The Horse Dancer (47 page)

She thought about it. Perhaps it was because he had been so much more shaken than Jackie and her husband the previous evening, or the way he stroked the horses’ noses as he passed each stable, hardly aware that he was doing it. Perhaps it was that hand. But something about Thom told her he was not a threat.

‘Can I get a lift with you?’ she said, putting on her coat. ‘I need to get to a cashpoint.’

In theory Thom Kenneally lived in Ireland, but he spent a good part of each week moving horses between England, Ireland and France. He had once been a jockey, he told her, until he’d lost part of his arm in a riding accident. Since then he’d struggled to settle in a job until he started transporting.

Not everyone could do it, he said. A lot of horses were reluctant to load, and it was not enough to have patience and a calm manner to get them on and off safely; you had to be able to read them, to see even before they set foot on the ramp whether they were going to pull backwards, kick or rear when they reached the top, sometimes even before they knew it themselves. He transported old ponies, experienced eventers, occasionally fine-limbed racehorses, whose combined value caused him to drive with a thin sheen of cold sweat. Until the previous evening, he had only ever had one fatality in six years. But, no, it wouldn’t put him off.

‘The job suits me,’ he said. They had left the partition with a welder, who had promised to have it back by midday. Thom would leave with his remaining cargo after lunch. ‘I like the horses. Besides, my girlfriend’s the independent sort. Needs her own space.’

‘Does she like horses?’

He grinned. ‘Not much. I think she knew it was this or me moving to some racing yard somewhere. At least now she doesn’t have to deal with the animals morning, noon and night.’

‘I’d love that,’ said Sarah, and blushed.

‘There’s your cashpoint.’

He slowed the lorry, and pulled up outside a convenience store. Sarah climbed down from the cab and ran across the road. She pulled the card out of her pocket, fed it into the machine and typed in the number, glancing behind her to see if he was watching, then held her breath.

She had half expected a shrill refusal, perhaps even, in her worst nightmares, an alarm. But the machine was still astonishingly obliging. She withdrew another hundred pounds and thrust it deep into her pocket, apologising silently to Papa, Mac and Natasha as she did so. It was as she was about to run back across the road that she noticed the phone-box, an old-fashioned sort, red, with a glass-paned door. Thom appeared to be reading the newspaper so she nipped inside it, wrinkling her nose at the predictable reek of urine. It accepted the credit card, and she dialled the number.

The phone rang steadily at a distance. Finally, when she was about to give up, she heard a click. ‘Stroke Ward.’

‘Can I speak to Mr Lachapelle?’ She had to shout over the noise of a passing lorry.

‘Who?’

‘Mr Lachapelle.’ She held a hand over her other ear. ‘It’s Sarah, his granddaughter. Can you put me on to him? He’s in Room Four.’

There was a brief pause.

‘Hold on.’

Sarah stood in the little cubicle, gazing absently at the busy road. Thom, in the cab, saw where she was and nodded, as if to say she could take her time.

‘Hello?’ A different voice now.

‘Oh. I want to speak to Mr Lachapelle. It’s Sarah.’

‘Hello, Sarah. It’s Sister Dawson here. I’ll just take the phone in. I have to tell you, though, he’s had a bit of a setback. If it’s noisy at your end, you might not be able to hear him too well.’

‘Is he okay?’

There was the faintest hesitation, enough for Sarah’s heart to sink.

‘What time are you coming in? I can arrange for someone to talk to you and your foster-family.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t get to you today.’

‘Okay. Well, he’s doing . . . okay. But his speech isn’t so good at the moment. You’ll have to speak up to make yourself clear. It’s quite a bad line. I’ll put you on to him.’

The sound of feet, a squeaking door. A muffled voice: ‘Mr Lachapelle, it’s your granddaughter. I’m just going to put the phone to your ear. All right?’

Sarah held her breath. ‘Papa?’

Nothing.

‘Papa?’

A long silence. Perhaps a sound. It was hard to tell over the noise of the traffic. She clamped her hand over her other ear. The nurse cut back in. ‘Sarah, he
can
hear you. It would be best if you just talked to him for now. Don’t expect too much in response.’

