Bolt

Sixteen

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.’

‘Don’t be damn stupid. How can you joke... and don’t answer that. I know both the answers. Easily or with difficulty, whichever is funnier.’

She suddenly couldn’t help laughing, but it was partly hysterical, and it was against Litsi’s big shoulder she smothered her face.

‘I’ll come up to the box,’ I said to him, and he nodded, but before they could leave, the first-aid room door opened and Joe’s wife came out.

‘Kit,’ she said with relief, seeing me still there. ‘I’ve got to go to the ladies... my stomach’s all churning up... they say I can go to the hospital with Joe but if they come for him while I’m not here, they may take him without me... Will you wait here and tell them? Don’t let him go without me.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ I said.

She said ‘thanks’ faintly and half ran in the direction of relief, and Danielle, her eyes stretched wide said, ‘But that’s... just like me. Is her husband... hurt badly?’

‘It’s too soon to tell, I think.’

‘How can she stand it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know. It’s much simpler from Joe’s side... and mine.’

‘I’ll go and see if she needs help,’ Danielle said abruptly, and, leaving Litsi’s shelter, set off after Joe’s wife.

‘Seriously,’ Litsi said, watching her go, ‘how can you joke?’

‘Seriously? Seriously not about Joe, nor about his wife, but about myself, why not?’

‘But... is it worth it?’

I said, ‘If you could paint as you’d like to, would you put up with a bit of discomfort?’

He smiled, his eyebrows rising. ‘Yes, I would.’

‘Much the same thing,’ I said. ‘Fulfilment.’

We stood in a backwater of the racecourse, with the stands and bustle out in the mainstream, gradually moving towards the next race. Dusty arrived at a rush, his eyes searching, suspicious.

‘I’ve wrenched my ankle,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to get Jamie for the fifth race, I know he’s free. But I’m cleared for Monday. Is Helikon all right?’

He nodded briskly a couple of times and departed, wasting no words.

Litsi said, ‘It’s a wonder you’re not worse. It looked atrocious. Aunt Casilia was watching through binoculars, and she was very concerned until she saw you stand up. She said then that you accepted the risks and one had to expect these things from time to time.’

‘She’s right,’ I said.

He, in the sober suiting of civilisation, looked at the marks of the earth on the princess’s colours, looked at my torn green-stained breeches, and at the leg I was putting no weight on.

‘How do you face it, over and over again?’ he said. He saw my lips twitch and added, ‘Easily or with difficulty, whichever is funnier.’

I laughed. ‘I never expect it, for a start. It’s always an unpleasant surprise.’

‘And now that it’s happened, how do you deal with it?’

‘Think about something else,’ I said. Take a lot of aspirins and concentrate on getting back as soon as possible. I don’t like other jockeys loose on my horses, like now. I want to be on them. When I’ve taught them and know them, they’re mine.’

‘And you like winning.’

‘Yes, I like winning.’

The hospital ambulance arrived only moments before Danielle and Joe’s wife returned, and Litsi, Danielle and I stood with Joe’s wife while Joe was transferred. He was still half-conscious, still groaning, looking grey. The ambulance men helped his wife into the interior in his wake, and we had a final view of her face, young and frightened, looking back at us, before they closed the doors and drove slowly away.

Litsi and Danielle looked at me, and I looked at them; and there was nothing to say, really.

Litsi put his arm again round Danielle’s shoulders, and they turned and walked away; and I hobbled off and showered and changed my clothes after just another fall, in just a day in a working life.

When I went out of the weighing room to go to the princess’s box, Maynard Allardeck stepped into my way. He was looking, as always, splendidly tailored, the total English gentleman from Lock’s hat to hand-sewn shoes. He wore a silk striped tie and pigskin gloves, and his eyes were as near madness as I’d ever seen them.

I stopped, my spirits sinking.

Outside the weighing room, where we stood, there was a covered verandah with three wide steps leading down to the area used for unsaddling the first four in every race. There was a tarmac path across the grass there, giving access to the rest of the paddock.

The horses from the fifth race had been unsaddled and led away, and there was a scatter of people about, but not a crowd.

