by Cathryn Hein
‘Sophie, can I ask you something?’
She smiled at him. ‘Of course.’
‘Have you ever had a boyfriend?’
The smile slipped. She blushed, and turned to look at Vanaheim’s lush pasture. Aaron wished he had kept his mouth shut. When she finally spoke, she did so without looking at him.
‘Not for a very long time.’
He couldn’t help himself. He had to know. ‘How long?’
They’d reached the bottom of the first hill. Psycho jog-trotted and champed at his bit, gearing himself for the run up the final hill. Catching the tension, Pollyester Girl fought for her head. Aaron held her tight, his eyes on Sophie’s face.
‘What’s the date today?’ she asked.
Aaron couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. ‘The twenty-first.’
As she spoke, Sophie kicked Psycho into a canter. Her words blew back to Aaron, ragged and sad.
‘Seven years, two months and nine days.’
Although Pollyester Girl nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets, he didn’t let her go. The horse pigrooted and yanked at the reins, but she could have performed the Macarena and Aaron wouldn’t have noticed.
Sophie Dixon hadn’t had a boyfriend since she was fifteen years old.
And to Aaron’s utter shame, the revelation pleased him.
Seven
The bunting surrounding the warm-up area at Lake Ackerman in Victoria’s far western corner vibrated and hummed in the increasing wind. Normally well-behaved horses shied at the flapping coloured triangles and riders swore under their breaths as their mounts refused to come to hand. Every now and then, a few drops of rain would fall and then stop, as though nature had conducted a quick test run. Then the clouds would part and sunlight would appear for just long enough to give the riders hope it wouldn’t pour, before the sun ducked behind a dark cloud once again.
Sophie stood on a bucket plaiting Chuck’s mane and twisting it into tiny rosettes. She kept half an eye on the three dressage rings in operation, watching for Buck’s main rivals in the one-star event. Not that there was much point. Buck’s test had been atrocious. He definitely hadn’t appreciated being woken so early in the morning, or travelling for two hours in the float. Sophie wished he’d find some other way to express his resentment than by playing up in the dressage ring. She was getting sick of being made to look a fool. One of these days, when the thought of giving up didn’t seem like such an anathema, she’d find the strength to sell him on.
She cocked her head at the old-fashioned radio sitting on the float’s wheel arch. Aaron had given her some tips, and in a rush of blood, Sophie had opened a TAB phone account. Though busier in the spring and autumn when the major metropolitan carnivals were on, the country racing calendar continued through the colder months and trainers willing to travel could race at least once a fortnight, often more. Today’s meeting was closer to home, north of Harrington at Penola, a small town at the bottom end of the Coonawarra wine-growing district. Aaron had promised Sophie that Pollyanna was a certainty, and likely to be underpriced. She figured it couldn’t hurt to place a bet if the odds were right. Twenty-five dollars each way wouldn’t ruin her, and if Pollyanna came home, she might shout herself a trip to the hairdresser. God knows she neededit.
Turning to Penola. Weather is showery, track is good. Race one and two, all clear. Race three, take out five, Gold Stargazer. Eight, Jump Start. Nine, Bobbydazzler. Repeat. Five, eight, nine. Race four…
Sophie sighed. She found the racing preview incredibly boring. Even though the announcer changed inflection and tried to inject some excitement into the broadcast, it still came across in a soporific drone. At least Pollyanna wasn’t on the list of scratchings.
Her mind drifted to Aaron, a place it had constantly wandered to these last few days. Every thought of him did something wobbly to her insides. Last night, instead of resting as she should, she lay in bed going over all their conversations, trying to interpret his words, hunting for any indication he might have feelings for her. Because if there was one thing of which Sophie was sure, it was her feelings for Aaron.
She smiled at the memory of him tickling her. The laughter they’d shared. The way he’d leaned on his elbow and looked at her, blue eyes full of something indefinable. The way he’d thanked her for being herself.
Simple words that left her overflowing with happiness.
She sighed again, this time with longing, then smiled as Chuck nudged her.
