Annan Water (4 page)

The mare shied at the wheelchair again as it approached. Michael slipped off and gave her a talking to, then tightened Bandit’s girth.

Annie stepped forward. Michael gave her a leg-up, and while he adjusted the leathers for her, Bandit turned his head and sniffed at her knee. He sighed deeply, as though he had interpreted every atom of her being in that one scenting. He knew her through and through, and Michael was sure he could trust him to take care of her.

‘Take the reins like this,’ he said. ‘Keep your thumb knuckles towards the sky.’

They hacked off up the road, just the hint of the clink of a loose shoe on one of the cob’s hind feet. It would last.

‘And your heels down. Don’t kick him unless you want to go faster.’

‘I want to go faster,’ said Annie.

Michael smiled. It felt all wrong, as though his face muscles had atrophied. ‘Not yet you don’t,’ he said.

But he had never come across anyone with her kind of courage. By the time they came back from that ride, she was rising to the trot and determined to ‘gallop’ before she got off. He took her a short way along the green track, letting the cob canter on ahead, even though the mare fizzed like a firework behind him and was in constant danger of striking into his heels. Annie bounced and swayed. Her arms and legs were all over the place, and only a quiet horse like Bandit would have put up with the conflicting messages he was getting. But Annie stayed on, and when they eventually came to a stop, she was red as a beetroot and grinning from ear to ear.

‘Again!’ She was panting so hard she could hardly speak. Raindrops were falling from her hair into her eyes. He ought to have brought a helmet for her.

‘No way,’ said Michael. ‘You’ve done enough for one day. I don’t think your dad would think much of me if I brought you home in a wheelchair as well.’

Abruptly her face hardened. She gave him a look which he could only try and avoid. He blushed. ‘Anyway, you’ll be stiff as a post tomorrow.’

‘I won’t,’ said Annie. ‘Come on, let’s gallop back.’

But Michael was suddenly afraid; not for himself or for the horses, but for her. She reminded him of the grey mare, driven by a recklessness that was barely containable, and could cause terrible damage.

‘The horses are tired.’ It was a lie.

‘Are you tired, Bandit?’ she said. The cob cleared his nose in a long, rubbery raspberry. Annie laughed, leaned forward and flung her arms around his neck. Michael flinched, afraid that her studs and spikes would get tangled in the cob’s mane. But she straightened up again, safe and glowing.

‘Can we do this again?’ she said.

‘Up to you,’ said Michael. ‘And your dad, I suppose.’

Annie’s face lost its brightness, and he saw again the sullen captive.

‘He’s not my dad,’ she said.

M
ICHAEL WAS TIGHTENING BANDIT’S
loose shoe when the car drew up. The cob’s feet were enormously heavy and, although he was quite mannerly about the process, he didn’t offer much help. Michael was groaning and sweating and swearing as he worked.

He heard the car doors slam, and then Frank’s voice booming across the yard.

‘I’m coming,’ he called. He had tightened four of the clenches and there were three to go. He began on another.

‘Michael!’

‘In a minute!’

He hammered down the next clench, hoping the sound would pass his message to his father. Then he began on the next one.

‘Michael?’ Frank put his head round the door and groaned. ‘I’ll do it. Go out with your mother and show them the ponies.’

Jean was in the yard with a woman and a boy. The woman wore similar clothes to Jean: waxed jacket and moleskin jodhs, except that they were much newer and much more expensive. She looked as though there was a smell under her nose that she was determined to ignore. Her son wore the same kind of clothes, and appeared to be on the point of being overwhelmed by the same smell. He hung slightly behind his mother and glared out at Michael with anxious, competitive eyes.

‘You’ll have to take us as you find us,’ Jean was saying. ‘We’ve just made a big move, up from Yorkshire, and as you can see, we haven’t really got settled in yet.’

The woman nodded.

‘We’ve a few good ponies in at the moment,’ Jean went on. ‘Michael’s department.’

Michael nodded and swallowed. He hated selling. ‘What kind of a pony are you looking for?’

‘You said in the ad that you had a Grade A pony. Can we have a look at that one?’

