Bolt

NINETEEN

Litsi and I entertained Gerald Greening in the morning room, where he ate copiously of kippers followed by eggs and bacon, all furnished by Dawson, forewarned.
‘Mm, mm,’ Greening grunted as we explained what we wanted.‘Mm … no problem at all. Would you pass me the butter?’
He was rounded and jovial, patting his stomach.‘Is there any toast?’
From his briefcase, he produced a large pad of white paper upon which he made notes.‘Yes, yes,’ he said busily, writing away.‘I get the gist, absolutely. You want your intentions cast into foolproof legal language, is that right?’
We said it was.
‘And you want this typed up properly this morning and furnished with seals?’
Yes please, we said. Two copies.
‘No problem.’ He gave me his coffee cup absentmindedly to take to the sideboard for a hot refill. ‘I can bring them back here by …” he consulted his watch, ‘… say twelve noon. That all right?’
We said it would do.
He pursed his lips. ‘Can’t manage it any faster. Have to draft it properly, get it typed without mistakes, all that sort of thing, checked, drive over from the City.’
We understood.
‘Marmalade?’
We passed it.
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes,’ Litsi said, fetching from a side table the buff French form which had been in the notary’s briefcase,‘some advice on this.’
Gerald Greening said in surprise,‘Surely the Frenchmen took that away with them when Monsieur de Brescou refused to sign?’
‘This is a duplicate blank copy, not filled in,’ Litsi said.‘We think the one Henri Nanterre wanted signed would have represented the first page of a whole bunch of documents. Kit and I want this unused copy to form page one of our own bunch of documents.’ He passed it to Greening.‘As you see, it’s a general form of contract, with spaces for details, and in French, of course. It must be binding, or Henri Nanterre wouldn’t have used it. I propose to write in French in the spaces provided, so that this and the accompanying document together constitute a binding contract under French law. I’d be grateful,’ he said in his most princely tone,‘if you would advise me as to wording.’
‘In French?’ Greening said apprehensively.
‘In English … I’ll translate.’
They worked on it together until each was satisfied and Greening had embarked on round four of toast. I envied him not his bulk nor his appetite, but his freedom from restraint, and swallowed my characterless vitamins wishing they at least smelled of breakfast.
He left after the fifth slice, bearing away his notes and promising immediate action; and, true to his word, he reappeared in his chauffeur-driven car at ten minutes to twelve. Litsi and I were both by then in the library watching the street, and we opened the front door to the bulky solicitor and took him into the office used by the elfin Mrs Jenkins.
There we stapled to the front page of one of Greening’s imposing-looking documents the original French form, and a photocopy of it to the other, each with the new wording typed in neatly, leaving large spaces for signing.
From there we rode up in the lift to Roland de Brescou’s private sitting room where he and the princess and Danielle were all waiting.
Gerald Greening with vaguely theatrical flourishes presented the documents to each of them in turn, and to Litsi, asking them each to sign their names four times, once on each of the French forms; once at the end of each document.
Each document was sewn through with pink tape down the left hand margin, as with wills, and each space for a signature at the end was provided with a round red seal.
Greening made everyone say aloud archaic words about signing, sealing and delivering, made them put a finger on each seal and witnessed each signature himself with precision. He required that I also witness each signature, which I did.
‘I don’t know how much of all this is strictly necessary,’ he said happily,‘but Mr Fielding wanted these documents unbreakable by any possible quibble of law, as he put it, so we have two witnesses, seals, declarations, everything. I do hope you all understand exactly what you’ve been signing as unless you should burn them or otherwise destroy them, these documents are irrevocable.’
Everyone nodded, Roland de Brescou with sadness.
‘That’s splendid,’ Greening said expansively, and began looking around him and at his watch expectantly.
‘And now Gerald, some sherry?’ the princess suggested with quiet amusement.
‘Princess Casilia, what a splendid idea!’ he said with imitation surprise.‘A glass would be lovely.’
I excused myself from the party on the grounds that I was riding in the two-thirty at Windsor and should have left fifteen minutes ago.
Litsi picked up the signed documents, returned them to the large envelope Gerald Greening had brought them in, and handed me the completed package.
‘Don’t forget to telephone,’ he said.
