Shelter from the Storm, page 15
A muttered curse. ‘Why is that horse here?’
‘Minstrel is a peaceful and very friendly fellow,’ Greta says calmly. ‘Mandy finds him for Patience.’
Their voices fade. Silence. I remind myself …
I’m afraid of relying on others, of trusting them. And I have good reasons for that. I’m attracted to Hugo and I like him. He let me down.
Hands clumsy, I condition my hair and rinse it under the tap. I study the wrinkles on the pads of my fingers.
Footsteps again. ‘Sixteen fucking hands.’ Hugo again. ‘Solid as a double brick shithouse.’
‘Keep it down, son,’ Derek speaks slowly but firmly. ‘You’ll upset your mother.’
My limbs are light and warm, but my chest and throat are tight. Placing my hands on the rim of the bath, I push myself upright and stand. Lacklustre bubbles curl around my knees.
‘Minstrel is none of Hugo’s business,’ I remind myself.
I was dressed in a towel when I walked from the granny flat to the bathing room, so that’s all I have when I walk back again. Large and white, the towel is tucked over my breasts and falls past my knees. I pull my hair over my shoulder and squeeze it out. I’ll change quickly and then—
Hugo leans, one long leg in front of the other, against a verandah post at the top of the steps. Green eyes bright, he straightens when he sees me.
‘Imp.’ He hasn’t shaved in a while. He’s far more tanned than he was. T-shirt black and tight, blue jeans worn and faded.
Don’t think about the kiss. Do not think about the kiss.
I focus on the window box outside Greta’s bedroom window. Maybe she couldn’t decide which colour geraniums to choose, and that’s why she planted a variety. Red, white, light and dark pink. Six plants. Nineteen blooms. Twenty-two buds.
‘Hugo.’ I nod formally. ‘Are you waiting for me?’
His eyes narrow. ‘The horse.’
‘His name is Minstrel. That’s his paddock name. He has a much longer name on his registration papers.’ I recheck the overlap on the towel. ‘He’s a warmblood.’
Hugo mutters a curse. ‘He’s big.’
‘Mandy said I could keep him at her stud, but she’s recently had shoulder surgery and I didn’t want to burden her. Anyway, it takes an hour to get to Warrandale.’ I link my hands, slow my speech. ‘Greta and Derek invited him to stay here.’
‘Invited?’ He rubs the back of his neck. ‘They shouldn’t have.’
‘This has nothing to do with you.’
His lips tighten. ‘You want to ride because of me.’
‘It’s not only because of the team. And I’ve initiated it on my own, so you’re not responsible for anything that might happen.’
‘Why do this, Imp? Why—’
‘It’s important to me.’
‘Yeah, and it’s important to me that you don’t break your neck.’
‘Can I get past?’ Cutting the corner to the steps, my arm brushes his. It’s barely a touch, but my heartbeats scatter. One, three, two. Three, two, one. Two, one, three. I put my hand on his arm and rub.
‘I’ve wet you.’ His muscles are hard; his body is warm.
‘Imp,’ he growls, putting his hand over mine. ‘What the fuck?’
Our eyes lock. ‘Why do you keep swearing?’
His gaze slips to my mouth. ‘Why do you think?’
No, no, no, no, no. I free my hand, take a jerky step back. ‘I have to change.’
‘Patience! Patience!’ Remy, brown curls bouncing, canters towards us. He does an exaggerated skip to change his lead leg. ‘Did you see me? Do you remember what that’s called so you can do it on Minstrel?’
‘A flying change.’ I summons a smile from somewhere. ‘You’re early today.’
‘Dad said Ryan has to do his homework or he can’t go to the football and Ryan cried even though he said he didn’t.’
I crouch. ‘Don’t tease him, Remy. It’s unkind.’
He glances at Hugo. His lip wobbles. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’m sure you won’t do it again.’ I take his hands and squeeze. ‘Did Ryan bring his maths books? Tell him I’ll meet him at the day bed in five minutes and we’ll get to work so he can go to the football.’
Remy makes a face. ‘Why can’t we do my homework?’
‘Bring it tomorrow, as much as you want. And after it’s done, we’ll play horse shows again.’