Sarah swallowed. ‘Papa?’ she said again. ‘It’s Sarah. I . . . I can’t come in today.’

A noise, then muffled encouragement from the nurse: ‘He can hear you, Sarah.’

‘Papa, I’m in Dover. I had to take Boo. Things got difficult for us. But I’m ringing to tell you . . .’ Her voice was breaking. She screwed her eyes shut, willing herself to keep it together, not to let him hear how she was feeling in her voice. ‘We’re going to Saumur, me and Boo. I couldn’t tell you until we were away.’

She waited, trying to hear something, trying to gauge his reaction. The answering silence was painfully oppressive. She read a million things into it and, as it lengthened, felt her determination ebb.

‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ she yelled into the receiver, ‘but I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t have to. You know that. You do know that.’ She had begun to cry, great salty tears plopping on to the concrete slab at her feet. ‘It was the only way to keep him safe. For me to be safe. Please don’t be angry,’ she whispered, knowing he would not hear.

Still he said nothing.

Sarah wept silently until the nurse came back on the line.

‘Did you say everything you wanted to say?’ she asked brightly.

Sarah wiped her nose on her sleeve. She could see him so clearly, lying there, his face a mask of anxiety, of barely compressed fury. Even confined to his bed all those miles away she could feel the chill of his disapproval. How could he understand?

‘Sarah? Are you still there?’

She sniffed. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice artificially high. ‘Yes, I couldn’t hear you. There was a lorry going past. I’m in a phone-box.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you said but he wants me to say . . .’

Sarah’s eyes shut tight against the brimming tears.

‘He says, “Good.”’

A brief pause. ‘What?’

‘Yes. That’s definitely it. He says, “Good.” He’s nodding at me. All right? We’ll see you soon.’

When she climbed back into the lorry, she turned towards the passenger window to hide her reddened eyes. She sat, letting her hair fall across her face, waiting for the sound of the key in the ignition.

Good
. Papa’s silent word kept ringing in her ears.

Thom didn’t start the engine. When, eventually, she looked at him, he was watching her steadily. ‘Okay, kiddo. You want to tell me what’s up?’

He wasn’t buying the sponsored ride. Her voice steady now, she had told him the story, the one she had rehearsed in her head for much of the morning, eyes clear, expression neutral.

‘To France,’ he repeated. ‘You’re doing a sponsored ride to France. To raise money for stroke victims. And you don’t have any papers.’

‘I thought I’d get them in Dover. I was going to ask you how.’

They were seated in a roadside café. He had bought her a muffin with her cup of tea and it sat on the plate in front of her, damp and solid in its plastic wrapper.

‘And you’re travelling by yourself.’

‘I’m very independent.’

‘Evidently.’

‘So can you help me?’

He leant back in his seat, studied her for a minute. Then he smiled. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Sarah. I’ll sponsor you. Give me your sponsorship sheets.’

Her eyes widened briefly, and she glanced away, but he had seen it.

‘I think . . . I’ve left them in my bag.’

‘Well, there’s a thing.’

‘But will you show me how to get the right papers for Boo to travel?’

He made as if to speak, then stopped himself. Instead he stared out of the window to where the cars, burdened under heavily laden roof-racks, headed in a line towards the ferry terminal. She fiddled with the wrapper of the damp muffin. There was no sell-by date on it. It might have been three years old for all she knew.

‘I have a stepdaughter who’s a little like you,’ he said quietly. ‘When she was around your age she used to get herself into all sorts of trouble, mostly because she kept everything bottled up and thought she could sort it out her way. Eventually – and I mean eventually –’ he smiled wryly, locked in some private memory ‘– we were able to persuade her that nothing is so bad that you can’t tell someone. You know that? Nothing.’

But he was wrong, Sarah knew. It was telling the truth that had got her into this mess to begin with. If she hadn’t told Natasha the truth about Papa that first evening . . .

‘Sarah, are you in some kind of trouble?’

She had perfected an expression of almost total blankness. She turned it on him now, feeling oddly, as she did, that she should apologise for it. This is nothing personal, she wanted to tell him, but don’t you see? You could be like the rest of them. You mean well, but you don’t understand the damage you do.

