“What about your dad? What does he do?”
It wasn’t the question he had really wanted to ask but here was that side of her again that he feared, the jaded beyond her years one that said ‘if you put a foot wrong you’ll just become part of my cynicism’.
“Are you kidding? With eight kids to look after on his own? He’s professionally unemployed. He used to be a roofer. – Go on, ask me what you really want to ask me.”
“This,” he touched his own mouth, “did it hurt?”
“When I was born? No idea. The first operation? Probably. I don’t know. I was seven months old, I can’t remember. The second one was excruciating though. I was nine. What hurt more though was that people always assumed I was stupid because I couldn’t speak properly. Even the silly SENCO woman at my primary didn’t get it. Special educational needs coordinator, my foot. She had special needs herself. One of them being that she couldn’t have organised a piss up in a brewery, to quote my dad. There is me, already reading and writing at a level way above my year and everybody still thinks I’m an idiot and have behavioural problems. Of course I had behavioural problems. I was frustrated because I couldn’t make anyone understand and angry because nobody understood. There are still plenty of people who think I’m slow because I speak slowly. But I didn’t get a proper speech therapist until we moved here and Lisa and Christine got a friend of theirs to see me twice a week.”
“Who is Christine?” Tull asked quietly, not wanting to interrupt her flow.
She caught him out though, smiling, “Works this listening business, doesn’t it? – Christine was Lisa’s girlfriend. She was the qualified instructor out of the two. Although Lisa is better in my opinion but I can hardly remember Christine teaching to be fair. When I arrived she already didn’t want to be there anymore. They split up a couple of months after I turned up. Joseph had already been dead a year but Lisa says that’s what killed the relationship. Some parents grow closer when they lose their children, others grow apart. They grew apart.”
Tull gulped, “Titch is Lisa’s dead son’s pony?”
Liberty nodded.
“Technically, Christine’s dead son’s but yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” she pushed the chair away from the table and got up, “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a list of things to buy in town before I go back to the yard later.”
As Tull silently accompanied her to the door, a possibility occurred to him that he hadn’t even considered before.
“Liberty?”
“Yep?” she replied, pulling her boots on.
“Are you…” he didn’t know how to ask without failing miserably in crossing the minefield of insinuation that spread out in front of him, so he stopped himself.
“Am I what?” Liberty straightened up before opening the door, “Lisa’s underage teenage gay lover?” she enquired with derisive laughter in the back of her throat, “No. She is my boss and my mentor and the woman who gave me speech and whose name is on my pony’s passport. And a friend. She is also 37 years older than me. That would be just wrong. And illegal. Let’s not forget illegal. And despicable. And just…yikes.”
For a moment Tull stood and stared in wonder at the mines exploding without him even touching one fuse then he sighed.
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
The girl laughed, a teasing sound.
“I know,” she turned to him fully, took his hand and kissed the back of it lightly, “Thank you for breakfast,” she held his hand a moment longer smiling broadly up at him, “And no, I’m not gay as far as I know. I – just - don’t – fancy - you.”
She let go, punched him lightly on the shoulder and left.
*****
As the charity day approached Tull slowly began feeling like an actual part of Brownleaf. Whereas before he had known hardly anyone by name with the exception of Liberty, Lisa and Amelia’s mother, it was like he had suddenly been put on a crash course in putting names to faces to horses.
Everyone at the yard was chipping in during the preparations and Tull seemed to be everybody’s favourite boy Friday. One day he was helping Richard, the retired police officer who owned a big bay Warmblood called Gulliver, reinforce the wheelchair access ramp that led to the viewing platform in the indoor school and dismantle the rows of seats until only the bare wooden stage rises were left. The next was spent collecting foldaway tables from the church hall down the road to create a banqueting table on the highest rise. The one after he accompanied Lisa in the horsebox to pick up a number of patio heaters from a bar owner called Claire who he had seen riding her spirited dapple-grey Thoroughbred Callisto in the school the day he’d first come to the yard. The actual day before the event, while everyone else was polishing horses and sorting out the last bits at the stables, he found himself working alongside a woman by the name of Martina and her three daughters in the kitchen of his dreams, helping prepare food for the big day. Between them they owned Sheila, a much spoiled, very placid palomino Arab who was ridden Western style.
