The Guilty Party

by Mel McGrath

  ‘I don’t ride.’

  Anna looks as me as if I’m mad. ‘Everyone rides. You get the coffee on and I’ll nip up the road in the car and call the stables.’

  An hour or so later, we’re at the riding school in Easton, a couple of miles from Fortuneswell. Anna has found a hat to fit among the spares and is helping saddle up the horses with one of those teenaged girls who hang around stables. I’m in the tack room with another, even younger-looking, trying on hats and feeling oddly dissociated.

  ‘Let’s try a seven and three quarters?’ The stable hand fetches a hat from a line hanging near the door then slips it over my hair. ‘How does that feel? You’ve ridden before?’

  ‘Ish, and not for a long time. I don’t really think of myself as a rider.’

  The girl fiddles with my chin strap and stands back to admire her work. ‘Hayley’s putting you on Jason? He’s, like, literally bombproof? You’ll be fine?’

  Outside in the yard, Anna is absorbed adjusting the girth of a chestnut horse and only notices my arrival when alerted by the restless movement of the animal.

  ‘This one’s mine,’ she says, patting the chestnut on the flank. ‘Yours is the roan over there. They always put their less confident riders on him. I’ve told her you’re rusty but sound.’ The speckled pony is drooping its head in the sun, half asleep. ‘Hayley’s just saddling up her mount.’

  Anna stands up with her back leaning against the chestnut’s flank and gives me the once-over.

  ‘You look brilliant, like you were born to it.’ Anna has reached for the reins and is pulling them tight. A light foam bubbles from the horse’s mouth onto the stable yard.

  ‘I don’t really know whether this is a good idea. I don’t feel great.’ There was a storm last night, but it did not wake me. The owl did not wake me. I thought I heard the house moving but perhaps I was dreaming.

  You’ll dream about your future.

  I saw you waving but I didn’t think . . .

  ‘Last night, in the water . . .?’

  ‘We were all disgracefully pissed, weren’t we?’ Anna laughs. She cocks her head. ‘Are you OK, Cassie?’

  That’s a good question though it has no answer. I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. If I keep what I know about the drowned woman to myself, if I do nothing to make amends, part of me will die with her. If I speak out, I will lose the only friends I’ve ever had.

  ‘Anna, about last night . . .’

  Anna’s eyes flare. In the tremble of her lips do I detect something like panic? Then there comes a clatter of hooves and a lean woman with a wind-leathered face appears on a dappled grey hunter and the relief that comes off Anna is like a quiet spring breeze.

  The woman introduces herself as Hayley and directing herself to me says, ‘Is that helmet a bit loose maybe?’ In an instant, Anna comes over and adjusts the straps but even with the straps tightened, the helmet still wobbles when I move my head.

  ‘I think I might need a smaller size.’

  ‘That one looks perfect to me,’ Anna says.

  Hayley slides the stirrup buckles up into their keepers and turned her attentions back to me. ‘So, all good? Had much experience in the saddle?’

  Anna winks and laughs. ‘You bloody bet she has.’

  Hayley smiles and pretends not to get the joke. ‘Jason will go easy with you. He’s a grand old boy. Oh, have you tightened their girths?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Anna says, going round to where Jason is standing, half asleep, one back leg bent, the hoof tip resting on the stone paving of the yard. Leading the animal to the mounting block she grabs the stirrup on the animal’s far side to help me up then returns to the chestnut, springs up, swings over and gently kicks the animal into a turn.

  ‘We’ll set off then, shall we?’ Hayley goes on ahead along a muddy path.

