Dead Weight

by John Francome

  Phil had been doing all the talking so far. At their first session Simone had asked him to describe his problem and he’d done so at length, focusing on his accident the previous September. She’d also probed him for details about his family, his career, his recent marriage. She was trying to build up a case history, she’d said.

  Today she was making him retrace some of the ground, digging more deeply, which took Phil by surprise. He’d been rather hoping she would come up with some kind of treatment. Pills? Hypnosis? Some marvellous new way of defining his race terror so he could deal with it?

  `Tell me about your brother,’ she said.

  He didn’t want to do that. He’d outlined the story briefly but he really didn’t want to revisit the circumstances of his younger brother’s death in an equestrian competition three years earlier. But what option did he have? It was hardly insignificant.

  Phil had not been at Blenheim when Tim died, buried under Forester, his much-loved horse, after a catastrophic fall during the cross-country phase of a three-day event. The news had come through while Phil was racing at Doncaster. There’d been a phone call for him when he was still out on the course, and by the time he reached the weighing-room details of the accident were already being broadcast.

  His valet, a former jockey, had intercepted Phil the moment he’d weighed in and broken the news with the compassion of a man who has seen it all. He’d offered to make Phil’s arrangements, to find a driver and whisk him home immediately. Phil had said no thanks, changed his colours and ridden in the next race. On the long drive back to the West Country he’d stopped his car once and cried softly in a lay-by. That had been the extent of his outward show of emotion.

  `It wasn’t that it didn’t affect me but I had to stay in one piece for Mum and Dad. Tim’s death turned everything upside down. It was like they were suddenly the kids and I was the parent. Dad had a terrible time and had to be treated for depression. I took charge of the farm, sorted out Tim’s affairs, kept an eye on Mum. I couldn’t afford to let go.’

  `What about the way your brother died? Did you dwell on that at all?’

  ‘I looked at the video, trying to understand how the accident came about. If I was being absolutely brutal, I’d say it was Tim’s fault. So I never thought it could happen to me, if that’s what you mean.’ `And do you think about his accident now?’

  Phil said nothing for a moment. He focused on the folds of the copper-coloured scarf she wore at her throat and the amber brooch in a silver setting that held it in place.

  `Yes.’

  She waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. `Do you think about Tim’s accident differently now you’ve been badly hurt yourself?’

  He nodded. He’d rerun it constantly in his mind. Forester coming fast downhill out of the trees, Tim pushing him, trying to claw back time penalties. The big horse getting into the bottom of the solid fence and not having the room or time to manoeuvre himself over it. Why in God’s name had Tim kept on pushing? The entire event had been worth only a few hundred pounds. Tim had been thrown to the ground and, a split second later, had been buried beneath the bulk of his mount. Phil retained a cartoon image of the accident in his head, in which he was Tim and the horse was a giant’s foot, about to descend and flatten him. But in the cartoon he used to always get away. Used to. When he’d replayed it the other night the giant had stamped him into oblivion.

  He didn’t want to tell this to Simone. It trivialised Tim’s death. It was shaming. But if he wasn’t going to be honest, why on earth was he here? More to the point, if he didn’t tell the truth, how could she help him?

  Adrian Moore gave Beatle his lunch, cleaned out the boot of his car and thought about packing. Then he hung around the house. It was the first day of the ban he’d earned for dropping his hands on January King and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d booked a last-minute skiing trip for the following week but that still left him with a couple of days to twiddle his thumbs.

  He made himself a cheese-and-pickle sandwich and thought about heading into town, but he knew he’d only end up in the bookie’s watching the racing. The two other jockeys he shared with were busy at Ascot. He could have gone along to watch but he wasn’t much of a spectator. To be honest he didn’t like the idea of racing going ahead without his being involved. If he had his way, the entire country would be buried under blizzards for the next ten days with all race meetings abandoned. At least next week he’d be out of the country.

  He picked the cheese out of the leftover half of his sandwich and chucked the bread in the bin. Beatle trotted over and snaffled the cheese from his fingers. Then he plonked his furry brown head in Adrian’s lap and made his most winsome doggy face.