After they had prepped and cling-filmed the last container, Martina drove them all back to the yard for a final gathering of volunteers.
Bales of straw had been put out to line the aisle for people to sit on and soon everyone was perched looking expectantly at the office door, waiting for Lisa and Liberty to emerge with last instructions. They came out side by side and Tull forgot to breathe for a minute.
Liberty was wearing a costume made of thigh high soft brown leather boots, beige breeches and a multicoloured velvet waistcoat hung with little bells over a golden silk shirt. To complete the outfit she had knotted a bright red shawl around her waist, making her look somewhere between stolen gypsy princess and fair maiden pirate. She caught his eye and smiled, sending a shiver of longing down his spine.
“Right,” Lisa commanded the collected attention, “I have the final list of names now. We have eight coming tomorrow. All between twelve and sixteen except one little one who’s just turned seven. The oldest one has an oxygen tank, so she is for you and Gulliver, Richard. One is in a wheelchair and is apparently very weak so I reckon she is best off in a Western saddle. So that’ll obviously be Sheila’s job, Martina. Then there is one who is pretty much blind and Liberty and I figure she’ll get the most out of going bareback, so that’s one for Oliver. There are four who are still relatively fit, so that’ll be Toffee’s, Peanut’s, Butterscotch’s and Caramel’s lot. You lot can sort out amongst yourselves who leads which pony.”
She looked at Martina’s daughters and a fourth girl called India who part-loaned Peanut out of the foursome of duns that formed the rest of Titch’s little herd. Lisa paused, exchanged a look with Liberty who nodded sharply and then took a deep breath before addressing Tull.
“Which brings me to you. Do you think you could lead Titch with the little one on board?”
Tull was gaping at her and Lisa frowned. Suddenly realisation spread across her face.
“Has anyone actually bothered to explain to you what tomorrow is about?”
He silently shook his head.
*****
They arrived by minibus the next morning.
A motley crew of shaven heads and puffy, pale faces; aliens from another planet whose mere existence made one’s own woes pale into insignificance.
Tull stared as Lisa went to meet and greet them, painfully ashamed of how he saw them yet helpless in the face of his instinctive detachment.
Right at the end, after all and sundry had already been unloaded a young, pretty, dark-haired woman descended the steps of the bus carrying a little girl in a bobble hat on her hip. The little girl looked around the yard, eyes wide with excitement. She spotted Tull by the entrance to the stable block and waved. Tull swallowed the lump in his throat, forced a smile and waved back.
Distracted by the woman who was carrying her, the girl looked away and he let his hand sink to his side. A calloused, slender palm slipped inside it and deft, reassuring fingers weaved themselves thr
ough his. He felt their owner rise onto tip-toes next to him, followed by her warm breath flowing over his cold cheek.
“Chin up,” Liberty’s voice whispered in his ear, “Just don’t bawl, okay? I promise you by the end of the day you’ll think you’ve never had more fun in your life.”
She lowered herself back onto her heels and detangled her hand from his. Bereft of the protection of intimacy, he suddenly felt the icy coldness of the air around them seep into his bones.
“I’ll be alright,” he stated shivering, “I just don’t get why we are not doing this in the summer, when it’s warm.”
“We do,” Liberty responded already half turned away to go and find her charge, “but they’re only looked after by the charity for the last few months, so we do two a year. One in June, one in December. The ones who came in the summer are not around anymore and these guys won’t be around by next summer. That’s how it is. – Go say hello to her, her name is Jessica.”
Halfway through the day, caught up in a feverish discussion about the best horse colours and what names went well with them, Liberty’s words suddenly came back to him.
