by Kate Lattey
C’mon, spit it out, I told myself, and took a breath. “I just came to say…”
But John interrupted me. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes sir.”
“Well?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Why aren’t you?”
“I came to tell you that my dad can’t come and help you out today.”
John lifted a weathered hand and scratched his jaw. “Is that right?”
“He’s sick,” I said weakly. “He wanted me to come up here and tell you. He’d have come himself, but he’s still in bed.”
Bruce and John exchanged glances, and I knew they didn’t believe me. Sweat prickled across the surface of my skin, wondering if either of them would challenge my lie, but John just shrugged.
“Well then, I suppose I’ll have to make do without him.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his ambivalence, and I don’t think I was really, but I was deeply embarrassed by how little he cared whether my father was here or not. He clearly wasn’t disappointed by my news, or at all surprised. For some reason, his obvious expectation that Dad was just straight up lazy was far more embarrassing to me than the fact that he knew my father had a drinking problem. It reflected badly on me, because I was sure that people thought I was the same way. I’m not like him, I wanted to scream. All I needed was a chance to prove it.
“I can stick around and help instead,” I offered, crossing my fingers tightly as I spoke. “Since Dad can’t be here. I don’t mind, and I’ll work hard, I swear.”
John’s brows knotted together, and my heart leapt at his moment of indecision. I turned towards Bruce for affirmation, but before he could say anything to back me up, John had already made up his mind.
“No. You need to go to school.”
I wanted to beg him to reconsider, but he’d turned around and walked off before I got the chance. Bruce put a hand on my shoulder and I looked up at him, unable to hide the disappointment on my face.
“C’mon mate. I’ll drop you into town, eh?” he said sympathetically. “Since you’ve probably missed the bus by now.”
I knew when I was beaten, and followed Bruce back to his ute in dejected silence.
“You haven’t been to see the old man lately, have you?” Bruce asked as we drove into Waipukurau a few minutes later.
We’d paused at the cottage to give me a chance to change back into my school uniform and retrieve my schoolbag, luckily before Mum had got home to discover how late I was going to be. We were on the outskirts of Waipuk, only a couple of kilometres from school, and I looked sadly out at the brilliant day. What a waste, to spend a day like this trapped inside a classroom.
I shook my head in answer to Bruce’s question, though I was pretty sure he knew that already. “I…no. Not for a while.”
“Why’s that?” Bruce looked at me sideways. “Thought you’d be riding that pony of yours down there every other weekend to bother him.”
I shook my head again as he pulled up at an intersection and checked the traffic. I tried to think of a good excuse.
“It’s just…well, I’m a bit tall for Tani now, and it’s a long way to ride bareback.”
Bruce stalled the ute, making us both lurch forward in our seats.
“Sorry. Damn truck.” He fiddled with the gear stick, wrenching it back into first, then turned towards me. The indicator ticked loudly in the cab as he asked the question I’d dreaded hearing. “Bareback? What happened to that saddle I gave you?”
I couldn’t lie to him, as much as I wanted to save face. “Dad sold it.”
“When?”
I shrugged. “Ages ago. It doesn’t matter. I hardly ride anymore.”
Bruce looked disappointed, but he returned his attention to the road, driving out carefully and accelerating as much as he could in the old truck.
“And you hardly ride at all, you say? Horse mad boy like you? I’d have thought that with all of John’s place to explore, you’d be like a pig in muck,” he commented.
So I told him what had happened – about the wasps, the hay paddock, and then about riding Misty. Bruce listened in silence, then sighed.
“Well, I won’t say those weren’t boneheaded things to do, though the wasps couldn’t be helped. But John’s not an unreasonable bloke.” He looked across at me as we turned down the road towards school. “I could have a word with him, if you want. Might make a difference, you never know.”
I felt a flutter of hope, but it died quickly. “No, you’re all right.”
“No?” Bruce pulled over to the side of the road and put the ute in neutral. “Why not?”
I tried to think of how to explain it. Because I’d asked and asked, but John still didn’t want me. I was tired of being rejected, of being looked at like I was something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. I wasn’t sure I could face it again.
“Just…don’t worry about it. I’ll go and see Murray sometime this week after school,” I said, opening the door. “And if you need any help bringing your hay in, you know where I live.”
I said that last part lightly, but I meant it from the bottom of my heart. John wasn’t the only one around here with a farm, I reminded myself. And Bruce had let me help him out before. But the look on his face quickly crushed any expectations I might have had.
“I would, but we’re selling up.” I stared at him, half-in and half-out of the ute. “Mate, it’s hard enough to say it out loud without having you look at me like that,” he said, and I tried to make my expression neutral. “But we’ve had a dry summer, and we had to sell off half the stock just to stay afloat, and even then we’ve barely scraped by. We’re up to our eyeballs in debt right now, and we’ve got no choice.” He stared straight ahead through the dirty windscreen and repeated his words. “We’ve got no choice.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bruce shrugged. “Ah, well. It’s life, isn’t it? We’re moving up north, where they get a bit more rain. Buy a smaller place, run a specialist flock. The wife wants to get a few goats and try her hand at making cheese. Mad, I reckon, but she’s dead keen on it.” He looked at me and smiled. “The old man’s stubborn, reckons he’s staying. If you do go and see him, see if you can change his mind, eh? We’d rather have him with us.”
