Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [74]
‘Darling Clement,’ she said warmly. ‘Always so sweet and thoughtful.’
Darling Clement entered Magic for the Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown Park, and also for what he called a ‘warm-up’ race three weeks before the big event.
‘That will be at Stratford-upon-Avon,’ he told Angela. ‘In the Pragnell Cup, first week of April.’
‘How marvellous,’ Angela said enthusiastically.
She telephoned several times to Derek for long, cosy consultations about Magic’s prospects, and drank in his easy optimism like the word of God. Derek filled her thoughts from dawn to dusk: dear Derek, who was so brave and charming and kind.
Clement and Derek took Magic out on to the gallops at home and found the ‘exciting bargain’ unwilling to keep up with any other horse in the stable. Magic waved his tail about and kicked up his heels and gave every sign of extreme bad temper. Both Clement and Derek, however, reported to a delighted Angela that Magic was a perfect gentleman and going well.
When Angela turned up by arrangement at ten one morning to watch Magic work, he had been sent out by mistake with the first lot at seven, and was consequently resting. Her disappointment was mild, though, because Derek was there, not riding but accompanying her on foot, full of smiles and gaiety and friendship. She loved it. She trusted him absolutely, and she showed it.
‘Well done, lad,’ Clement said gratefully, as she drove away later. ‘With you around, our Angela wouldn’t notice an earthquake.’
Derek, watching her go, felt remorse and regret. It was hardly fair, he thought. She was a nice old duck really. She’d done no one any harm. He belatedly began not to like himself.
They went to Stratford races all hoping for different things: Derek that Magic would at least get round, Angela that her horse would win, and Clement that he wouldn’t stop dead in the first furlong.
Three miles. Fast track. Firm ground. Eighteen fences.
Angela’s heart was beating with a throb she could feel as Magic, to the relief of both men, deigned to set off in the normal way from the start, and consented thereafter to gallop along steadily among the rear half of the field. After nearly two miles of this mediocrity both men relaxed and knew that when Magic ran out of puff and pulled up, as he was bound to do soon, they could explain to Angela that ‘he had needed the race’, and ‘he’ll be tuned up nicely for the Whitbread’, and she would believe it.
A mile from home, from unconscious habit, Derek gave Magic the speeding-up signs of squeezing with his legs and clicking his tongue and flicking the reins. Magic unexpectedly plunged towards the next fence, misjudged his distance, took off too soon, hit the birch hard, and landed in a heap on the ground.
The horse got to his feet and nonchalantly cantered away. The jockey lay still and flat.
‘Derek!’ cried Angela, agonised.
‘Bloody fool,’ Clement said furiously, bustling down from the stands. ‘Got him unbalanced.’
In a turmoil of anxiety, Angela watched through her binoculars as the motionless Derek was loaded slowly onto a stretcher and carried to an ambulance; and then she walked jerkily round to the first-aid room to await his return.
I should never have bought the horse, she thought in anguish. If I hadn’t bought the horse, Derek wouldn’t be… might not be…
He was alive. She saw his hands move as soon as the blue-uniformed men opened the ambulance doors. Her relief was almost as shattering as her fear. She felt faint.
Derek Roberts had broken his leg and was in no mood to worry about Angela’s feelings. He knew she was there because she made little fluttery efforts to reach his side–efforts constantly thwarted by the stretcher-bearers easing him out – saying to him over and over, ‘Derek, oh, Derek are you all right?’
Derek didn’t answer. His attention was on his leg, which hurt, and on getting into the first-aid-room without being bumped.