The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  We’re both wise old owls, these days, she reminded herself. We know we must tough this out. As she wound down the window, though, her pulses were hammering. ‘Give me just a minute.’

  The flat cap nodded as he stepped back, and his fox terrier – barking furiously at Ronnie’s brace of heelers – was silenced by the sharp rap of a leather cane against a polished boot, promptly sitting and staring up at his master. Lester had kept the breed as long as Ronnie had known him, each as loyal, fierce and disciplined as he was. He was there to welcome her out of well-trained duty, every instinct in his body undoubtedly wanting to snarl, bite and chase her away again, just as she wanted to turn and run for the hills.

  *

  Lester eyed the horsebox with supreme distaste. It wasn’t the one she’d come in last time. That had at least looked like livestock transport. He had no time for these modern coach-built contraptions that looked like big camper vans. The stud’s old hunting box was all that was needed to get a beast from A to B. But Ronnie had always been one for shiny new things.

  She was messaging on that phone of hers. The Captain would have exploded at such bad manners. Lester, whose steely resolve was hard-wired, would take every extra second on offer. His stupid old heart was racing faster than it had in a long while, even when Pip told him the Captain had died. Beside him, Stubbs started to growl, picking up on his master’s tension, throat revving like a small strimmer.

  Sucking his teeth, Lester gave the arrivals yard a sweeping glance. It was immaculate, not a blade of hay or a weed in sight. The same was true of the two stable-yards beyond the arches. Known unimaginatively as Big and Small, they had no modern gizmos, like wash-downs and solariums, but they were beautifully looked after and supremely fit for purpose. That was exactly how Lester felt they should stay.

  *

  In the cab, Ronnie’s fingers worked swiftly on her phone screen, deft and agile as she stroked her way to her Personal Contacts, scrolling up and down the many numbers, emails and addresses with one last affectionate look before tapping Delete All. Her phone asked her whether she was certain; did she want to back up her numbers first? No, she didn’t, she told it. She was perfectly certain, thank you. And in an instant, a hundred or more fast friendships were gone. The tension melted with them.

  Ronnie was always happiest living in the moment.

  Twenty-seven years ago, when she had gone from receiving 250 Christmas cards to none, abandoning old bonds had been a far more painful process, her departure leaving a bomb crater. Now she knew how it felt to slip between lives, and coming home meant travelling back in time. Memories had always made her edgy. She kept only a very few in easy reach. Important phone numbers were among them.

  She could remember them from years ago – Hermia’s had been Chipping Hampton 410, Mr Walcote the vet 127, here at home 453. She had long since embraced ten-figure dialling, the digital age and messaging, but the numbers were among those etched as permanently in her head as the lines in Lester’s face.

  She knew the stallion man would approve of the first part of her plan.

  ‘Lester!’ she greeted him now, briefly enjoying the height advantage as she stood on the lorry’s cab step looking down on his grey head, as neatly clipped as the coats of the horses in his care.

  ‘You made good time.’ He didn’t look up.

  ‘I always was a good-time girl, as well you know.’ She laughed, landing beside him. ‘Do you like my wheels?’

  ‘It’s very smart.’

  ‘Goes like the clappers.’

  Be British. Be polite. Be unremittingly upbeat. Just don’t mention the war. They both knew the Percy rules.

  With a lot of shrill barking, her younger heeler, Olive, goat-hopped down from cab to step to cobbles and went into a stiff-legged dance around Stubbs. Enid, as doddery as poor Lester, required lifting down.

  ‘The younger one’s a sex-mad virago,’ she told him, watching her little dominatrix turn on the snarling scare tactics, Lester’s dog rolling, supplicant-style, onto his back. ‘But I can see she’ll have no trouble from him.’

  Lester bristled as Olive checked out his dog’s scrotum. ‘Should get her neutered too as she’s a mongrel.’

  ‘She’s not a mongrel, Lester, she’s a Lancashire heeler.’ She didn’t seem remotely offended.

  ‘If you say so.’ He watched the little dog, which was a pretty thing, like a beefed-up dachshund with bat ears.

