The Moleskine

Ron raised his right hand to his mouth, meticulously nibbling at each nail before turning his attention to the left. He didn’t know whether it was the race or the knowledge of what was waiting for him at home that was having this effect on him.

As the horses rounded the bend with four furlongs to go, he looked momentarily away from the widescreen TV opposite, the only ornament hanging on the off-white (once white?) walls, and considered the other punters. How many of them had a Peter at home? Not many, judging by the look of them. Some he wasn’t even convinced had a home. He’d never seen that seat in the corner not occupied by the fat man in the canvas jacket with the faintly troubling white goatee. He’d never seen him in a different outfit either, come to think of it.

Starlight stumbled over the penultimate fence and Ron winced as his horse slipped behind the two leaders. She’d been an outside chance, but Ron had had a good feeling. She’d led up to the halfway point, which put him in line to collect a tidy £200. As she came home in third, a position that the jockey was clearly delighted with, Ron groaned, although not loudly enough to attract attention, and slid off his stool towards the toilets, keeping his eyes on the floor as he traversed the grey expanse of the shop.

He found a cubicle and slammed the door behind him, shutting out the outside world. Having reassured himself that he was alone, he swore loudly. Three times. He placed his head in his hands and sighed deeply. What would Peter say? He would know where he’d been. As he removed his hands, he caught a glimpse of something on the floor, poking out from underneath the next stall. He grabbed it instinctively and drew it across the floor towards him. It was a small, black Moleskine notebook. He picked it up. He used to have one of these once – exactly the same – he used to jot down ideas for stories that he had, that he would write one day. Until, that is, that he started using it to jot down betting tips instead. They had chased his ideas out of the notebook. Out of his head.

Ron smiled wryly. It looked like this poor sod had been doing the same. He turned a few of the pristine pages carefully – it looked like this guy was even more prolific than he was. Then an odd detail struck him. Ron turned to the first page. He furrowed his brow. All the tips were dated on the left – a column of small, neat, cursive writing, not entirely dissimilar to his own. The very first date on the very first page was tomorrow.

Ron looked more closely at the tips themselves. He knew full well what races were on tomorrow. The list began with Aintree. For the 15:05, the mysterious punter was backing Dutch Wizard. Ron had never even heard of that horse, and he knew for a fact that it wasn’t racing in the 15:05 at Aintree tomorrow. He glanced further down the list:

15:50 – Sir Reginald

16:25 – Dancing Mabel

‘Nonsense!’ Ron muttered to himself as he got up. Nevertheless, he reflexively tucked the Moleskine into his right rear pocket, where his old one used to belong.

#

As he approached the flat that he had bought with Peter 12 years ago now, almost to the day, he began to feel the notebook weigh heavily in his back pocket. He did a half-hearted semi-jog up the four steps that led to the block, then paused. He would only make it worse for himself if he came back with a new tips book. He wasn’t supposed to have been at the bookies at all. He’d promised. Again. He thumbed the book nostalgically, more sorry to see the book itself go than the contents, and tossed it in the rubbish. He decided to wait for the lift to take him the two flights up, putting off the inevitable by a few more seconds.

Having found himself finally at the doorstep, he turned the key slowly in the lock, as if he could somehow mitigate his fate by entering the flat as unobtrusively as possible. He took his shoes off, and his coat, hanging it on the stand by the door, and then wrapped his scarf around it too. He padded softly through into the living room and stopped, awaiting his sentence. Peter continued to sketch in silence for a further ten seconds or so, before glancing up casually over the top of his glasses, his gangly frame still hunched over the charcoal.

‘Where have you been?’

Ron hated this. Peter knew full well where he had been. Why didn’t he stop playing games?

‘Nowhere. Just walking. I find the trees particularly inspiring this time of year.’ It was January. If Peter was going to play games then so was he.

Peter sighed. A troubling suspicion had seemingly been confirmed. He scratched away with his pencil for a few seconds more, then slowly rose. ‘You know, part of me really thought today was the day. But then again, I say that every day, don’t I?’ He locked eyes suddenly with Ron, who averted his gaze instantaneously, as if burned by the contact.

Ron remained silent. He hated it when he did this. He hated Peter when he did this. He felt himself travel back in time almost 60 years, to when he was a schoolboy, being told by his favourite teacher that she wasn’t angry with him, she was disappointed. It was so much worse. In their 15 years together, Ron had never heard Peter shout. But he had never had to.

‘I don’t think I can do this much longer,’ Peter continued coolly, as if he was remarking on a slight change in the temperature. He spoke more to himself than to Ron. Gaze fixed firmly downwards, Ron heard Peter recede into the kitchen and put the kettle on, every footstep reverberating throughout his body.

