by Dick Francis
Dr Mitcham, when he came, would solve only half the mystery.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked, in a croaky whisper.
‘You fell off a horse,’ he said.
‘Who am I?’
At this question he tapped his teeth with the end of his pencil and looked at me steadily for some seconds. He was a blunt-featured young man with fluffy, already receding, fair hair, and bright intelligent pale blue eyes.
‘I’d rather you remember that for yourself. You will, soon, I’m sure. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about anything. Just relax, and your memory will come back. Not all at once, don’t expect that, but little by little you’ll remember everything, except perhaps the fall itself.’
‘What is wrong with me, exactly?’ I asked.
‘Concussion is what has affected your memory. As to the rest of you,’ he surveyed me from head to foot, ‘you have a broken collar-bone, four cracked ribs and multiple contusions.’
‘Nothing serious, thank goodness,’ I croaked.
He opened his mouth and gasped, and then began to laugh. He said, ‘No, nothing serious. You lot are all the same. Quite mad.’
‘Which lot?’ I said.
‘Never mind, you’ll remember soon,’ he said. ‘Just go to sleep for a while, if you can, and you’ll probably understand a great deal more when you wake up.’
I took his advice, closed my eyes and drifted to sleep. I dreamed of a husky voice which came from the centre of a bowl of red and yellow crocuses, whispering menacing things until I wanted to scream and run away, and then I realised it was my own voice whispering, and the crocuses faded into a vision of deep green forests with scarlet birds darting in the shadows. Then I thought I was very high up, looking to the ground, and I was leaning farther and farther forward until I fell, and this time what I said made perfect sense.
‘I fell out of the tree.’ I knew it had happened in my boyhood.
There was an exclamation beside me. I opened my eyes. At the foot of the bed stood Dr Mitcham.
‘What tree?’ he said.
‘In the forest,’ I said. ‘I hit my head, and when I woke my father was kneeling beside me.’
There was an exclamation again at my right hand. I rolled my head over to look.
He sat there, sunburnt, fit, distinguished, and at forty-six looking still a young man.
‘Hi, there,’ I said.
‘Do you know who this is?’ asked Dr Mitcham.
‘My father.’
‘And what is your name?’
‘Alan York,’ I said at once, and my memory bounded back. I could remember everything up to the morning I was going to Bristol races. I remembered setting off, but what happened after that was still a blank.
‘How did you get here?’ I asked my father.
‘I flew over. Mrs Davidson rang me up to tell me you had had a fall and were in hospital. I thought I’d better take a look.’
‘How long…’ I began, slowly.
‘How long were you unconscious?’ said Dr Mitcham. ‘This is Sunday morning. Two and a half days. Not too bad, considering the crack you had. I kept your crash-helmet for you to see.’ He opened a locker and took out the shell which had undoubtedly saved my life. It was nearly in two pieces.
‘I’ll need a new one,’ I said.
‘Quite mad. You’re all quite mad,’ said Dr Mitcham.
This time I knew what he meant. I grinned, but it was a lopsided affair, because I discovered that half my face was swollen as well as stiff and sore. I began to put up my left hand to explore the damage, but I changed my mind before I had raised it six inches, owing to the sudden pain which the movement caused in my shoulder. In spite of the tight bandages which arched my shoulders backwards, I heard and felt the broken ends of collar-bone grate together.
As if they had been waiting for a signal, every dull separate ache in my battered body sprang to vicious, throbbing life. I drew in a deep breath, and the broken ribs sharply rebelled against it. It was a bad moment.
I shut my eyes. My father said anxiously, ‘Is he all right?’ and Dr Mitcham answered, ‘Yes, don’t worry. I rather think his breakages have caught up with him. I’ll give him something to ease it, shortly.’
‘I’ll be out of bed tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ve been bruised before, and I’ve broken my collar-bone before. It doesn’t last long.’ But I added ruefully to myself that while it lasted it was highly unpleasant.
‘You will certainly not get up tomorrow,’ said Dr Mitcham’s voice. ‘You’ll stay where you are for a week, to give that concussion a chance.’