‘I know, I’m being silly.’ But she wasn’t. Aaron turned her inside out and it wasn’t just his good looks that did it, but the way he made her feel, like she was someone special and important. How special and important, she couldn’t figure out.
She twisted a plait into a rosette and secured it with a rubber band, taking care to keep the knot loose so it wouldn’t pull at Chuck’s neck. She moved on to his forelock. Chuck lowered his head to make it easier for her to reach, and Sophie felt tears prick her eyes as she realised this could be the last time. Chuck was getting on, the poor old fella, and ready for retirement, but Sophie wanted one final victory.
She loved Chuck with a passion she found impossible to articulate. He wasn’t just her horse, he was her memory. On a day she would never forget, her mother had returned from the local horse sales, unloaded a handsome, placid-looking, dark-brown horse from the float and handed its lead to Sophie. ‘We’re going to train him together,’ she’d said. And they had.
From that time on, her feelings for the horse she had called Prince Charles, because of his noble bearing, became intrinsically linked with her love for her mother. With gentle patience, they started him on the flat, teaching Chuck the basics of dressage, developing his muscles and teaching him to respond to his rider’s aids. Then came jumping, and hours spent drilling him over poles and small fences under Fiona Dixon’s expert tutelage. Gradually, they introduced him to pony club and then shows, competing in the junior classes and building both Sophie’s and Chuck’s confidence until they worked in perfect accord. Until, after years of dedication, they finally reached the heights they were at today.
As long as Chuck lived, so did a little bit of Fiona Dixon.
If they won this weekend, she’d put him out into the front paddock and watch him eat himself into contentment. He’d been a superstar for long enough. He deserved a rest.
In race three, Jack Cooper likes number four, Wombling, from one, Opaque, to seven, Sosume, and eleven, Chairman of the Board. That’s four, one, seven and eleven. Race four …
Sophie placed her hands on Chuck’s cheeks and planted a kiss in the middle of his nose, then pulled her mobile out of her pocket.
‘Did you hear that, Chuck?’ she said, scrolling through her contacts for her new phone-account number. ‘No Pollyanna. That means we’ll get her at good odds. I could be rich.’
The morning’s dressage results were up when Sophie passed the scorers’ tent on the way to walk the cross-country course. As she’d expected, Buck was well down the list. For a moment she contemplated withdrawing him altogether, but decided to give him a chance to redeem himself. In a few hours, when it came to tackling the showjumping course, he might be in a better mood.
As there were so many competitors, the one-day event had to be spread over two days, with all of the dressage and some of the showjumping held on the Saturday, and the cross-country and the remainder of the showjumping on the Sunday. Sophie wished it were the other way around. The weather forecast for Sunday wasn’t good. At least she’d have two phases out of the way once Chuck completed his dressage and showjumping later in the afternoon. The horses would be tired enough after galloping over three kilometres and jumping thirty-plus obstacles without having to showjump as well.
Rugged up and rubber-booted in preparation for her walk of the cross-country course, Sophie paused at the Range Rover and, in the faint hope her father might have called, pulled her mobile from the glovebox. To her surprise the screen showed someone had left a message.<
br />
‘Sophie, it’s your father. Tess informed me you have a major event this weekend and I wanted to wish you all the best. I’m sure you’ll do very well.’ He paused to clear his throat. ‘And I need to speak with you about Aaron Laidlaw. He’s not…’ He cleared his throat again. ‘I’m worried about you, that’s all. But we’ll talk another time. Good luck with your event and take care.’
Sophie stabbed the disconnect button and frowned at the screen. She didn’t know whether to feel pleased he’d called or annoyed about the cryptic Aaron comment. After he’d ignored her last two emails advising him of her competition schedule, she hadn’t bothered to let him know about Lake Ackerman. She didn’t even know if that account was still active but given the emails hadn’t bounced and he was the one who had told her to use that address, she assumed it was. His lack of response could only be because he was too busy to reply or simply didn’t care. Their long-deteriorating relationship made her suspect the latter. Yet in this call, the concern in his voice was unmistakable. The question was where that concern was directed – at her or at her association with Aaron.