  Quickly we leave the stable yard and the surrounding shorn paddocks behind. The horses seem relieved to be on the march along a path surrounded by still green bracken. A skylark rises, peeping to draw attention to itself and its now presumably empty nest. Before long the chestnut overtakes Jason and slots itself in behind Hayley’s mount. They’re used to this, Hayley’s horse up ahead and Jason, with his soothing plod and sleepy face, making up the rear. The morning is bright with yellow sunlight. It is cold, though, and my fingers are growing numb. Jason, feeling it on his flank, dips his head and sneezes. There’s a general sense of well being, of horses and humans companionably treading paths that have been trodden a thousand times before. We’re making progress almost without being aware of it. I begin to wish I’d brought gloves like Anna who has, of course, come fully equipped. Behind us, out of sight, lies the stable yard and beyond it, to the north, Fossil Cottage and the quarry. To our left the sea is air force blue, ripped and foamy in the breeze. Up ahead now, a dip in the land gives out to a slope at the top of which lies the grey stone immensity of the Young Offenders Institute.

  Hayley and Anna are way ahead, and deeply engaged in conversation. This too has happened without my noticing but Jason is content to lag behind and I’m not minded to kick him to catch up. In fact I’m beginning to regret this whole enterprise. Something is not right in my head. We plod on for a while until, with a sudden explosion of feathers, a hawk dives into a nearby bush and emerges seconds later with a pigeon in its talons. The movement seems to energise Jason who begins to trot after his stable mates. No tapping the reins seems to slow him and I can’t bring myself to yank on his mouth. Eventually I resign myself to the trot, rising and falling in the saddle, my hat bumping against my skull, alarmingly loose. I can no longer see the other two now. For the first time being on Jason feels a little unsafe.

  As it turns out Hayley and Anna are not far away, just over the brow of the hill, waiting for me. They have both dismounted and Hayley has her back to Anna and is rooting around in a saddlebag.

  ‘Hello, darling! Hayley thought we could do with a warm-up. Are you OK?’

  Why does everyone keep asking me that? In a fond voice, the kind women usually reserve for animals and kids, Anna goes on, ‘Oh, just look at Jason-boy. What a good pony.’

  Hayley turns and presents us with what looks like a flask. Her mount stands passively by, evidently used to this part in the proceedings, his breath noisy in the still air.

  ‘My famous chai,’ says Hayley, handing the grey’s reins to Anna and pouring the tea into three small plastic beakers. She passes one to me.

  ‘You have a problem back there? Anna said you’d be fine to catch up with us.’

  I invent a story about readjusting my helmet, which in truth still feels loose and Hayley has just begun to move towards me to check it when Anna says, ‘It’s fine, honestly. You’re just not used to wearing one.’

  Hayley smiles, reassured.

  The chai is delicious and surprisingly boozy. I go round the back of a small, windblown tree to take a pee. On my return Hayley is standing a little way off with her back to us, talking on the phone, while Anna has hold of the horses.

  ‘Here.’ She hands me Jason’s reins. Just then Hayley finishes up her call and comes over, apologising profusely. We remount and set off once more. Emerging from a small copse, we find ourselves on a long, flat plateau ending in what looks like another quarry. Off to one side is a short row of quarrymen’s cottages whose back windows overlook the sea. Soon, Anna and Hayley have pulled ahead again and appear to be deep in conversation but I am beginning to get the sense that something is off, either with the horse, or perhaps with me. Jason is skittish now, as if bored or uncomfortable. I shout out but the wind carries my voice away and my anxiety only serves to unsettle the horse even further.

