At Long Odds (A Racing Romance) (33 page)

‘Can’t breathe very well.’

Fear bubbled inside Ginny as her father began to deteriorate before her.

‘Help me, Mum. Let’s lie him flat on his back so he’s not compressing his heart. Can you move, Dad?’

With clumsy manoeuvering, they got Jim on his back. Beth rearranged the towel behind his head.

‘When did you call the ambulance? How long did they say they’d be?’ Ginny asked, loosening Jim’s collar.

‘They said five to ten minutes. Jim, you’ve got to hang on.’

Jim gave a weak smile that hardly moved the crows’ feet at his eyes.

‘That’s it, Dad. They’ll be here in a minute.’ Ginny tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. Jim closed his eyes and she wondered what she should do. Was it better to let him rest or should she try keep him awake? She had no idea. A loud knock on the door made her and Beth jump and she ran to answer it. A fat ambulance was backed up to the front path and three green-uniformed paramedics stood on the doorstep.

‘Thank God. He’s through here. I don’t know what’s happened,’ she said over her shoulder, as she hurried back down the hallway. ‘He had a heart attack a few months back…’

‘Let’s take a look then,’ one lady said and moved Ginny and Beth aside so they could all fit into the bathroom.

*

Ashen, Ginny looked down at the stretcher where her father lay. An oxygen mask was fastened over his nose and mouth. She tripped over one paramedic and bumped into another in her urgency to keep close to him. She watched as Jim was lifted into the open doors of the ambulance and the paramedics all began to settle inside.

‘Can I come with you?’

‘I think your mum would also like to come too. You could follow us in your car?’

‘Yes, of course. You get going though; I don’t want to hold you up. I’ve got to find Dad’s car keys.’ Ginny was speaking more to herself than anyone else as she turned back to the house where her mother was now standing in the doorway, her face distressed and blotchy from tears.

‘Come on, Mum. Where are Dad’s keys? We’re following them,’ Ginny said, trying to act calm and in control.

*

Ginny and Beth scuttled into Cambridge’s A&E through the whooshing automatic doors. They made a bee-line for the reception desk.

‘Hi, we’re family of Jim Kennedy. He’s just been brought in by an ambulance.’

‘If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll see what I can find out. Name please?’

Ginny bit her lip. She didn’t want to sit down. She couldn’t.

‘Kennedy. I’m Virginia Kennedy, his daughter. And my mother, Beth Kennedy.’

The receptionist regarded them with a bored look.

‘Take a seat,’ she repeated, pointing to the waiting area with her pen.

Reluctantly, Ginny and Beth went to sit down amongst the few other anxious and miserable-looking inhabitants.

A couple of minutes later, a nurse appeared from a doorway in the far corner of the room.

‘Mrs Kennedy?’ she requested to the room. Beth and Ginny were on their feet at once and hurried over to her. ‘If you’d like to come through…’

They were led down a long glossy corridor until the nurse stopped outside one room. Inside, they found Jim, propped up in bed, heart and blood pressure monitors beeping in the hushed environment. When they entered, Jim looked up, annoyed.

‘I keep telling them there’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine! But they won’t believe me!’ he ranted.

‘But you’re not fine!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘You collapsed!’

‘Well, I’m fine now,’ Jim insisted.

‘I might expand on that a little.’ A man, whom Ginny hadn’t at first noticed, stepped forward from some cabinets at the side of the ward. He smoothed out the creases of his green scrubs and gave them a patronising smile. ‘Mr Kennedy has suffered a very minor heart attack.’

‘Another one?’ Beth cried.

‘Yes, but think of it more as an aftershock following an earthquake.’

‘Don’t aftershocks happen right after an earthquake?’ Ginny asked. ‘Dad’s heart attack was months ago.’

The doctor frowned at her for ruining his metaphor.

‘Sometimes there needs to be a trigger. Stress, for instance, is the biggest cause. Would you say that could be it, Mr Kennedy?’

Jim glowered.

‘
This
is stressing me out.’

‘And since you had this heart attack
before
coming to the hospital then I’m afraid that’s not a valid answer.’

‘Okay, well, maybe a little then,’ Jim conceded.

The doctor raised one eyebrow.

‘Work is a bit tense at the moment.’

