The Damage Done, page 11
What does he see? What is there to see?
Her eyes looked steadily back at her, like someone else's, offering no answer.
*
She walked down to the yard and into an altercation.
Alison, O'Leary's owner, was standing there with her horse ready saddled, venting her feelings on Lottie.
“Did you hear? The way he spoke to me? Who is he, anyway?”
“I know, he was well out of order - ”
“What's going on?” Kirsty looked from one to the other. O'Leary stood quietly, unperturbed - clearly, nothing had happened to upset him, to Kirsty's relief.
“That yob, whoever he is,” Alison fired back. “That's what's going on.”
“Dally’s not a yob!”
“You could have fooled me. Comes strolling into the yard as if he owns the place, then marches up to me and starts ranting about O'Leary's tack.”
“His tack?”
“Yes! Like he's the world's leading expert or something. ‘What d'you need all that for?’ he went. ‘If you were half a rider you wouldn't need gadgets.’ And ‘What right have you got to boss him about and hit him with whips?’ You heard, didn't you, Lottie?”
Lottie nodded. “Yes – ‘He's a horse, why can't you just let him be a horse, instead of turning him into a circus animal?’ That's what he said.”
Kirsty looked to see precisely what O'Leary was wearing. Alison was always experimenting; today he had a strong-looking bit with a curb chain, and a running martingale.
“I said, ‘I'd like to see you controlling him when he takes hold. Think you could do that with just a piece of string?’ and he gives me this weird look and goes, ‘That's what it's all about, isn't it? Control,’ and he looks at me like I've crawled out from under a stone, and walks off. Honestly, he must be a complete nutter. You ought to be more careful who you have hanging round the place. Who is he, anyway?”
“Friend of Kirsty's,” Lottie said. “He works at Mrs Hendy's.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes, he is,” Kirsty said, “and he's OK, really.”
“Well, he doesn't look it to me!” Alison checked her horse's girths and tucked one of the bridle straps into its keeper. “You want to choose your friends more carefully, Kirsty. If he speaks to me like that again, there'll be trouble, right? And I don't want him anywhere near O'Leary.”
“I'll be friends with who I like!” Kirsty retaliated.
Alison gave her a sceptical look. “Fine. Let's hope you don't mind losing customers, then.” She pulled the near-side stirrup down its leather and mounted. O'Leary, who had been standing obediently while they talked, was now expected to jump smartly to attention as Alison's black-booted legs clamped against his sides. Watching, Kirsty saw exactly what Dally disliked - the whip held at the ready, the jump-to-it, I'm-in-charge assertiveness. Was she like that herself, riding Leo? And then she thought of Alison's parting remark. She didn't think Alison was seriously threatening to move O'Leary elsewhere, not just because of Dally, but all the same it would be a bad time to lose a long-standing customer, with Jay due home in two days.
Alison rode down towards the schooling field, and Lottie rounded on Kirsty.
“There, you see!”
“What?” Kirsty flared.
“You were right first time, and I was wrong - he is peculiar, that Dally! What do you see in him?”
“Please will you give it a rest? And did you have to side with Miss Bossyboots?”
“But Alison was right!” Lottie protested. “You didn’t hear him. He doesn't know anything about horses, but that doesn’t stop him having a go at people.”
“He does know! You saw him the other day. That's the whole point. Not about bits and martingales and dressage. But he knows what horses are really like. He knows about the horseness of horses.”
“The what?”
“I'm going to look at Dorcas and the foal.” Kirsty gave up. She still had Petronella to groom before the Nellies arrived.
The mare was standing with head lowered towards the foal, who was lying flat in the straw with all four legs stretched out straight. Kirsty's heart thumped for a moment, thinking he’d died; then she saw the rise and fall of his rib cage, and the unperturbed mare standing guard. “Isn't he beautiful?” she whispered to Lottie, who had followed. She marvelled at the size of his knees and hocks and fetlocks compared to the small body and miniature hooves. A few hours old, he would already be able to get up and run with the herd, if he were a wild horse.
