Warned Off (10 page)

Consciousness
returned as dawn broke. I was lying on the road. It was cold. I lay there
staring at the tyre a foot from my face. Small pips of gravel were stuck in the
tread. I didn’t move. Just my eyes. I became aware I was on my side under the
front bumper, my right arm beneath my body. My eyes moved again and I saw under
the car the frosty spiky grass at the roadside. It was higher than my head.

Funny.

It was cold.

I tried to remember the season. It was
spring. I was sure. Must be a cold snap.

The pain came back to my face. My
eyelids felt like dried, wrinkled leaves. My left cheek and nose throbbed and
stung like someone had shaved me with a dry razor after my skin had been
cooked.

My lips felt puffed. I prodded them with
my tongue and regretted it immediately. They were tender, raw-flesh tender.

The sky was getting lighter. I lay
still. It wasn’t the first time I’d lain injured on the ground. I had fallen
from horses at speed more times than I could count.

I’d seen the green earth coming at me
fast, felt it pound the wind from my body. I’d heard the crack of my own bones
at impact. I’d shut my eyes and rolled my head on a pillow of mud and wet grass
counting out the pain with each turn of the head till the ambulance arrived.

And they always had arrived. Sometimes
they took longer than others but they had always come. I wished they were
coming to get me now.

Pick me up from this road. Wrap me in
warm blankets. Morphine the pain away.

Help me.

I moved. I lifted my right cheek and
felt the gravel stick to my skin. Rolling onto my back I looked at the sky. It
was still grey but getting bluer. Slowly I tried to flex my arms and legs. A
crow sat in the tree above me, watching as I moved like a dying spider.

My limbs were stiff and though they
weren’t sore the slightest movement anywhere in my body seemed to increase the
pain in my face.

Very slowly I sat up. My eyes reached
the level of the radiator grille. Gripping the bumper I pulled myself up ... oh
so slowly trying to keep my head perfectly still.

Every movement seemed to send shock
waves into my skull to bounce around on the inside walls of my face like some
kid’s computer game. Direct hits every time. No electronic beeps, just agony.
Agony. Agony. Agony.

I held on to the front of the car for a
long while. I stared down at last night’s instrument of torture ... the cap was
nowhere to be seen. Just a dark hole rimmed on the inside by, of all things,
ice.

The journey from the front of the car to
the driving seat must have taken ten minutes. Moving in tiny steps, stopping
till the pain was bearable for the next few inches, I heard the crow fly off.
Bored, I suppose. If he’d been a vulture I think he might have stayed.

The final small movements had to be made
in bursts of held breath, squatting to sit on the side of the seat, sliding
backwards, hauling my legs in and turning round to face the front. Each an individual
stage. Each, a dive from high cliffs, preceded by a deep breath. Each breath
held till the stage was complete.

Finally I sat. On the softness, the warm
velour. No more gravel.

No more cold.

I was sweating now. The drops ran out of
my hair and carved paths down the burned skin. More and more of them. A big
field. Many runners. Racing down my face ... cutting it up.

I passed out again.

The
sound of an engine woke me. My eyes opened slowly. It was a horsebox, coming to
a halt in front of my car. It stopped. The engine stayed on. I heard a door
slam shut and boots hitting gravel. I began to panic and I was ashamed of my
terror. If they’d come back for another session over the radiator ... I
suddenly felt very badly in need of a toilet.

I saw the boots running alongside the
box. They were small boots. They were beautiful small undangerous boots. Their
owner came into view ... it was a girl. A loud involuntary sigh of relief
groaned out of my body.

She came to the door which still lay
open and she bent and looked in. ‘Have you broken down?’ she asked in a lovely
soft Irish accent.

I turned slowly to look at her and when
she saw the full frontal her brown eyes seemed to double in size in her
beautiful freckled face. Her head went back with the speed of a rifle recoil.
‘Fuckin hell!’ she said, her hand going to her mouth to hush it and cover her
horror.

‘Hello,’ I said. Moving my lips was a
big mistake. I resolved not to do it again.

‘What in the name of God happened to
you?’ she asked.

‘Accident,’ I said without moving my
lips.

‘How, what happened?’

‘Later,’ I said, again through still
lips.

‘Will I fetch a doctor?’

There was nothing in the world I wanted
more but doctors meant police and police meant, eventually, Cranley who would
gloat and taunt.

‘No,’ I said.

‘But why? You’re in an awful state. Have
you seen your face?’

I hadn’t. If it looked as bad as it felt
I didn’t want to see it.

‘You’ll have to have a doctor.’ She was
pleading now.

