by Dick Francis
I woke less than two hours later, and heard the clock strike four. My headache had gone, and my mind felt as clear and sharp as the starry sky outside: washed and shining. It was like coming out of a thick fog into sunshine. Like coolness after fever. Like being re-born.
Somewhere between sleeping and waking I found I had regained myself, come back to the life-saving certainty that I was the person I thought I was, and not the cracked-up mess that everyone else believed.
And that being so, I thought in puzzlement, there must be some other explanation of my troubles. All – all I had to do was find it. Looking back unsympathetically on the appalling desolation in which I had so recently allowed myself to flounder, I began at last, at long last, to use my brain.
Half an hour later it was clear that my stomach was awake too, and it was so insistent to be filled that I couldn’t concentrate. I got up and fetched the tins of cheese straws and marrons glacés from the kitchen, but not the snails. How hungry would one have to be, I wondered idly, to face those molluscs cold and butterless at five o’clock in the morning?
I opened the tins and lay down again, and crunched up all the cheese straws while I thought, and peeled and chewed half of the syrupy weight-producing chestnuts. My stomach quietened like a dragon fed its daily maiden, and outside the stars faded into the wan London dawn.
In the morning I took the advice I had given to Grant, and went to see a psychiatrist.
Nine
I had known the psychiatrist all my life as he was a friend of my father, and, I hoped, I knew him well enough to ring him up for help on a morning which he always reserved for golf. At eight o’clock I telephoned to his house in Wimpole Street where he lived in a flat above his consulting rooms.
He asked after my father. He sounded in a hurry.
‘Can I come and see you, sir?’ I said.
‘Now? No. Saturday. Golf,’ he said economically.
‘Please … it won’t take long.’
There was a brief pause.
‘Urgent?’ A professional note to his question.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Come at once, then. I’m due at Wentworth at ten.’
‘I haven’t shaved …’ I said, catching sight of myself in the looking-glass and realising what a wreck I looked.
‘Do you want to shave, or do you want to talk?’ he said, exasperated.
‘Talk,’ I said.
‘Then arrive,’ he said, and put down his receiver.
I took a taxi, and he opened the door to me with a corner of toast and marmalade in his hand. The eminent Mr Claudius Mellit, whose patients usually saw him in striped trousers and black jacket, was sensibly attired for winter golf in waterproof trousers and a comfortably sloppy Norwegian sweater. He gave me a piercing preliminary glance and gestured, ‘Upstairs.’
I followed him up. He finished his breakfast on the way. We went into his dining-room, where he gave me a seat at the oval mahogany table and some lukewarm coffee in a gold-rimmed cup.
‘Now,’ he said, sitting down opposite me.
‘Suppose …’ I began, and stopped. It didn’t seem so easy, now that I was there. What had seemed obvious and manifest at five in the morning was now tinged with doubt. The dawn hours had shown me a pattern I believed in, but in the full light of day I felt sure it was going to sound preposterous.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you really need help my golf can go hang. When I said on the telephone that I was in a hurry I hadn’t seen the state you are in … and if you will excuse my saying so, your suit looks as if you had slept in it.’
‘Well, yes, I did,’ I said, surprised.
‘Relax then, and tell me all.’ He grinned, a big bear of a man, fifty years old and formidably wise.
‘I’m sorry I look so untidy and unshaven,’ I began.
‘And sunken-eyed and hollow-cheeked,’ he murmured, smiling.
‘But I don’t feel as bad as I suppose I look. Not any more. I won’t keep you away from your golf if you’ll just tell me …’
‘Yes?’ he waited for me calmly.
‘Suppose I had a sister,’ I said, ‘who was as good a musician as Mother and Father, and I was the only one in the entire family to lack their talent – as you know I am – and I felt they despised me for lacking it, how would you expect me to act?’
‘They don’t despise you,’ he protested.