‘I can’t stay in bed for a week,’ I protested. ‘I shouldn’t have the strength of a flea when I got up, and I’m going to ride Admiral at Liverpool.’
‘When is that?’ asked Dr Mitcham suspiciously.
‘March twenty-fourth,’ I said.
There was a short silence while they worked it out.
‘That’s only a week on Thursday,’ said my father.
‘You can put it right out of your head,’ said Dr Mitcham severely.
‘Promise me,’ said my father.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, and when I saw the anxiety in his face I understood for the first time in my life how much I meant to him. I was his only child, and for ten years, after my mother died, he had reared me himself, not delegating the job to a succession of housekeepers, boarding schools and tutors as many a rich man would have done, but spending time playing with me and teaching me, and making sure I learned in my teens how to live happily and usefully under the burden of extreme wealth. He himself had taught me how to face all kinds of danger, yet I realised that it must seem to him that if I insisted on taking my first tilt at Liverpool when I was precariously unfit, I was risking more than I had any right to do.
‘I promise,’ I said. ‘I won’t ride at Liverpool this month. But I’m going on racing afterwards.’
‘All right. It’s a deal.’ He relaxed, smiling, and stood up. ‘I’ll come again this afternoon.’
‘Where are you staying? Where are we now?’ I asked.
‘This is Bristol Hospital, and I’m staying with Mrs Davidson,’ he said.
I said, ‘Did I get this lot at Bristol races? With Palindrome?’ My father nodded. ‘How is he? Was he hurt? What sort of fall did he have?’
‘No, he wasn’t hurt,’ he said. ‘He’s back in Gregory’s stables. No one saw how or why he fell because it was raining so hard. Gregory said you had a premonition you were going to fall, and he asked me to tell you he had done what you wanted.’
‘I don’t remember anything about it, and I don’t know what it was I wanted him to do,’ I sighed. ‘It’s very irritating.’
Dr Mitcham and my father went away and left me puzzling over the gap in my memory. I had an illusive feeling that I had known for a few seconds a fact of paramount significance, but grope as I would, my conscious life ended on the road to Bristol races and began again in Bristol Hospital.
The rest of the day passed slowly and miserably, with each small movement I made setting up a chorus of protest in every crushed muscle and nerve. I had been kicked by horses before, but never in so many places all at once, and I knew, though I couldn’t see it, that my skin must be covered with large angry crimson patches which had spread and were turning black and finally yellow as the blood underneath congealed and dispersed. My face, I knew, must be giving the same rainbow performance, and I undoubtedly had two lovely black eyes.
The pills Dr Mitcham had sent via the nurse with pretty teeth made less difference that I would have liked, so I lay with my eyes shut and pretended I was floating on the sea in the sunshine, with my grating bones and throbbing head cushioned by a gentle swell. I filled in the scene with sea-gulls and white clouds and children splashing in the shallows, and it worked well each time until I moved again.
Late in the evening my headache grew worse and I slid in and out of weird troubled dreams in which I imagined that my limbs had been torn off by heavy wei
ghts, and I woke soaked in sweat to wiggle my toes and fingers in an agony of fear that they were missing. But no sooner had the feel of them against the sheets sent relief flooding over me than I was drifting away into the same nightmare all over again. The cycle of short awakenings and long dreams went on and on, until I was no longer sure what was real and what was not.
So shattering was the night passed in this fashion that when Dr Mitcham came into my room in the morning I implored him to show me that my hands and feet were in fact still attached to me. Without a word he stripped back the bedclothes, grasped my feet firmly, and lifted them a few inches so that I could see them. I raised my hands and looked at them, and laced my fingertips together over my stomach: and felt a complete idiot to have been so terrified over nothing.
‘There’s no need to be embarrassed,’ said Mitcham. ‘You can’t expect your brain to be in perfect working order when you’ve been unconscious for so long. I promise you that you have no injuries you don’t know about. No internal damage, no bits missing. You’ll be as good as new in three weeks.’ His steady pale blue eyes were reliable. ‘Only,’ he added, ‘you’ll have a scar on your face. We stitched up a cut over your left cheekbone.’
