With a lot of puffing, Emmie manoeuvred herself sideways.
‘It’ll be more comfortable if I can just…kneel down in the footwell…and face backwards,’ she said. ‘My back is killing me.’
‘Um, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
Emmie ignored her. In her determination, she kicked the gearstick, knocking the car out of gear and making it complain loudly. Frankie looked down at the tiny footwell, then at Emmie. Emmie wasn’t exactly huge but in comparison to the space available, she might as well have been an elephant trying to turn around in a horsebox.
‘Look, I really don’t think you should do that—’
‘There! That’s better.’ Emmie smiled weakly, now parked backwards with her elbows on the seat.
Turning into Gloucester Road, Frankie noticed Emmie barely move as they negotiated the corner. The girl was wedged. How the hell were they going to get her out?
‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked.
‘Another one’s coming.’
‘Quick, Billy!’ Pippa bounced in her seat as much as was physically possible. ‘Where’s your watch?’
As Emmie slumped onto the seat with another groan, the others turned to Billy expectantly.
‘So? How long was that?’ Pippa prompted.
‘Well, it’s eight forty-nine and fifty seconds…um, what time was it when you said go?’
‘Oh, Billy!’ Pippa complained, sounding like he’d just ruined a favourite game.
‘Six minutes,’ Jack said calmly.
‘Six minutes?’ echoed Frankie. She looked at Emmie in horror. ‘How long have you been in labour?’
Emmie grimaced.
‘I’ve been sore all day. I suppose those might have been contractions earlier. I just didn’t know since they weren’t exactly agonising. Unlike these bastards.’
Frankie put her foot down and the Mini sluiced through the wet with more urgency.
‘Didn’t you notice anything when your waters broke?’ she asked.
Emmie looked at her, nonplussed.
‘My waters haven’t broken yet. I think I would have noticed that.’
‘I thought your waters breaking is the first sign that you’re about to pop,’ Billy said, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around the backrest of the chair so he could see Emmie better.
‘Weren’t you listening in the antenatal classes, Billy? That only happens in Hollywood. Waters can break at any time during labour.’
Frankie tried to look subtly at Emmie’s rear end jammed against the glove box. She really did not want Emmie flooding her car. It had taken four packs of air fresheners to mask the smell when her cat Atticus Finch had thrown up beneath her seat on the way to the vets. She did not want to find out how many packs this would need.
*
Frankie’s heart stepped up the pace when finally a sign for Southmead Hospital was illuminated by the headlights.
‘Nearly there,’ she informed Emmie.
‘About bloody time.’
She stopped the car as they reached the entrance and were met by about fifty different signs for all the hospital wards.
‘Shit. Which way do we go?’
‘Pink—sign—’ Emmie gasped. ‘Oh God, it’s coming!’
‘I see it! I see it—’
‘What? You can see the baby?’ Billy tried to climb over the headrest.
‘No, the pink sign,’ Frankie replied. ‘Just—um… hold it in. Don’t push. We’re nearly there.’
The car lurched forward, making Emmie groan again. Driving as fast as she dared, Frankie peered into the darkness looking for further directions. It wasn’t looking promising. They came to a T-junction. There weren’t any more pink signs.
‘And now? Billy, does any of this look familiar?’ Frankie asked.
‘I think things might have been changed around a bit since I was born here. We’re talking twenty-one years ago.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Billy!’ Emmie snarled. ‘Stop being a tool. She means the last time we came here to visit!’
‘Oh! Okay, um, right, well. I don’t remember this bit. I might be wrong though. It was daytime then and things—well, things look different in the dark.’
‘Let’s back up. We might have missed something.’
‘Oh God, no more speed humps, please,’ Emmie whimpered. ‘This baby’s going to bounce out in a minute.’
With a high-pitched whine, the Mini shot backwards.
‘Look!’ Billy yelled, jabbing his finger against the window.
Peeping out from behind a bush was a discreet pink sign. Frankie spun the wheel and put her foot down, the car almost becoming airborne as they hit another speed hump. Emmie groaned like a dying whale. Drawing up to the maternity unit car park, she read the payment instructions beside the boom and meter.