‘No.’
He hesitated.‘Good luck,’ he said.
They all thought he meant with the races, which was perfectly proper.
The princess had no runners as she almost never went to Windsor races, having no box there. Beatrice was spending the day in the beauty parlour, renovating her self-esteem. Litsi was covering for Sammy who was supposed to be resting. I hadn’t expected Danielle to come with me on her own, but she followed me onto the landing from Roland’s room and said,‘If I come with you, can you get me to work by six-thirty ?’
‘With an hour to spare.’
‘Shall I come?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She nodded and went off past the princess’s rooms to her own to fetch a coat, and we walked round to the mews in a reasonable replica of the old companionship. She watched me check the car and without comment waited some distance away while I started the engine and stamped on the brakes, and we talked about Gerald Greening on the way to Windsor, and about Beatrice at Palm Beach, and about her news bureau: safe subjects, but I was glad just to have her there at all.
She was wearing the fur-lined swinging green-grey showerproof jacket I’d given her for Christmas, also black trousers, a white high-necked sweater and a wide floral chintz headband holding back her cloud of dark hair. The consensus among other jockeys that she was a ‘knock-out’ had never found me disagreeing.
I drove fast to Windsor and we hurried from car park to weighing room, finding Dusty hovering about there looking pointedly at the clock.
‘What about your ankle?’ he said suspiciously. ‘You’re still limping.’
‘Not when I’m riding,’ I said.
Dusty gave me a look as good as his name and scurried away, and Danielle said she would go buy a sandwich and coffee.
‘Will you be all right by yourself?’
‘Of course … or I wouldn’t have come.’
She’d made friends over the past months with the wife of a Lambourn trainer I often rode for, and with the wives of one or two of the other jockeys, but I knew the afternoons were lonely when she went racing without her aunt.
‘I’m not riding in the fourth; we can watch that together,’ I said.
‘Yes. Go in and change. You’re late.’
I’d taken the packet of documents into the racecourse rather than leave them in the car, and in the changing room gave them into the safekeeping of my valet. My valet’s safekeeping would have shamed the vaults of the Bank of England and consisted of stowing things (like one’s wallet) in the capacious front pocket of a black vinyl apron. The apron, I guessed, had evolved for that purpose: there were no lockers in the changing rooms, and one hung one’s clothes on a peg.
It wasn’t a demanding day from the riding point of view. I won the first of my races (the second on the card) by twenty lengths, which Dusty said was too far, and lost the next by the same distance, again to his disapproval. The next was the fourth race, which I spent on the stands with Danielle, having seen her also briefly on walks from the weighing room to parade ring. I told her the news of Joe, the jockey injured at Sandown, who was conscious and on the mend, and she said she’d had coffee with Betsy, the Lambourn trainer’s wife. Everything was fine, she said, just fine.
It was the third day of March, blustery and cold, and the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival was all of a sudden as near as next week.
‘Betsy says it’s a shame about the Gold Cup,’ Danielle said. ‘She says you won’t have a ride in it, now Col’s dead.’
‘Not unless some poor bugger breaks his collar bone.’
‘Kit!’
‘That’s how it goes.’
She looked as if she didn’t need to be reminded, and I was sorry I had. I went out to the fifth race wondering if that day was some sort of test: if she were finding out for herself with finality whether or not she could permanently face what life with me entailed. I shivered slightly in the wind and thought the danger of losing her the worst one of all.
I finished third in the race, and when I returned to the unsaddling enclosure, Danielle was standing there waiting, looking strained and pale and visibly trembling.
‘What is it?’ I said sharply, sliding down from the horse. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s here,’ she said with shock. ‘Henri Nanterre. I’m sure … it’s him.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to weigh in, just sit on the scales. I’ll come straight back out. You just stand right outside the weighing room door … don’t move from there.’
‘No.’
She went where I pointed, and I unsaddled the horse and made vaguely hopeful remarks to the mildly pleased owners. I passed the scales, gave my saddle, whip and helmet to my valet and went out to Danielle, who had stopped actually trembling but still looked upset.
‘Where did you see him?’ I asked.
‘On the stands, during the race. He seemed to be edging towards me, coming up from below, coming sideways, saying “excuse me” to people and looking at me now and then as if checking where I was.’
