Keeping the Peace (37 page)

‘You coming, Billy?’ she said.

Billy, wide-eyed with fear, nodded.

‘I’m coming.’

Pippa sat in the hospital’s waiting area, chilled to the core. She pinched her eyes, trying to relieve her headache from the glare of the overhead lights. The sound of Billy’s footsteps as he paced up and down the aisle throbbed in her ears as they awaited the verdict on Emmie in the adjoining examination room. To distract herself she pulled out her mobile phone to check for messages. There was nothing, not even an acknowledgement from Jack to the text she had sent earlier telling him she was taking Emmie to hospital. She grimaced at the thought of what he must be going through, wading through the aftermath of Virtuoso’s defeat.

Billy’s footsteps jarred her thoughts as he passed by once more.

‘Billy, why don’t you come sit down?’ she said, patting the chair beside her.

The lad threw an anxious glance towards the closed door before complying.

‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’ he asked.

Pippa nodded and squeezed his hand.

‘I’m sure we would have heard something by now if it was anything serious.’

‘But she said she was getting cramps. That can’t be good, can it?’

Pippa tried to give him a reassuring smile, but felt fraudulent.

‘I don’t know much about pregnancy, to be honest with you. But I do know that if something bad was happening then there would be nurses and doctors rushing in and out of here.’ She looked around and gave him a wry smile. ‘I don’t see much of anything going on, do you?’

Billy nodded with a sigh.

‘It’s all bloody Finn’s fault, upsetting her like that.’

She frowned at his vehement statement, a barrier of defensiveness rising up inside her.

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to fall off.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Billy sighed. ‘But he only fell because he made a stupid mistake. He shouldn’t have asked Virtuoso for such a big jump after such a long race.’

‘I don’t know then,’ she said with a resigned shrug. ‘But if Finn did make a bad judgement call then he’ll be kicking himself now. He’ll know what he’s done wrong.’ She thought of the media frenzy he and Jack must be experiencing right now and how far removed it was from the isolation of Bristol’s hospital waiting area.

‘If anything happens to Emmie, then he’ll get to know a whole lot more about what he did wrong,’ he muttered.

Finn had Pippa’s sympathy, but Billy’s concern touched her.

‘You and Emmie make a good couple.’

Billy dropped his gaze and she saw a ghost of a smile ball his cheeks.

‘I love her, you know.’

Tears pricked Pippa’s eyes and she blinked them back.

Really, she scolded herself, she must get a grip on her emotions. She’d recently gone back on the Pill to regularise her cycle, but it’d been playing havoc with her hormones ever since. Hormones and overtiredness is what it is, she told herself. She felt herself smiling as a voice in her head responded,
Oh, just admit it. You’re a sap when it comes to love
.

‘So I see,’ she said out loud, giving him a teasing grin.

Billy’s cheeks pinked and he fiddled with his hands.

‘We were gonna get a place together. You know, before the baby comes and all that, just so we could get used to living with each other before everything changes.’ He sighed. ‘Don’t know if that’s going to happen now.’

Pippa opened her mouth to reply, but was forestalled by the adjoining door opening. She and Billy sprang to their feet. A nurse motioned them forward.

‘Would you like to come see Emmie?’

‘Is she okay? Is the baby okay?’ Billy barraged her.

The nurse smiled kindly.

‘Nothing to worry about. Cramps aren’t unusual in early pregnancy. We’ve done an ultrasound just to be safe, but everything appears to be fine.’

Pippa sank against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. Billy gave an anguished snort, biting down on his fist then hugged the nurse.

‘She’s okay? Can I take her home?’ he asked as the nurse extricated herself.

‘Yes, she’s free to go, but she must take it easy for a while. She mentioned you both work at a horseracing yard?’

Billy nodded.

‘Well, my advice is she should take some time out. Hard manual labour is the last thing she should be doing right now.’

Billy nodded again, more emphatically.

‘I won’t let her do a thing, don’t worry. I’ll even cook for her –’

The jingle from Pippa’s mobile intervened, earning a disapproving frown from the nurse. With a guilty smile, Pippa fumbled for it in her pocket. Her thumb paused over the cut off key when she saw the caller ID.