Lottie refused to be deflected. “The way he behaved indoors - letting you wait on him hand and foot, and hardly a grunt for Thank You! What is he, cave man?”
“End of subject, I told you! I wonder if I ought to close this top door? They shouldn't have people gawping in at them all day.”
“All right then, I'll shut up about Dally,” Lottie conceded. “But I'm telling you, if he's here when I come back this evening, I'm going straight home.”
*
Chapter Twelve
All day, Kirsty felt bad about Dally. It had been unfortunate, Lottie coming in so unexpectedly; not Lottie's fault, but it had upset Dally for some reason, making him moody and silent. He didn't have to be like that. Kirsty was beginning to think of him as a difficult horse, one who must be treated kindly and consistently if he were to show his true, generous spirit. He was kind, even considerate; she knew that, though it would be no use trying to explain to Lottie, who had seen only bad grace and yobbishness.
In mid-afternoon, Lottie rode home on Ivor to help her father for a couple of hours, and her mother would drive her back at six-thirty to share a meal with Kirsty. Sheila finally left, having spent several hours doting on the foal, taking dozens of photographs and hushing everyone who went near; the Nellies had taken their pony to a show, and wouldn't be back till late. Kirsty fetched a mattress into her room as makeshift bed for Lottie, tidied up, then decided to ride Leo over to Ravenswood to bring Prince in and do his stable. She folded Dally's black shirt and put it into her rucksack as an excuse for going to look for him.
Besides turning Prince out as she requested, Dally had done the stable, put down a fresh, perfectly banked-up bed of straw, and filled the haynet and water-bucket. With another excuse to find and thank him, Kirsty put Leo in the empty stable next door and left the two horses neighing at each other across the yard while she went to see if Dally was working in the garden.
No sign of him; but she saw Mrs Bishop and Mrs Hendy sitting together on chairs on the stone patio that ran along the back of the house, where the wisteria flowers hung against the wall like clusters of pale grapes. There was a wrought-iron table between the two women, and a tray with a teapot. They must have seen her riding down the track on Leo; now Mrs Hendy waved, and Kirsty felt obliged to go over and speak to them. Damn.
She told them about Jay coming home, and about the new foal, all the time fidgeting inside. Mrs Hendy nodded and smiled and said, “Do bring your brother round for a drink, Kirsty, if he can spare the time. I'd like to see him.” In spite of the warmth of the afternoon, she wore thick stockings and a tweedy skirt and waistcoat. She made Kirsty think of some cold-blooded creature that had crept out to warm itself on the stones.
“If you're looking for Dally,” Mrs Hendy said, “he'll have gone home. He has a half-day on Saturdays.”
“Oh, I - ” Kirsty was taken aback; how did Mrs Hendy know it was Dally she wanted? “I was going to give him something, that's all. A book,” she improvised. “One of my Dad's. He was interested.”
“Leave it with me and I'll give it to him in the morning,” Mrs Bishop said, logically enough. For once, Kirsty's lie had instantly caught her out.
“No, thanks, but I'll wait and give it to him myself. It's a special copy, a signed one.”
Kirsty saw a smile twitch at the corners of Mrs Hendy's mouth. How odd, she thought, that she could deceive nearly everyone else, but not an old lady who hardly knew her. She must be careful to give away nothing else. Clearly, though, the two women knew nothing about Dally's illicit occupation of the cottage. It was a nuisance, them sitting here. If Dally wasn't working he might be there now, but she could hardly march across straight across the lawn and through the rose garden.
Excusing herself, she went back to the stables, brought Prince in and fed him, and mounted Leo from the block; then she rode right out of Ravenswood to the road, past the long frontage of the house, and turned right again down the track on the far side of the wall, that led to the gardener's cottage. If anyone did happen to see her there, she could say she was looking for a way through to the bridle path that ran alongside the river.