  `What do you want?’ Adrian scratched the animal under the chin. Beatle ran excitedly towards the door. He stopped and looked back. `A walk, is it?’Adrian grinned. The dog did everything but talk. The lane was empty and the dog lolloped on ahead, turning by habit off the made-up road along the footpath into the wood.

  Adrian mooched slowly along some fifty paces behind, deep in thought. It wasn’t so much the unfairness of the ban - to be honest, there were times when he should have been punished but had got away with it - as the timing. He’d had some cracking rides lined up over the next week, and if he could have just kept his nose clean he might have grabbed some headlines. Now the headlines would be grabbed by someone else - specifically by his housemates this afternoon at Ascot. Frankly the flight out couldn’t come quick enough.

  `Beatle?’

  There was no sign of the dog on the path ahead. He’d probably spotted something interesting in the undergrowth and gone exploring. Adrian wasn’t that bothered. You couldn’t blame a dog for enjoying himself - besides, he’d be back soon.

  But he wasn’t. Adrian called a couple of times in his stop-muckingabout voice, which usually brought results. Whatever excitements Beatle might have unearthed he knew when his master meant business.

  Not this time, however. Adrian shouted the dog’s name, serious now, preparing to lay down the law to his shaggy brown friend when he chose to show up. There was still no response.

  Adrian picked up his pace and strode purposefully down the path. Beatle must have got farther ahead than he’d expected.

  The trees on either side thinned and gave way to brown, wintery fields. Above the crunch of his boots he heard something - a highpitched yelp. The sound of a dog in pain.

  Adrian stood still and cast around for the direction of the noise. It was clearer now, a piteous mewling and squealing. Beatle was in trouble. Perhaps he’d got tangled in some barbed wire or caught in a trap. Poachers snared rabbits in all sorts of cruel ways.

  He broke into a run. Through the fringe of woodland, over by the stream, something caught his eye. A brown wriggling object suspended from the branch of an apple tree, standing in the garden of an abandoned cottage. The wriggling object, dangling in the breeze, was horribly familiar. He was sprinting now, fired by a rush of anger. What the fuck had someone done to Beatle?

  Adrian plunged off the path and scrambled over the old stone wall, relief and fear churning in his guts. As he got closer, running with difficulty over the boggy meadow, he could see Beatle hanging by his hind legs about four foot off the ground.

  Adrian reached him at last, hugging the squirming dog to his chest, making soothing noises even as the uncomfortable questions formed in his mind. This was no accident. A blue nylon cord had been used to bind the dog’s hind legs together. It had been looped over a solid branch six feet up and tied off round the trunk.

  Adrian picked at the knot tying the dog’s legs, while keeping an eye out for whoever had committed the crime. The cord had bitten tight and Beatle squirmed and whimpered.

  `Calm down, old boy,’ he muttered as he worked. `It’s all right now. I’ll soon have you down.’

  At last he was able to ease the pressure on Beatle’s legs. The cord was tied in a slipknot and now, by taking the dog’s weight off the
noose, Adrian was able to wriggle a finger beneath the cord and work it loose. Any second now the dog would be free and he’d be able to look for the bastards who’d done this. Some mean-spirited local kids, he had no doubt. He’d slaughter the little sods if he got his hands on them.

  The blow to his thigh took him by surprise. He didn’t feel pain, just the sensation of his entire leg being jerked from beneath him. Suddenly he was sitting on the ground. Beatle had scrambled free and was hopping around in a frenzy, as bewildered as Adrian was. Then he was hit again, in the other leg as it stretched out in front of him, and this time it did hurt. A lance of fire licked through his body, sucking the breath from his lungs as he stared down at himself in bewilderment.

  His jeans were changing colour, from pale blue to dark wet purple. Adrian stared in disbelief at his left thigh. There was something sticking through it, at the centre of the wetness. A metal tube projected from the wound with feathers on the end - like the flights on a dart, only bigger and meaner looking. In some compartment of his brain Adrian realised

  that he had been struck by some kind of arrow. An arrow powerful enough to knock him off his feet. He closed the door on that thought - it made no sense.