  ‘It’s a very old breed,’ Ronnie told him, setting the second dog down. ‘They were used to drive cattle. Tough as old boots. There you go, your boy has an ally now.’ Elderly Enid had marched in to bark at her daughter to back off. Rolling over onto his belly, Stubbs scrabbled up to make formal, bottom-sniffing introductions. ‘She’s a very controlling mother and another terrible tart, but she does have good manners.’ She shot him a sideways smile. ‘And she’ll be rounding up that herd of yearlings faster than a quad-bike before you know it.’

  Lester thawed a little. He didn’t do small-talk, but dog-talk soothed him, and he’d forgotten how indefatigable Ronnie could be, the sort of person who made everybody she met feel they were in on a terrific joke. Lester had always liked her energy. Her mother had been the same. Earthy, unpretentious and refreshingly straight-speaking, they were a family of never-say-die ralliers. And Ronnie had an exceptional eye for a horse.

  ‘You brought the same two as last time?’ He nodded at the lorry container.

  ‘Quite different. Take a look.’

  Leading the way around to the back, Lester tried to hide how lame he was, but Ronnie had the Percy eye for conformation in man and beast. ‘Had a fall?’

  ‘Cold weather,’ he muttered.

  ‘Arthritic hips, more like.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Ronnie felt an unwanted memory pull at her sleeve. She and Hermia had taken childish delight in concocting witty replies to Lester’s catchphrase. It had driven him mad, especially when he was teaching them to ride.

  ‘I say so,’ she said now, the stock response. The Captain had been the only one allowed to add and what I say goes around here.

  She could already imagine conversations between Lester and the Horsemaker, who habitually said ‘so it is’ in his soft Irish burr. It was a perfect match, but telling him that certainly wasn’t part of the plan just yet. Getting him to look her in the eye was the first step.

  ‘Had my linchpins replaced last year,’ she told him, patting her hips fondly. ‘Titanium. I’ll give you the number of my consultant.’

  He cast her hips a brief look of horror, as though she’d suggested he augment his chest with three cup sizes of silicone. ‘I’m good for a few years yet.’

  He looked so old and vulnerable that Ronnie was fighting an almost overwhelming urge to put a hand on his arm. But they would both be mortified by that. Lester and Ronnie had never once comforted one another, through a thousand humiliations, falls, triumphs, tragedies and the bitter secrets that had finally broken her marriage.

  She didn’t want to remember any of those.

  ‘Got anything in here I’ll like?’ He watched as she pressed the button for the hydraulic ramp.

  ‘You should know you don’t need to ask me that, Lester.’ She laughed. They were always on safe ground while four hoofs were standing on it too.

  There was a loud whinny from inside, the unmistakably fierce, earthy scream of a stallion ready to claim new territory.

  Ronnie caught the side of Lester’s mouth twitching, then turning down. Was that a smile? As the ramp lowered and he looked in, there was no mistaking it. A toothy smile.

  Everyone smiled when they saw Beck. He had the brightest, boldest head of any horse Ronnie had known. If bone structure could be patented, Beck’s would be filed under Mythical. Also under Pain in the Arse, High Maintenance, Heartbreaking and Dangerous.

  ‘I swapped two sane, well-mannered horses for this bastard and an Oakley,’ she explained. ‘He’s my magic beans. What do you think?’ She started to
tug back the ramp gates.

  Lester’s weak eyes strained to focus, but even misted, he knew he’d rarely seen a better-looking animal. Clipped out, his coat had the same luminescent shine as mother-of-pearl. Huge dark eyes blazed over the high partition, nostrils flared like hollow conches, ears like small sails tacking left then right, head bobbing and mane tossing. Like surf. He was a hippocampus bursting from the sea, a tsunami of a horse.

  ‘Looks fair,’ he muttered.

  ‘Let’s give him a moment to look round.’ Ronnie clicked and soothed as the horse threw his head higher, glaring furiously out at his new territory, striking out in front and behind with such force the sides of the box bulged. ‘He’s bloody hard to handle.’

  Lester knew he’d soon sort that. ‘Breeding?’

  ‘Ninety-nine per cent thoroughbred, the other devil incarnate. He’s branded Holsteiner. Competed Grand Prix in Germany by the age of eight.’

  ‘Dressage?’