‘The grey mare,’ he said. ‘She’s a grand pony; ready to go and make a career for herself. But she’s tricky. She’s not a novice ride.’

‘I’m not a novice rider,’ said the boy belligerently. He was probably fourteen; not all that much younger than Michael but a lot smaller and lighter. Michael envied him. He would look just right on a 14.2.

‘Let’s have a look at her,’ said the woman.

Michael tacked up the mare and led her out into the yard. The woman looked her over with an eye that wasn’t as practised as she hoped it looked. She felt the mare’s legs as though she was a racehorse. The mare kept picking up her feet obligingly.

‘She’s open to any kind of examination,’ said Jean. ‘You’re welcome to bring a vet to check her over.’

‘Let’s see what she’s like first,’ said the woman.

Michael hopped up and walked the mare, on a long rein, towards the jumps paddock. Jean opened the gate and held it while the whole procession went in, then closed it behind them.

As soon as she saw the jumps, the mare began to light up. Michael left the reins loose; let her jog under him, refused to take her bait. The woman asked Jean what her name was. Jean called out to Michael.

‘What’s her name?’

He had no idea. On paper somewhere she had an official name. Something fancy, made up by her previous owners for the BSJA registration. They always called her the grey mare.

He called out the first thing that came into his head. ‘Alice.’

Half the mares in the yard were called Alice. It was one of the names. The fallback name for geldings was Barney.

The long ride that morning had taken nothing out of the pony. She was as steamy as ever, and as soon as Michael started to warm her up she began to toss her head and plunge around the place. The only way to jump her was to let her bounce along on a very short rein, then line her up at the fence and let her go. Sometimes, riding her, Michael felt like an archer, stretching the bow to a high tension, then releasing it. She never refused, even if she met the fence wrong. She could fiddle her way out of any kind of trouble.

She was jumping high and clean. Michael took her over everything in sight, and Jean put a few of the fences up to really make her stretch. The mare didn’t put a foot wrong. When there was no more to show them, Michael took her back to the watchers at the gate. They had to be impressed, but they were doing their best to hide it.

‘Do you want to ride her?’ the woman was saying to the boy. He looked pale, but he nodded.

‘Have you ridden difficult ponies before?’ said Jean.

‘Loads of them,’ the boy said, but he didn’t look at her.

Michael could see it would all end in tears. The boy’s attitude was too brash. Like a lot of riders, he was substituting aggression for courage. The pony needed lightness and tact. She would make mincemeat of him.

‘Try and ride her on a light rein,’ he advised. ‘Don’t hold her in too tight or she’ll get fizzy.’

He was wasting his breath. As soon as the mare moved, the boy tightened up the reins and she reacted. She stood on her hind legs and launched herself forward. The boy stayed with her and began to saw at her mouth. She started to froth, and shook her head wildly. He held her in, and she danced on the spot.

Michael was already running to lower the jumps. If the boy tried to take some of the higher ones it could end in worse than tears. Jean saw his intention and, after a brief, cheesy grin to the boy’s mother, ran to help. The boy, meanwhile, was trying to get the mare into a steady trot and achieving, instead, a tense kind of sideways canter. The pony’s eyes were wide and wild, and her ears were flickering back and forth, searching for the rider’s wavelength. He was clearly afraid and she clearly knew it. Michael wished he would admit it and get off. There were other ponies he could try.

They put the jumps down from four foot to two and a half. The boy took three of them successfully. Then he turned towards a double, got a crooked line on it and tried to pull the pony out. She was going too fast, and ended up aiming straight at the wing of the fence. She swerved and jumped at the same time. The boy lost his balance. As he fell he slammed face first into the wing.

Michael closed his eyes, praying that the fall would be clean. He would never forget the sight of his sister being dragged; her head hitting the ground, again and again and again. He would never forget the moment when he realized that she was lifeless; that her pony was dragging a corpse, not a girl.

Jean and the visiting woman were already running forwards. The mare was free, standing with her head over the paddock rail, lifting her knees as though she had half a mind to jump over. The boy was sitting on the ground, his head in his hands. Michael let out his breath and went to catch the mare.