  Anna and Hayley are halfway across the plateau when Hayley turns and shouts, makes some forward motion with her arm. I’m assuming she’s telling me which direction to go, so raising a hand to acknowledge her I twirl it to signal that I can’t hear, but Hayley has already turned back and in an instant she and Anna are off on a gallop across the mea
dowland. So that’s what Hayley was signalling. Picking up on all that equine adrenaline, Jason begins to tap dance, blowing air from his nostrils. Pretty soon he’s not listening to anything I might be telling him with the reins or my body. He’s used to this gallop, it’s part of the routine, and he’s not going to be denied it. We are both at the mercy of some primal wildness over which neither I nor the horse have any conscious control. I hear myself cry out, knowing that I am lost to the horse and he to me. Any attempt of mine to slow him down will fail. He’s moved directly from a trot to a gallop, his neck stretched long and forward, nostrils flared and breath sawing the air. There’s nothing for it but to hang on and hope for the best. We’re thundering through the grassland, the horse wheezing with effort, flecks of foam loosening themselves from his mouth and flying by me like silvery arrows. Halfway across the ground grows uneven, and Jason’s body seems to pitch and roll like a small boat on a stormy sea. The saddle is careening madly from one side of his back to the other and this only serves to further destabilise his gait. Immediately I draw the reins tight and press my calves against the animal’s haunches in the hope of improving my purchase but regaining my balance only seems to encourage Jason to speed up. He’s locked his jaw around the bit. He is all wild energy now. With every motion of the animal’s legs, the girth slides wildly, threatening to tip me off. The helmet has fallen over my eyes and I can see almost nothing ahead. I fiddle one-handed with the strap but within seconds the thing has fallen across my forehead again. The only way to see where I’m going is to pull the release tab and watch it drop but the impact seems to alarm Jason further. Me yelling, screaming, Anna, Anna! only serves to panic him. My feet feel as if they are jammed into the stirrups. This is not sustainable. Sooner or later I am going to be unable to stay on and when I fall what will happen then? Will I be dragged or trampled? What if I am thrown? My head is unprotected now. Isn’t this how people break their necks, snap their backs and crack open their skulls?

  The quarry is upon us. There’s a change in sensation as hooves come off the soft earth and begin to hit against chalk. A great scoop filled with the rubble and spoilings of hundreds of years of digging stone lies before us. A terrain of rabbit warrens and invisible sink holes. If Jason gallops into the midst of all that we are both doomed. He’ll trip and I will sail right over his head.

  If I believed in any kind of God I’d be praying now.

  I close my eyes and cling on to the animal’s neck. Moments later, with no warning, the horse grinds to a sudden and miraculous halt, the girth slips, my feet break shy of their stirrups and I feel myself being catapulted into the air. Complete weightlessness, a formidable lightness of being. I want it to last and last. But nothing lasts, not forever, and though time is slow and the microseconds long, I can see the ground coming up fast and I feel my arms come up to protect my head. There’s a terrible thunk. Every part of my body feels jarred and compressed. For a few seconds I think I have blacked out and when I come to everything seems warped and blurry. My face is pressed against the grass and I can’t move anything. A familiar sound digs its way into my consciousness, perhaps it’s this that pulls me back. My chest feels weighted and I’m winded and coughing. But I am OK. I can feel my neck turn and though one eye is gummed shut through the other I can see a blur of pale beige topped with blue which gradually comes into sharper focus. Can that be Dex? It is, I think, it is. What’s he doing here? Dex racing towards me, yelling my name and behind him, in a robe, is a dark-haired young man.

  ‘Mate, are you OK?’ Dex is panting and shock is registering on his face.

  I can stand. With Dex’s help, I can hobble. He is pointing to one of the quarrymen’s cottages. ‘Can you make it that far?’

  Yes, I think I can.

  We reach the door about the same time as the young man, who is clutching the horse’s reins. Nothing readable in his expression though this may be because of the filmy curtain behind my eyes.

  ‘Is she hurt?’ the man asks Dex.

  ‘Not badly, no. I think she’s just in shock. The horse?’

  ‘Not a scratch.’ The young man’s name is Trent. I know this because Dex asks him to take me to the local hospital while he sorts out the horse.

  There is a pain in my chest and through the mist of adrenaline my limbs feel heavy but I already know there is nothing broken. Maybe I’ve cracked a rib. That might account for the pressure in my chest, but there’s nothing medics can do for cracked ribs. All the same, there’s no way I’ll be able to walk back to Fossil Cottage.

  ‘Not hospital.’

  ‘Okay, but you have to wait here with Trent.’ Dex says.