Leo's hooves trod softly on the grassy track. Kirsty caught her breath at the sight of the bluebells, now coming into flower - swathes of them, a wash of mauvy blue that made the whole wood seem to float in haze. The beeches and silver birches had come more fully into leaf since her last visit, casting dappled shade over the pools of blue. The air was full of cool blue scent. People would come to see, if they knew; but the wood was secret and enclosed, with no right of way from the road. It was Mrs Hendy’s private wood, and now Dally’s too. Perhaps, till now, he was the only person who had seen this brief springtime flowering.
The cottage came into view, tucked under the high canopy of leaves. Kirsty looked to see if door or window were open; then her attention was distracted by a leaping cat that flew across the track in a blur of grey and white, and a commotion of birds in the walled garden to her right. She brought Leo to a halt by the wrought-iron gate.
Inside, on the strip of lawn that separated the borders, a brown fledgling blackbird sat squawking defiance at the cat, which squatted a mere two feet away ready to pounce. Two parent blackbirds, helpless, shrieked their alarm calls from the top of the brick wall. Quickly Kirsty dismounted, tied Leo's reins to the paling fence of the cottage and pushed the gate open.
The cat looked round, green eyes darting resentment. The fledgling squawked again and the cat swished its tail, treading with its hind feet for a firm purchase on the ground. Then it sprang. The bird tried to flutter away on wings too short and feeble to do more than carry it a few yards; the cat was upon it, taking it in its mouth. Kirsty saw the yellow gape of the fledgling's beak as it screeched its terror. The parent birds flapped and shrilled in agitation. Shouting, Kirsty ran for the cat, clapping her hands to startle it into dropping the baby bird. For a second the bird fluttered free, but the cat was quicker than Kirsty and seized it again. It turned to face her, growling, with the fledgling clamped in its jaws; then it ran into the border where the rose-bushes were thick and dense. Kirsty went as close as she could, peering through the thorny stems, in the hope of rescuing the bird even now; but it was hopeless. She heard growling, a flutter of feathers, then nothing.
The parent birds were still calling in futile agitation from the wall. She felt a tug of pity for their grief. No, that was silly, sentimental; yet for the moment, grief was all she could see. She had been close enough to see the fledgling's bright eye, the buttercup-yellow corners of its mouth, the stumpy wings and tail that were not grown enough to carry it to safety. Little less than a miracle, it seemed: molecules forming and assembling themselves inside an egg, hatching into a helpless blind creature, then developing into feathers, wings, strong legs and claws. All to end in a cat's jaws the day it left its nest.
Kirsty walked slowly, sorrowfully back to the gate, where she stopped in disbelief: Leo wasn't there, where she’d tied him. His absence was all she saw where there should have been a large horse.
Then, before panic could take her over, she heard the snapping of twigs and saw Dally leading Leo back through the bluebells. She saw boy and horse together against the woodland backdrop, walking between slender beech trunks, saw the picture they made: Leo's coat shining rich conker-colours in the dappled sunlight, his ears pricked; Dally smiling, with one hand resting on the horse's neck.
“Hello,” she called to him. “It's my fault! I shouldn't have tied him by the reins. Thank God he didn't get out to the road…” She blinked away the awfulness of what might have happened. Sometimes her life seemed like a succession of disasters narrowly avoided.
“He's broken them,” Dally said, showing her the ends of torn leather. “He must have pulled back till they snapped - I'm surprised the fence didn't snap first. What were you doing?”
Kirsty explained about the cat and the birds, her failed rescue. The adult birds were still calling, swooping down to the grass.
“That's Freda. A real hunting cat.” Dally tied the broken reins in a knot.
“Ours catch birds sometimes, specially Moth,” Kirsty said. “I love them, but I do hate them killing things.”
“They're carnivores,” Dally said. “Not pussy-cats. That’s what they do.”
“I know, but - ”
Dally gazed through the gate towards the parent blackbirds. “It looks like they're mourning,” he said, “but they'll soon forget. What use is mourning to a blackbird? They have to get on with living. It's instinct, protecting their young. They'll go back to their other chicks. Might even have a second brood. It's survival of the fittest. If all the chicks survived, the world would be swarming with blackbirds. What did you come for, anyway?”