She didn’t want to be caught, but he got her in the corner and she submitted. The two women were bending over the boy. With their help he stood up. His face was streaked with blood and tears, but Michael was sure that he wasn’t hurt too badly. He had seen plenty of accidents. There was a way people reacted when they were really injured.

The woman must have realized that he was OK as well because, abruptly, she erupted.

‘I’ve a good mind to sue you for this.’

‘For what?’ said Jean.

‘For keeping dangerous animals. Are you insured?’

Michael wished he could evaporate. His mother wouldn’t take that kind of stuff lying down.

‘How dare you!’ she snapped. ‘You bring your lad here, give us the impression that he can ride, and end up wasting a lot of our time.’

‘He can ride!’ the woman shouted.

‘Clearly!’ Jean shouted back.

‘Shut up!’ It was the boy, breaking now into hopeless sobs. He was still between the two women, but he burst away from them, wiped his face with his sleeve and ran unsteadily towards his car.

Frank, who had decided to tighten the cob’s other shoes while he had the tools out, came to the door of the shed and watched the boy run past, followed by his mother. The car doors slammed. The engine sparked and roared. Michael led the mare back towards her stall.

Jean leaned against Frank, and he put a heavy arm around her. ‘We’ll never sell that pony,’ she said.

‘Have we ever failed to shift something?’ said Frank. He glanced behind him at Bandit. ‘Except for that lad, maybe.’

T
HERE WERE ALWAYS TOO
many hours in the day and never enough in the night. Other people could lie in bed on Sunday mornings, but for Michael and his family the weekends were usually even more busy than the weekdays. Buyers tended to favour weekends. There was almost always a show. Michael couldn’t remember a time in his life when he hadn’t been exhausted going to bed; when there hadn’t been too few hours left in the night. The only time he hadn’t been able to sleep was when Joanne died.

But that night, like the night before, he lay awake for hours. Annie was in his mind. Her pierced and punctured face. Her changing expressions. The dark mood like an undertow to her happiness. What was it he had said that had changed her expression? Something about her father?

More bits of the song came back to him as he lay in bed.

O’er moor and moss and many’s the mire …

That was why he had liked the song; he remembered now. It was because so much of it was about the horse.

She couldn’t have ridden a furlong more …

He saw his grandmother’s face; heard her voice carrying the words. She had been dead for more than seven years. He had thought her lost for ever from his memory.

… Had a thousand whips been laid upon her.

Woe betide you, Annan Water …

Woe betide you.

I
T WAS A SEVEN
o’clock start. Mucking out, grooming, dragging horses into fields and out of them, cleaning tack, loading the lorry. At eight-thirty they snatched a running breakfast, and by nine they were on the road. It rained all day. The show was indoors, but the practice ring was outside and like a quagmire, full of irritable riders eager to pop their horses over a few fences and get back under cover. It was no place to get a jittery animal settled, and Michael spent a lot of time walking the mare around between the parked lorries and trailers, trying to ease the panic out of her mind. He didn’t entirely succeed, but she jumped well enough anyway, and went clear in the first round. She ought to have won outright; there was no pony in the country faster over the ground and tighter on the turns in a jump-off. But Michael spotted the boy who had come to try her in the crowd. He had a black eye and a livid red graze on the same cheek. His mother was beside him, still wearing that expression of distaste.

Michael wanted to win to spite them, and the desire unsettled him and made him lose focus. He let the mare down; pulled her into the double at an impossible angle. She took the first part but there was no chance of straightening out for the second, and they sailed right past it. Three faults, plus all the time it took to come round and face up to the fence again. It put them down into eighth place. Michael kept his eyes turned away from the crowd as he left the ring.

The other pony Michael had brought with him that day might have suited the bruised boy very well. She was a Grade D pony, not as gifted as the grey mare but a great deal steadier. She had come second in her class earlier in the day. Frank, as always, spent most of his show day networking; letting it be known that everything they were jumping that day was for sale. The boy and his mother didn’t bite, but someone else did. The pony changed hands on the spot, cash up front. It was a rare enough occurrence, and Frank had to work hard to hide his delight. Two hundred quid went straight off the top of the roll and into Michael’s pocket. When there was money he shared it. He was a respected partner in the business.