‘No … but if they did, would there be any way in which I could persuade them – and myself – that I had a very good excuse for not being a musician?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said instantly, ‘I’d expect you to do exactly what you have done. Find something you can do, and pursue it fanatically until in your own sphere you reach the standard of your family in theirs.’
I felt as if I’d been hit in the solar plexus. So simple an explanation of my compulsion to race had never occurred to me.
‘That … that isn’t what I meant,’ I said helplessly. ‘But when I come to think of it, I see it is true.’ I paused. ‘What I really meant to ask was, could I, when I was growing up, have developed a physical infirmity to explain away my failure? Paralysis, for instance, so that I simply couldn’t play a violin or a piano or any musical instrument? An apparently honourable way out?’
He looked at me for a few moments, unsmiling and intent.
‘If you were a certain type of person, yes, it’s possible. But not in your case. You had better stop waltzing round it and ask me your question straight out. The real question. I am very well accustomed to hypothetical questions … I meet them every day … but if you want a trustable answer you’ll have to ask the real question.’
‘There are two,’ I said. I still hesitated. So very much, my whole life, depended on his answers. He waited patiently.
I said at last, ‘Could a boy whose family were all terrific cross-country riders develop asthma to hide the fact that he was afraid of horses?’ My mouth was dry.
He didn’t answer at once. He said, ‘What is the other question?’
‘Could that boy, as a man, develop such a loathing for steeplechase jockeys that he would try to smash their careers? Even if, as you said, he had found something else which he could do extremely well?’
‘I suppose this man has that sister you mentioned?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She is getting to be the best girl point-to-point rider for a generation.’
He slouched back in his chair.
‘It obviously matters so desperately to you, Robert, that I can’t give you an answer without knowing more about it. I’m not giving you a couple of casual yeses and find afterwards I’ve let you stir up disastrous trouble for all sorts of people. You must tell me why you ask these questions.’
‘But your golf,’ I said.
‘I’ll go later,’ he said calmly. ‘Talk.’
So I talked. I told him what had happened to Art, and to Grant, and to Peter Cloony, and Tick-Tock, and myself.
I told him about Maurice Kemp-Lore. ‘He comes from a family who ride as soon as walk, and he’s the right build for steeplechasing. But horses give him asthma, and that, everyone knows, is why he doesn’t race himself. Well … it’s a good reason, isn’t it? Of course there are asthmatics who do ride – asthma doesn’t stop people who think that racing is worth the wheezing – but no one would dream of blaming a man who didn’t.’
I paused, but as he made no comment, I went on, ‘You can’t help being drawn to him. You can’t imagine the spell of his personality unless you’ve felt it. You can see people wake up and sparkle when he speaks to them. He has the ear of everyone from the Stewards down … and I think he uses his influence to sow seeds of doubt about jockeys’ characters.’
‘Go on,’ Claudius said, his face showing nothing.
‘The men who seem to be especially under his spell are Corin Kellar, a trainer, and John Ballerton, a member of the ruling body. Neither of them ever has a good word to say for jockeys. I think Kemp-Lore picked them out as friends solely because they had t
he right sort of mean-mindedness for broadcasting every damaging opinion he insinuated into their heads. I think all the ruinous rumours start with Kemp-Lore, and that even the substance behind the rumours is mostly his work. Why isn’t he content with having so much? The jockeys he is hurting like him and are pleased when he talks to them. Why does he need to destroy them?’
He said, ‘If this were a hypothetical case I would tell you that such a man could both hate and envy his father and his sister – and have felt both these emotions from early childhood. But because he knows these feelings are wrong he represses them, and the aggression is unfortunately transferred on to people who show the same qualities and abilities that he hates in his father. Such individuals can be helped. They can be understood, and treated, and forgiven.’
‘I can’t forgive him,’ I said. ‘And I’m going to stop him.’