  ‘Show-jumper. Too screwed up to do the job now, mind you. He went to the Middle East for the price of a small oil well just before the London Olympics, but he hated it, put his leg through a wall and severed a tendon before anyone had sat on him. He was returned to Germany to stand at stud where his semen sold for a grand a straw. They should have left him there, happily shagging the dummy mare, but some bright spark thought it would be fun to bring him back into work.’ She cleared her throat sheepishly. ‘He was sold to Britain over the internet for mad money. I found out later a lottery winner had bought him for his new girlfriend. She was completely out-horsed, of course. No amount of pretty leatherwork and diamanté, gel-track arenas and calming supplements could stop her falling off him. He just got madder, badder and more highly strung. When the couple split up, he was sold on to a local dealer, then pillar-to-posted from one end of the country to the other. A pro I know recognised him in an auction catalogue, and I picked him up for a song. By then his reputation for decking jockeys was notorious. He’s been on a friend’s yard since. He’s very alpha, very messed up and very spoiled.’

  The grey stallion had stopped head-throwing and screaming now. Turning to look at Lester, his huge eyes set beautifully against that wide silver plate of a forehead, he suddenly flattened his ears, neck snaking out like an eel strike.

  Lester stepped calmly back on the ramp. ‘Progeny?’

  ‘Already competing in Germany. World beaters across country. Fearless.’

  There was an indignant whinny from further back in the box. ‘And that is Dickon, my old eventer, who is just as brave but slightly more accident prone.’

  Lester’s eyesight was too poor to make out more than an off-centre white blaze on a long dark face.

  ‘Also from Germany. He earned his stable name because the first time I saw him at a horse trials in Holland he performed like a dream, despite having a complete dick on board. Young Rory Midwinter used to ride him for me. He was quite something in his day.’ She let out a giggly growl, leaving Lester uncertain whether she was talking about the jockey or the horse.

  They stepped back as Beck let out a screeching roar so loud the horsebox shook, head thrown back, black eyes bulging, nostrils cavernous. Dickon joined him with an alarmed whinny. Then they heard another roar behind them, squeaking and rattling, like a runaway gun carriage.

  Ronnie swung round just as a familiar small blue car careered into the yard, seeing the horsebox ramp a second too late.

  ‘Watch out!’ She pulled Lester out of the way as it mounted the ramp, a fox terrier lost somewhere beneath it.

  *

  The picture of Ellis in his zombie Batman outfit that Carly had posted on her Facebook wall the previous evening was still making her phone pop every few minutes as a friend commented on how much he’d grown or how much they missed her, Ash and the kids. She was battling down a wave of homesickness for army life so intense she felt as though somebody had just punched her in the throat.

  ‘You all right, hun?’ Janine had let herself in through the back door and was unloading the contents of a large pink plastic toolbox on the breakfast bar. ‘I’ve got some lovely new transfers to try out on you.’

  As soon as she’d heard Carly was waitressing at the Austens’ party, she’d insisted on applying a fresh set. ‘Free advertising. I’m showcasing my Christmas selection.’

  ‘Can I have reindeers?’ requested Carly.

  ‘You’re getting Christmas puds.’ She selected a dung-coloured polish and a plastic page of what looked like squished greenflies. ‘I’ve got miniature frosted holly leaves.’

  They could hear Ash thumping downstairs, big feet heavy on the treads. ‘I’m going out,’ he shouted from the hallway. ‘I’ll be back late.’

  ‘Wait!’ Carly turned, fingers clamped in Janine’s vice-like grip as she was attacked with a big emery board.

  He appeared in the doorway, short black Puffa coat making his torso look huge, like a superhero from a comic strip. ‘I told you I’m out tonight.’

  ‘You said you’d give me a lift.’

  ‘Someone else’ll do it.’ He pulled a beanie down so low it almost obscured his eyes, reaching back to fish out his sweatshirt hood and pull that over too. All Carly could see of his face now was a stubbled jaw.

  They’d had a furious row when he’d got in last night, his excuse for abandoning Ellis to trick-or-treating with his older cousins simply that he was ‘sorting out a bit of bother’. He’d shipped too many beers to make much of an argument, just a lot of noise that had woken all three kids. In the end, Carly had banished him downstairs to the sofa, letting Ellis and Sienna crawl in with her, lying awake and fuming with unspoken indignation at his pig-headed unpredictability. They’d apologised over breakfast. At least, Carly had apologised, then asked him to apologise, and he’d grunted, nodded and agreed to drive her to the farm. Now he was doing it again.