  But he couldn’t move and the fire in his body had taken hold now as the blood began to pool around him on the leaf mould and wormcasts of the old garden.

  `Help!’ he shouted. His voice echoed back to him, small and feeble. The afternoon light was beginning to fade, there were no dwellings within a mile, and the only person in the vicinity had crippled him with some foul medieval weapon.

  Adrian had never been more petrified in his life.

  That night Keith watched all the news bulletins. It gave him a considerable degree of satisfaction.

  Adrian Moore’s assault was the lead item on every channel, with the focus on the heroic behaviour of his dog, Beatle, who had led rescuers to the stricken jockey. A police spokesman revealed that Adrian had been wounded in the legs but, while refuting that he had been shot, had refused to say what precisely had made the wounds. Keith was amused by this coyness, though not displeased. Two of his crossbow points had been embedded in Moore’s legs, and he didn’t believe the police would have any problem identifying the kind of weapon they came from. But it was well known that the police habitually withheld details of crimes - it was all part of the game.

  Much of the television coverage was taken up with talking heads from the racing world, all expressing shock and disgust. Adrian Moore, it turned out, was universally loved throughout the jumping fraternity, and a finer sportsman was yet to take to the saddle - except when he was chucking races and screwing the punter. The punter’s views, naturally, were not recorded.

  Amidst the schmaltz and honest-citizen outrage, windswept outsidebroadcast reporters wondered aloud who would want to harm this honest lad setting out in the morning of his career. Their conclusion was that simple bad luck had placed him in the path of a sadistic lunatic. But for his racing ban Adrian would have been exercising his precocious skills at Ascot; now it seemed he would be out of the saddle for the rest of the season - at the very least.

  All in all, Keith reflected, it amounted to a good start. As yet the

  media had no idea that there was a reason behind the jockey’s misfortune, but he’d soon put them straight on that score. For now, he had grabbed the country’s attention in the most sensational manner possible. When he went to bed that night, the Beast inside was content.

  Phil woke, terrified, in the black of night. He’d been on a horse he couldn’t control at a course he didn’t recognise, racing under instructions he could not follow. He’d been told to hold the animal up but the horse wouldn’t obey. The harder he tugged on the reins the faster his mount had gone, past the other runners, scarcely jumping the fences but crashing through the birch fills, past the stands and the winning post and - in the way of dreams - galloping along a railway track and into a tunnel as dark as pitch. Phil began to scream.

  Thankfully he hadn’t shouted out in his sleep. He’d done that before and woken Julia, but not this time. It took him a while to realise where he was. The T-shirt he wore was clammy with sweat and his heart was pounding. He felt for his pulse - it was getting to be a habit with him - and registered the life throbbing fast, much too fast, in his veins.

  He felt ashamed. Here, in the night, there was no escape from the truth - he was a coward.

  He listened for Julia’s breathing and heard it, slow and rhythmic. She was still asleep, unaware of his turmoil. She mustn’t know about his night frights. She mustn’t know about any of it.

  He needed to get up - go downstairs, watch the television, maybe just stand barefoot on the cold kitchen floor and look at the stars through the window - but her warm bottom was pressed against his hip, the smooth skin glued to his. He shuffled to his side of the bed and she seemed to follow him, her weight shifting as he pulled away. She rolled on to her back and there was a change in her breathing.

  `Phil?’

  He said nothing.

  `You’re awake, aren’t you? Can’t you sleep?’ `I’m all right, Jules.’

  She turned towards him under the covers. `Poor old you. Are you thinking about Adrian?’

  `No.’ He reflected for a moment. `Well, maybe.’ Of course he was. The news about Adrian was enough to give anybody nightmares. `I’ve got to get up. Make some tea or something.’

  `OK.’ She slipped an arm round his chest. `Bring it back to bed. We can have a cuddle.’