As I had not been exactly handsome before, this news did not disturb me. I thanked him for his forbearance, and he pulled the sheet and blankets over me again. His blunt face suddenly lit up with a mischievous smile, and he said, ‘Yesterday you told me there was nothing seriously wrong with you and you’d be out of bed today, if I remember correctly.’
‘Blast you,’ I said weakly. ‘I’ll be out of bed tomorrow.’
In the end it was Thursday before I made it on to my feet, and I went home to Scilla’s on Saturday morning feeling more tottery than I cared to admit, but in good spirits nevertheless. My father, who was still there but planning to leave early the next week, came to fetch me.
Scilla and Polly clicked their tongues and made sympathetic remarks as I levered myself out of the Jaguar at one quarter my usual speed and walked carefully up the front steps. But young Henry, giving me a sweeping, comprehensive glance which took in my black and yellow face and the long newly healed cut across one cheek, greeted me with, ‘And how’s the horrible monster from outer space?’
‘Go and boil your head,’ I said, and Henry grinned delightedly.
At seven o’clock in the evening, just after the children had gone upstairs to bed, Kate rang up. Scilla and my father decided to bring some wine up from the cellar, and left me alone in the drawing-room to talk to her.
‘How are the cracks?’ she asked.
‘Knitting nicely,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your letter, and for the flowers.’
‘The flowers were Uncle George’s idea,’ she said. ‘I said it was too much like a funeral, sending you flowers, and he thought that was so funny that he nearly choked. It didn’t seem all that funny to me, actually, when I knew from Mrs Davidson that it very nearly was your funeral.’
‘It was nowhere near that,’ I said. ‘Scilla was exaggerating. And whether it was your idea or Uncle George’s, thank you anyway for the flowers.’
‘Lilies, I expect I should have sent, not tulips,’ Kate teased.
‘You can send lilies next time,’ I said, taking pleasure in hearing her slow attractive voice.
‘Good heavens, is there going to be a next time?’
‘Bound to be,’ I said cheerfully.
‘Well all right,’ said Kate, ‘I’ll place a standing order with Interflora, for lilies.’
‘I love you, Kate,’ I said.
‘I must say,’ she said happily, ‘it’s nice hearing people say that.’
‘People? Who else has said it? And when?’ I asked, fearing the worst.
‘Well,’ she said, after a tiny pause, ‘Dane, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t be so jealous,’ she said. ‘And Dane’s just as bad as you. He glowers like a thunderstorm if he hears your name. You’re both being childish.’
‘Yes ma’am,’ I said. ‘When will I see you again?’
We fixed a luncheon date in London, and before she rang off I told her again that I loved her. I was about to put down my own receiver, when I heard the most unexpected sound on the telephone.
A giggle. A quickly suppressed, but definite giggle.
I knew she had disconnected; but I said into the dead mouthpiece in front of me, ‘Hang on a minute, Kate, I—er—want to read you something… in the paper. Just a minute while I get it.’ I put my receiver down on the table, went carefully out of the drawing-room, up the stairs, and into Scilla’s bedroom.
There stood the culprits, grouped in a guilty huddle round the extension telephone. Henry, with the receiver pressed to his ear; Polly, her head close against his; and William, looking earnestly up at them with his mouth open. They were all in pyjamas and dressing-gowns.
‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’ I asked, with a severe expression.
‘Oh golly,’ said Henry, dropping the receiver on to the bed as if it were suddenly too hot to hold.
‘Alan!’ said Polly, blushing deeply.
‘How long have you been listening?’ I demanded.
‘Actually, right from the beginning,’ said Polly shamefacedly.
‘Henry always listens,’ said William, proud of his brother.
‘Shut up,’ said Henry.
‘You little beasts,’ I said.
William looked hurt. He said again, ‘But Henry always listens. He listens to everyone. He’s checking up, and that’s good, isn’t it? Henry checks up all the time, don’t you Henry?’