‘Sorry, I’d better take this,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Billy. Go in and see Emmie. I won’t be long.’ She hurried down the corridor towards the exit, her heart doing random backflips as she answered the call.

‘Jack?’

‘Pippa. Where are you?’

‘At the hospital. Hold on, let me just go outside... Ooh, fuck, it’s cold out here.’

Beneath the entrance’s overhang, she hunched her shoulders against the biting wind, wrapping her free arm around her body.

‘What’s happened to Emmie? Is she okay?’

‘We’ve just spoken to the nurse who examined her. She’s going to be fine.’

‘What happened?’

‘We were watching the Gold Cup and she started getting stomach cramps.’

‘Jesus Christ. Is the baby okay?’

‘They’re both fine. Apparently cramps aren’t that unusual. Scared the hell out of us though. Billy was ready to kill Finn not so long ago.’

‘Hm,’ Jack grunted. ‘He’s not the only one.’

His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been speaking or shouting for a long time without a drink to relieve his throat. Pippa ached to be back at the office and able to make him a cup of tea.

‘I’m sorry about Virtuoso,’ she said gently.

‘Yeah, so am I. It wasn’t the result we were hoping for.’

‘How did Mr Mardling and Melissa take it?’

‘Ken Mardling’s been in racing long enough to know anything can happen. He’s disappointed, I suppose, but that’s to be expected.’ He exhaled, weary and defeated. ‘And Melissa, I don’t know. She just seems...
distracted
. I don’t know anymore.’

Pippa chewed her lip as she considered his words. A sudden image of Melissa and Finn in Helensvale’s Turkish restaurant flashed into her mind. If there’d been more to that meeting than what Finn had said, could Melissa have been distracted because of Finn’s fall?

Her eyes widened.

Maybe she’d got Melissa wrong. Did the fashion designer care for him more than she should? Oh, hell, that’s all Jack needed now, she inwardly groaned.

‘Pippa? Are you still there?’ Jack’s strained voice jogged her back to the present.

‘Yes, I’m here.’ She hesitated. ‘Jack?’

‘Yes?’

‘Jack, are
you
okay?’ she asked in a small voice.

A silence greeted Pippa’s tender question. Her pulse racing, she wondered what was going through his mind. At last, she heard a faint chuckle.

‘If you carry on talking to with that voice, I will be very
un
okay. But I think for now, I’ll survive. You go take care of Emmie and I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘All right. See you tomorrow then.’

‘Sweet dreams, Pippa,’ he rasped, his voice almost resigned.

He cut the call before she could reply.

Distracted, she put her phone into her handbag. Jack’s voice echoed in her ears. Very
un
okay? What did he mean by that, she wondered. She leaned against the damp hospital wall, ignoring the wet seeping through her collar.
Un
okay if anyone showed sympathy? She knew what that felt like. She recalled the times she had bravely held her emotions together until the moment Tash would show compassion.
Then
she would break down. Or
un
okay because
she
was the one giving him sympathy?

She gulped and took and deep breath, knowing for certain which option she wanted it to be.

P
ippa was greeted by the deep murmur of Jack’s voice the next morning when she walked into the office. His door was ajar and she poked her head round to signal her arrival. Jack, the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, distractedly acknowledged her.

‘No, you can’t print that, even if it is off the record, because it’s not true,’ he said patiently. ‘In my opinion, Finn didn’t have a chance of staying on when Virtuoso hit the fence. I don’t think any jockey would have... No, his job as Aspen Valley’s retained jockey is not in jeopardy. I still have every faith in him as a rider...’

His defence became muffled as Pippa retreated to the kitchenette to make him some tea. She picked up a copy of the
Racing Post
which had been left on the draining board as she waited for the kettle to boil. She sighed at one of the headlines ‘
Is Aspen Valley Finn-ished?
’ She scanned the article, shaking her head as the columnist ripped into Finn’s Gold Cup ride, calling him a poor replacement for the injured Rhys Bradford and criticising Jack for not letting Mick Farrelly, the jockey who’d steered Virtuoso to such a decisive victory in the Denman Chase, take the ride.

When she returned with a steaming mug of tea, Jack was winding down his conversation. His strong deliberate voice was in stark contrast to his dishevelled hair and the etched lines beside his eyes and mouth.

