Nerve Page 19

  ‘Oh,’ she said slowly. ‘I suppose it would be a bit of an ordeal, if you look at it like that. Perhaps you feel humiliated … is that it?’

  ‘You may be rather bruisingly right,’ I admitted grudgingly, thinking about it. ‘And I’ll keep my humiliation to myself, if you don’t mind.’

  She laughed. ‘You don’t need to feel any,’ she said. ‘Men are funny creatures.’

  The pity about hot baths is that although they loosen one up beautifully for the time being, the effect does not last; one has to consolidate the position by exercise. And exercise, my battered muscles protested, was just what they would least enjoy; all the same I did a few rather half-hearted bend-stretch arm movements while Joanna scrambled us some eggs, and after we had eaten and I had shaved I went back to it with more resolution, knowing that if I didn’t get on to Template’s back in a reasonably supple condition he had no chance of winning. It wouldn’t help anyone if I fell off at the first fence.

  After an hour’s work, though I couldn’t screw myself up to swinging my arms round in complete circles, I did get to the stage where I could lift them above shoulder height without wanting to cry out.

  Joanna washed up and tidied the flat, and soon after ten o’clock, while I was taking a breather, she said, ‘Are you going on with this health and beauty kick until you leave for Ascot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s only a suggestion, but why don’t we go skating instead?’

  ‘All that ice,’ I said, shuddering.

  She smiled. ‘I thought you had to remount at once, after a fall?’

  I saw the point.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it’s good, warming exercise, and far more interesting than what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘You’re a blooming genius, my darling Joanna,’ I said fervently.

  ‘Er, … maybe,’ she said. ‘I still think you ought to be in bed’.

  When she was ready we went along to my family’s flat where I borrowed one of my father’s shirts and a tie and also his skates, which represented his only interest outside music. Then we called at the bank, since the taxi ride the night before had taken nearly all Joanna’s cash, and apart from needing money myself I wanted to repay her. Lastly, we stopped at a shop to buy me a pair of brown, silk-lined leather gloves, which I put on, and finally we reached the ice rink in Queensway where we had both been members from the days when we were taken there as toddlers on afternoons too rainy for playing in the Park.

  We had not skated together since we were sixteen, and it was fascinating to see how quickly we fell back into the same dancing techniques that we had practised as children.

  She was right about the exercise. After an hour of it I had loosened up from head to foot, with hardly a muscle that wasn’t moving reasonably freely. She herself, sliding over the ice beside me, had colour in her cheeks and a dazzling sparkle in her eyes. She looked young and vivid.

  At twelve o’clock, Cinderella-like, we slid off the rink.

  ‘All right?’ she asked, smiling.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ I said, admiring the clear, intelligent face turned up to mine.

  She didn’t know whether I meant her or the skating, which was perhaps just as well.

  ‘I mean … how are the aches and pains?’

  ‘Gone,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ she said, ‘but at least you don’t look as grey as you did.’

  We went to change, which for me simply meant substituting my father’s shirt and tie for the pale green cardigan, and putting back the anorak on top, and the gloves. Necessary, the gloves. Although my fingers were less swollen, less red, and no longer throbbed, the skin in places was beginning to split in short thread-thin cracks.

  In the foyer Joanna put the cardigan and my father’s skates into her bag and zipped it up, and we went out into the street. She had already told me that she would not come to Ascot with me, but would watch on television. ‘And mind you win,’ she said, ‘after all this.’

  ‘Can I come back to your place, afterwards?’ I said.

  ‘Why, yes … yes,’ she said, as if surprised that I had asked.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Well … good-bye.’

  ‘Good luck, Rob,’ she said seriously.

  Fourteen

  The third cruising taxi driver that I stopped just round the corner in Bayswater Road agreed to take me all the way to Ascot. During the journey, which was quick and skilfully driven, I kept the warmth and flexibility going in my arms by some minor exercises and imaginary piano playing; and if the driver saw me at it in his mirror he probably imagined I was suffering from a sad sort of St Vitus dance.

  He announced, when I paid him at the gate, that he thought as it was his own cab that he might as well stay and have a flutter on the races himself, so I arranged for him to drive me back to London again at the end of the afternoon.

  ‘Got any tips?’ he said, counting my change.

  ‘How about Template, in the big race?’ I said.

  ‘I dunno,’ he pursed his lips. ‘I dunno as I fancy that Finn. They say as he’s all washed up.’

  ‘Don’t believe all you hear,’ I said, smiling. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Right.’

  I went through the gate and along to the weighing-room. The hands of the clock on the tower pointed to five-past one. Sid, James’s head travelling lad, was standing outside the weighing-room door when I got there, and as soon as he saw me he came to meet me, and said, ‘You’re here then.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘The governor posted me here to wait for you. I had to go and tell him at once if you came. He’s having lunch … there’s a rumour going round that you weren’t going to turn up, see?’ He bustled off.

  I went through the weighing-room into the changing-room.

  ‘Hello,’ said my valet. ‘I thought you’d cried off.’

  ‘So you came after all,’ said Peter Cloony.

  Tick-Tock said, ‘Where in hell have you been?’