‘Oi,’ Hugo says. ‘Get over here.’ When Remy, grinning, grasps Hugo’s hands, Hugo spins him upside down before setting him on his feet again.
Remy jumps up and down on the spot. ‘Can I ride Lavender?’
‘You’re going to the football.’
‘I want to ride Lavender instead. Please, Uncle Hugo.’
‘If it’s okay with Andy, I’ll think about it.’ He jerks his head towards the front of the house. ‘Tell Ryan that Patience will be waiting. Talk to your dad about Lavender. Then get back to your stable.’
As Remy, neighing loudly, gallops away, Hugo’s gaze stays firmly on my face. ‘Did you buy the horse?’
‘Yes.’ When a droplet of water slides down my neck, I swipe it away. ‘Mandy said she’ll take him when I go.’
‘Uncle Hugo!’ Remy yells out. ‘Oma wants you! Oma wants you now!’
Ryan and I, sitting on the day bed, work our way through the exercises. It’s almost one when Greta puts a heaped plate of sandwiches next to the textbook.
‘Thanks, Oma.’ When Ryan reaches for a sandwich, opening his mouth wide to accommodate the fillings, Greta smiles.
‘It is important to learn mathematics. This is why you are excused from joining your father and uncle at the table.’
There’s only one sandwich left when, with the end of my pencil, I tap the final diagram.
‘This is where we bring a whole lot of principles together. Farmer Jenny has to calculate how many sunflower seeds she needs to plant in her field. Where do we start?’
Ryan chews as he talks. ‘Work out the area.’
‘Which will give us the square metreage. Good. Because we’re told there are twelve seeds per square metre.’
‘That’s not enough seeds.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘You don’t care about the seeds.’ He takes another bite of his sandwich. ‘You’d only want to know about the posts.’ He grins. ‘How many would she need to fence the paddock?’
‘I don’t only count fence posts.’
‘Do you count…’ He glances around. ‘Close your eyes.’
I do as he asks.
‘How many boards on the verandah?’
‘Horizontally between here and the railing? Fifteen.’ When he laughs, I open my eyes and tap his book again. ‘If you were asked about fence posts, it would be a different calculation, wouldn’t it? How would you approach it?’
For a moment he frowns, but then his brow clears. ‘Work out the perimeter.’
‘Excellent.’ I tie my hair, almost dry, into a plait. ‘And how would you go about that?’
‘Length and width, then multiply by two.’
When I hold up my hand, he slaps it. ‘We’d have to sort out the shapes first though, wouldn’t we? So, let’s do that for the area, before applying it to the perimeter.’
‘Farmer Jenny’s an idiot. No field looks like this one.’
‘Jenny does her best.’ I take my pencil and divide up the drawing. ‘Can you recognise the shapes?’
‘Triangle, rectangle, trapezoid.’
‘We have to calculate the area of each of them, and then we’ll add them up. What kind of crop do you think Jenny could sow with twelve seeds per metre?’
‘I dunno.’ He laughs. ‘Anyway, you just said that’s irrelevant.’
‘Now I’m curious.’ Soxy jumps on the day bed, looking with interest at the crumbs. ‘Tell me the calculations.’
‘The triangle is base over height, divided by two. The rectangle is length by width.’
‘And the trapezoid?’ I go back a couple of pages. ‘We looked at that shape on Wednesday. Do you remember what we did?’
He stuffs the last of the sandwich into his mouth and picks up his pencil. ‘Calculate base one and base two and multiply by the height.’
‘That’s a great start. Write it down and apply it. What happens next?’
‘Divide by two.’ He carefully writes numbers in his workbook, setting them out like I’ve shown him, so it will be easier to pick up a mistake should he make one. No mistakes this time.
‘That’s great, Ryan.’ We slap hands again. ‘The area is sorted.’ So now we work out the quantity of seeds, and then the perimeter.’
‘I can’t believe I gave myself more work.’
After Ryan has finished the exercise, we consider the work he’ll be assigned in class next week, so instead of assuming it’s new and he doesn’t have the knowledge to tackle it, he’ll be able to work through the steps. He makes notes in the margins.
‘Well done,’ I say. ‘Have fun at the football.’
Another slap of hands. ‘Thanks.’
