Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,62

looked away.

‘It was wonderful, at the beginning, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘It happened so fast. It was … magic’

I couldn’t bear to listen. I opened the car door and started to get out.

‘Wait,’ she said, ‘I must – now I’ve started.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t.’

‘About a month ago,’ she said, all the repressed things pouring out in a jumble, ‘when you had that dreadful fall at Kempton and I saw you lying on a stretcher unconscious while they unloaded you from the ambulance … and it gave me diarrhoea, I was so frightened you would die … and I was overwhelmed by how much danger there is in your life … and how much pain … and I seemed to see myself here in a strange country … with a commitment made for my whole life … not just enjoying a delicious unexpected romance but trapped for ever into a life far from home, full of fear every day … and I didn’t know it was so cold and wet here and I was brought up in California … and then Litsi came … and he knows so much … and it seemed so simple being with him going to safe things like exhibitions and not hearing my heart thud … I could hear the worry in your voice on the telephone and see it this week in your face, but I couldn’t seem to tell you …’ She paused very briefly. ‘I told Aunt Casilia. I asked her what to do.’

I loosened my throat. ‘What did she say?’ I said.

‘She said no one could decide for me. I asked her if she thought I would get used to the idea of living for ever in a foreign country, like she has, and also to facing the possibility you’d be killed or horrifically injured … and don’t say it doesn’t happen, there was a jockey killed last week … and I asked her if she thought I was stupid.’

She swallowed. ‘She said that nothing would change you, that you are as you are, and I was to see you clearly. She said the question wasn’t whether I could face life here with you, but whether I could face life anywhere without you.’

She paused again. ‘I told her how calm I felt with Litsi… she said Litsi was a nice man … she said in time I would see … understand … what I wanted most … She said time has a way of resolving things in one’s mind … she said you would be patient, and she’s right, you are, you are … But I can’t go on like this for ever, I know it’s unfair. I went racing yesterday and today to see if I could go back … but I can’t. I hardly watch the races. I blank out of my mind what you’re doing … that you’re there. I promised Aunt Casilia I’d go … and try … but I just talk to Litsi …’ Her voice faded in silence, tired and unhappy.

‘I love you very much,’ I said slowly. ‘Do you want me to give up my job?’

‘Aunt Casilia said if I asked, and you did, and we married, it would be disastrous, we would be divorced within five years. She was very vehement. She said I must not ask it, it was totally unfair, I would be destroying you because I don’t have your courage.’ She swallowed convulsively, tears filling her eyes.

I looked along the shadowy mews and thought of danger and fear, those old tamed friends. One couldn’t teach anyone how to live with them: it had to come from inside. It got easier with practice, like everything else, but also it could vanish overnight. Nerve came and nerve went: there could be an overload of the capacity for endurance.

‘Come on,’ I said, ‘it’s getting cold.’ I paused. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘What … are you going to do?’

‘Go indoors and sleep till morning.’

‘No …’ she sobbed on a laugh. ‘About what I said.’

‘I’m going to wait,’ I said, ‘like Princess Casilia told me to.’

‘Told you!’ Danielle exclaimed. ‘Did you tell her?’

‘No, I didn’t. She said it out of the blue in the parade ring at Ascot.’

‘Oh,’ Danielle said in a small voice. ‘It was on Tuesday, while you were in Devon, that I asked her.’

We got out of the car and I locked the doors. What Danielle had said had been bad enough, but not as bad as an irrevocable declaration for Litsi. Until