He considered me. ‘You must make sure of your facts,’ he said, stroking his thumbnail down his upper lip. ‘At present you are just guessing. And as I’ve had no opportunity to talk to him you’ll get no more from me than an admission that your suspicions of Kemp-Lore are possibly correct. Not even probably correct. He is a public figure of some standing. You are making a very serious accusation. You need cast-iron facts. Until you have them, there is always the chance that you have interpreted what has happened to you as malice from outside in order to explain away your own inner failure. Asthma of the mind, in fact.’
‘Don’t psychologists ever take a simple view?’ I said, sighing.
He shook his head. ‘Few things are simple.’
‘I’ll get the facts. Starting today,’ I said. I stood up. ‘Thank you for seeing me, and being so patient, and I’m sincerely sorry about your golf.’
‘I won’t be very late,’ he reassured me, ambling down the stairs and opening his front door. On the doorstep, shaking hands, he said as if making up his mind. ‘Be careful, Robert. Go gently. If you are right about Kemp-Lore, and it is just possible that you are, you must deal with him thoughtfully. Persuade him to ask for treatment. Don’t drive him too hard. His sanity may be in your hands.’
I said flatly, ‘I can’t look at it from your point of view. I don’t think of Kemp-Lore as ill, but as wicked.’
‘Where illness ends and crime begins …’ he shrugged. ‘It has been debated for centuries, and no two people agree. But take care, take care.’ He turned to go in. ‘Remember me to your parents.’ He smiled, and shut the door.
Round a couple of corners, first during a luxurious shave in a fresh-smelling barber’s and second over a triple order of eggs and bacon in the café next door, I bent my mind to the problem of how the cast-iron facts were to be dug up. On reflection, there seemed to be precious few of them to work on, and in the digging, to start with at least, I was going to come up against the barrier of pity and contempt which my recent performances had raised. Nasty medicine; but if I wanted a cure, I’d have to take it.
Using the café’s telephone, I rang up Tick-Tock.
‘Are you riding this afternoon?’ I asked.
He said, ‘Do me a favour, pal. No unkind questions so early in the day. In a word – negative.’ A pause. ‘And you?’ Innocently, too innocently.
‘You’re a bastard,’ I said.
‘So my best friends tell me.’
‘I want the car,’ I said.
‘Not if you’re thinking of driving it over Beachy Head.’
‘I’m not,’ I said.
‘Well, I’m relieved to hear it. But if you change your mind, let me know and I’ll join you.’ His voice was light and mocking; the desperate truth underneath needed no stating.
‘I want to call at some stables,’ I began.
‘Whose?’ he interrupted.
‘Several people’s … about six altogether, I think, apart from Axminster’s. And Kellar’s. I’ll have to go there as well.’
‘You’ve got a nerve,’ said Tick-Tock.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re about the only person in the country who thinks so.’
‘Damn it … I didn’t mean …’
I grinned into the telephone. ‘Save it. Where’s the car now?’
‘Outside the window.’
‘I’ll come down to Newbury by train and pick it up, if you’ll meet me at the station,’ I said.
‘It’s no use going to any stables today,’ he said. ‘The trainers will all be at the races.’
‘Yes, I sincerely hope so,’ I agreed.
‘What are you up to?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Retrieving the fallen fortunes of the House of Finn,’ I said. ‘I’ll catch the 10.10. You meet it. O.K.?’ And I put the receiver down, hearing and ignoring, a protesting ‘Hey’ before I cut him off.
But when I stepped off the train at Newbury he was waiting, dressed in a dandyish waisted riding jacket of almost eighteenth-century length on top of some unbelievably narrow cavalry cord trousers. He enjoyed his moment ironically while I looked him up and down.
‘Where’s the cravat, the ruffles and the sword?’ I asked.
He said ‘You don’t get the message. I’m tomorrow’s man. My sword will be a do-it-yourself instant anti-radiation kit. You must fit your defence to the danger you meet …’ He grinned.
Young Tick-Tock, I reflected, not for the first time, took an uncompromisingly realistic view of the world.