Maynard stood between me and the steps, and to avoid him I would have to edge sideways and round him.

‘Fielding,’ he said with intensity; and he wasn’t simply addressing me by name, he was using the word as a curse, in the way the Allardecks had used it for vengeful generations. He was cursing my ancestry and my existence, the feudal spite like bile in his mouth, the irrational side of his hatred for me well in command.

He overtopped me by about four inches and outweighed me by fifty pounds, but he was twenty years older and unfit. Without the complication of a sprained ankle, I could have dodged him easily, but as it was, when I took a step sideways, so did he.

‘Mr Allardeck,’ I said neutrally, ‘Princess Casilia’s expecting me.’

He gave no sign of hearing, but when I took another sideways step he didn’t move. Nor did he move when I went past him, but two steps further on, at the top of the steps, I received a violent shove between the shoulders.

Unbalanced, I fell stumbling down the three steps, landing in a sprawl on the tarmac path. I rolled, half expecting Maynard to jump down on me, but he was standing on the top step, staring, and as I watched, he turned away, took three paces and attached himself to a small group of similar-looking men.

A trainer I sometimes rode for, who happened to be near, put a hand under my elbow and helped me to my feet.

‘He pushed you,’ he said incredulously. ‘I saw it. I can’t believe it. That man stepped right behind you and pushed.’

I stood on one leg and brushed off some of the debris from the path. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘But he pushed you! Aren’t you going to complain?’

‘Who to?’

‘But Kit...’ He slowly took stock of the situation. That’s Maynard Allardeck.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But he can’t go around attacking you. And you’ve hurt your leg.’

‘He didn’t do that,’ I said. ‘That’s from a fall in the third race.’

‘That was some mess...’ He looked at me doubtfully. ‘If you want to complain, I’ll say what I saw.’

I thanked him again and said I wouldn’t bother, which he still found inexplicable. I glanced briefly at Maynard who by then had his back to me as if unaware of my presence, and with perturbation set off again towards the princess’s box.

The push itself had been a relatively small matter, but as Maynard was basically murderous, it had to be taken as a substitute killing, a relief explosion, a jet of steam to stop the top blowing off the volcano.

The film, I thought uneasily, would keep that volcano in check; and I supposed I could put up with the jets of steam if I thought of them as safety valves reducing his boiling pressure. I didn’t want him uncontrollably erupting. I’d rather fall down more steps; but I would also be more careful where I walked.

The princess was out on the balcony when I reached her box, huddled into her furs, and alone.

I went out there to join her, and found her gazing blind-eyed over the racecourse, her thoughts obviously unwelcome.

‘Princess,’ I said.

She turned her head, her eyes focusing on my face.

‘Don’t give up,’ I said.

‘No.’ She stretched her neck and her backbone as if to disclaim any thought of it. ‘Is Helikon all right?’ she asked.

‘Dusty said so.’

‘Good.’ She sighed. ‘Have you any idea what’s running next week? It’s all a blank in my mind.’

It was a fair blank in mine also. ‘Icefall goes on Thursday at Lingfield.’

‘How did Helikon fall?’ she asked, and I told her that it wasn’t her horse’s fault, he’d been brought down.

‘He was going well at the time,’ I said. ‘He’s growing up and getting easier to settle. I’ll school him next week one morning to get his confidence back.’

She showed a glimmer of pleasure in an otherwise un-pleasurable day. She didn’t ask directly after my state of health, because she never did: she considered the results of falls to lie within the domain of my personal privacy into which she wouldn’t intrude. It was an attitude stemming from her own habit of reticence and, far from minding it, I valued it. It was fussing I couldn’t stand.

We went inside for some tea, joining Danielle, Litsi and Beatrice, and presently Lord Vaughnley appeared on one of his more or less regular visits to the princess’s box.

His faint air of anxiety vanished when he saw me drinking there, and after a few minutes he managed to cut me off from the pack and steer me into a corner.

I thanked him for his packet of yesterday.