But contemplation of such matters was for another time. Today, Sophie had a competition to win.
The course swarmed with riders stepping out distances and measuring heights, and dogs with their noses down in the grass sniffing out rabbits. Sophie nodded at a few people she knew, but tried to keep her mind on the jumps. Competition in Chuck’s class was stiff. She’d already seen two former Olympians and there were plenty more famous names listed on the scoreboard. It was hard not to feel intimidated.
She was stepping out the distance between two jumps when the father of one of her competitors approached.
The hackles on her neck rose. Nico Di Stasio had never been one of her favourite people. Not only was he one of her father’s local political allies, but she had once overheard him describe her mother as an albatross Ian Dixon was well rid of.
‘What’s this I hear about you working for Aaron Laidlaw,’ he said after an interminable period of chitchat in which Sophie barely participated.
‘I’m just helping out,’ she said, continuing with her count.
‘You want to be careful.’
She turned and retraced her steps. She was right on the first count. Four long strides or five short ones. She pulled a notebook from her coat pocket and made a note in it. How she rode these fences would depend on how well Chuck was placed. If he was in contention after the dressage and showjumping, she’d tackle the course with as much aggression as she could, but if he was way down the list, there was no point in going fast. She’d only tire Chuck unnecessarily and put him at risk of an injury.
She walked on, but Di Stasio followed.
‘The Laidlaws don’t have the best of reputations,’ he said.
‘Oh, so you think hanging around Hakea Lodge will turn me into a horse doper, do you?’
Di Stasio stopped walking and Sophie hid a smile, amused by his shock at her small rebellion. He was used to the old polite Sophie, not the lippy one.
‘Of course not,’ he spluttered. ‘It’s more a case of what people think.’
‘People like you, you mean?’
‘Your father certainly wouldn’t like it.’
‘Well, that’s for him and I to discuss then, isn’t it? Now if you don’t mind, I need to concentrate.’
Leaving Di Stasio open-mouthed, Sophie stalked on, her mood blackening with every step. How dare people talk about Aaron as if he were some sort of criminal? They didn’t know him like she did. He’d never in a million years hurt one of his horses. And then there was his assertion that Rodger Laidlaw was innocent. She was positive he wouldn’t say that without reason. But why was it so important that she keep away from Aaron? Had he done something terrible she didn’t know about?
She hoped not, but the more she thought about it, the more confused she became. Aaron’s eyes told her he was hiding something, but what?
‘Sophie Dixon. It’s been a while.’
‘Not long enough,’ said Sophie. She kept walking, automatically pulling at the sleeves of her jumper so they stretched over her wrists.
‘Don’t be like that, Soph.’
Sophie’s overworked hackles rose once more. ‘Soph’ was Aaron’s name for her, not Michael Fenton’s. Ignoring him, she pulled a tape measure from her pocket. She couldn’t believe the size of the fence in front of her. The oxer had to be over regulation.
‘I see you’ve brought Prince Charles and Bucephalus. You want to hope you don’t fall off. The trans-Tasman selectors are here.’
‘I won’t fall off.’ Sophie read the figures on the yellow tape in disbelief. The height was right on the limit. She let the tape go. Michael leaned against the jump’s front rail, regarding her with a smile she had once thought sexy. Now, his mouth seemed too wide, his hazel eyes too sleepy. Even the long-legged and lean-hipped body she’d once admired for its sinewy athleticism was too scrawny for her liking.
‘So. Did you miss me?’
Michael had spent the last year in England working for one of the world’s leading eventers – a position Sophie would have applied for if she hadn’t had Vanaheim to worry about.
‘Not even a little bit.’ Sophie handed him the end of the tape. ‘Here, make yourself useful and hold this so I can measure the width.’
He held the tape against the jump’s creosote-treated pine upright while she jumped the deep ditch the fence was built over and pulled the tape to the other side.