‘Please ... no,’ I managed to say. If
I’d been able to use my facial muscles to help express how much I didn’t want a
doctor perhaps she would have been more easily convinced. She was getting
angry, maternal.

‘Not here.’ The pain was in my voice
now. She softened and moved in closer, squatting. ‘I see how sore it is for you
to talk.’ She puzzled for a few seconds then looked at my hands in my lap.

‘Can you move your fingers?’

A cinch. I drummed on my thigh.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll just ask you
questions and you can answer with your fingers. Right hand for yes, left for
no.’

I raised my right forefinger.

‘Are you hurt anywhere else except your
face?’

Left hand.

‘Can you move?’

I hesitated.

‘With my help?’

Deep breath. Right hand.

‘Can your car be driven?’

Left hand.

‘If we go very slowly can you make it to
the horsebox?’

Right hand.

‘Okay, I’ll take you back with me, then
we’ll get a doctor.’

After a million years we reached the
door of the horsebox. It was high, offering only two steel footholds. I looked at
them. She looked at me. I was sweating again.

She climbed up and opened the door then
jumped down. ‘Wait,’ she told me. Running round the front of the box she
climbed in the other side. Appearing above me in the doorway she reached to
help me up. Breath-holding time again.

As it turned out it wasn’t a hell of a
lot worse than the walking; the pain level had come down or my tolerance had
increased. I reached the seat without blacking out again.

‘I’ll drive slowly,’ she said. And she
did, but the road was bad in places with ruts and holes. Every time we bounced
I sensed her glancing across at me and felt her grimace for both of us. I
wondered how far we had to go and she read my mind.

‘It’s not far, another two miles or so.’

We rumbled on, slower than an old
carthorse.

‘The family are away just now though
they may be back the morra,’ she said. ‘So you can have a bed till the doctor
comes and maybe even stay overnight if he doesn’t want to put you in hospital.’

It wasn’t the doctor that wanted to put
me in hospital but I knew what she meant.

‘Even if you’re still here when the
guv’nor gets back, he won’t mind. He’s a decent sort, so he is.’

I was glad of that.

‘And Mrs Roscoe’s nice too.’

If she’d only known there was nothing in
this world she could have said that would have made me feel sicker in my gut.

The little straw-clutcher inside said
maybe it wasn’t the same Roscoe, but cold logic laughed him down. How common
was the name? How many had horseboxes? How many had stables within two miles of
where I’d been last night? Not many. Just one. Basil.

I
wondered if Roscoe knew yet that I’d been to his house last night. The hit-men
must have reported in to somebody and if that somebody was Roscoe there had to be
a chance he was speeding down the A1 right now to find out how much damage had
been caused.

I tried to imagine the look on his face
when he walked in and found me being sympathetically tended to by his stable
staff. It didn’t make for a pretty picture. The girl chatted on beside me,
something about this not being their horsebox and how she’d have to take it
back later that day, while I tried to figure out what I was going to do.

My main fear was passing out again and
finding Roscoe there when I woke up.

When we reached the stables the girl
drove to the rear of the buildings and turned in to the yard. She looked across
at me. ‘I’ll get help,’ she said, and jumped to the ground. I watched her go
into the house I’d crept out of less than twelve hours before.

My vision was limited by the area my
swivelling eyes could cover without moving my head, but I could see that the
yard was cobbled though many of the stones were worn almost flat. Some were
missing and had been replaced by cement which had been painted the same slate
grey colour.

The girl reappeared and ran toward the
stables behind me.

Seconds later I saw her in the side
mirror hurrying back to the horsebox. Following her was a lanky teenage boy.
His lime-green sweater stopped halfway down his forearms and as he walked his
hands dangled and swung as though his wrists were broken. His face was long and
pointed and looked like it hadn’t seen soap and water since Christmas.

The girl climbed up and opened the door
and I turned slowly and painfully and came out backwards. They guided my feet
to the rungs and took most of my weight on the last big step to the ground.

Inside, they helped me to a chair in the
kitchen, straight and high-backed, much easier to stand up from. The girl went
to the sink and tore two yards of pale blue tissue from a roll fixed to the
wall.

She soaked the tissue under the tap and
came toward me, water dripping through her fingers as she cradled the soggy
mass in both hands.

‘If I can dab some of this on your face
it should soothe it.’

‘No,’ I said, fearing unconsciousness
again if anything touched the skin.

‘But you need something on it till a
doctor gets here!’ I could see she was beginning to get frustrated with this
invalid with the poached face. Each time she’d offered help I’d stopped her.
Wondering how long her patience would hold I decided to try one more request
which I knew would not be popular but would at least go some way toward getting
me out of her hair. I prepared myself for another session of talking through
still lips.