She’d been right. He couldn’t remember ever having had this much fun.
When he’d gone to meet her, Jessica had seamlessly moved from her perch on her mum’s hip over to him and when not cuddling or grooming Titch now clung to Tull like a monkey, asking question after question. Her dark eyes shone brightly under her bobble hat as they drank in every detail of her surroundings and her spindly arms gave his neck happy little squeezes with each answer he gave. Most of the time Tull simply forgot that she wasn’t just a normal little girl excited to be around ponies.
But then there were moments of stark contrast.
When she had to call on her mum to have her nappy changed, embarrassedly telling him that really she’d been out of nappies by one-and-a-half or when she had to swap the bobble hat for a riding helmet and made him stroke the few remaining tufts of black hair on her brittle skinned scalp.
They were standing in the tack room, Jessica by his feet. Everyone was there, trying hats out on riders and he found Liberty’s eyes, taking strength from the sharp nod she gave him.
The little girl tugged at his jumper.
“You like her,” she stated with a knowing smile.
Tull nodded slowly as he clicked the clasp of the chin strap in place, “Yes I do.”
Jessica examined Liberty intently for a few moments.
“She isn’t pretty.”
Tull smiled down at her before he picked her up to set her back on his hip.
“Ah, this is where you are wrong. To me, she is the prettiest girl in the universe.”
He saw Jessica’s face fall and put a finger to the tip of her nose.
“In the over seven category only, of course,” he winked at her, “It’s a good thing she doesn’t have to compete against you or I wouldn’t know which one of you to pick.”
“You really think I’m pretty?” the little girl asked quietly.
He looked into her eyes, so dark they seemed to go on forever and gave her his best smile.
“Very.”
It earned him a huge hug, her riding hat pushing painfully into his temple as she squeezed him hard. He hugged her back gingerly, feeling her fragile body beneath his fingers and swallowed back the tears that suddenly wanted to come so badly.
He opened his eyes over her shoulder and looked at Liberty who was just leading Eileen, the blind girl, past.
“I heard that,” Liberty said loudly and grinned at him, “Competition, huh? I’m not sure I like it.”
He knew it was only meant to be a joke, a light-heartedly thrown lifebelt of flirtatiousness, to stop him from going to pieces, but the glance that came with it made his stomach lurch nevertheless.
“Come on, people,” Liberty continued as she passed through the door, “Let’s ride!”
*****
And so they rode.
To begin with they took to the indoor school to get everyone on. Jessica was the first to mount and sat atop Titch, hugging the pony from above while watching the others clamber onto their horses. Her mum waved from the sideline, clutching the bobble hat to her chest and Jessica waved back before rolling her face over Titch’s neck to look at Tull again.
“I hope mummy has another baby. So she has someone to cuddle. Cuddling is the best,” she gave the pony another squeeze then sat up, indicating Gulliver and the girl who’d come with a little portable oxygen tank, “How come his saddle has a thingy for Brooke’s air?”
Tull watched Richard and Lisa sort out the rider in question.
“It’s not really for that. Richard and Gulliver go on long rides around England to map out bridle routes and he takes a tent and other stuff. That’s what those saddle bags are normally for.”
Jessica’s eyes became even larger, “He goes camping with his horse? I want to do that. That sounds fun. I love camping,” she paused and for the first time that day sadness crept into her voice, “We used to go all the time.”
Before Tull could find any words to reply, all riders were settled on their animals, all leaders in position and they started walking. Jessica wobbled a little, giggled and then found the rhythm of the pony as they slipped in behind the rest of the horses.
Lisa was walking along the line of riders, correcting people’s positions, checking for comfort and giving kind words. Finally she came to the trio at the rear.
“You sit very nicely Jessica,” a big smile crinkled up Lisa’s face, “Now be careful for your legs not to ride up otherwise you fall off. Keep them nice and long. Are you comfy?”
