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by Geoff Wijesinghe

"The Rocking Horse Winner" has been a famous movie for several years. Based on a story by D. H. Lawrence, it describes how a little boy moved by the misery of his poor mother, was mysteriously guided and with the clandestine support of an uncle who was able to keep a secret, won a fortune for this family leaving behind a nest egg in winnings more than sufficient to buy a house and for the rest of the family to live in comfort, while the cripple, who was restricted to his room and his rocking horse, was laid to rest, no doubt looking down with pride from heaven.

To quote from the masterpiece authored by Lawrence.

"There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself.

Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the center of her heart go hard.

Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: "She is such a good mother. She adores her children."

Only she herself and her children themselves knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes.

There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and they had discreet servants, and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.

Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough to, for the social position which they had to keep up.

At last, the mother said, "I will see if I can't make something." But, she did not know where to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this thing and the other, but could not find anything successful. The failure made deep lines come into her faces.

And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase "There must be more money! There must be more money!" The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud. They heard it behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll's house, a voice would start whispering: "There must be more money! There must be more money!"

"Well, mother, said the boy one day, "why don't we keep a car of our own? Why do we always use uncle's or else a taxi?"

"Because we're the poor members of the family," said the mother. She said that his father did not have any luck, and that is why he was broke.

"Is luck money mother?", the boy asked rather timidly.

No Paul, not quite. It's what causes you have money."

"Oh!", said Paul Vaguely, "I thought when Uncle Oscar said, "Filthy lucker, it meant money." Filthy looker does mean money, said the mother. But, it's a lucre not luck".

"Well, anyhow, I am a lucky person", said the boy stoutly. God told me". From then on, he got on his rocking horse, and rode and rode and rode, whipping it like the jockeys, asking it to predict the winners of races. With the connivance of the gardener, he posted himself with the latest information on the horseracing scene.

Along with Bassett the gardener, the boy made his bets, and each time, it was a winner. He became so intense and so tired in riding his rocking horse, until he was tipped the winner of a race that his mother thought of sending the boy to the seaside on a holiday.

"I'll do what you like mother, so long as you don't send me away till after the Derby," the boy said. As the Derby was drawing near, and the boy grew more and more tense. He was very frail and his eyes were really uncanny.

When she was summoned by the maid, she quietly opened her son's door, and in the dark, she saw something plunging to and fro. "Paul," she cried, "whatever are you doing."

"It's "Malabar", he screamed in a powerful strange voice." He then fell unconscious to the ground. When his mother checked with his uncle, she was told Malabar was a horse running in the Derby. And Malabar won over 80,000 pounds.

The gardener whispered to the dying boy, "Master Paul, Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did as you told me. You've made over seventy thousand pounds, you have; you have got over eighty thousand."

"Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, mother? Did I say Malabar? Didn't I? Over eighty thousand Pounds! I call that lucky, don't you mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn't I know I knew? Malabar came in all right.

"I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure - oh, absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you. I am lucky!"

"No you never did," said his mother.

But the boy died in the night.

And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother's voice saying to her, "My Gold, Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking horse to find a winner."

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