  He pushed her away. `When are you going to realise, Julia, that you can’t solve everything with a quick fuck?’

  He regretted it instantly. They were the first words in his marriage he’d wished he’d never uttered.

  Hugh read the letter with disbelief, horror and mounting professional excitement.

  The Editor

  The Racing Beacon Re: Adrian Moore

  You are in receipt of my recent letter which you chose to ignore. You did not even have the curtesy to print it let alone start telling ‘ the truth about the cheating and corruption that goes on in racing.

  Like I warned you, I have been forced to take matters into my own hands. The stewards gave Adrian Moore a slap on the wrist for chucking that race at Wincanton. A 10 day ban is just a holiday for a bent jockey like Moore. But he’s not sipping champaine in 5 star hotel now is he?

  You should have heard him scream when I knocked him down with my broadpoints. He sat in the mud and wepped for his mummy. He won’t be riding again for a while will he? He should have got six months in the first place and now he has.

  That’s what I call justice.

  Are you going to start blowing the whistle on the racing cheats or will you leave them to me?

  I’m just starting.

  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. AGAIN! !

  `Bloody hell,’ said Hugh aloud to the empty office as he pulled the Loony Letters folder from his drawer.

  Julia wept softly as she bandaged the mare’s front leg. The tears had not been far off all morning, and she let them fall when she was sure they

  could not be observed. As always the yard was busy, but there were moments like this, in the shadows of a horse’s stall, when it was safe for her to let go.

  When Phil had pushed her away last night she had frozen in shock. Now she was trying to come to terms with it. They’d had rows, naturally, but this wasn’t a row, just an expression of anger and contempt that she didn’t recognise as coming from the man she loved. He’d sounded like someone she didn’t know. Is this what was meant when people said marriage wasn’t easy? That you woke in the middle of the night next to a cold and distant stranger? Welcome to the real world, she muttered to herself.

  Though she’d been keeping herself busy all morning she wasn’t sure she’d been much use. She knew the horses were alert to her distress and that didn’t help. How could she relax and heal them when she herself was in turmoil?

  A voice disturbed her. `Fancy a cup of tea?’

  Jul
ia raised her head. Mark was standing outside the stall, holding two mugs. For a moment she didn’t register the offer, she was so immersed in her own thoughts. Suddenly she felt stiff and weary.

  `Thanks.’ She patted the little mare’s rear quarters. There wasn’t much more she could do for her.

  They sat on the bench by the tack-room. `I enjoyed our dance the other night.’

  `I’m sorry, Mark. I had too much to drink.’ `You sure it wasn’t me throwing you about?’

  `Did you? I don’t remember.’ She remembered all right. It wasn’t the fast dancing that had unnerved her, it was the slow.

  `How are you getting on with that horse of Jack Mitton’s? I heard he used to be a bit tasty.’

  `He still is. He’s a bit of an old rogue but a real star.’ `Like Jack Nicholson, you mean?’

  `Actually, he’s more like Sean Connery. Stylish, with good manners, but full of danger. And with a dodgy hip.’ She found herself grinning. She couldn’t talk to anyone else like this - not even Phil.

  Mark was obviously intrigued. `So you’re going to get him fit to race?’

  `I’ll try. He never really recovered after his accident. He’s been treated like a family pet. I think he needs firm handling and some

  dressage work, to get him into a disciplined frame of mind. Make him use himself. He moves like a complete slob at the moment.’

  `I used to ride dressage a few years back. I was on the show-jumping circuit back in Ireland before I got into racing.’

  `Really?’ Julia liked the sound of that - it could be useful. On the other hand, she ought to see whether her husband would help her out first.

  `Actually, I’ve got to talk to Phil about it. He knows a bit about dressage techniques.’

  `Of course.’ Mark nodded and drained his mug. `Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’d be happy to give you a hand with him.’ `Would you?’

  Mark turned to her, his green eyes lit by excitement. `Callisto’s a legend, isn’t he? It’d be a thrill to sit on his back.’