  ‘Why did everyone believe I wouldn’t get here?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Some rumour or other. Everyone’s been saying you frightened yourself again on Thursday and you’d chucked up the idea of riding any more.’

  ‘How very interesting,’ I said, grimly.

  ‘Never mind that now,’ said Tick-Tock. ‘You’re here, and that’s that. I rang your pad this morning, but your landlady said you hadn’t been back all night. I wanted to see if it was O.K. for me to have the car after racing today and for you to get a lift back with Mr Axminster. I have met,’ he finished gaily, ‘a smashing girl. She’s here at the races and she’s coming out with me afterwards.’

  ‘The car?’ I said. ‘Oh … yes. Certainly. Meet me outside the weighing-room after the last, and I’ll show you where it is.’

  ‘Super,’ he said. ‘I say, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You look a bit night-afterish, to my hawk eyes,’ he said. ‘Anyway the best of luck on Template, and all that rot.’

  An official peered into the changing-room and called me out. James was waiting in the weighing-room outside.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he said.

  ‘In London,’ I said. ‘What’s this rumour about me not turning up?’

  ‘God knows,’ he shrugged. ‘I was sure you wouldn’t have stayed away without at least letting me know, but …’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’ Not unless, I thought, I had still been hanging in a deserted tack-room in the process of being crippled for life.

  He dismissed the subject and began to talk about the race. ‘There’s a touch of frost in the ground still,’ he said, ‘but that’s really to our advantage.’ I told him I had walked round the course the day before, and knew which parts were best avoided.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  I could see that for once he was excited. There was a sort of uncharacteristic shyness about his eyes, and the lower
teeth gleamed in an almost perpetual half smile. Anticipation of victory, that’s what it is, I thought. And if I hadn’t spent such a taxing night and morning I would have been feeling the same. As it was, I looked forward to the race without much joy, knowing from past experience that riding with injuries never made them better. Even so, I wouldn’t have given up my place on Template for anything I could think of.

  When I went back into the changing-room to put on breeches and colours, the jockeys riding in the first race had gone out, leaving a lot of space and quiet behind them. I went along to my peg, where all my kit was set out ready, and sat down for a while on the bench. My conscience ought to have been troubling me. James and Lord Tirrold had a right to expect their jockey to be in tip-top physical condition for so important a race, and, to put it mildly, he wasn’t. However, I reflected wryly, looking down at my gloved hands, if we all owned up to every spot of damage, we’d spend far too much time on the stands watching others win on our mounts. It wasn’t the first time I had deceived an owner and trainer in this way and yet won a race, and I fervently hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

  I thought about the Midwinter. Much depended on how it developed, but basically I intended to start on the rails, sit tight in about fourth place all the way round, and sprint the last three furlongs. There was a new Irish mare, Emerald, who had come over with a terrific reputation and might take a lot of beating, especially as her jockey was a wily character, very clever at riding near the front and slipping the field by a hard-to-peg-back ten lengths round the last bend. If Emerald led into the last bend, I decided, Template would have to be close to her by then, not still waiting in fourth place. Fast though he was, it would be senseless to leave him too much to do up the straight.

  It is not customary for jockeys to stay in the changing-room while a race is on, and I saw the valets looking surprised that I had not gone out to watch it. I stood up, picked up the under-jersey and Lord Tirrold’s colours and went to change into them in the washroom. Let the valets think what they like, I thought. I wanted to change out of sight, partly because I had to do it more slowly than usual but mostly so that they shouldn’t see the bandages. I pulled down the sleeves of the finely-knitted green and black jersey until they hid those on my wrists.

  The first race was over and the jockeys were beginning to stream into the changing-room when I went back to my peg. I finished changing into breeches, nylons and boots and took my saddle and weight cloth along to the trial scales for Mike to adjust the amount of lead needed to bring me to twelve stone.

  ‘You’ve got gloves on,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ I said mildly, ‘it’s a cold day. I’d better have some silk ones for riding in, though.’

  ‘O.K.’ he said. He produced from a hamper a bundle of whitish gloves and pulled out a pair for me.

  I went along to the main scales to weigh out, and gave my saddle to Sid, who was standing there waiting for it.

  He said, ‘The governor says I’m to saddle Template in the stable, and bring him straight down into the parade ring when it’s time, and not go into the saddling boxes at all.’

  ‘Good,’ I said emphatically.

  ‘We’ve had two private dicks and a bloody great dog patrolling the yard all night,’ he went on. ‘And another dick came with us in the horse-box, and he’s sitting in Template’s box at this very minute. You never saw such a circus.’

  ‘How’s the horse?’ I asked, smiling. Evidently James was splendidly keeping his word that Template would not be doped.

  ‘He’ll eat ’em,’ Sid said simply. ‘The Irish won’t know what hit them. All the lads have got their wages on him. Yeah, I know they’ve been a bit fed up that you were going to ride him, but I saw you turn that Turniptop inside out on Thursday and I told ’em they’ve nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, sincerely enough: but it was just one more ounce on a load of responsibility.