‘Have you called the doctor?’ I asked.

‘Not yet,’ she said. The water still
dripped, making a pool on the tiled floor. I looked at the boy. He was staring
at my face with his mouth hanging open like someone had removed the bolt from
his jaw. The girl saw me look at him and turned.

‘Thanks, Bobby. You’d better get back to
the feed room and finish off that mash.’  It was an order and Bobby looked
used to taking them.

He drifted slowly sideways toward the
door, still staring at my face. I lost sight of him when he moved out of
eye-swivelling range but I heard him speak for the first time.

‘What you gonna do with ‘im, Jackie?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him a doctor,
he’ll be all right,’ she said.

He didn’t reply. ‘Bobby,’ the girl said
sternly, ‘go back and finish the feed. I’ll make sure he’s all right.’

The girl turned back to me. By the look
of her she was approaching the border of anger. ‘Don’t tell me now you don’t
want a doctor!’

I didn’t say anything but she could see
from my look that that was exactly what I was about to tell her and she turned,
strode back to the sink and dumped the saturated handful of tissue. It splodged
and stuck by the sound of it. Back she came to me.

‘Maybe I should just let you sit there
till you die!  Maybe you’d be happier then!’ A flush spread under her
freckles and her eyes sparkled. She was very attractive.

‘Jackie ...’ I said. The use of her name
puzzled her till she remembered Bobby had used it.

‘Don’t you Jackie me with any soft
talk!’

I tried to make my eyes look apologetic.
‘Just do one more thing for me.’ The m’s were not coming out, but she
understood.

‘What?’ Hands on hips now, she was ready
for an argument.

‘Call an ambulance.’ I said. Her eyes
went up to heaven. ‘Thank God! You’re coming to your senses.’

On a shelf by the window was a white
telephone and, picking up the receiver, she looked back at me over her
shoulder. She was lovely as the sun caught her through the glass. Pity about my
face. If they ever repaired it sufficiently I’d ask her to dinner.

‘999?’

‘Yes.’ I said.

She began dialling. ‘Tell them I had an
accident in the boiler room.’

She stopped dialling and turned, still
holding the receiver to her ear. ‘We don’t have a boiler room.’

‘They don’t know that.’

Shaking her head slowly she dialled the
last digit. Pacing the kitchen in silence while we waited, she asked again what
happened to me, but I persuaded her the story would be best kept till some
other time.

I heard the siren faintly in the
distance, but when the ambulance came within clear hearing range of the stables
the noise stopped. It took me a few seconds to figure out they’d switched the
siren off deliberately in case we ended up with terrified horses kicking down
their box doors and careering all over Lambourn.

There were two ambulance-men and they
breezed in cheery and efficient looking. One had a beautifully kept beard and
when he saw me he whistled low and said, ‘Nice one.’

The other man gazed studiously at my
face from about a foot away as though he were looking in an aquarium for a lost
fish. ‘You won’t be shaving for a while, old son,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

Jackie answered. ‘The boiler blew.’

He straightened and looked at her.
‘These burns aren’t fresh.’

I watched her. She didn’t turn a hair. ‘It
happened last night when he was here alone. I found him this morning when I
came back from the races.’

He looked at me again. ‘Not the comfiest
night you’ve ever spent, I’ll bet,’ he said. Then the bearded one said, ‘I’ll
get the stretcher, John.’

‘Okay,’ John said. He smiled at me.
‘We’ll have you sorted out in no time, old son.’

He turned to Jackie. ‘What’s his name?
He was blocking my view but I could imagine the look on her face. ‘Eddie
Malloy,’ I said, using my lips so he wouldn’t ask for a repeat. It was very
painful.

He turned his attention back to me. ‘You
used to be a jockey, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Back to still lips. I saw him
reflect briefly on his use of the past tense. He must have remembered the
circumstances of my warning-off because he looked uncomfortable. I wished I
felt well enough to say something consolatory to fill the embarrassed silence.

His friend barged in with the stretcher
saving further blushes. They stood, one at either end, holding the stretcher
and Jackie helped me lie on it. The bearded one was facing me and John was at
my head. ‘All right, Eddie?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you open the door, love?’ he asked
Jackie.

‘Do you want to come with him?’ the
bearded one asked her.

‘Not now, I’m expecting Mr Roscoe back
soon. I’ll telephone the hospital to find out how he is. Newbury General, is
that right?’

‘That’s it, love,’ John said. ‘The
number’s in the book.’

‘Thanks,’ she said.

They carried me past her and when she
looked down I tried to smile, but it hurt too much.