By Emmjay

Michael Hutak’s piece at Unleashed on the demise of Harold Park Paceway brought back fond memories of early days in the Inner West of Sydney – in particular a short but beautiful winter holiday romance.

She was a gorgeous and (I thought) unattainable princess of the upper middle class intelligentsia rusted onto the University.  Her mother was, and possibly still is a glamorous belle from an old money family of jewellers, not of this town.

She had a real boyfriend at the time – and I suspect went on to marry the same a few years later.  Assuming he survived his penchant for climbing mountains and flirtation with heroin.  He was a handsome and dashing blade and I hated him with a passion.  I was at the head of a long line of envious bastards.

He was climbing in some obscure mountain range overseas that northern summer.  The Himalayas, if my memory serves me well.  And she was at a loose end.  I was not really at a loose end, but I kidded myself that I was – in the interest of helping her stave off incipient loneliness for the whole ten days – you understand.

I don’t recall how the affair started.  She was a gregarious sort of girl.  Surprisingly approachable for someone so unattainable.  I was painfully aware that I was not even slightly in the swashbuckling stakes and as history proved me right that time, I took my usual approach – the clowning option.

She was (and possible still is) the kind of strawberry blond with flawless, beautiful olive skin and eyes that set the room on fire.  She loved to laugh, throwing her head back and letting rip.  She was unselfconscious, of modest but exceptionally beautiful proportions and she loved to wear 1950s style flowing floral dresses gathered at the waist.  She was summer time – all year round.

I was a student.  A broke student.  She drove a small new Citroen – the kind of car that rises on pneumatic suspension like some weird kind of animal getting up and running away from a lion with us on board.  I rode a Malvern Star – ahead of the current wave by at least three decades.  A bit too far ahead of the wave, really.  Not mountain-climbing fit, mind you, but “cycle from the Inner West to Bondi and body surf all day” fit.  I had a scholarship that paid the princely sum of $40 a month plus my Uni fees and a textbook allowance.  My rented room cost $12 a week.  Beer cost 30 cents a schooner.  I ate prodigious amounts of spaghetti Bolognese (my signature dish to this very day).

I had a plan.  I knew that Errol Flynn was coming back with his sherpas in ten days.  I had to move fast.

Friday rolled around.  We decided – with a few mates to go to Harold Park and have a punt.  It was my first (and quite possibly my last visit to the trots – although local interest in the ribbon of light was always high in those days).  There were famous nags of the time like Paleface Adios and Hondo Gratton circulating and making their associates a handsome return.

We arrived early and exposed our complete ignorance and naivety to the ring, but before we placed the first bet, an old koori bloke sidled up to us and took us under his wing.  He had a small stubby pencil and he made a single mark against a horse in the first race on the card.  “You put a few bob on that one young fella”.  It was offering odds of about ten to one.  I handed over a fiver to the nearest bookie, got a vaguely scribbled slip in return and bought three beers, settling down to watch the  first race – replete with a total babe on my arm and the euphoria of a truly un-informed but none-the-less wildly confident young bloke.  I remember most the sound of the horses thundering around the track and the sound of the chariots’ wheels carving through the loamy surface.  I have no recollection of the name of the horse, the driver or the owner.

I decided to split this huge win.  I put most of it in my pocket.  The old bloke refused a share but was happy to accept a quiet beer and seemed to relish the vicarious pleasure of seeing a young bloke – equally broke – suddenly flush.  I put a tenner on the old bloke’s pick for the second.  It cruised in.

Most of the remaining racing and betting that night was a blur.  The old koori marked the sure-fire winners-to-be in the remaining races on our card.  And then, like a laughing phantom, he disappeared.

Four more of his picks came home.  I shouted our mates and my lovely companion several times and we walked out, arm in arm into the remainder of the Friday night with $300 in my pocket, struggling with the dilemma of whether to waste it on a really big night out, or split and walk home for a cuddle.

She was, as I said, a beautiful woman and my charming and vivacious companion.  No surprise that I have no recollection of a big night out on the town.  But I do recall that the cash lasted out the remaining few days we had together and when it was time to part I chose to let go without a fuss. A tad disappointed that she seemed to lack the desire to argue the point, but glad to be relieved of the uncertainty and pain of deluding myself that I was in there with a chance for the longer haul.

I never figured out why the old koori – who clearly was in the know about the harness racing game gave us the card.  And while I would never suggest that the industry was in any way suss, I am tempted to speculate that either the old bloke was having a bit of fun with both me and the bookie, or perhaps he was merely a hooker – in the manner of a friendly dope dealer who is free and easy with a “taste” – right up to the moment that it becomes an imperative – which is when the misery kicks in with a vengeance.

If that was the case, I was pretty safe.  I had a far more compelling – if fleeting interest.

Forty years later, I still warm a few cells in the front of my brain thinking about the girl from time to time.  With no regrets.

And I have no detectable desire to punt beyond that annual ritual on a Tuesday in November.