‘Dad!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘That’s what I’m here for. So you don’t have to stress. Nothing is so bad that it must make you have a heart attack. Really, it isn’t.’ She tried to sound as convincing as she could, desperately ignoring her own worries about the stables.

‘Jim, Ginny’s right. She’s here to take care of the stables. She’s quite capable of handling things. You don’t need to worry about it.’

Ginny smiled at Beth, grateful for her confidence in her.

‘I know, I know she is. Things lately, though, they’ve been impossible to ignore. Mark Rushin. Sequella. Caspian.’

‘Caspian losing a race isn’t the end of the world,’ Ginny reasoned. ‘What happened to Sequella is just bad luck. Mark Rushin – well, he’s out of our lives now. There’s a lot more things to look forward to than there is to stress about.’ Even to Ginny’s ears this statement sounded false.

Jim didn’t look convinced.

‘I know there’s stuff which you don’t tell me about.’

‘Only what you don’t really need to know.’

‘Sometimes I think there is,’ Jim insisted. Ginny could see this line of conversation veering towards her personal stresses and quickly re-routed it.

‘What happens now?’ she asked the doctor.

‘Once we have convinced your father that he really has had a heart attack, then we’ll keep him here for a few days and review his medication, and providing things carry on well, then he should be able to go home. When he does though, might I advise that he doesn’t take on too much work? I believe he isn’t meant to be working at all.’

Ginny could see Jim clenching his teeth in annoyance as the doctor spoke about him as if he wasn’t even there. Ginny also felt offended that he should think they would be making Jim work against the wishes of the doctors who attended him earlier in the year.

‘Dad doesn’t work at the stables. But they are his business and you can’t expect him not to participate in some ways,’ she said in defence.

‘There’ll be no more days at the races for you!’ Beth said, sounding just like she had done when Ginny was a teenager and her punishment for any mischief would be to miss the races. She half expected her to follow it up with ‘Young man!’ Jim looked just as sulky as Ginny had used to look.

‘Fine, but no one is going to stop me from going to the Dewhurst,’ he said with a stubborn set to his jaw.

‘Let’s see how we’re feeling closer to the time. We wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself,’ said the doctor and everyone, including Beth, glared at his patronising tone.

*

Ginny stayed at Ravenhill House later that afternoon to keep her mother company, having left Jim at the hospital to sleep. They had the television on but neither of them were watching the home makeover programme being shown. Instead, Ginny watched her mother with concern. Beth was twisting a handkerchief around her fingers, and her swollen eyes flitted from the windows to the racing photographs and trophies decorating the walls and cabinets.

‘Mum?’ Ginny ventured. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Beth halted her anxious hands.

‘Talk about what?’

‘About Dad. It might make you feel better.’ Ginny wasn’t sure if it would. Neither was she sure how much comfort she could offer her mother but she had to do something.

Beth’s eyes filled with tears.

‘I’m scared, Ginny,’ she said in a small voice.

Ginny got up from her seat and went to sit next to Beth.

‘Me too, Mum. But it’ll be okay, I –’ Ginny hesitated. She couldn’t promise her anything. ‘I’m sure it will be.’

‘Will it?’ Beth asked.

‘Judging by the amount of strife Dad was causing at the hospital, I don’t think he’s thinking of leaving us just yet.’

Beth gave her a pathetic smile.

‘I’m sorry, lovie. I hate to burden you with my troubles when you’ve got so many of your own. And I’m sorry I interrupted you in the office when you were working –’

‘Don’t apologise, Mum. Really, there’s no need,’ Ginny reassured her.

‘You’re trying so hard to keep Ravenhill going. Was it a terribly important phone call?’

Ginny thought for a moment. That phone call had been about to change her whole future.

‘No, of course not. Not as important as Dad.’

‘I think – I thought I heard you call the person Rijk. Your old boss, Rijk?’

She nodded.

‘Are you going back to South Africa, Ginny?’ Beth’s question trembled.

Ginny looked down at her hands.

‘I was thinking about it,’ she admitted with a sigh.

‘I think you should, too.’

Ginny looked up in surprise.

‘Really? Why?’

‘I know Jim loves Ravenhill Stables but I love him more than life itself,’ Beth said, touching her heart. ‘He can’t carry on training, especially not now. But I don’t want you to be tied down. You’ve shown us over the past few months, and I’m sorry I didn’t realise it before, that you’ve got your own life to live.’