‘You’re sure it was him?’
‘He was just like the photograph. Like you’ve described him. I didn’t realise to begin with … then I recognised him. I was …’ she swallowed ‘… terrified. He sort of snaked round people, sliding like an eel.’
‘That’s him,’ I said grimly.
‘I slid away from him,’ Danielle said. ‘It was like … panic. I couldn’t move fast … so many people, all watching the race and annoyed with me … when I got off the stands the race was over … and I ran … What am I going to do? You’re riding in the next race.’
‘Well, what you’re going to do is dead boring, but you’ll be safe.’ I smiled apologetically. ‘Go into the Ladies and stay there. Find a chair there and wait. Tell the attendant you’re sick, faint, tired, anything. Stay there until after the race, and I’ll come and fetch you. Half an hour, not much more. I’ll send someone in with a message … and don’t come out for any message except mine. We’ll need a password …’
‘Christmas Day,’ she said.
‘OK. Don’t come out without the password, not even if you get a message saying I’m on my way to hospital, or something like that. I’ll give my valet the password and tell him to fetch you if I can’t … but I will,’ I said, seeing the extra fright in her expression. ‘I’ll ride bloody carefully. Try not to let Nanterre see you going in there, but if he does …’
‘Don’t come out,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
‘Danielle …’
‘Yes?’
‘I do love you,’ I said.
She blinked, ducked her head, and went away fast, and I thought Nanterre would have known I would be at Windsor races, he had only to look in the newspaper, and that I and anyone in the princess’s family was vulnerable everywhere, not just in dark alleys.
I followed Danielle, keeping her in sight until her backview vanished into the one place Nanterre couldn’t follow, and then hurried back to change colours and weigh out. I didn’t see the Frenchman anywhere, which didn’t mean he hadn’t seen me. The highly public nature of my work on racecourses, however, I thought, might be acting in our favour: Nanterre couldn’t easily attack me at the races because everywhere I went, people were watching. In parade rings, on horses, on the stands … wherever a jockey went in breeches and colours, heads turned to look. Anonymity took over at the racecourse exits.
I rode that last race at Windsor with extreme concentration, particularly as it was a steeplechase for novice jumpers, always an unpredictable event. My mount was trained not by Wyke-ham but by Betsy’s husband, the Lambourn trainer, and it would be fair to say he got a good schooling run rather than a flat-out scramble.
Betsy’s husband was satisfied with fourth place because the horse had jumped well, and I said, ‘Next time, he’ll win,’ as one does, to please him and the owners.
I weighed in for fourth place, changed fast, collected my valuables from the valet and wrote a short note for Danielle.
‘Christmas Day has dawned. Time to go.’
It was Betsy, in the end, who took the note into the Ladies, coming out smiling with Danielle a minute later.
I sighed with relief: Danielle also, it seemed. Betsy shook her head over our childish games, and Danielle and I went out to the rapidly emptying car park.
‘Did you see Nanterre?’ Danielle asked.
‘No. Nowhere.’
‘I’m sure it was him.’
‘Yes, so am I.’
My car stood almost alone at the end of a line, its neighbours having departed. I stopped well before we reached it and brought the car-starter out of my pocket.
‘But that,’ Danielle said in surprise, ‘is your toy for freezes.’
‘Mm,’ I said, and pressed its switch.
There was no explosion. The engine started sweetly, purring to life. We went on towards the car and I did the other checks anyway, but finding nothing wrong.
‘What if it had blown up?’ Danielle said.
‘Better the car than us.’
‘Do you think he would?’
‘I really don’t know. I don’t mind taking precautions that turn out to be unnecessary. It’s “if only” that would be embarrassing.’
I drove out onto the motorway and at the first intersection went off it and round and started back in the opposite direction.
‘More avoidance of “if only”?’ Danielle said with irony.
‘Do you want acid squirted in your face?’
‘Not especially.’
‘Well … we don’t know what sort of transport Nanterre’s got. And one car can sit inconspicuously behind you for hours on a motorway. I’d not like him to jump us in those small streets at Chiswick.’
When we reached the next intersection I reversed the process and Danielle studied the traffic out of the rear window.