#

Ron left after lunch the next day with every intention of going on a brisk walk to clear his head. He felt smug, having noted Peter’s solitary arched eyebrow on his departure – an accusation that he would soon prove to be false. Sure, he had glanced in the bins on his way out to see if he could see the notebook – he’d even had a brief rummage – but he hadn’t found it and that was fine. Completely fine. He started off on his usual route, round the edge of town and through the park, thinking about what he could do to make things up to Peter. He had come up with five ideas, each notably worse than the last, before he found that he had in fact completed his usual route, and was standing outside the bookies. It was coming up to 15:00.

He berated himself under his breath, and was about to turn back when he caught sight of a name on the TV through the window. Dutch Wizard. There he was, the cameras following the chestnut stallion as he walked calmly from the paddock. Ron’s internal battle was over before it had even started. He slipped into the bookies and placed his usual £10 bet.

Less than 10 minutes later, he was standing with £100 in his hands. Quite how the interim had passed, he wasn’t sure. The odds on Sir Reginald were even longer, 50–1; only a fool would think he stood a chance. He had no form at all and the jockey was a newbie. Ron knew all this, even better than he knew the contours of Peter’s face.

‘£100. On Sir Reginald. Please.’ He avoided the inquisitive gaze of the bookie, who knew Ron to be a shrewder customer than this.

A further 45 minutes later, and he was standing with £5,000 cash in hand. He flicked through the notes, counting and recounting, just to make sure. He glanced at his watch. Noting his protracted absence, Peter would have assumed the inevitable, right about now. But he couldn’t be angry with him this time. Ron could finally buy him that cruise round the Norwegian fjords that he’d been banging on about for so long.

Ron smiled a long smile of vindication – he’d always known his hobby would bear fruit eventually. Then he looked back up at the screen, where they were starting to show the details of the next race. Surely not? He permitted himself a slight smirk.

He strode over to the counter, with every intention of putting all his winnings on the final race. ‘£1,000 on Dancing Mabel.’ He couldn’t risk it. He’d just won back Peter’s affection. He couldn’t gamble that away.

‘You feeling bad for me, eh?’ the bookie joked, more than happy to take Ron’s money. Ron laughed nervously, wanting to avoid a discussion.

#

£20,000! He could take Peter to Sweden too for that kind of money! And whatever that other country up there was, come to that.

Ron strode home, meeting the gaze of passers-by unflinchingly. He bounced up the steps to his apartment block, then paused at the front entrance. Turning, he went to the large bin where he had discarded the Moleskine the day before. The binmen hadn’t come, so it had to be in there somewhere. How could he have let it go? He should have known from the dates that the book was special somehow. He stopped dead in his tracks. Was he involved in some race-fixing scandal? Either way, no one knew he had the book.

Except that he didn’t. Having unsuccessfully scanned the bin, he lunged into it, becoming increasingly frantic as he tossed pieces of plastic and cardboard aside, sinking his elbows into the waste to try and get a feel of the Moleskine.

This wasn’t working. He had quite forgotten the euphoria of not five minutes previously. He looked quickly to either side, then heaved his mass up onto the side of the container. He gradually shifted his centre of gravity until he felt himself lose control. He rolled into the bin with a loud metallic clang.

Several windows opened upstairs. Out of one of them popped Peter’s head.

‘What in Christ’s name are you doing?’

‘Peter!’ Ron grinned broadly and waved, an inexplicable liquid seeping down his hand. ‘I’ve won! We’ve won! You’ve got to come down! We’re going to Norway!’

‘What are you doing in the bins?’ Peter tried to both whisper and project his voice at the same time, leading to a rather theatrical effect. His face was flushed red. He could sense Mrs Talbot’s eyes.

‘There’s a notebook. You’ll see! Come down!’

Peter emerged several minutes later carrying a brown leather holdall. At almost the exact moment that Peter emerged through the door, Ron surfaced from the pile of rubbish, stabilising himself on the assorted detritus below with no small effort. He held the black notebook aloft like a trophy.

‘I’ve won £20,000. We’re going to Norway!’

‘Wonderful. And how much of that is going to be left by tomorrow? By next week? Will it buy back what we’ve lost?’

‘No. You don’t understand. We’ve won! And with this we’re going to win again and again.’ Ron leaned out of the dumpster and thrust the notebook open in Peter’s face. ‘Look!’

Peter’s eyes flicked from the book to Ron. His face seemed to retreat into itself in a mixture of pity and … disgust? ‘Unbelievable.’

Ron snatched the book back, exasperated now. ‘You don’t understand! Look at the…’ Ron’s eyes widened. The pages were blank.

‘Goodbye, Ronald.’

Ron sunk back into the rubbish, glaring at the treacherous pages.