  The time dragged. My shoulders ached. To take my mind off that I spent some time imagining the expression on Kemp-Lore’s face when he saw my name up in the number frame. He would think at first it was a mistake. He would wait for it to be changed. And at any moment now, I thought maliciously, he will begin to realise that I am indeed here.

  The second race was run with me still sitting in the changing-room, the object of now frankly curious looks from the valets. I took the brown gloves off and put on the greyish white ones. They had originally been really white, but nothing could entirely wash out a season’s accumulated stains of mud and leather. I flexed my fingers. Most of the swelling had gone, and they seemed to be getting fairly strong again in spite of the cracked and tender skin.

  Back came the other jockeys again, talking, laughing, swearing, dealing out friendly and not so friendly abuse, yelling to the valets, dumping down their kit – the ordinary, comradely, noisy changing-room mixture – and I felt apart from it, as if I were living in a different dimension. Another slow quarter of an hour crawled by. Then an official put his head in and shouted, ‘Jockeys out, hurry up there, please.’

  I stood up, put on the anorak, fastened my helmet, picked up my whip, and followed the general drift to the door. The feeling of unreality persisted.

  Down in the paddock where in June the chiffons and ribbons fluttered in the heat stood cold little bunches of owners and trainers, most of them muffled to the eyes against the wind. It seared through the bare branches of the trees beside the parade ring, leaving a uniformity of pinched faces among the people lining the rails. The bright winter sunshine gave an illusion of warmth which blue noses and runny eyes belied. But the anorak, as I had been pleased to discover, was windproof.

  Lord Tirrold wore on his fine-boned face the same look of excited anticipation that I could still see on James’s. They are both so sure, I thought uneasily, that Template will win. Their very confidence weakened mine.

  ‘Well, Rob,’ said Lord Tirrold, shaking me too firmly by the hand, ‘This is it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I agreed, ‘This is it.’

  ‘What do you think of Emerald?’ he asked.

  We watched her shamble round the parade ring with the sloppy walk and the low-carried head that so often denotes a champion.

  ‘They say she’s another Kerstin,’ said James, referring to the best steeplechasing mare of the century.

  ‘It’s too soon to say that,’ said Lord Tirrold: and I wondered if the same thought sprang into his mind as into mine, that after the Midwinter, it might not be too soon, after all. But he added as if to bury the possibility, ‘Template will beat her.’

  ‘I think so,’ James agreed.

  I swallowed. They were too sure. If he won, they would expect it. If he lost, they would blame me; and probably with good cause.

  Template himself stalked round the parade ring in his navy-blue rug, playing up each time as he came face on to the wind, trying to turn round so that it blew on his quarters, with his lad hanging on to his leading-rein like a small child on a large kite.

  A bell rang, indicating it was time for the jockeys to mount. James beckoned to the boy, who brought Template across to us and took off his rug.

  ‘Everything all right?’ James asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Template’s eyes were liquid clear, his ears were pricked, his muscles quivering to be off: the picture of a taut, tuned racing-machine eager to get on with the job he was born for. He was not a kind horse: there was no sweetness in his make-up and he inspired admiration rather than affection: but I liked him for his fire and his aggressiveness and his unswerving will to win.

  ‘You’ve admired him long enough, Rob,’ said James teasingly. ‘Get up on him.’

  I took off the anorak and dropped it on the rug. James gave me a leg up into the saddle and I gathered the reins and put my feet into the irons.

  What he read in my face I don’t know, but he said suddenly, anxiously, ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’ I smiled down
at him, reassuring myself as much as him.

  Lord Tirrold said, ‘Good luck,’ as if he didn’t think I needed it, and I touched my cap to him and turned Template away to take his place in the parade down the course.

  There was a television camera on a tower not far down the course from the starting gate, and I found the thought of Kemp-Lore raging at the sight of me on his monitor set a most effective antidote to the freezing wind. We circled round for five minutes, eleven of us, while the assistant starter tightened girths and complained that anyone would think we were in perishing Siberia.

  I remembered that Tick-Tock, the last time we had ridden together on the course on a cold day, had murmured ‘Ascot’s blasted Heath. Where are the witches?’ And I thought of him now, putting a brave face on his inactivity on the stands. I thought briefly of Grant, probably hating my guts while he watched the race on television, and of Peter Cloony’s wife, with no set to watch on at all, and of the jockeys who had given up and gone into factories, and of Art, under the sod.

  ‘Line up,’ called the starter, and we straightened into a ragged row across the course, with Template firmly on the inside, hugging the rails.

  I thought of myself, driven to distraction by having it drummed into me that I had lost my nerve, and I thought of myself dragged over flinty ground and tied to a piece of galvanised chain; and I didn’t need any more good reasons for having to win the Midwinter Cup.

  I watched the starter’s hand. He had a habit of stretching his fingers just before he pulled the lever to let the tapes up, and I had no intention of letting anyone get away before me and cut me out of the position I had acquired on the rails.

  The starter stretched his fingers. I kicked Template’s flanks. He was moving quite fast when we went under the rising tapes, with me lying flat along his withers to avoid being swept off, like other riders who had jumped the start too effectively in the past. The tapes whistled over my head and we were away, securely on the rails and on the inside curve for at least the next two miles.