‘What? Oh yes, my dear chap, you’re welcome. But that’s not what I wanted to say to you, not at all. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a leak... it’s all very awkward.’

‘What sort of leak?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘About the film you made of Maynard Allardeck.’

I felt my spine shiver. I desperately needed that film to remain secret.

‘I’m afraid,’ Lord Vaughnley said, ‘that Allardeck knows you sent a copy of it to the Honours people in Downing Street. He knows he will never again be considered for a knighthood, because of your sending it.’ He smiled half anxiously but couldn’t resist the journalistic summary: ‘Never Sir Maynard, never Lord Allardeck, thanks to Kit Fielding.’

‘How in hell’s teeth did he find out?’ I demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ Lord Vaughnley said uncomfortably. ‘Not from me, my dear fellow, I assure you. I’ve never told anyone. But sometimes there are whispers of these things. Someone in the civil service... don’t you know.’

I looked at him in dismay. ‘How long has he known?’ I said.

‘I think since sometime last week.’ He shook his head unhappily. ‘I heard about it this morning in a committee meeting of the charity of which Allardeck and I are both directors. He’s chairman, of course. The civil service charity, you remember.’

I remembered. It was through good works for the sick and needy dependents of civil servants that Maynard had tried hardest to climb to his knighthood.

‘No one in the charity has seen the film, have they?’ I asked urgently.

‘No, no, my dear fellow. They’ve simply heard it exists. One of them apparently asked Allardeck if he knew anything about it.’

Oh God, I thought; how leaks could trickle through cracks.

‘I thought you’d better know,’ Lord Vaughnley said. ‘And don’t forget I’ve as strong an interest in that film as you have. If it’s shown all over the place, we’ll have lost our lever.’

‘Maynard will have lost his saintly reputation.’

‘He might operate without it.’

‘The only copies,’ I said, ‘are the ones I gave to you and to the Honours people, and the three I have in the bank. Unless you or the Honours people show them... I can’t believe they will,’ I said explosively. ‘They were all so hush-hush.’

‘I thought I should warn you.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

It explained so much, I thought, about Maynard’s recent behaviour. Considering how he must be seething with fury, just pushing me down the steps showed amazing restraint.

But then... I did still have the film, and so far it hadn’t been shown to a wider audience, and Maynard really wouldn’t want it shown, however much he had lost through it already.

Lord Vaughnley apologised to the princess for monopolising her jockey, and asked if I was still interested in more information regarding Nanterre.

‘Yes, please,’ I said, and he nodded and said it was still flickering through computers, somewhere.

‘Trouble?’ Litsi asked at my elbow, when Lord Vaughnley had gone.

‘Allardeck trouble, not Nanterre.’ I smiled lopsidedly. ‘The Fieldings have had Allardeck trouble for centuries. Nanterre’s much more pressing.’

We watched the last race, on my part without concentration, and in due course returned to the cars, Litsi and Danielle, deserting the Rolls, saying they were coming with me.

On the walk from the box to the car park, I stopped a few times to take the weight off my foot. No one made a remark, but when we arrived at my car, Danielle said positively, ‘I’m driving. You can tell me the way.’

‘You don’t need a left foot with automatic transmission,’ I pointed out.

‘I’m driving,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ve driven your car before.’ She had, on a similar occasion.

I sat in the passenger seat without more demur, and asked her to stop at a chemist’s shop a short distance along the road.

‘What do you need?’ she said brusquely, pulling up. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Some strapping, and mineral water.’

‘Aspirin?’

‘There’s some here in the glove compartment.’

She went with quick movements into the shop and returned with a paper bag which she dumped on my lap.

‘I’ll tell you the scenario,’ she said to Litsi with a sort of suppressed violence as she restarted the car and set off towards London. ‘He’ll strap his own ankle and sit with it surrounded by icepacks to reduce the swelling. He’ll have hoof-shaped bruises that’ll be black by tomorrow, and he’ll ache all over. He won’t want you to notice he can’t put that foot on the ground without pain shooting up his leg. If you ask him how he feels, he’ll say “with every nerve ending”. He doesn’t like sympathy. Injuries embarrass him and he’ll do his best to ignore them.’