  ‘But you promised, Ash.’ The last time she’d relied on a lift to work from another member of the Turner family, they’d taken her via a cashpoint, petrol station and drive thru, making her almost an hour late. ‘Your truck’s better in ice. This is good money. It could lead to more work.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I might be working tonight too.’

  ‘On your hangover.’ Janine cackled, reaching for her nail primer.

  ‘Doing what?’ demanded Carly.

  ‘Labouring.’ The jaw was set in a determined line.

  ‘At night? What sort of labouring?’

  He shrugged. ‘Something Skulley’s got on the go.’

  ‘Illegal, then,’ teased Janine, winking at Carly.

  Ash’s smile, so rare these days, flashed on and off. ‘We’re respectable old boys now, sis.’

  ‘Better take your bowler hat and umbrella then.’ She stuck out her pierced tongue.

  ‘Ash, tell me it’s not illegal,’ Carly demanded. ‘Which one’s Skulley?’

  ‘You haven’t met him.’ Ash dropped a kiss on his wife’s head, ruffling her hair. It was the most affection he’d shown her all week, and Carly knew bringing money in would make him feel better about himself. She just wished he wouldn’t spring things like this on her. He’d gone from career soldier to jobbing mercenary. His gym bag hadn’t shifted out of the hall in a fortnight.

  ‘Never ask a Turner man too much about what he’s up to,’ Janine advised, after he’d gone.

  ‘Or tell a Turner wife what to do,’ Carly snapped. ‘So which one is Skulley?’

  ‘Ink’s brother. Traveller, sleeves of skull tattoos. He lives up near Coventry now, but sometimes still hangs around with the Compton boys.’

  Most of the wider circle around Ash’s old gang had grown up on the estate or been at school together on and off. With expulsions, travelling, truancy and remand, theirs was a pack that constantly mutated then as now.

  ‘And he’s kosher, you reckon?’

  ‘As a bagel, love. They’ve all seen their share of bother, but they’re good lads. Look at Flynn. He earns good money.’ She winked. ‘It’s a man’s
job, isn’t it, putting shoes on horses?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Carly muttered, knowing Janine was deliberately winding her up.

  ‘All the ladies love him. They love a hunky fitness instructor too, mind you. You’d better watch out there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re always on his case, Carl. Lighten up a bit. Turner women don’t nag. Not if they want to stay Turners.’ Janine selected the white polish for the puddings’ icing.

  ‘He’s not been going into college, Janine,’ she whispered.

  Janine gave world-weary sigh. ‘I guessed as much. Tenner says he won’t last until Christmas. I know my baby brother.’

  ‘And I know my husband!’ Carly snarled, fed up with Janine’s big-sister-knows-best attitude. ‘He’s got to get his priorities right.’

  ‘He is.’ Janine regarded her over the pot of lacquer, the wolf-pale Turner eyes narrowing between their thick black lines of make-up. ‘I can’t see Ash making fat Cotswolds housewives do star jumps in the back garden, can you? It’s never suited him. We’re a travelling family. We make things, sell things, mend things, paint things.’ She held up a decorated nail.

  ‘He’s always wanted to be a fitness trainer, even in the army.’

  ‘You know your husband,’ Janine said sarcastically, one plucked eyebrow riding high.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So you’ll know he wanted to be a dental technician as a kid. Always tinkering about with people’s teeth. Had Grandma Betty’s dentures out that many times to clean them she looked like Joey Essex when she smiled.’

  Carly hadn’t known that. She glared at her nails, saying nothing.

  ‘I’m making it up.’ Janine cackled. ‘Had you going there for a minute, though, didn’t I?’

  Carly forced a laugh. It didn’t do to cross Janine when she was waving a nail-polish brush around. She wasn’t sure she did know Ash as well as she’d once thought. He’d never hidden the fact he’d been a troublemaker once, but it was unsettling how closely his past and present rubbed together here. She longed to be able to open up to Janine, to tell her how damaged the conflicts her baby brother had seen had left him, how he screamed himself awake at night and raged for no reason, how his mood swings from high tension to torpidity frightened her and the children. But she couldn’t betray him to the family who hero-worshipped him.