Дик Фрэнсис - Bolt

‘Oh...’ The prospect affected her almost as much as Col’s death. ‘I will not add to the pressure on my husband,’ she said fiercely. ‘He cannot sign this wretched contract. He will die, you know, if he does. He will not survive the disgrace in his own mind. He will wish to die... as all these years, although his condition is such a trial to him, he has wished to live.’ She made a small gesture with her gloved hand. ‘He is... very dear to me, Kit.’

I heard in my memory my grandmother saying, ‘I love the old bugger, Kit,’ of my pugnacious grandfather, an equal declaration of passion for a man not obviously lovable.

That the princess should have made it was astonishing, but not as impossible as before the advent of Nanterre. A great deal, I saw, had changed between us in the last eight days.

To save his honour, to save his life, to save their life together... My God, I thought, what a burden. She needed Superman, not me.

‘Don’t tell him about Col,’ she said again.

‘No, I won’t.’

Her gaze rested on Beatrice.

‘I won’t tell other people,’ I said. ‘But it may not stay a secret on the racecourse. Dusty and the lads who came with Wykeham’s horses all know, and they’ll tell other lads... it’ll spread, I’m afraid.’

She nodded slightly, unhappily, and switched her attention from Beatrice to Helikon, who happened to be passing. She watched him for several seconds, turning her head after him as he went.

‘What do you think of him?’ she asked, her defence mechanism switching on smoothly. ‘What shall I expect?’

‘He’s still a bit hot-headed,’ I said, ‘but if I can settle him, he should run well.’

‘But not another Kinley?’ she suggested.

‘Not so far.’

‘Do your best...’

I said as usual that I would, and we rejoined the others as if all we’d been talking about was her hurdler.

‘Have you noticed who’s still staring?’ Danielle said, and I answered that indeed I had, those eyes followed me everywhere.

‘Doesn’t it get on your nerves?’ Danielle asked.

‘What nerves?’ Litsi said.

‘Are you talking about Mr Allardeck?’ Beatrice demanded. ‘I can’t think why you don’t like him. He looks perfectly darling.’

The perfectly darling man was projecting his implacable thoughts my way from a distance signalling unmistakable invasion of psychological territory, and I thought uneasily again about the state of mind that was compelling him to do it. The evil eye, I thought: and no shield from it that I could see.

The time came to mount, and hot-headed Helikon and I went out onto the track. He was nervous as well as impetuous; not a joy to ride. I tried to get him to relax on the way to the start, but as usual it was like trying to relax a coil of barbed wire. The princess had bought him as a yearling and had great hopes for him, but although he jumped well enough, neither Wykeham nor I had been able to straighten out his kinks.

There were twenty or more runners, and Helikon and I set off near the front because if he were bumped in the pack he’d be frightened into stopping; yet I also had to keep a tight hold, as he could take charge and decamp.

He went through the routine of head-tossing against the restraint, but I had him anchored and running fairly well, and by the third flight of hurdles I thought the worst was over, we could now settle a little and design a passable race.

It wasn’t his day. At the fourth flight the horse nearest ahead put his foot through the obstacle and went down with a crash, slithering along the ground on his side. Helikon fell over him, going down fast, pitching me off: and I didn’t actually see the subsequent course of events all that clearly, though it was a pile-up worthy of a fog on a motorway. Five horses, I found afterwards, hit the deck at that jump. One of them seemed to land smack on top of me; not frightfully good for one’s health.

I lay on the grass, assessing things.

I was conscious and felt like a squashed beetle, but I hadn’t broken my legs, which I always feared most.

One of the other jockeys from the mêlée squatted beside me and asked if I was all right, but I couldn’t answer him on account of having no breath.

‘He’s winded,’ my colleague said to someone behind me, and I thought, ‘Just like Litsi at Bradbury, heigh ho.’ My colleague unbuckled my helmet and pushed it off, for which I couldn’t thank him.

Breath came back, as it does. By the time the ambulance arrived along with a doctor in a car, I’d come to the welcome conclusion that nothing was broken at all and that it was time to stand up and get on with things. Standing, I felt hammered and sore in several places, but one had to accept that, and I reckoned I’d been lucky to get out of that sort of crash so lightly.

One of the other jockeys hadn’t been so fortunate and was flat out, white and silent, with the first-aid men kneeling anxiously beside him. He woke up slightly during the ambulance ride back to the stands and began groaning intermittently which alarmed his attendants but at least showed signs of life.

When we reached the first-aid room and the ambulance’s rear doors were opened, I climbed out first, and found the other jockey’s wife waiting there, pregnant and pretty, screwed up with anxiety.

‘Is Joe all right?’ she said to me, and then saw him coming out on the stretcher, very far from all right. I saw the deep shock in her face, the quick pallor, the dry mouth... the agony.

That was what had happened to Danielle, I thought. That was much what she’d seen, and that was what she’d felt.

I put my arm round Joe’s wife and held her close, and told her Joe would be fine, he would be fine, and neither of us knew if he would.

Joe was carried into the first-aid room, the door closing behind him, but presently the doctor came out with kindness and told Joe’s wife they would be sending him to the hospital as soon as an outside ambulance could be brought.

‘You can come in and sit with him, if you like,’ he said to her, and to me added, ‘You’d better come in too, hadn’t you?’

I went in and he checked me over, and said, ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘And everywhere I touch you, you stifle a wince.’

‘Ouch, then,’ I said.

‘Where is ouch?’

‘Ankle, mostly.’

He pulled my boot off and I said ‘ouch’ quite loudly but, as I’d believed, there were no cracked bits. He said to get some strapping and some rest, and added that I could ride on Monday, if I could walk and if I were mad enough.

He went back to tending Joe, and one of the nurses answered a knock on the door, coming back to tell me that I was wanted outside. I put my boot on again, ran my fingers through my hair and went out, to find Litsi and Danielle there, waiting.

Litsi had his arm round Danielle’s shoulders, and Danielle looked as if this were the last place on earth she wanted to be.

I was aware of my dishevelled state, of the limp I couldn’t help, of the grass stains and the tear in my breeches down my left thigh.

Litsi took it all in, and I smiled at him slightly.

‘The nitty gritty,’ I said.

‘So I see.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Aunt Casilia sent us to see... how you were.’

It had taken a great deal of courage, I thought, for Danielle to be there, to face what might have happened again as it had happened in January. I said to Litsi, but with my eyes on Danielle, ‘Please tell her I’m all right. I’ll be riding on Monday.’

‘How can you ride?’ Danielle said intensely.

‘Sit in the saddle, put the feet in the stirrups, pick up the reins.’