Johnny slowed the tape to normal speed. He had panned in on the other competitors. They were watching in silence, their lips curled with contempt. She could see them actively willing him to fail. Kit must have started his run because she saw their eyes narrow to slits, heads beginning to nod and smiles beginning to rise as the seconds passed. Ari had said this first run had been cautious.

‘Fucking pussy . . .’

‘Hasn’t got the balls . . .

‘He’s only good with his fists, not his feet . . .’

‘Is it all like this?’ Clover asked.

‘Oh no. It gets worse,’ Johnny said, running the tape faster and getting to Kit’s second run. This time, he had moved position and pulled back so that he could capture both the action on the TV screen and the other riders. They saw Kit land a 1620, but his weight was too far back – surfer style – and he spun out. Clover instinctively gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as she watched him ‘rag doll’ down the sides of the pipe before he could slow enough to stop. She watched as for a few seconds he sat, dazed. A first aid marshal was already running up towards him to help, but Kit shook his head and – unstrapping his boot – slowly got to his feet.

She couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken something, and it was several moments before she tuned in to the rest of the scene and realized that everyone watching in the stands and inside the tent – they were laughing . . . Everyone was laughing. He could have broken his back and they just . . .

She got up and turned away.

‘Where are you going?’ Matty called after her.

‘To the loo . . . Keep it running.’

She closed the bathroom door behind her, stood by the basin and ran cold water over her face, trying to cool down. She felt combustible. How could he bear it?

When she came out several minutes later, Johnny had teed the tape up to Kit’s final run and pressed pause, waiting for her.

‘He needed to score big here to get through,’ Johnny explained, setting it running again. ‘He was sitting tenth out of twelve at this point.’

Clover sank onto the bed with a sigh. Johnny was in the same position as before – getting a shot of both the screen and the riders. Ari was standing, too anxious to sit now, his arms wrapped tightly around him, chewing on a knuckle.

Clover stared at Kit’s form on the TV screen in the tent. The quality of watching a screen on a screen wasn’t great but she could tell he had greater amplitude in the jumps, and that his tricks were more complex.

She watched the riders instead, seeing how their eyes slitted and mouths opened.

‘Fucker . . .’ one of them hissed.

‘I don’t believe it . . .’

‘Man, he stomped that . . .’