Litsi said, when she paused, ‘You must know him very well.’

It silenced Danielle. She was driving with the same throttled anger, and took a while to relax.

I swallowed some aspirins with the mineral water and thought about what she’d said. And Litsi was right, I reflected: she did truly know me. She unfortunately sounded as if she wished she didn’t.

‘Kit, you never did tell me,’ Litsi said after a while, ‘why it annoyed Maynard Allardeck so much when the princess said her horses always jumped well at Sandown. Why on earth should that anger anyone?’

‘Modesty forbids me to tell you,’ I said, smiling.

‘Well, have a try.’

‘She was paying me a compliment which Maynard didn’t want to hear.’

‘Do you mean it’s because of your skill that her horses jump well?’

‘Experience,’ I said. ‘Something like that.’

‘He’s obsessed,’ Litsi said.

He was dangerous, I thought: and there was such a thing as contract killing, by persons unknown, which I didn’t like the thought of very much. To remove the mind from scary concepts, I asked Danielle if she’d managed to tell Beatrice that Monday was her last evening stint.

Danielle, after a lengthy pause, said that no, she hadn’t.

‘I wish you would,’ I said, alarmed. ‘You said you would.’

‘I can’t tell her... What if Nanterre turns up and shoots you?’

‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘But if we don’t catch him...’ I paused. ‘The princess told me today that if Roland signs the arms contract to save us all, he will literally die of shame. He wouldn’t want to go on living. She’s extremely worried that he’ll give in... she loves him... she wants him alive. So we’ve got to stop Nanterre; and stop him soon.’

Danielle didn’t answer for two or three miles, and it was Litsi eventually who broke the silence.

‘I’ll tell Beatrice,’ he said firmly.

‘No,’ Danielle protested.

‘Last night,’ I said, ‘Nanterre killed another of the princess’s horses. The princess doesn’t want Roland to know... or Beatrice, who would tell him.’

They both exclaimed in distress.

‘No wonder she’s been so sad,’ Litsi said. ‘It wasn’t just Helikon falling.’

‘Which horse?’ Danielle asked.

‘Col,’ I said. ‘The one I rode at Ascot.’

‘That didn’t quite win?’ Litsi asked.

‘Yes,’ Danielle said. ‘Her Gold Cup horse.’ She swallowed. ‘If Litsi tells Beatrice Monday’s my last day, I won’t deny it.’

We spent another slightly claustrophobic evening in the house. Roland came down to dinner, and conversation was a trifle stilted owing to everyone having to remember what was not known and shouldn’t be said.

Litsi managed to tell Beatrice positively but naturally that the last time I would be fetching Danielle at night would be Monday, as Danielle would no longer be working in the evenings, a piece of news which surprised the princess greatly.

Beatrice took in the information satisfactorily, with her eyes sliding my way, and one could almost see the cogs clicking as she added the hour to the place.

I wondered if she understood the nature of what I hoped she was going to arrange. She seemed to have no doubts or compunction about laying an ambush which would remove me from her path; but, of course, she didn’t know about the attack on Litsi or about Col’s death, which we couldn’t tell her because either she would instantly apply breaking-point pressure to her brother by informing him, or she would suffer renewed pangs of remorse and not set up the ambush at all.

Beatrice was a real wild card, I thought, who could win us or lose us the game.

Nanterre again didn’t telephone; and there had been no one all day asking about a Bradbury reward.

The advertisements had been prominent in the racing papers for two days, and noticeable in the Towncrier, but either the message-bearer hadn’t seen them or hadn’t thought answering worth while.

Well, I thought in disappointment, going a little painfully to bed, it had seemed a good idea at the time, as Eve no doubt told Adam after the apple.

Dawson buzzed through on the intercom before seven on Sunday morning. Phone call, he said.

Not again, I thought: Christ, not again.

I picked up the receiver with the most fearful foreboding, trying hard not to shake.

‘Look here,’ a voice said, ‘this message from Danielle. I don’t want any trouble, but is this reward business straight up?’