30 a year. In fact I am in profit because we won $110.00 not long ago.

“You don’t always feed your children though?”
The survey questions had seemed a bit odd but now this has become personal, “WHAT?”
“Well your children don’t always get afternoon tea?”
Now all the pieces are falling into place. Anthony and I bet on three races. If we win then we have afternoon tea to celebrate. We have to leave after three races to meet up with the school bus. I push the bike back up the hill and Ant walks, the others telling me about their day, sometimes there are neighbourhood kids. Everyone gets afternoon tea! Occasionally, we get afternoon tea twice!
“We have afternoon tea!” I tell her.
I can just picture skinny Anthony telling his kindy teacher, and anyone else who would listen, about our last trip to the races. He will have detailed how we lost all our money and we couldn’t have afternoon tea. I imagine that I am on some kind of bad mother list.
So I explain to the anonymous lady how I think we have come to this stage and now she is flustered.
“You can’t be too careful” she starts to explain but I butt in.
“Yes, I know. One of the children at the primary school told me that her mother was having her legs tied together so that she couldn’t have any more babies. Sounds brutal but I expect it will work, I simply didn’t think to inform the authorities without checking the strength of the information is all!” I put down the receiver and go back to the spuds.

If you want to watch the BBC coverage of the 1987 Grand National then this is a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCnUiNE9Iv0 You will have to open it in a new window, got to be secure 🙂