Jessica nodded happily and Lisa moved off to the centre of the school. She looked on silently as the troupe finished a round.
“Right,” she bellowed, “if anyone’s not liking it, tell me now because if you’re all good, it’s time to go out into the woods.”
Nobody made a sound and Lisa opened the side door to the outside world. Moments later the procession left the school.
The day on the other side was cold, dry and bluish grey. They turned out of the yard and Tull watched each team round the corner. The breath of the horses appeared in little white clouds in front of their nostrils as they blew out their noses one by one, making Gulliver with all his trappings and Brooke with the tubes running to her nose look like a machination from the steam era.
Behind them Liberty, Oliver and the blind girl seemed almost bare in comparison without a saddle, the cob wearing just a roller with a hoop for the girl to steady herself on.
Next in line were Martina, Sheila and the most skeletal of the gang, a girl called Victoria who was holding on to the horn of the mare’s Western saddle with both hands.
Following in their footsteps were the four duns and their riders who from a distance looked like any group of teens enjoying their first time on a horse. Their ponies were more bunched together than the three horses at the front and the girls on top chatted away amongst themselves and with their leaders.
He wondered for a moment how Jessica, Titch and he would look to an observer.
His question was answered almost immediately by Lisa. She was walking behind the company on foot alongside one of the charity’s nurses, a big bear-like man who’d introduced himself as Brian.
“The three of you are just the cutest. - Go on make him trot up to the others. You’re getting left behind. Hold on tight, Jessica,” Lisa ordered.
Tull made the girl grip the balancing strap on Titch’s saddle before he clicked his tongue. They jogged up to Butterscotch’s big behind. Titch’s little legs were going rapidly like sewing machine needles and Jessica laughed in rhythm with the vibrations, a little gargling sound of pure, silly joy.
“Again!” she exclaimed when they had closed up and gone back to a walk.
Tull figured there was no harm in walking just a little slowly so that one could trot up a few more times.
*****
The ride lasted almost a
n hour. Across a barren but beautiful winter landscape of fallow fields in perpetual twilight they made their way into the forest and past a little ancient chapel, famous for once having starred in a Hollywood movie.
Halfway they had to stop by the roadside and call a taxi for Victoria who couldn’t hold on any longer. She sank off Sheila’s saddle into Brian’s arms and was carried away tenderly like a bride across the threshold. Tull caught a glimpse of her as she peeked over her helper’s shoulder to take a last look at the horses, exhausted contentedness illuminating her sunken features.
She wasn’t at the yard when they got back. A flower had been put in her place at the banqueting table.
*****
Having put all the horses save Oliver away, the group of chilly and tired but exulted riders proceeded to the viewing platform in the indoor arena where the table had been laid with nibbles and the patio heaters were waiting to lull them into sleepy warmth. Jessica had moved back onto Tull’s hip as soon as Titch had been left in a stable and was talking excitedly to her mum who was walking up the ramp next to them.
Once all guests were seated to face the arena and hot drinks had been served, Lisa made a sign to Richard who was standing by the stable block entrance.
A second later Liberty rode in, a symphony of gypsy bells and colours.
She trotted Oliver down the centre line, halted in the middle of the arena, bowed to her audience and then the music started.
Jessica tugged at Tull’s sleeve from her seat.
“Take me there,” she pleaded, pointing down to where Tull had first stood to watch Liberty all those weeks ago. He hoisted her back onto his hip and they went down the stage rises to lean against the partition.
In the arena Oliver and Liberty were dancing to the music, a pair in perfect harmony that looked like one creature. They drew disciplined figures across the sand at first then began building towards a wild crescendo to the ancient tune coming from the PA that made your heart beat faster. They galloped the final round, all boundless power. The music changed, becoming quiet and more restrained and so did pony and rider. Liberty collected the cob into a canter and then into an ever slowing trot before turning down the centre line to stop dead centre on a penny in time with the music.