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.