‘Next year this will be all over, and everyone will have forgotten.’
‘I’ll dance with you again next year,’ she said.
‘It’s a pact.’
She smiled, and just for a second a stray beam of light shimmered on some expression in her eyes which I didn’t understand.
She was aware of it. She turned her head away, and then detached herself altogether, and gestured that she wanted to go back to the table. I delivered her to Bobbie, and she sat down immediately and began powdering a non-shiny nose.
‘Good night,’ I said to Bobbie. ‘And thank you.’
‘My dear fellow. Any time.’
‘Good night, Roberta.’
She looked up. Nothing in the eyes. Her voice was collected. ‘Good night. Kelly.’
I lowered myself into the low slung burnt orange car in the park and drove away thinking about her. Roberta Cranfield. Not my idea of a cuddly bed mate. Too cold, too controlled, too proud. And it didn’t go with that copper hair, all that rigidity. Or maybe she was only rigid to me because I was a farm labourer’s son. Only that, and only a jockey... and her father had taught her that jockeys were the lower classes dear and don’t get your fingers dirty...
Kelly, I said to myself, you’ve a fair sized chip on your shoulder, old son. Maybe she does think like that, but why should it bother you? And even if she does, she spent most of the evening with you... although she was really quite careful not to touch you too much. Well... maybe that was because so many people were watching... and maybe it was simply that she didn’t like the thought of it.
I was on the short cut home that led round the south of Reading, streaking down deserted back roads, going fast for no reason except that speed had become a habit. This car was easily the best I’d ever had, the only one I had felt proud of. Mechanically a masterpiece and with looks to match. Even thirty thousand miles in the past year hadn’t dulled the pleasure I got from driving it. Its only fault was that like so many other sports cars it had a totally inefficient heater, which in spite of coaxing and overhauls stubbornly refused to do more than demist the windscreen and raise my toes one degree above frostbite. If kicked, it retaliated with a smell of exhaust.
I had gone to the dance without a coat, and the night was frosty. I shivered and switched on the heater to maximum. As usual, damn all.
There was a radio in the car, which I seldom listened to, and a spare crash helmet, and my five pound racing saddle which I’d been going to take to Wetherby Races.
Depression flooded back. Fierce though the evening had been, in many ways I had forgotten for a while the dreariness of being banned. It could be a long slog now, after what I had said to the Lords Gowery and Ferth. A very long slog indeed. Cranfield wouldn’t like the gamble. I wasn’t too sure that I could face telling him, if it didn’t come off.
Lord Ferth... would he or wouldn’t he? He’d be torn between loyalty to an equal and a concept of justice. I didn’t know him well enough to be sure which would win. And maybe anyway he would shut everything I’d said clean out of his mind, as too far-fetched and preposterous to bother about.
Bobbie had been great, I thought. I wondered who he was. Maybe one day I’d ask Roberta.
Mrs Roxford... poor dear Grace. What a life Jack must lead... Hope he liked vodka...
I took an unexpectedly sharp bend far too fast. The wheels screeched when I wrenched the nose round and the car went weaving and skidding for a hundred yards before I had it in control again. I put my foot gingerly back on the accelerator and still had in my mind’s eye the solid trunks of the row of trees I had just missed by centimetres.
God, I thought, how could I be so careless. It rocked me. I was a careful driver, even if fast, and I’d never had an accident. I could feel myself sweating. It was something to sweat about.
How stupid I was, thinking about the dance, not concentrating on driving, and going too fast for these small roads. I rubbed my forehead, which felt tense and tight, and kept my speed down to forty.
Roberta had looked beautiful... keep your mind on the road Kelly, for God’s sake... Usually I drove semi-automatically, without having to concentrate every yard of the way. I found myself going slower still, because both my reactions and my thoughts were growing sluggish. I’d drunk a total of about half a glass of champagne all evening, so it couldn’t be that.
I was simply going to sleep.
I stopped the car, got out, and stamped about to wake myself up. People who went to sleep at the wheels of sports cars on the way home from dances were not a good risk.
Too many sleepless nights, grinding over my sorry state. Insulting the lions seemed to have released the worst of that. I felt I could now fall unconscious for a month.
I considered sleeping there and then, in the car. But the car was cold and couldn’t be heated. I would drive on, I decided, and stop for good if I felt really dozy again. The fresh air had done the trick; I was wide awake and irritated with myself.
The beam of my headlights on the cats’ eyes down the empty road was soon hypnotic. I switched on the radio to see if that would hold my attention, but it was all soft and sweet late night music. Lullaby. I switched if off.
Pity I didn’t smoke. That would have helped.
It was a star clear night with a bright full moon. Ice crystals sparkled like diamond dust on the grass verges, now that I’d left the wooded part behind. Beautiful but unwelcome, because a hard frost would mean no racing tomorrow at Sandown... With a jerk I realised that that didn’t matter to me any more.
I glanced at the speedometer. Forty. It seemed very fast. I slowed down still further to thirty-five, and nodded owlishly to myself. Any one would be safe at thirty-five.
The tightness across my forehead slowly developed into a headache. Never mind, only an hour to home, then sleep... sleep... sleep...
It’s no good, I thought fuzzily. I’ll have to stop and black out for a bit, even if I do wake up freezing, or I’ll black out without stopping first, and that will be that.
The next layby, or something like that...
I began looking, forgot what I was looking for, took my foot still further off the accelerator and reckoned that thirty miles an hour was quite safe. Maybe twenty-five... would be better.
A little further on there were some sudden bumps in the road surface and my foot slipped of the accelerator altogether. The engine stalled. Car stopped.
Oh well, I thought. That settles it. Ought to move over to the side though. Couldn’t see the side. Very odd.
The headache was pressing on my temples, and now that the engine had stopped I could hear a faint ringing in my ears.
Never mind. Never mind. Best to go to sleep. Leave the lights on... no one came along that road much... not at two in the morning... but have to leave the lights on just in case.
Ought to pull in to the side.
Ought to...
Too much trouble. Couldn’t move my arms properly, anyway, so couldn’t possibly do it.
Deep deep in my head a tiny instinct switched itself to emergency.
Something was wrong. Something was indistinctly but appallingly wrong.
Sleep. Must sleep.
Get out, the flickering instinct said. Get out of the car.
Ridiculous.
Get out of the car.
Unwillingly, because it was such an effort, I struggled weakly with the handle. The door swung open. I put one leg out and tried to pull myself up, and was swept by a wave of dizziness. My head was throbbing. This wasn’t... it couldn’t be... just ordinary sleep.
Get out of the car...
My arms and legs belonged to someone else. They had me on my feet... I was standing up... didn’t remember how I got there. But I was out.