‘We have to pay by the hour. How long do you reckon we’ll be?’
‘What?’ Jack said, craning his neck to see out of the window. ‘How the hell are we supposed to know that? Just get the maximum.’
Frankie hefted her bag onto her lap and dipped into her purse for some money. She had a ten pound note and some small change. Peering at the meter, she couldn’t see any entrance for notes to be accepted.
‘It only accepts coins,’ Frankie announced. ‘I don’t have enough.’
‘Everyone empty your pockets,’ Pippa said. ‘How much do you need?’
‘Another seven pounds and forty pence.’
There was a minute of grunting and heaving as the backseat occupants all tried to extract their wallets, digging elbows into ribs and cracking heads.
‘I’ve got two pounds and sixty seven pence,’ Billy said, spilling his change into Frankie’s waiting palm.
‘Here’s three fifty,’ Jack added to the pool. ‘Pippa?’
Pippa looked embarrassed as she turned over her empty purse.
‘I—er… just remembered. I gave all my loose change to the charity worker on the way to the pub earlier.’
They sat in compounded silence for a moment.
‘Come on!’ Emmie screamed at last. ‘Someone must have some more money! Or break down the boom! This baby is coming NOW!’
Frankie gasped as an idea popped into her head.
‘The ashtray! I always keep change in there! Here we are.’
With a handful of silver and copper, Frankie painstakingly fed the meter, aware that like the last grains of sand in an hour glass, time was fast running out.
At last, the meter disgorged a ticket and they were allowed through. She pulled up in one of the last available parking spaces with a jerk of the handbrake. After helping Jack, Pippa and Billy out of the back, she approached Emmie’s door in trepidation. Emmie held out her sweaty palm to be helped up.
Frankie tugged.
Emmie didn’t budge.
‘Oh no,’ Frankie muttered, pulling harder. ‘Er, folks, I might need some help here.’ She turned to the others standing behind her. Jack was cricking his neck back into place. ‘Emmie’s stuck.’
‘Oh God, here comes another!’ Emmie yelled. ‘Fucking hell! What the hell is this baby doing in there? Ooooh! Ooooooooh!’
Billy and Pippa took up the case, each grabbing an arm.
‘Okay, on five,’ Billy said. ‘Onnnnnne…twoooooo…threeeeee—’
‘Billy, for fuck’s sake!’ Emmie screamed. ‘Just get me out of here!’
Twisting, pulling, grunting and puffing, Emmie suddenly popped out of the footwell. Billy staggered as she collapsed on him.
‘Ooh, there they go,’ she wailed, looking down.
Frankie, closing the door behind her, followed her gaze and saw the girl’s legs shiny with liquid beneath the street lighting. Feeling guilty, she gave a sigh of relief that it hadn’t happened thirty seconds earlier.
*
In the face of everyone’s semi-panic, the receptionist inside the maternity unit was amazingly calm. Frankie supposed if she threw a wobbly every time a labouring woman staggered in, she probably wouldn’t be t
hat suited to the job. With Emmie and Billy ushered through to the birthing suite, Frankie took a seat beside Pippa in the stark blue bubble-like foyer. Jack continued to pace up and down.
*
Long minutes ticked by with the silence interjected by muffled groans and wails and frantic buzzers being pressed like an overenthusiastic quiz panel. Four more mothers-to-be tottered in and were led into the torture house. Frankie grimaced and swore that she was never going to have children.
‘I wonder if that’s Emmie,’ Pippa said, concerned etched across her face as a particularly wretched groan pierced the walls.
‘Poor kid,’ Jack muttered. He fixed Pippa with stern blue eyes and held up a finger. ‘All that oohing and aahing you were doing over Emmie’s bump and the baby clothes? Do not get any ideas, okay? I’m not putting you through this.’
Pippa gave him a loving smile and reached out her hand to give his a squeeze. Another blood-curdling scream breached the walls and Jack swayed.
‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ he said and strode out into the night.