‘Who’s to say he would have won or not? Zodiac was a surprise winner, so who’s to say he wouldn’t have beaten Virtuoso as well? There, I think all that needs to be said has been said. You can use what you like from this conversation to put in your report.’

He put the phone down, exhaling noisily and looked up at Pippa.

‘Bad day?’ she said, passing him his tea.

‘Cheers. Bad season more like it. First Black Russian, now Virtuoso.’

‘He’s not dead, is he?’ Pippa said in horror.

‘No, no, not dead. Just the media abuse we get, me might just as well have shot him in front of the grandstands.’

‘Shame, Jack. You don’t deserve this stick. I see in the paper Finn’s getting much the same treatment.’

‘Serve him right,’ Jack muttered.

Pippa frowned at him, confused.

‘But I thought I heard you say you didn’t hold him responsible?’

‘Ever heard the expression “live together, die alone”? Well, it’s something like that. There’s no point in severing ties with your allies when you need to stick together.’

‘Right,’ Pippa said slowly, trying to get her head round his reasoning. ‘So you do think Finn is to blame?’

Jack raised his palms in indecision.

‘Maybe, maybe not. Would he have stuck on if he’d tried a bit harder? Probably not. Should he have let Virtuoso pop over the fence instead of thinking he was riding Pegasus? Absolutely. He fucked up
before
he fell off.’

Pippa wrung her hands, troubled by Jack’s verdict.

‘He made a mistake.’

‘Yes, but he made that mistake in the Gold Cup! A mistake which could have been avoided!’ Jack exclaimed.

Pippa took a step back, shocked by his outburst.

‘Well, we learn by our mistakes,’ she replied, recovering her composure. ‘Finn will think twice next time.’

‘Damn right he will. I hope his ear is still burning from the bollocking he got yesterday.’

Pippa’s heart went out to Finn, imagining him on the receiving end of Jack’s fury. That on top of his own disappointment couldn’t be an easy burden to bear.

‘You shouted at him? He’s already got enough on his plate. Don’t you think that’s a bit like rubbing salt into the wounds?’

A muscle jumped in Jack’s jaw as he ground his teeth.

‘Would you be quite so forgiving if it’d been Peace Offering in the Grand National that he’d fallen off? Don’t you understand what the Gold Cup means, Pippa?’

She dug her fingernails into her palms and glared at Jack.

‘Of course I do! Just looking at you shows how much the Gold Cup means to you. But it would have been worth just as much to Finn.’

‘He’s cost me the Champion Trainer’s title!’

‘But the season’s not over yet. There’s still the National to come.’

‘Pippa, I’m not relying too heavily on the National to win me the trainers’ championship,’ Jack said through clenched teeth, making a sword of hurt pierce Pippa’s chest. ‘Why are you sticking up for Finn like this?’

‘Maybe because I feel he’s the underdog.’ She looked at him with distaste, struggling to keep her emotions under wrap. ‘And maybe that’s why I’m sticking up for Peace Offering too. You obviously don’t think much of him either –’ She bit her lip as her voice began to tremble and turned away. Behind her, she heard Jack give a frustrated sigh and get up from his chair.

His hand closed over her shoulder.

‘Pippa, I’m sorry.’

She stared hard at the floor, trying not to cry.

‘Pippa?’

She raised her head and turned. Jack’s hands folded over her arms and he gently pulled her round to face him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping away a stray tear. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. What are we even arguing about?’

Jack’s face contorted with anguish. Like someone who has broken their favourite piece of china and tries to collect all the fragments, Jack brushed the moisture from her cheek with his thumb. He tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear. Pippa’s heart began to thump, constricting her chest.

‘I hate myself for upsetting you,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t mean to. I – I have to vent my frustration and you – well, sometimes I guess you’re just an easy target.’

‘I’m probably oversensitive,’ Pippa said. ‘I know really that you’re right about Peace Offering, but he does hold a special place in my heart.’ She lifted her hands to her chest as the tears resurfaced. ‘And Dave believed in him so much.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ he said, rubbing her arms. ‘Please don’t cry. You’ll make me cry.’

Pippa smiled at the thought of him in floods of tears.

‘You don’t cry, do you?’

‘Trust me. Watching
Marley and Me
was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I cry, let there be no doubt.’