Pulse(76)

Good girl, I thought, and winked at her.

‘What did Sheraton say?’

‘He didn’t much like it,’ I said.

‘Did you give him a Red Entry form?’

‘I did,’ I said, without elaborating.

Adrian needed that information for his report, which would be telephoned through to the racing authority’s Chief Medical Adviser at the end of the day, giving details of any rider transferred to hospital or otherwise deemed medically unfit to ride.

The off-course ambulance arrived and the crew agreed to take both Ellie and Dick together, the latter being transferred from the medical room to the vehicle by stretcher even though he clearly thought it was unnecessary.

‘Brainless doctor,’ I overheard him say to one of the paramedics as he was lifted from the bed onto the stretcher. ‘She doesn’t know one end of an effing thermometer from the other.’

I ignored him and went out to the ambulance with the jockeys’ notes, which explained the causes and apparent nature of their injuries.

‘A&E at Cheltenham General is expecting them,’ I said to the ambulance driver. ‘I’ve already spoken to Dr Cook, the consultant on duty.’

‘You’re not coming with them, then?’ he asked.

‘No. I’m needed here.’

The ambulance drove away, without flashing its blue lights, and a degree of calm returned to the jockeys’ medical room, at least until the next race.





28


It was just one of those days.

When you’re short-handed you hope for a nice quiet time but, of course, fate has other ideas.

Three fallers in the fourth race had the doctors again stretched to the limit but, thankfully, there were no significant injuries other than a few bruises to both bodies and egos.

I was once more out on the course in the Land Rover and my first customer was a red-and-white-clad individual who had been unceremoniously dumped onto the turf when his mount had pecked deeply on landing, going down onto its knees, before recovering and galloping away unaccompanied.

It was Dave Leigh and, by the time I reached him, he was sitting up on the ground more frustrated than injured.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ he said.

‘You or the horse?’ I asked.

‘Both,’ he said with a smile. ‘More me, I suppose. I shouldn’t have fallen off. It was a spare ride and he won’t ever ask me again.’

‘Who won’t?’ I said.

‘Peter Hammond. Not often I get to ride for such a prestigious stable and now I’ve blown it.’

‘Never mind, Dave,’ I said. ‘Be thankful you haven’t damaged your collarbone again.’

I helped him to his feet and we walked off the track together.

‘Whose ride was it meant to be?’ I asked.

‘Dick McGee’s,’ he said. ‘But he had a fall and got hurt in the second.’

And he was now in hospital, I thought, probably still complaining about the brainless doctor who’d sent him there.

‘Fancy a lift?’ I asked. We were a long way from the weighing room.

‘Thanks,’ Dave said. ‘But there should be a jockey transport somewhere.’ He was looking round for it.

‘I waved it on,’ I said.

We climbed into the Land Rover and set off along the vehicle track.

‘So, doc,’ Dave said, ‘what on earth did you do to Mike Sheraton? He was mouthing off all sorts of obscenities about you just now in the changing room. I can’t tell you what he said. It would make me blush to repeat it.’

‘I gave him a Red Entry for a perfectly legitimate medical reason. He didn’t agree with me, that’s all. Not a problem. I’ve got a thick skin.’

I surprised myself by saying that.

At least for the past six months, my skin had actually been pretty thin. Even the slightest criticism would have been likely to cause me to burst into tears and descend into a deep hell of self-doubt. Going back to my job at the hospital had helped and I also relished the literal rough and tumble of the racecourse work.

Was I on my way back to normality?

Not until I could eat again, I thought. Stephen Butler even reckoned that sorting out the anorexia was only the first step. Without that, he said, there could be no proper recovery at all.

‘If you don’t eat, you will die,’ Stephen had told me bluntly at our most recent session. ‘It’s not a game. It’s a reality. Anorexia kills far more people than any other psychiatric disorder.’

But it didn’t seem real.

Surely I was fine, wasn’t I?

I didn’t feel like I was dying. Yet, even the intimation that I was somehow playing with God, was in itself both exhilarating and illusory.

Most anorexics don’t want to die. They simply remain in denial, not paying attention as the severity of their condition creeps up on them, and then death snuffs them out before they even have a chance to shout ‘Give me some food!’

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to eat. It was more that I physically couldn’t. Something seemed to go wrong with the signals from my brain to my hand holding a fork that wouldn’t allow it to travel to my mouth.

I’d taken to forcing myself to eat only a poached fish fillet, sea bass or sole, for most of my meals, with perhaps a little fruit for dessert, and even I was getting fed up with the monotony.