Frankie and Pippa sat in silence for a time, both listening to the activity from beyond, both accompanied by their own thoughts. With every scream, Frankie became more and more certain she would never become a mother. She was sure Pippa must be feeling the same.
‘He’ll come round to the idea eventually,’ Pippa broke the silence.
Frankie looked at her in disbelief.
‘You mean you still want to have children after sitting here for an hour listening to all that racket?’
Pippa nodded.
‘Not right now, I’ll give you that. But when the time is right. I think Jack will be an amazing father.’
‘He seems very protective,’ she said cautiously. ‘Of you, naturally. But of Emmie too, and well, isn’t she just an employee?’
Pippa smiled.
‘You’ll find out soon enough that Jack has a rotten temper but he is very fair—you can ask any of the Aspen Valley staff. He might chew their ear off occasionally, but they’ll all admit that they probably deserved it at the time. And when they find themselves in a jam, Jack is right behind them.’
Frankie nodded in agreement.
‘He’s been very fair to me. There’s not that many trainers who’ll take on a female jockey.’ She grinned, reliving the moment when Jack had offered her the job. ‘It feels like a fairy tale that not only have I been given a chance, but I’ve been given the chance by one of the top trainers in the country.’
‘Have you always wanted to be a jockey?’
‘I guess so,’ Frankie replied with a shrug. ‘My dad used to be a jockey and my brother was as well. It seemed the natural thing to do. Do you ride?’
Pippa laughed.
‘No. I haven’t sat on a horse since I was about six and that was at Brighton Beach.’ She flashed Frankie a proud smile. ‘I do have a horse though that Jack trains. Peace Offering.’
Frankie forgot how to breathe. She stared at a beaming Pippa.
‘You own Peace Offering?’ she gasped.
Pippa swelled with pride.
‘Yes. Have you heard of him?’
‘Of course I’ve heard of him! He nearly won the Grand National last season but got brought down by a loose horse while leading at the last.’
‘He’s favourite for the next one too,’ Pippa grinned.
Frankie could feel her heart thumping inside her chest. The Grand National. Sitting next to the favourite’s owner, this was the closest she had ever been to it. She could almost taste it. From riding claimers for a trainer going out of business last month to now working for the yard who boasted the Grand National favourite, Frankie marvelled at the huge leap she’d taken towards her ambition.
Pippa smiled at Frankie’s awe and patted her hand.
‘Someone once told me that you don’t become a jockey without wanting to win the Grand National. Is it the same for you?’
Frankie thought about the question for a moment. Her reasons for wanting to win the National weren’t exactly straight forward. They went deeper than just ambition.
‘I think although we all have a common goal,’ she began hesitantly, ‘we all have different reasons for wanting to win it. For me, it’s not about personal conquest, about being the best—or in my case, the first lady—jockey. My father rode in the National a few times during his career, but he never won it and I know it bugged him long after his retirement that he never quite reached his goal.’ She looked up at Pippa who was listening with interest. ‘I’d love to win the National for him.’ Or even just get a ride in the National, she added silently. Anything to make him proud.
Pippa’s eyes sparkled and she blinked rapidly.
‘That’s a lovely reason. Did you know the only reason Peace Offering ran in it last season was to fulfil my uncle—his late owner’s—wish? Jack didn’t think he had a hope in hell.’
‘He’ll have changed his tune since then,’ Frankie grinned. ‘He’ll have a strong chance this season—’ A stab of jealousy punctured her dreams. ‘—Especially with Rhys Bradford back on board.’
Pippa gave a mirthless laugh.
‘Yes,’ she replied drily. ‘If Peace Offering were to win the National, then it’d all be down to Rhys’s blinding talent.’
Frankie laughed, but cautiously. Was he really that much of a bastard? Despite exaggerating massively to Jack earlier at the Golden Miller about their fall, he’d otherwise been courteous and amicable towards Pippa.
Frankie was trying to decide whether her boss’s fiancée and Rhys had a history when the door to the birthing suite was flung open. It bounced off the wall and hit the entrant sideways.
Frankie and Pippa popped up from their seats like toast.
Billy stood immobile, only his Golden Miller napkin rising and falling with his heaving chest. His cheeks were wet with tears.