‘It’s Jamie’s twenty-first party tonight. Michelle said she told you about it but reckons you’ll do your usual thing and hide in your hotel room. Why don’t you come? Be sociable for once.’
‘No thanks. You can let go now.’
Michael released the tape and stepped over the ditch to stand in front of her. ‘Are you always going to be like this?’
‘When it comes to you, yes.’
‘Oh, come on, Sophie. I can’t believe you’re still hanging on to that. It was years ago.’
She gave him a filthy look and stepped around him, wanting to get on with walking the course.
‘No wonder you have no friends, when you won’t go anywhere or see anyone, even just to be friendly.’
Sophie turned around, stalked back to him and poked a finger hard into his chest. ‘The reason I have no friends, Michael, is because of you.’
‘That’s bullshit. No one gives a toss what happened at that camp. They probably don’t even remember.’
Sophie blinked. Was he being serious? When Sophie was fifteen, Michael Fenton had not only persuaded her to sleep with him in the back seat of a car – an act she certainly wasn’t ready for – he’d then collected twenty dollars from each of his sniggering mates and branded her a slut in front of the whole camp. She’d had to endure the sneers of the other ponyclubbers for two more endless days – during which Michael totally ignored her – before Tess came to pick her up.
She did try to talk to Tess, but her aunt wasn’t interested in a fifteen-year-old’s private hell. One day after arriving home, Sophie decided that if suicide was good enough for her mother, then it was damn well good enough for her. No one cared anyway. Now, standing in front of Michael, she flinched away from the memory of sitting in a crimson-stained bath, waiting to die, while Tess stared bleary-eyed at the television in another room.
Michael Fenton didn’t know what she’d done. No one except Tess, her father, Dr Charlton and some paid-off medical workers knew. Sophie sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘So youll come for drinks?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ She turned away, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. She needed to get this course walked and head back to the float. Buck might have pulled himself loose and be running around causing chaos.
Michael reached out and pulled her to a stop. She stared at his handsome face and then down at his hand, holding hers. He let her go.
‘I really am sorry about what happened between us. We were both t
oo young to know what we were doing.’
She nodded, unable to speak.
‘Listen, why don’t we go out sometime, just the two of us? Dinner or a drink or whatever you like. Somewhere quiet where we could, you know, just talk.’
Sophie stared at him. ‘Are you asking me out on a date?’
‘Yeah, I guess I am.’
She shook her head, amazed by life’s strange twists. Then, without answering, she turned and walked away.
Eight
Old punters in checked trilbies and worn suits leaned over the fence of Penola Racing Club’s mounting yard. Their leathery faces crinkled as they squinted and studied the thoroughbreds walking and jogging past. Some made notes in their race books, others scratched chins or sucked at their teeth before turning away and heading toward their favourite bookmakers. Aaron watched them as Pollyanna pranced and snorted beside him.
He knew all the serious punters and most of the part-timers. In the days when his father trained, the less informed would sidle up to Rodger Laidlaw and ask about the runners. The truly dedicated ones – the ones who crawled out of bed every morning to stand in the freezing pre-dawn watching trackwork – didn’t bother. They already knew everything there was to know, and if they did have questions, they’d rely on their network of contacts for information.
As he walked Pollyanna along the fence, the punters nodded politely before their gazes slid away onto the more favoured horses. Pollyanna’s dapple-grey coat was dark with sweat and Aaron had yet to prove himself equal to his father. But he would. One day.
Two young women in fancy hats and long wool coats used their youth and good looks to manoeuvre through the older men to the front of the rail. As Aaron passed, they giggled behind their hands. The prettier – a tall, long-haired brunette – gave him the look. The one that said, ‘Come and talk to me later’.
A month ago, he would have sought her out. Asked her to watch the race with him, maybe invited her out for a drink. And if he was lucky, she’d stick around for few weeks, pretend the early mornings and constant equine distraction didn’t bother her. Play at being his girlfriend for a while until the appeal wore off. Never anything more. No matter how well he treated the women in his life, they never stayed. Horseracing was glamorous only from the outside.