When Hugo walks towards us, Ryan drops his books and raises his fists. Laughing and feinting, they jab and dodge and fool around. Scrabbling off the day bed, I group the cushions. One, two. One, two, three. One, two.
‘Imp?’ By the time I turn, Hugo has the shadow of a smile on his lips. His hair is tousled and he runs a hand through it. When my gaze runs down his body and up again, he catches me staring.
My skin warms. ‘You always let Ryan hit you.’
He winces as he rubs a spot on his ribs. ‘Not for much longer.’
‘Does Greta need help with something?’
When he crosses his arms, his T-shirt pulls tight across his chest. ‘She said you have to rest.’
‘I was going to post on the blog.’
‘I’ll be back tonight. We’ll talk about the horse.’
Chapter
25
A little before four o’clock, I hurriedly push my feet into boots. Please, Hugo, don’t come back early. Minstrel’s feed and other things are stored in one of the sheds. The nights are getting colder, and he doesn’t have the stable he had at his old home, so I bought him a new winter rug—waterproof canvas with a tail flap and thick cotton lining. His leather halter with smart brass fittings hangs from a hook next to his saddle and bridle.
His bridle has a stainless-steel bit.
His saddle has stainless-steel stirrup irons.
I’m not ready to ride quite yet.
Breathing deeply, I lift the halter from the hook and clip on the lead rope, an even brighter shade of red than the rug. I loop the grooming bucket, brimming with brushes and other paraphernalia, over my arm with the rug and halter. In my back pocket I have three large carrots, cut into pieces, from Greta’s vegetable patch.
‘Minstrel!’
I don’t know whether he looks up from the grass because he hears his name, or because he sees me, but he sets off at a trot, nickering a greeting as he nears the fence. I ignore the thumps of his hooves on the dirt, focusing instead on his pricked ears and dark inquisitive eyes. I hang the rug on the fence far enough away that, even if there was a breeze, it wouldn’t flap and spook him. He helpfully hangs his head over the railing as I slip the halter over his nose, but as I thread a strap through the buckle, I fumble. The strap slaps him in the nose. He blinks in surprise.
I give his nose a rub before starting again. ‘Thank goodness you’re not only peaceful and friendly, but tolerant too.’ As soon as my hand goes to my pocket, he dips his head and nudges my hip. His mouth soft on my palm, he takes a piece of carrot. ‘I’m relatively brave from this side of the fence, aren’t I?’
I stroke under his mane and feel the thickness of his glossy winter coat. He’s mostly dark brown, but below his knees and hocks his legs are black, as are his forelock, mane and tail. My horse’s colour is bay. I push his forelock to one side to reveal the top of his blaze. His tail hangs down past his fetlocks, almost to the ground.
Hugo said Minstrel had big feet, but Mandy focused on his placid temperament and excellent schooling. For many years he was a successful dressage horse, but after his owner had a baby she only rode him occasionally. When she bought another horse, she searched for a home where Minstrel, now sixteen, would be cared for not only in the next few years, but into his retirement. Which is why it was a condition of the sale that Mandy take him from me when I leave.
You’ll leave him behind.
Leaning over the fence, I tie the lead rope to the piece of string that’s threaded around a post. ‘Mandy’s horses are loved in the same way children should be—and she knows what she’s doing. You’ll have a nice home with her.’
The fence is designed for cattle and difficult to climb through, so I enter the paddock through the gate. Minstrel munches contentedly on another piece of carrot as, standing close to his body, I run a stiff bristled brush down his shoulder.
He’s a solidly built horse, much more so than most stock horses and thoroughbreds. Has he gained weight in only two weeks? It’s tempting to feed him because he always seems to be hungry, but I don’t want to make him unhealthy. When he stamps a back leg, I jump. ‘He has a fly on his belly,’ I reassure myself.
I count strokes as I brush, first his neck, then shoulder, body and rump. With a soft bendy brush, I also groom his legs. Sometimes he thinks I want to lift his hoof—he takes the weight off his leg when I bend over his fetlock—but Andy said I could defer checking for stones until he gets shod.
‘I’ve arranged for the farrier to come next week,’ I tell him. ‘Mike will trim your feet and put nice new shoes on.’