‘Shut up William,’ said Henry, getting red and furious.
‘So Henry checks up, does he?’ I said, frowning crossly at him. Henry stared back, caught out, but apparently unrepentant.
I advanced towards them, but the homily on the sacredness of privacy that I was about to deliver suddenly flew out of my mind. I stopped and thought.
‘Henry, how long have you been listening to people on the telephone?’ I asked mildly.
He looked at me warily. Finally he said, ‘Quite some time.’
‘Days? Weeks? Months?’
‘Ages,’ said Polly, taking heart again as I no longer seemed angry with them.
‘Did you ever listen to your father?’ I asked.
‘Yes, often,’ said Henry.
I paused, studying this tough, intelligent little boy. He was only eight, but if he knew the answers to what I was going to ask him, he would understand their significance and be appalled by his knowledge all his life. But I pressed on.
‘Did you by any chance ever hear him talking to a man with a voice like this?’ I asked. Then I made my voice husky and whispering, and said, ‘Am I speaking to Major Davidson?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry without hesitation.
‘When was that?’ I asked, trying to show nothing of the excitement I felt. I was sure now that he had listened in to the telephone call which Bill had mentioned as a joke to Pete, who had not taken in what he said.
‘It was that voice the last time I listened to Daddy,’ said Henry, matter-of-factly.
‘Do you remember what the voice said?’ I forced myself to speak slowly, gently.
‘Oh yes, it was a joke. It was two days before he was killed,’ said Henry, without distress. ‘Just when we were going to bed, like now. The ’phone rang and I scooted in here and listened as usual. That man with the funny voice was saying, “Are you going to ride Admiral on Saturday, Major Davidson?” and Daddy said he was.’ Henry paused. I waited, willing him to remember.
He screwed up his eyes in concentration and went on. ‘Then the man with the funny voice said, “You are not to win on Admiral, Major Davidson.” Daddy just laughed, and the man said, “I’ll pay you five hundred pounds if you promise not to win.” And Daddy said, “Go to hell” and I nearly snorted because he was always telling me not to say that. Then the whispery man said he didn’t want Daddy to win, and that Admi
ral would fall if Daddy didn’t agree not to win, and Daddy said “You must be mad.” And then he put down the telephone, and I ran back to my room in case he should come up and find me listening.’
‘Did you say anything to your father about it?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Henry frankly, ‘That’s the big snag about listening. You have to be awfully careful not to know too much.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ I said, trying not to smile.
Then I saw the flicker in Henry’s eyes as the meaning of what he had heard grew clearer to him. He said jerkily, ‘It wasn’t a joke after all, was it?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said.
‘But that man didn’t make Admiral fall, did he? He couldn’t… could he? Could he?’ said Henry desperately, wanting me to reassure him. His eyes were stretched wide open, and he was beginning to realise that he had listened to the man who had caused his father’s death. Although he would have to know one day about the strand of wire, I didn’t think I ought to tell him at that moment.
‘I don’t really know. I don’t expect so,’ I lied calmly. But Henry’s wide eyes stared blindly at me as if he were looking at some inward horror.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Polly. ‘I don’t understand why Henry is so upset. Just because someone told Daddy they didn’t want him to win is no reason for Henry to go off in a fit.’
‘Does he always remember so clearly what people say?’ I asked Polly. ‘It’s a month ago, now, since your father died.’
‘I expect Daddy and that man said a lot of things that Henry has forgotten,’ said Polly judiciously, ‘but he doesn’t make things up.’ And I knew this was true. He was a truthful child.
He said stonily, ‘I don’t see how he could have done it.’
I was glad at least that Henry was dealing with his revelation practically and not emotionally. Perhaps I had not done him too much harm, after all, in making him understand what he had heard and disregarded.
‘Come along to bed and don’t worry about it, Henry,’ I said, holding out my hand to him. He took it, and uncharacteristically held on to it all the way along the landing and into his bedroom.
