Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

‘My dear chap, what a race! I thought you’d gone off your rocker, I’m sorry to say. Now, you are coming to our box, aren’t you? Like we agreed?’

He was a puzzle. His grey eyes smiled blandly in the big face, full of friendliness, empty of guile.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you. After the fifth race, when I’ll have finished for the day, if that’s all right?’

Lady Vaughnley appeared at his elbow, reinforcing the invitation. ‘Delighted to have you. Do come.’

The princess, overhearing, said, ‘Come along to me after,’ taking my compliance for granted, not expecting an answer. Did you know,’ she said with humour, ‘the time Icefall took?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Three minutes forty-nine seconds.’

‘We were one second late.’

‘Yes, indeed. Next time, go faster.’

Lady Vaughnley looked at her in astonishment. ‘How can you say that?’ she protested, and then understood it was merely a joke. ‘Oh. For a moment...’

The princess patted her arm consolingly, and I watched Danielle, on the far side of the green-baized pot-laden table, talking to the sponsors as to the winning habit born. She turned her head and looked straight at me, and I felt the tingle of that visual connection run right down my spine. She’s beautiful, I thought. I want her in bed.

It seemed that she had broken off in the middle of whatever she was saying. The sponsor spoke to her enquiringly. She looked at him blankly, and then with another glance at me seemed to sort out her thoughts and answer whatever he’d asked.

I looked down at the trophies, afraid that my feelings were naked. I had two races and a lot of box-talk to get through before we could be in any real way together, and the memory of her kisses was no help.

The presentations were made, the princess and the others melted away, and I pealed off the princess’s colours and went out and rode another winner for Wykeham, scrambling home that time by a neck, all elbows, no elegance, practically throwing the horse ahead of himself, hard on him, squeezing him, making him stretch beyond where he thought he could go.

‘Bloody hell,’ said his owner, in the winners’ unsaddling area. ‘Bloody hell, I’d not like you on my back.’ He seemed pleased enough all the same, a Sussex farmer, big and forthright, surrounded by chattering friends. ‘You’re a bloody demon, lad, that’s what you are. Hard as bloody nails. He’ll know he’s had a race, I’ll tell you.’

‘Yes, well, Mr Davis, he can take it, he’s tough, he’d not thank you to be soft. Like his owner, wouldn’t you say, Mr Davis?’

He gave a great guffaw and clapped me largely on the shoulder, and I went and weighed in, and changed into the princess’s colours again for the fifth race.

The princess’s runner, Allegheny, was the second of her only two mares (Bernina being the other), as the princess, perhaps because of her own femininity, had a definite preference for male horses. Not as temperamental as Bernina, Allegheny was a friendly old pudding, running moderately well always but without fire. I’d tried to get Wykeham to persuade the princess to sell her but he wouldn’t: Princess Casilia, he said, knew her own mind.

Allegheny’s seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, also-rans never seemed to disappoint her. It wasn’t essential to her, he said, for all her children to be stars.

Allegheny and I set off amicably but as usual my attempts to jolly her into joie de vivre got little response. We turned into the straight for the first time lying fourth, going easily, approaching a plain fence, meeting it right, launching into the air, landing, accelerating away...

In one of her hind legs a suspensory ligament tore apart at the fetlock, and Allegheny went lame in three strides, all rhythm gone; like driving a car on a suddenly flat tyre. I pulled her up and jumped off her back, and walked her a few paces to make sure she hadn’t broken a bone.

Just the tendon, I thought in relief. Bad enough, but not a death sentence. Losing a horse to the bolt of a humane killer upset everyone for days. Wykeham had wept sometimes for dead horses, and I also, and the princess. One couldn’t help it, sometimes.

The vet sped round in his car, looked her over and pronounced her fit to walk, so I led her back up the course, her head nodding every time she put the injured foot to the ground. The princess and Danielle came down anxiously to the unsaddling area and Dusty assured them the guv’nor would get a vet to Allegheny as soon as soon.

‘What do you think?’ the princess asked me in depression, as Dusty and the mare’s lad led her, nodding, away.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do. Tell me.’

The princess’s eyes were deep blue. I said, ‘She’ll be a year off the racecourse, at least.’

She sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘You could patch her up,’ I said, ‘and sell her as a brood mare. She’s got good blood lines. She could breed in the spring.’

‘Oh!’ She seemed pleased. ‘I’m fond of her, you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘I do begin to see,’ Danielle said, ‘what racing is all about.’

My neighbour and the Lambourn fellow jockey having come up trumps in the matter of a suitcase of clothes, I went up to Lord Vaughnley’s box in a change for the better. I appeared to have chosen, though, the doldrums of time between events when everyone had gone down to look at the horses or to bet, and not yet returned to watch the race.

There was only one person in there, standing nervously beside the table now laid for tea, shifting from foot to foot: and I was surprised to see it was Hugh Vaughnley, Lord Vaughnley’s son.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘No one’s here... I’ll come back.’

‘Don’t go.’

His voice was urgent. I looked at him curiously, thinking of the family row which had so clearly been in operation on the previous Saturday, seeing only trouble still in the usually cheerful face. Much thinner than his father, more like his mother in build, he had neat features well placed, two disarming dimples, and youth still in the indecision of his mouth. Around nineteen, I thought. Maybe twenty. Not more.

‘I... er...’ he said. ‘Do stay. I want someone here, to be honest, when they come back.’

‘Do you?’

‘Er...’ he said. ‘They don’t know I’m here. I mean... Dad might be furious, and he can’t be, can he, in front of strangers? That’s why I came here, to the races. I mean, I know you’re not a stranger, but you know what I mean.’

‘Your mother will surely be glad to see you.’

He swallowed. ‘I hate quarrelling with them. I can’t bear it. To be honest, Dad threw me out almost a month ago. He’s making me live with Saul Bradley, and I can’t bear it much longer, I want to go home.’

‘He threw you out?’ I must have sounded as surprised as I felt. ‘You always seemed such a solid family. Does he think you should stand on your own two feet? Something like that?’

‘Nothing like that. I just wish it was. I did something... I didn’t know he’d be so desperately angry... not really...’

I didn’t want to hear what it was, with so much else on my mind.

‘Drugs?’ I said, without sympathy.

‘What?’

‘Did you take drugs?’

I saw from his face that it hadn’t been that. He was simply bewildered by the suggestion.

‘I mean,’ he said plaintively, ‘he thought so much of him. He said so. I mean, I thought he approved of him.’

‘Who?’ I said.

He looked over my shoulder however and didn’t answer, a fresh wave of anxiety blotting out all else.

I turned. Lord and Lady Vaughnley had come through the door from the passage and were advancing towards us. I saw their expressions with clarity when they caught sight of their son. Lady Vaughnley’s face lifted into a spontaneous uncomplicated smile.