“I wanted to see you,” Kirsty said plainly.
Dally looked at her but said nothing, still holding the reins. She couldn’t read his expression.
“And I've brought your shirt. You left it.” She looked for her rucksack, where she had dropped it when she jumped down from Leo's saddle, and found it in the long grasses by the gate.
“Thanks,” Dally said. He took the shirt from her and put it on over his T-shirt. “Do you want to bring Leo round the back? There's a fenced garden. More jungle than garden, but he can stay in there for a while, then you needn't tie him up again. I was out there when I heard him.”
Of course, it was far too beautiful a day for him to be sitting in the empty cottage. Kirsty followed him. There was a side gate, just wide enough to lead Leo through. The back garden had a flagged stone path between what must have once been well-tended beds, now rampant with nettles and elder and blackberry suckers. A patch of lawn was roughly scythed. Dally closed the gate behind Leo, and Kirsty fastened the reins through the throat-latch of the bridle so that he couldn't get his feet tangled in them. There wouldn't be time to take the reins to the saddler's before Jay came home; they were expensive ones, with rubber grips, that Jay used because Leo took such a strong hold when galloping or jumping. She’d have to find some old plain ones for now. Leo snorted and stared prick-eared round his new surroundings, then lowered his head to snatch at mouthfuls of grass, still suspicious.
“He'll be OK, now,” Kirsty said, when he had settled. She looked round at Dally, who was carrying something inside. Against the ivy-covered cottage wall she saw a collection of clay models; horses, a human figure, each about a foot high, arranged on a dirty crumpled sheet. “What are - ”
Whatever they were, Dally didn't want her to see them. He tried to pick up two more, but they were awkward to hold; he put one down and lifted the other, a female figure, with both hands.
“Oh, let me see!” Kirsty crouched to look. “Did you make them?”
“Yeah. They need firing, only I can't do that, so I thought the sun might bake them a bit.” Dally put the clay figure back in its place with the others; then, in a gesture of surrender, he moved away and sat on the doorstep of the open back door. Most of the models were of horses - some lifelike, the work of close observation, others heavily stylised. One was a goose, at a rudimentary stage; the clay was wet with fingermarks.
“Oh, but this is beautiful!” Kirsty stretched out a hand to touch the shoulder of the clay girl. She was slender, crouched, extending one leg as if dipping it in water, trailing the fingers of one hand to test the temperature. Long hair flowed over her shoulders and the clay was modelled to suggest a soft, clinging dress. “Ophelia! Is she?”
“If you like.” Dally was picking at his fingernails.
“Dally! This is lovely, really lovely! Is this what you do? Are you an art student or something?” Kirsty remembered what Lottie had suggested about Dally taking a year off.
“No!” Dally gave her one of his fierce looks. “You don't have to go to art college. You don't have to wear a badge saying art student before you're allowed to start. You can do things on your own! You just do it, and that's how you find out.”
“Find out what?”
“Whether you can do it, or not.”
“Well, you can! What are you going to do with them? Sell them, get them exhibited somewhere?”
“No! They just are. Why would I want money for them? They're not for other people. They're for me.”
Kirsty turned to face him.“Why are you so angry?”
“I'm not,” he said. Now, he just sounded surly.
“Where d'you get the clay from?”
“Art shop in town,” Dally answered, more mildly. “I tried digging some up from the ground - the soil's so clayey here - but it wouldn't hold together well enough.”
“This girl - is she someone you know?” Kirsty wondered why she was bothering to ask. Dally would never tell her, and it was so easy to offend him.
He picked savagely at a piece of broken nail. “Yes. Knew.”
“Who is she? Please tell me!”
Abruptly, Dally stood up and walked over to Leo, who had long stems of grass tangled round his bit. Dally pulled them out, slobber and all, and wiped his hands on his jeans. When he turned back to Kirsty his face wore a tight, shut-off expression, his mouth in a hard bitter line - almost, she thought in alarm, as if he might cry. She wondered what to do if he did.
