It was nearing that time of the year when the Melbourne Cup — the horse race that stops a nation, as has been alleged — was to be run. Regular punters had begun working on their algorithms, calculating horse form, trainer pedigree, weather conditions, turf conditions, to see if they could predict the winner.
“Show me a man that’s built a house with his winnings and I’ll accept that betting on horses may be a good thing after all,” said a racing journalist friend of mine, once.
I am reminded, as I write, of the definition for ‘horse sense’. Horse sense, allegedly, is what keeps horses from betting on people.
Anyhow, the Melbourne Cup was on the horizon. My friend Barney and his wife, now in that bored interim called retirement, had decided they were going to the races. It was Mrs Barney’s idea, if Barney is to be believed. She and her girlfriends became besotted with the idea of wearing hats.
Esmeralda’s, the milliners run by the elder Saul Esmeralda, was pressed into service. It may not have been the girls’ first choice of store, but the need to engage more frequently with the term ‘economy’ in the retired years dictated a sense of prudence.
After watching countless re-runs of My Fair Lady and making copious notes along with frightfully inaccurate sketches, the ladies with their better halves in tow, Barney included, descended on Esmeralda’s.
“I am not a hat person, Kev, I like the top of my head to be as open as my mind,” complained Barney. “Besides,” he continued, quoting Neil Gaiman freely, “certain hats will only suit if you allow yourself to be a bit jaunty, if you’re willing to adjust them at a rakish angle and to strut about with a spring in the step as if one is only a half-pirouette away from dancing.” Barney was evasive about whether he eventually capitulated and bought a hat for the occasion.
Mrs Barney, apparently, had settled on a red and black pillbox contraption, with net and a couple of raven feathers. It was going to make her look seven feet tall, counting the inches acquired by her high heels.
“I’m going to look like a dwarf beside her and I tell you I am not looking forward to this one bit,” grumbled Barney.
He sipped his coffee once, twice, a third time, looking contemplative. Something in the caffeine must have induced an iota of positivity to his current gloom, for he said, “At least thank goodness she decided against that wide-brimmed horror. Both of us could have sheltered under it.”
His phone rang right then. “What time are you going to get here?” he asked, listened for a while before replying, “No, no, I’ll come out to you. Just give me a buzz when you arrive. See ya.”
It’s the son, he explained, putting the phone away.
We sipped our drinks and talked of other things. When his phone buzzed again, he jumped up saying, “Be back in a tick, Kev, stay right there,” and hurried towards the exit. Barney had barely gone a minute when his son sauntered up in the company of our teacher friend Ryan, Barney’s nemesis. Ryan had a smirk on his face. Barney’s son carried a large cardboard box under his arm. Large is putting it mildly. It’s Mrs Barney’s hat, I was thinking when Barney returned.
“I told you to wait in the car,” scolded Barney.
“Ryan said we could spare you the walk,” offered the son.
“Open it,” said Ryan, grinning. “Give us a peek.”
Barney’s complexion was doing an imitation of a beetroot. His son, obliging to the hilt, opened the box and we saw it. Not a pillbox. This was a man’s hat. Designed to keep a man’s head just that teeny centimetre above his woman’s. I somehow resisted the urge to crack up. Ryan, on the other hand, went so far he was perched on the doorstep of hysteria.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