He opened the car door and settled himself behind the wheel.
‘Where to?’ he said.
‘You’re not coming,’ I said.
‘I certainly am. This car is half mine. Where it goes, I go.’ He was clearly determined. ‘Where to?’
‘Well …’ I got in beside him, fished out of my pocket a list I had made on the train, and showed it to him. ‘These are the stables I want to go to. I’ve tried to arrange them in order so that there isn’t too much back-tracking, but even so it means a lot of driving.’
‘Phew,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of them. Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Oxford, Leicester and Yorkshire … how long will you be staying in each place? We’ll never cover this lot in one day. Especially as you look tired already.’
I glanced at him, but he was looking down at the paper. It was true that I felt tired, but disconcerting that it should be so obvious. I had thought that the shave and breakfast and the return of self-confidence would have wiped away the ravages of the previous day and night.
‘You needn’t come,’ I began.
‘We’ve been through all that,’ he interrupted. ‘We’ll start by going to your digs and mine for overnight things, and then make for Kent. And on the way you can tell me why we’re going.’ He calmly let in the clutch and drove off; and truth to tell I was very glad of his company.
We collected our things, and Tick-Tock pointed the Mini-Cooper’s blunt nose towards the first stable on the list, Corin Kellar’s, in Hampshire.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘The works.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to tell you why we’re going. Listen and watch, and then you tell me.’
‘You’re a cagey blighter,’ he said, without arguing. He added, ‘I suppose you’ve taken into account all that about saps rushing in where angels wouldn’t plonk their holy feet? I mean, to put it mildly, we are neither of us in the red carpet bracket just now. Strictly doomsville, us.’
‘You are so right,’ I said, smiling.
Tick-Tock turned his head and gave me a surprised stare.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I said mildly.
‘I’ll never know you,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought you’d take it very hard … what has happened … but since I picked you up at the station I’ve felt more cheerful than I have for weeks.’ His foot went down on the accelerator and he began to whistle.
We arrived at Corin’s extensive, well-groomed stable while the lads were doing up the horses after the second morning exercise. Arthur, the head lad, was crossing the yard with a bucket of oats when we climbed out of the little car, and the crinkling smi
le with which he usually greeted me got half-way to his eyes before he remembered. I saw the embarrassment take over and the welcome fade away.
‘The guvnor isn’t here,’ he said awkwardly. ‘He’s gone to the races.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Can I speak to Davey?’
Davey was the lad who looked after Shantytown.
‘I suppose so,’ said Arthur doubtfully, ‘but you won’t make no trouble?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No trouble. Where is he?’
‘Fourth box from the end over that side,’ he said, pointing. Tick-Tock and I walked over, and found Davey tossing and tidying the straw bed round a big chestnut. Shantytown. We leaned over the bottom half of the door, and watched Davey’s expression too change from warmth to disgust. He was a short, tough, sixteen-year-old boy with flaming red hair and an intolerant mouth. He turned his back on us and ran his hand down the horse’s neck. Then he spat into the straw. Tick-Tock took a sharp breath and his hands clenched into fists.
I said quickly, ‘Davey, there’s a quid for you if you feel like talking a bit.’
‘What about?’ he said, without turning round.
‘About the day I rode Shantytown at Dunstable,’ I said. ‘Three weeks ago. Do you remember?’
‘I’ll say I remember,’ he said offensively.
I ignored his tone. ‘Well, tell me what happened from the moment you arrived on the course until I got up on Shantytown in the parade ring.’
‘What the hell do you mean,’ he said, wheeling round and coming over to the door. ‘Nothing happened. What should happen?’
I took a pound note out of my wallet and gave it to him. He looked at it for a second or two, then shrugged, and thrust it into his pocket.
‘Start when you set off from here. Don’t leave anything out,’ I said.
‘Are you off your nut?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, ‘and I want my quid’s worth.’
He shrugged again, but said, ‘We went in the horse box from here to Dunstable, and …’