‘Nothing came all the way round after us,’ she said.
‘Good.’
‘So can we relax?’
‘The man who’s coming to fetch you tonight is called Swallow,’ I said. ‘When the car comes for you, get those big men on the studio reception desk to ask him his name. If he doesn’t say Swallow, check up with the car-hire firm.’ I slid my wallet out. ‘Their card’s in there, in the front.’
She took the card and passed the wallet back.
‘What haven’t you thought of?’
‘I wish I knew.’
Even with the wrong direction detour, it was a short journey from Windsor to Chiswick, and we arrived in the streets leading to the studio a good hour before six-thirty.
‘Do you want to go in early?’ I asked.
‘No … Park the car where we can sit and look at the river.’
I found a spot where we could see brown water sliding slowly upstream, covering the mud-flats as the tide came in. There were seagulls flying against the wind, raucously calling, and a coxed four feathering their oars with curved fanatical backs.
‘I have … er … something to tell you,’ Danielle said nervously.
‘No,’ I said with pain.
‘You don’t know what it is.’
‘Today was a test,’ I said.
Danielle said slowly, ‘I forget sometimes that you can read minds.’
‘I can’t. Not often. You know that.’
‘You just did.’
‘There are better days than today,’ I said hopelessly.
‘And worse.’
I nodded.
‘Don’t look so sad,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘I’ll give it up if you’ll marry me,’ I said.
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t seem overjoyed. I’d lost, it seemed, on all counts.
‘I … er …’ she said faintly, if you don’t give it up, I’ll marry you.’
I thought I hadn’t heard right.
‘What did you say?’ I demanded.
‘I said …’ She stopped. ‘Do you want to marry me or don’t you?’
‘That’s a bloody silly question.’
I leaned towards her and she to me, and we kissed like a homecoming.
I suggested transferring to the rear seat, which we did, but not for gymnastic love-making, partly because of daylight and frequent passers-by, partly because of the unsatisfactoriness of the available space. We sat with our arms round each other, which after the past weeks I found unbelievable and boringly said so several times over.
‘I didn’t mean to do this,’ she said. ‘When I came back from the Lake District, I was going to find a way of saying it was all over … a mistake.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘I don’t know … lots of things. Being with you so much … missing you yesterday … Odd things … seeing how Litsi respects you … Betsy saying I was lucky … and Joe’s wife … She threw up, you know. Everything up. Everything down. She was sweating and cold … and pregnant … I asked her how she managed to live with the fear … she said if it was fear and Joe against no fear, no Joe, the choice was easy.’
I held her close. I could feel her heart beating.
‘Today I was wandering about, looking at things,’ she said. ‘Wondering if I wanted a life of racecourses and winter and perpetual anxiety … watching you go out on those horses, with you not knowing … and not caring … if it’s going to be your last half-hour ever … and doing that five or six hundred times every year. I looked at the other jockeys on their way out to the parade ring, and they’re all like you … perfectly calm, as if they’re going to an office.’
‘Much better than an office.’
‘Yes, for you.’ She kissed me. ‘You can thank Aunt Casilia for shaming me into going racing again … but most of all, Joe’s wife. I thought today clearly of what life would be like without you … no fear, no Kit … like she said … I guess I’ll take the fear.’
‘And throw up.’
‘Everything up, everything down. She said it was like that for all of the wives, sometime or other. And a few husbands, I guess.’
It was odd, I thought, how life could totally change from one minute to the next. The fog of wretchedness of the past month had vanished like ruptured cobwebs. I felt light-heartedly, miraculously happy, more even than in the beginning. Perhaps one truly had to have lost and regained, to know that sort of joy.
‘You won’t change your mind, will you?’ I said.
‘No, I won’t,’ she answered, and spent a fair time doing her best, in the restricted circumstances, to show me she meant it.
I saw her eventually into the studio and drove back towards Eaton Square on euphoric auto-pilot, returning to earth in time to park carefully and methodically in the usual place in the mews.
I switched off the engine and sat looking vaguely at my hands, sat there for a while thinking of what might lie ahead. Then with a mental shiver I telephoned to the house, and got Litsi immediately, as if he’d been waiting.
‘I’m in the alley,’ I said.