‘But, Mum, if Dad doesn’t carry on with the yard and I go back to Cape Town, then Ravenhill will have to close.’

Beth nodded.

‘I know. And you might think I’m being selfish, since your dad loves the yard so much, but I don’t want to lose him, Ginny. I don’t want to
risk
losing him.’

Ginny’s earlier decision made outside Cobalt Lodge flew out the window.

‘I can’t let that happen. Ravenhill’s struggling, there’s no denying that, but I’m not going down without a fight.’

‘It’s not your battle though. You don’t need to fight.’

Ginny leant over and held her mother’s hand.

‘All I’ve ever known is Ravenhill. It’s as much a part of me as it is to Dad – and to you. It’s very much my battle. And I don’t intend to walk away when the going gets tough.’

Beth’s eyes welled with tears again and she hugged Ginny close to her.

‘You’re a very brave girl, Ginny. And no matter what decision you make, it’ll be the right one. Don’t feel you have to stay just for our sakes.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ginny said, tightening her arms around Beth. ‘Have you ever seen me walk away from a good tussle?’ She felt Beth’s shoulders shake as she laughed.

‘No. You’re your father’s daughter. What could I have been thinking?’

Chapter Thirty-Six

The next day, Ginny hit Redial on the office phone and waited for Rijk Swanepoel to answer. Her heart hammered against her ribs, knowing that this decision would cement her foreseeable future.

‘How’s it, Ginny,’ Rijk greeted her, eventually picking up.

‘Hi, Rijk.Um, sorry about yesterday. We had a bit of a crisis.’

Ginny looked at the chipped telephone where she had flung it down yesterday and thought how bizarre it was that she could now sum everything up so mildly.

‘Your old man?’

‘Yes, he had another heart attack.’

‘Aish, sorry about that, hey. Is he okay?’

‘He’s still in hospital, but alive, thank God.’ Ginny paused. Her next statement would put a seal on everything. ‘You’ve been very good to me, Rijk. I’ve really appreciated the support you’ve shown me –’

‘Agh m’n, Ginny, don’t try let me down lightly. I know you’re not coming back.’

Ginny smiled at his bluntness.

‘Thanks, Rijk. I would’ve come back, you know. Yesterday, I’d made my mind up that I would, then… well, things changed pretty quickly.’

‘I know. Hey, you’re a good trainer. Too good to be anyone’s assistant and too bloody strong-minded as well. I pity those pommie trainers being up against you.’

‘I wasn’t that much of a tyrant, was I?’

Rijk laughed, his smoker’s guffaw echoing down the line.

‘Nah, but you tended to surprise a few people when they found out there was more to you than false eyelashes and high heels.’

‘I think that’s a compliment, so thanks,’ Ginny chuckled.

‘Hey, what are friends for? We’ll be seeing you next year at Royal Ascot and I expect a place to stay, okay?’

‘Of course, I look forward to it. I’ll see you then –’

‘Ginny, before you go…’

She stopped as she prepared to ring off.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’ve heard about the shit you’ve been through, lately. Don’t let that get you down. You’re a good trainer. You know what that means?’

‘What?’

‘Good horses. We’ll see you at Royal Ascot next year in the parade ring. I mean it.’

‘Cheers, Rijk.’

Ginny replaced the receiver in its cradle and smiled. For all of his faults, Rijk Swanepoel had been good to her and any compliments uttered from his mouth weren’t flung around.

If he believed in her, maybe she should too? She thought of his words about British trainers and the smile faded from her lips. It wasn’t the British who concerned her the most. It was the French.

How had she managed to get herself into this mess? Her goal right from the start of the season had been to help her father and get Ravenhill Stables back on the scoreboard. Circumstances had changed though, in more ways than one, and the goalposts had moved. So she was here to stay, but knowing Julien could be right around the corner would make her life unbearable if she couldn’t have him for herself. She would turn into a nervous wreck – more than she was already.

She ran her fingers through her hair and leaned back in her chair, gazing up at the ceiling. She remembered Julien’s words: ‘
France is not big enough for two Larocques.
’ Well, it would seem that England wasn’t big enough for just the one. She stopped herself, trying to think like a rational adult and not a heartbroken teenager. She had a business to run now. Her
own
business. There was no going back. She had to stay focussed on Ravenhill.