I’m learning how to communicate with Minstrel. Build my confidence. Predict his behaviour. Trust him. There’ll be no place for fear.
Minstrel occasionally looks around—to the cattle in the paddock that leads to the creek, to Greta as she sweeps the verandah, to Derek as he parks the tractor in the shed—but only in a curious way. Before I go back to the house, I’ll give him a hay net and he’ll pull long strands of lucerne through the gaps. Sometimes he shakes the bag around, gets dust up his nose and snorts.
I glance at my watch. It’s not yet five. I’ll lead him around the paddock before settling him for the night. As I have the rope, I’ll be in charge.
I have to be in charge to feel safe.
I won’t look at his hooves.
He walks calmly by my side as we follow the well-worn track along the fence. ‘It might surprise you to know I can navigate a warship with a displacement of 27,500 tonnes.’ My hands are steady on the lead rope, one near the halter, the other halfway down. ‘Displacement is the mass of water the hull displaces.’ His ears move, as if he’s interested in hearing more. ‘I don’t need a computer to navigate—the stars and a compass are enough.’ Clip-clop. Clip-clop. ‘Before I was put on quarterly reports for swearing at the commander investigating my harassment complaint, I was down in the Southern Ocean.’ When he snorts, his halter jangles. ‘Robert Falcon Scott, an early explorer, took ponies to Antarctica to pull the sleds. Were you aware of that?’
Greta is at the washing line, spinning the hills hoist she’s used for decades—nappies, school uniforms and man-sized shirts. A checked blue shirt with metallic silver threads. Derek, holding a basket as he follows along behind her, lifts a hand in salute. I take one hand from the rope and wave back.
‘When I finish this secondment,’ Minstrel walks calmly by my side, ‘I’ll go back to sea again. Hopefully it’ll be my old ship, so I can monitor said offending officer. Next time, he’ll be the one kicked off the ship.’
I usually eat at the house on Sunday evenings, because Greta goes to a lot of trouble with her roast. Andy, Ryan and Remy are often there, and others come too, generally neighbours or people new to the district who Greta believes could do with some company. Andy and his boys won’t be at the table tonight, but Hugo will be. Do I care?
It’d be easier if I didn’t.
At the end of the paddock, the land slopes downhill and the ground is dry, pockmarked with cattle hooves. We skirt around a bore tap and a large concrete laundry sink. How long has it been used as a water trough? Twenty years? Thirty? I don’t know that there’s anything too valuable in the paddocks, sheds or even the house, but the memories here are a beautiful tapestry. Even the gardens, tangles of roses and other shrubs that Greta has collected, have their own histories. A lone Norfolk pine—Derek refuses to accommodate another one—in one of the paddocks adjoining the road was purchased as a Christmas tree in the year that Mateus was born.
‘Time to turn around, Minstrel.’
The upright corner post is weathered and grey, thicker and higher than the other posts. On the house side of the post there are three metal steps. Have I climbed them before? I think I have. A line, thick and black as charcoal, creeps up the post. That’s familiar too.
I pull up short and stare. Tension claws my chest.
This is where I fell.
Hooves thundering. Angela screaming. Hugo running. When I was thrown from the saddle, my foot was in the stirrup and my head was on the ground. Dragged and bruised and scarred.
Broken.
A wave of nausea sneaks up my throat. Head down, stomach churning, I press the heel of my hand against my mouth. When my knees start to wobble, I grasp the top rail. I can’t fall down because if I’m in the dirt all I’ll see is …
Minstrel stretches his neck and reaches for tufts of grass peeking under the fence. He lifts his head again, chews noisily, looks back the way we came.
Releasing a shuddering breath, I put my hand on his neck. My stomach settles, my heart rate slows. I’m not on his back or under his feet or—
‘Patience!’ Derek calls from somewhere near the house. ‘Need a hand over there?’
After clearing my throat, I shout. ‘Maybe.’
I manage to keep breathing until he arrives, but not much else. Leaning over the fence, he peers silently into my face.
‘What’s going on, love?’
‘He didn’t do anything,’ I croak.
‘Why’re you stuck out here?’
‘I just …’ I take another deep breath. ‘I fell here, didn’t I?’