I nodded slowly, thinking of how heartbroken Murray must be to lose the farm he loved so much. Then I looked again at Bruce’s face, and knew that he wouldn’t be the only one grieving.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Good lad. Hey Jonty?” he added as I started to shut the ute door behind me.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t give up, eh? John might change his mind, and he might not, but don’t let a little setback like that stop you from going after what you want. You’ve got farming in your blood, boy. Keep trying, and you’ll find your way eventually.”
I thought about Murray all day, feeling increasingly guilty that I’d neglected him so badly since we’d moved to the cottage. As soon as school was over, I walked down to his house, but nobody was home. I knocked on the door and peered into the windows, but there was no response. I was starting to panic when a woman walked past with her dog, and noticed me.
“If you’re looking for the old fella, he’s not there.”
I jumped off the front step and walked in her direction, noticing guiltily that the lawn needed mowing, and the flowerbeds were full of weeds.
“D’you know where he is?”
She eyed me suspiciously. “Who’re you?”
“I’m the gardener.”
She looked around sceptically. “Not doing a very good job, are you?”
“I’m new. D’you know where Mr Paget is?”
“Hospital.” Her eyes lit up at the alarm on my face. “Check-ups, or something. They’ve been taking him in every week to get looked at since he had that stroke.”
I just blinked at her, then slowly nodded. “Right.”
“He’ll be back this evening, or tomorrow.” She pur
sed her lips. “I’m sure you’ll get plenty of gardening done by then.”
I stood up straight and looked her right in the eye. “I’m sure I will.”
I weeded the garden until it got dark, but Murray didn’t come home that night. And when I went back a few days later, the house was empty, and a For Sale sign was stuck in the grass berm outside.
Two weeks later, the place was sold to a developer from Dannevirke. He subdivided the paddocks, tearing down the fences and flattening out the land, then selling it off in small blocks. A young couple bought the house, tore out the rose gardens, and replaced the old wooden garage with a big metal prefab to house the husband’s sleek rally cars. Nothing looked the same, and after a while, I went out of my way to stop walking past it, unable to bear witness to the destruction of so many memories. I’d been happy there, at least for a while. And in the darkest times, it had been a refuge for me.
I never did see Murray again. The last I heard, he’d gone up north with Bruce and Belinda. I hoped they were happy, and were making a good go of things with their goats. I thought about writing to him, letting him know that I was still taking good care of his pony, but I didn’t know their address, and the longer I left it, the harder it was to find a way to start.
A couple of years later, I adopted a stray goat with a broken leg that had turned up on the side of our road. He was a wily character, and he always had a bit of an awkward way of moving around, even after he recovered from his injury. I named him Murray, figuring the old man would’ve got a kick out of that.
KEN
A few blocks from school, there was a shabby pale green house with a weed-infested paddock out the front where horses often grazed. I’d knocked on the owner’s door years ago when I’d been looking for somewhere to keep Taniwha, and had been told in no uncertain terms to clear off. But in that brief visit I’d caught sight of a block of concrete stables up beyond the house, a row of small taped-off paddocks, and a sand arena filled with jumps, half-hidden behind a row of scraggly willow trees. Whenever I walked past the place, I stopped to greet the horses in the front paddock, and they soon learned to come over when they saw me approaching, for a scratch or a handful of grass. Occasionally, I could catch a glimpse of someone riding in the arena, appearing and disappearing between the trees, and I leaned on the fence and watched, wondering what they were doing. I missed riding, missed the challenge that Taniwha had once presented, but I had no idea how to find another horse to ride. I challenged myself to walk up the driveway again and knock on the pale green house’s door, to find out whether that unequivocal ‘No’ I’d received years ago still stood, but I never quite talked myself into it.
Then one afternoon, I was scratching the ears of a scrawny chestnut horse in the front paddock when I heard the sound of fast approaching hoof beats. The chestnut horse spooked and swung away from me, dancing across the scraggly grass with his tail in the air, and I turned around to see a bright bay horse with a white blaze cantering down the driveway towards me, eyes rolling and stirrup irons banging against his sides.
I jumped into the horse’s path, waving my arms and shouting, and the big bay skidded to a stop on the gravel and stood staring at me, his nostrils flared red.
“Woah, mate. Easy does it.”
I took a step towards the horse, and for a moment I thought he would duck past me, but he seemed to be paralysed by his own indecision, and I managed to catch hold of his dangling rein. He was foaming heavily around his mouth and his sweaty sides heaved in and out. I ran a hand down his tightly-muscled neck, talking to him some more.
“What’s happened to you?”
I went to lift the reins over his ears, but he flung his head up in fearful protest, so I held him behind the bit and led him forward. The stirrups bumped him again, and he jumped sideways nervously, so I stopped and crossed the irons over his saddle before carrying on.