‘Billy?’ Pippa prompted gently. ‘Is Emmie okay?’
His lower lip trembled then his face crumpled. Pippa rushed to his side and hugged him. Jack entered from outside with a whoosh of the automatic doors.
‘What’s happened, Billy?’ he said.
Billy looked at his boss with weak watery eyes. Frankie held her breath.
‘Emmie–Emmie–Emmie’s had a baby,’ he gulped.
Chapter 4
As far as first impressions went, Aspen Valley Stables was up there with the best of them, thought Frankie come Monday morning. Snuggled at the base of a wide rolling hillside, the red brick stables were sheltered from the blustery southwest winds.
Not so much from the rain though, she thought, turning her collar up against the misty drizzle. She was greeted by the ricocheting sounds of horses banging their stable doors, keen to get out and stretch their muscles on the gallops. It seemed her enthusiasm to start her new job had made her early. There was relatively few staff wandering around.
Passing along the E-shaped yard, Frankie stopped outside the opposing row of offices and knocked on the Reception door. The windows were dark and she listened dubiously.
‘Frankie!’
The welcoming voice didn’t come from within but from behind. Jack advanced from further down the yard. A nervous flutter pre-empted her greeting.
‘Morning,’ he said as he reached her. ‘Ready to rock and roll?’
Frankie filled her lungs with damp straw-scented air and smiled.
‘I think so. After Friday night I’d say I was ready for anything.’
‘Tell me about it. Thank God you were there. Both mother and son are doing well, you’ll be glad to know. Although Billy, I’m not so sure about. He’s too afraid to hold baby Sam in case he drops him.’
Frankie laughed, remembering Billy’s awkwardness during Friday’s escapade.
‘I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it soon.’
Jack looked doubtful.
‘I’m not, but he’s got a few weeks to practice at any rate. I’ve given him some leave. Actually, the baby arriving at the same time as you ha
s worked out quite well.’ Motioning for her to follow, he set off across the yard. ‘Someone’s got to look after Billy’s horses while he’s gone and you need some to keep you busy.’ He pointed to a row of five stables directly opposite the offices. ‘These are going to be your charges. Only two of them are Billy’s—June’s got the rest. Your other three are pretty new so I thought it would be good for you all to learn the ropes together.’
Frankie’s heart began to thud that little bit harder as he spoke. She, Frankie Cooper, would be in charge of five of Aspen Valley’s racehorses. Aspen Valley, three-time National Hunt champions from the last five years! They stopped at the first stable. No horse came to greet them and she peered into the darkened box to see its occupant. A silhouette-like figure watched them from the back.
‘Ta’ Qali, a newbie like yourself.’
When Jack didn’t follow up his initial introduction with anything else, Frankie was gripped in a sudden panic. Should she have heard of Ta’ Qali? Was he some multiple Grade One winner and Cheltenham favourite?
Trying to appear knowledgeable, she nodded and murmured an indistinct approval. When she ventured a look at Jack, she noticed him frown. Thankfully, it wasn’t directed at her. Instead he was regarding the horse. He held out his hand and clicked his tongue. Ta’ Qali took a hesitant couple of steps forward and exhaled noisily as the smell of Jack’s hand reached his nostrils.
‘A bit shy, is he?’ Frankie asked.
‘Head shy, yes. We’re still trying to figure him out. He’s just been retired from racing on the flat. We picked him up at the sales.’
The gelding at last ventured forward into the light of day, his long ears flicking like insect antennas. He was black as an oil spill except for a small sprinkling of white hairs on the bridge of his Roman nose, like someone had knocked over the salt cellar. Running a practiced eye over his large nobbly head, long thin neck and sway back, Frankie hesitated to voice her immediate question.
‘Can he jump?’ He had to have something going for him because it certainly wasn’t looks.
‘Well, he did when I rattled the bucket behind him.’ Jack smiled grimly. ‘He’s a full-brother to Sequella, the Goodwood and Doncaster Cups winner.’
Frankie did a double-take.
Giving Chase (A Racing Romance) (Aspen Valley Series #2) Page 3
