reason they were playing piped music. Yes, I thought I recognised the tune: 'Let it be.' A man in blue pyjamas with a green mask around his neck appeared by my side, smiling reassuringly: 'Just a little prick in the back of your hand,' he murmured as I looked up at him in complete submission. 'Come on Victoria,' he said, 'give me a cough.' I woke several times and asked Amy whether I was going to have an operation. Finally I emerged from my slumber and surveyed my surroundings. I was on my own in a badly painted room and everywhere around me were vases full of flowers and baskets of fruit covered in cellophane. The sight of a drip pumping somebody else's blood into my left forearm frightened and startled me. My god, I wonder if they've checked it for Aids? Hadn't anyone told them I had banked some of my own blood in a London clinic in case I ever had an accident? My legs. Gingerly lifting my head from the pillow, I tried to take m the scene and the full extent of the damage to my body. My left thigh was enormous and discoloured with a long white dressing applied to the side. My right leg was encased in white plaster of Paris from the foot to above the knee. Why did I feel so tired? I fell back onto the pillow and drifted into sleep again.
'Mr Maddox is here to see you,' announced the neatly pressed sister. Mr Maddox, a powerfully built bearded man of about forty, introduced himself as the bone surgeon responsible for the battlefield that had now replaced my previously shapely lower limbs. He had a certain rugged charm, but I had done my share of swooning in the back of the racecourse ambulance.
'That was a pretty nasty fall, ma'am.' The southern American drawl took me by surprise. I had thought the transatlantic brain drain was one way.
'I'm fine,' I muttered, knowing full well I was anything but.
Maddox responded with an understanding wink and started to explain the nature of my injuries. The impact of my fall had been so great that my left femur had snapped in the middle and the consequent muscle spasm had caused the two pieces to cross over in the well-known pirate flag design. The swelling of my thigh was due to several pints of my blood being pumped into the surrounding muscles and that was why somebody else's was now being used to top me up.
'I'm afraid, if that wasn't enough, you had even more bad luck when one of the horses following on behind you stamped on your right shin as he was passing. We've managed to reduce that fracture and get good alignment so it's just a question of time for the tibia to knit together with the plaster of Paris holding things in position. All clear?'
'Painfully so. Thank you.'
'The femur was hard work and I've screwed in a metal plate to keep the healing bone in proper alignment.' He took an obvious satisfaction in his work and at least I could feel confident I was in safe hands.
'How long before I can walk again?' I was too terrified to ask the question I most wanted answered.
'Well, that will depend on a number of factors. We'll take a couple of X-rays in the next day or so to check that the positions are satisfactory, which I'm sure they will be. You're young, so the bones should reunite quickly.'
'How long then?'
'Hold on, little lady, don't rush things. You have to accept this is going to be a long and frustrating recovery. The first target is to get you out of bed and then gradually walking on crutches. If you ask the bones to take any weight or strain they won't mend and you'll end up a cripple – which wouldn't be in anybody's interest, would it? Is there anything else?'
I thought that was plenty to be going on with. I thanked him and he left me to my own thoughts.
I tried to forget everything by sleeping, but even that was difficult. My body had been given over to medical light-engineering and all that entailed. My right foot had begun to itch under the plaster, my left leg throbbed and I felt thoroughly seedy. I still had that confounded drip in my left forearm although the nurse did at least tell me she thought it would come down tomorrow. That would be Thursday. Every time I attempted to find a comfortable position or moved a lower extremity, the ensuing sharp pain woke me from my slumber and brought me back to the depressing reality of my side room.
Around about midday, or at least I thought it was, I received my first visitor. If you had offered odds on who it would be, I would have expected at least 66-1
I had never regarded Arthur Drewe as a very endearing or prepossessing character and as he raged on, I was fascinated by the way his left eye twitched in harmony with his increasing frustration. I had no intention of giving up the photograph and told him so in words of four letters.
'How dare you talk to me like that!' he stormed. 'You leave me no alternative but to report you to the police as a blackmailer.'
'Go on, go ahead. Nothing would give me more pleasure.'
I noticed him eyeing the plaster that encased my right leg and I sensed that he was debating whether to try a more physical line of persuasion. I pressed the buzzer beside my bed, and within seconds a nurse had appeared.
'Could you give me something for a headache, please?' I asked her. 'My uncle was just leaving.' I smiled my broadest smile at Sir Arthur, and presented my cheek for him to kiss. 'So sweet of you to come.'
Caught between rage and embarrassment, he leant forward and under the benign gaze of the nurse gave me a hasty peck, the hair of his moustache tickling me in the process.
'You'll regret this,' he muttered.
'Give my love to auntie,' I said loudly as he turned to leave, 'and to Annabel of course.'
He hardly wanted reminding of his favourite permit holder.
Drewe was followed a while later by Ralph and Amy. They understood that I was too weak and tired to make much conversation. I chose not to mention Drewe's visit in front of Ralph but asked him whether Admiralty Registrar was all right, as my last recollection of the horse was of following me only a few inches away through the air.
'He's fine,' Ralph answered. 'He was legless and winded for a little while but soon recovered and now he's as right as rain. The owners want to run him again this Saturday.'
'Tell them I'm willing if the doc gives me the all clear!' And with that parting comment and a mumbled apology I closed my eyes and surrendered to sleep.
I awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. The resulting pain in my left thigh reminded me in no uncertain terms where I was and why I was there. The room was in darkness and I wondered what time it was. I was sweating all over and my forehead was clammy, as if I'd been having a nightmare. Strangely for me, I couldn't remember a single detail of my dream; normally such experiences linger with me for hours.
My left arm was beginning to burn and sting from the drip, which already felt like a permanent part of me. For some inexplicable reason I was afraid. But perhaps it wasn't really surprising after the attacks over the past weeks and the accident on Tuesday. I tried in vain to adjust my eyes to the blackness that enveloped me like smog. I reached for the small box on the table beside my bed which contained the buzzer for calling the night nurse. I knew it was unfair but I just wanted to see a friendly face and have a reassuring chat. My outstretched right hand could feel the contours of a glass and the cover of a magazine that Amy had brought me, but that was all. I must have knocked the box onto the floor during my nightmare and now I was in no state to bend down and pick it up. At least I had stopped sweating and I was beginning to feel more relaxed.
I rolled over and tried to work myself into a more comfortable position in which to sleep. I dropped myself firmly onto my right shoulder and after wriggling my head against the pillow, began reliving my victory in the Gold Cup. I had reached the second-last fence from home when I thought I heard a rustling sound in the far corner of the room, where they had stacked the flowers and fruit. I listened carefully for another noise or movement. The back of my neck was beginning to prickle and I chided myself for behaving like a child. I held my breath for what seemed like a good thirty seconds. Not a sound, not a murmur… I shifted my weight yet again and returned to the race. Cartwheel pinged the last two fences and we galloped up that gruelling final hill to the winning post. As we passed the line, I lifted my left arm, drip and all, to give the old fellow a pat on the shoulder, just as I'd done all those weeks ago. Out of the darkness a hand shot forward, forcing my forearm down onto the mattress, and a coarse cloth engulfed my face, stifling my screams. I thought I felt the drip moving as I twisted and struggled to
