The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [171]
“Lucky to be alive?” I repeated weakly.
“Yes, but only because he didn’t know what he was doing. My fourteen-year-old skis over that ravine and can land like a seagull on water. He, on the other hand,” the doctor pointed to the X rays, “won’t be skiing again this holiday. In fact, he won’t be walking for at least six months.”
“Really?” I said.
“And as for you,” he added, after he finished binding me up, “just rest the ankle in ice every three hours and change the bandage once a day. You should be back on the slopes again in a couple of days, three at the most.”
“We’re flying back this evening,” I told him as I gingerly got to my feet.
“Good timing,” he said, smiling.
I hobbled happily out of the X-ray room to find Caroline head down in Elle.
“You look pleased with yourself,” she said, looking up.
“I am. It turns out to be nothing worse than two broken legs, a broken arm, and a scar on the face.”
“How stupid of me,” said Caroline, “I thought it was a simple sprain.”
“Not me,” I told her. “Travers—the accident this morning, you remember? The ambulance. Still, they assure me he’ll live,” I added.
“Pity,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “After all the trouble you took, I was rather hoping you’d succeed.”
CHECKMATE
As she entered the room every eye turned toward her.
When admiring a girl some men start with her head and work down. I start with the ankles and work up.
She wore black high-heeled velvet shoes and a tight-fitting black dress that stopped high enough above the knees to reveal the most perfectly tapering legs. As my eyes continued their upward sweep they paused to take in her narrow waist and slim athletic figure. But it was the oval face that I found captivating, slightly pouting lips and the largest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, crowned with a head of thick, black, short-cut hair that literally shone with luster. Her entrance was all the more breathtaking because of the surroundings she had chosen. Heads would have turned at a diplomatic reception, a society cocktail party, even a charity ball, but at a chess tournament …
I followed her every movement, patronizingly unable to accept that she could be a player. She walked slowly over to the club secretary’s table and signed in to prove me wrong. She was handed a number to indicate her challenger for the opening match. Anyone who had not yet been allocated an opponent waited to see if she would take her place opposite their side of the board.
The player checked the number she had been given and made her way toward an elderly man who was seated in the far corner of the room, a former captain of the club now past his best.
As the club’s new captain I had been responsible for instigating these round-robin matches. We meet on the last Friday of the month in a large clublike room on top of the Mason’s Arms in the High Street. The landlord sees to it that thirty tables are set out for us and that food and drink are readily available. Three or four other clubs in the district send half a dozen opponents to play a couple of blitz games, giving us a chance to face rivals we would not normally play. The rules for the matches are simple enough—one minute on the clock is the maximum allowed for each move, so a game rarely lasts for more than an hour, and if a pawn hasn’t been captured in thirty moves the game is automatically declared a draw. A short break for a drink between games, paid for by the loser, ensures that everyone has the chance to challenge two opponents during the evening.
A thin man wearing half-moon spectacles and a dark blue three-piece suit made his way over toward my board. We smiled and shook hands. My guess would have been a solicitor, but I was wrong as he turned out to be an accountant working for a stationery supplier in Woking.
I found it hard to concentrate on my opponent’s well-rehearsed Moscow opening as my eyes kept leaving