‘I told you,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m on a sponsored ride.’

His lips pursed, not so much an unfriendly expression as a mildly resigned one. He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Jackie nearly didn’t let you stay last night, you know. She’s got a nose for trouble.’

‘I paid her what she asked.’

‘So you did.’

‘I’m no different from anyone else.’

‘Sure. Just your average teenage girl with no transport who’s trying to get a horse across the water.’

‘I told you. I can pay you too, if that’s what you want.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘Well, then.’

She waited for him to look up from his coffee. He seemed to find it fascinating.

‘You want to give me that credit card?’

‘What?’

‘The card you used to get the money out.’

‘I’ll pay you cash.’ She felt her stomach tighten.

‘I’d rather take a credit card, if I’m going to help you. Not a big deal, is it?’ His eyes met hers. ‘Unless, of course, your name isn’t the name on the card . . .’

Sarah pushed away the plate and rose from her seat. ‘You know what? I just needed a lift. I don’t need you on my case just for a lift to the cashpoint. And I don’t need you hassling me, okay? If you’re not going to help me, just leave me alone.’ With that, she was out of the door, striding across the car park to the main road.

‘Hey,’ he called, behind her. ‘
Hey
.’

When she didn’t turn around, he yelled, ‘You won’t get papers without a vet. It’ll take days, weeks even. And you need to be eighteen to sign them. I’m pretty sure you’re not eighteen, Sarah. And I’m not sure how long Jackie’s going to feel comfortable having you around, no matter how many stables you muck out. You need to think again.’

She stopped.

‘I think, kiddo, you might want to think about going home.’ His expression was kind. ‘You and your horse.’

‘But I
can’t
. I just can’t.’ To her horror, tears had welled in her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, okay? I’m not a bad person. But I can’t go back.’

Thom kept staring at her. She dropped her eyes, trying to evade his gaze. It was as if he could see everything, her dishonesty, her vulnerability, not in the way Maltese Sal had, as if he was stripping away every bit of her that was worth something, but with a kind of sympathy. It was
worse
.

‘Look, I really need to get there.’ The cars whipped past them on the fast road. She thought, briefly, how unfair it was that these metallic horses should be allowed to cross so easily. ‘I can’t tell you anything else. But I have to get to France.’

She had left her jacket in the lorry. She stood in the cold car park, the sea wind whipping the hair around her ears, and folded her arms. Thom stared at her for a while longer, then turned away. She wondered if he was going to go back to his lorry, but he took a few steps, then stopped. Finally he turned back to her. ‘So . . . if I don’t help you, what will you do?’

‘I’ll find someone who will,’ she said defiantly. ‘I know I can get someone to help me.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ he muttered resignedly. He paused, considering. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I might be able to get you to France. Yes,’ as she tried to interrupt, ‘you and your horse. But I need you to talk. That’s the deal, Sarah. I’m not helping you until you tell me what’s going on.’

‘Diablo Blue’ was reluctant to walk up the ramp. He snorted, planted both front feet at its base, eyes flashing white. His arched, muscular neck tensed, and his ears flicked back and forth, his legs tripping awkwardly at the unfamiliar feel of the protective padded bandages Thom had wrapped around his legs.

Thom was unfazed: he stood quietly beside him, talking to him gently when the horse refused to move, relaxing the tension on the long rope in the moments when the animal briefly stopped pulling backwards. He had asked Sarah to put on the bridle and then, as she watched, fed the long rope up through the bit, over the top of his head, by his ears, then down through the other side of the bit. ‘When he pulls back, he feels pressure,’ he explained. ‘It’s, like, consequences for bad behaviour, but it’s kinder than some of the other devices the transporters use. Hey, it’s okay. Don’t look so worried. We’ll take our time.’

‘Jackie said she’d be back by one thirty.’

‘Ah, we’ll be gone long before then.’ Thom sat on the ramp, a hand reaching up to stroke the horse’s nose, his manner that of someone who had all the time in the world.

Sarah did not share his ease. Jackie would ask questions, demand explanations. Worse, she might convince Thom that he was making a mistake. ‘She’s only going to the feed merchants. Look, why don’t I have a go?’