We passed the green house, the horse still toey and blowing hard, and walked on up to the yard. There was a row of looseboxes on one side, and a black horse at the closest end whinnied a greeting to the wild-eyed bay I was leading. The yard was a mess, with bits of junk and rubbish lying around, and it didn’t look like it had ever been swept. Opposite the stables was a low building filled with badly-stacked hay bales, and an open door at one end revealed a tack room full of saddles and bridles.
Just beyond the hay shed was the arena, and in the gate to the arena was a man with a face like thunder. He started towards me, and the bay horse stopped of his own accord and threw his head up in fright, taking a couple of quick steps backwards. I moved with him, speaking softly.
“Woah there. You’re all right.”
“Don’t let go of him!” the man shouted at me, and I was about to tell him that I wasn’t going to when the horse reared, tearing the reins from my lax grip.
Fortunately, he didn’t spin away, so I was able to grab one rein again as it fell slack against his neck. I held him tighter this time, and the man had the sense not to try and come any closer.
“Bloody mongrel horse,” he grumbled.
I recognised him as the owner who’d shut the door in my face years ago, and I didn’t blame the horse for not wanting to approach him. I reached up and stroked the bay’s hard neck. His muscles were like rock, and veins were popping out against his damp coat.
“I don’t think he likes you,” I told the man bluntly.
“Tell him the feeling’s mutual.” He narrowed his eyes at me as the bay horse pressed his muzzle against my shoulder, then into the side of my neck, like he was begging me to protect him. “He seems to like you all right,” he said suspiciously. “Who are you, anyway?”
There was something about this man that got my back up, and I abandoned any attempts at being polite.
“I’m the guy who was walking past and caught your horse for you, instead of letting him run out onto the road.”
Part of me couldn’t wait to get out of there, but I could tell that he was still angry, and I didn’t want him to take out his frustration on the horse. He shifted his feet, and I saw the long spurs attached to his worn riding boots. Without thinking, I moved slightly closer to the bay horse, who huffed out a breath as he crowded in against me.
“You obviously know something about horses.” The man seemed to be waiting for a response, so I nodded.
“I have a pony at home.”
“Ever ridden a real horse?”
I looked sideways at the sweating bay, then back at him, knowing what he was asking. “No.”
“You wanna?”
I should’ve refused. Should’ve told him to risk his own neck instead of mine, and left. But I didn’t, and that moment of hesitation changed my life.
“Up to you,” the man said with a shrug. “If you don’t have the guts to give it a go…”
Nobody ever accused me of being scared and got away with it. I pointed towards the arena. “In there?”
He nodded, and I led the horse forward. He moved reluctantly, but did as he was told.
The man fell into step next to me. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Jonty Fisher. What’s yours, old man?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, clearly not liking my tone. “Ken Hobson,” he muttered. “And watch your tone.”
I stopped, and looked at him. Ken was cut from the same cloth as my father, and I knew that he was testing me. I had to stand up for myself now, or he’d treat me like crap forever.
“Watch your horse,” I replied.
I wasn’t usually so rude to people I didn’t know, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Ken just grunted and shut the arena gate behind us, then nodded at a wooden mounting block sitting nearby.
“Go on then.”
“What’s his name?” I asked as I led the horse to the block and uncrossed the stirrups.
“Meataxe. Because he’s bloody mad as one.”
Ken watched as I stepped up onto the mounting block, took my reins up in one hand and slid my foot into the stirrup. It had
happened to be a uniform-free day at school, so fortunately I was wearing jeans and boots instead of shorts and knee socks. The fact that I wasn’t wearing a helmet barely occurred to me. I’d outgrown the one that had been given to me at Pony Club, and since I hardly rode Taniwha any more, I hadn’t bothered to buy a replacement.
I swung my leg over the bay horse’s back and settled into the hard leather saddle, then reached forward and patted his sinewy neck. He was restless, shifting his weight, so I let him walk forward. His stride was long and quick, but he was tense, holding his body tightly together, and for the first time I understood what people meant when they called horses ‘ticking time bombs’. I tried to stay as relaxed as I could, gently stroking the horse’s neck with one hand as we walked around the arena. I couldn’t tell if Ken had been joking about his name, but even if he wasn’t, there was no way I was going to call a horse by that name. I let the big bay go pretty much wherever he wanted, and after one full circuit, he came to a halt, facing into the corner.
“Don’t let him do that!” Ken shouted at me. “Do you know how to ride or not?”
I pulled the horse’s head out of the corner and nudged him back onto the rail. Just be good, I wanted to tell him. Just be a good boy. But he didn’t know how. He threw his head into the air and picked up a hurried trot, and I struggled to keep up with his unbalanced pace. We trotted a full lap around the arena, and then another. I shortened my reins, but he just got stronger and pulled hard against me when I asked him to slow down. Instead, he got faster, and I didn’t know how to make him slow, or calm down. I could feel my confusion mirrored by the horse, mixed with a building sense of panic, and I knew I had to get him to relax somehow.
“Woah, mate.”
I reached forward to stroke his neck, hoping to reassure him. The horse flinched away from my touch, plunged forward into a canter, flung his head between his knees and exploded. I sat the first buck, was thrown onto his shoulder on the second, and hit the ground hard on the third.