  I’m in no position to argue. We agree that I’ll rest at Trent’s house until Dex has found Hayley and taken Jason back to the stables. Then he’ll return in a cab and bring me back to Fossil Cottage. That way I won’t be alone. Just in case.

  OK then.

  Trent, who has been making a quiet study of his feet all this time, pulls Dex to one side. ‘Maybe you should get dressed properly first?’

  I can’t tell you anything now about Trent’s house except how it smells. Rank and spicy and unmistakably adult. Once he’s settled me on the sofa, Trent, aware of the reek, takes to opening the windows. How slow on the uptake I’ve been. I put that down to the shock of the fall. But I’ve caught up. I am most definitely fully in the picture. Trent was on his way to becoming another entry in the Big Black Book. Not that Trent would have known or even suspected it. Because it’s creepy. The whole idea is off.

  The smell of sex now fading, Trent makes tea and fetches me a couple of ibuprofen before making his excuses and going off to get dressed. When he returns, in jeans and a tight T, he’s all nervous chatter, muttering about how it is on Portland and how nice it is that the island is attracting more weekenders and not just climbers because the climbers are too focused on climbing to be interested in having any fun. And on and on. I’m barely listening. My chest is leaden and my limbs are like poured concrete but nothing in my body is as heavy as the feeling of foreboding, of there being something ungraspable, some malign energy, which has singled me out.

  I thought you were waving.

  If you put the ammonite under your pillow you’ll dream about your future.

  ‘Dex told me you two were an item way back,’ Trent is saying.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, taking a sip of tea. ‘Did he tell you he’s married?’

  I watch Trent’s face go blank, the eyes dart then drift inwards. He’s irritated and disappointed, but none too bothered. It’s only a hook-up after all.

  ‘That’s really his business,’ he says, limply.

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  From inside my jacket pocket my phone rings. It’s Anna.

  ‘Darling, are you OK?’ Realising they’d lost me, she and Hayley turned back and ran into Dex, who had told them that he’d been on his way back from his date when he’d happened to witness the accident. ‘I’d come but we’ve still got the horses. Dex says someone’s looking after you. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We probably shouldn’t have got so far ahead . . .’

  The phone pings with a text message. It’s from Will. You OK? Still on for later?

  No longer listening to Anna and irritated by the presumption I tap out, News travels fast. Bit bruised, but yeah, should be fine.

  A text pings back immediately. News???? Bruised??? You OK?

  So now. The news of my tumble has yet to reach him. Will is checking in. Though why the first ‘You OK?’ isn’t clear. Why wouldn’t I be? My thumb scrolls through the thread, stops at three texts back.

  Morning. Hope stuff from J useful? See you later?

  Oh, so now the first ‘You OK?’ makes sense. Will is wondering why I didn’t reply to this initial text, which he sent at ten this morning and the answer is, I hadn’t seen it till now. Though that’s odd because, even before I opened it, the message was marked as read at 10.05. I have no memory of seeing it then. Besides which, wasn’t I asleep? Also, wasn’t
the phone lying on the kitchen table? Mind is playing tricks today. Too much booze. Stop drinking, Cassie, it’s turning you into a zombie.

  ‘Darling? Please say something. You’ve gone awfully quiet. You’re worrying me.’

  ‘Did one of you go into my phone this morning?’

  A pause. ‘Why on earth would any of us do that? Anyway, it’s passcode protected presumably. Are you sure you’re OK, Cassie? Dex told me you’d fallen on your head.’

  23

  Cassie

  10.30 p.m., Saturday 13 August, Wapping

  The masseuses are waiting for us to undress and still Anna is insisting on an inspection.

  ‘Just let me touch it!’ She’s sitting on a fold-up chair in the corner of the massage area, elaborately releasing the heels from her feet.

  ‘You are not touching my ink. It’s sore.’ I peel off my T-shirt and hang it on the makeshift peg.

  Beside Anna, an expensive scented candle gutters. We are in a cordoned off area of the VIP pamper zone, paid for, like everything else tonight, by Bo. This is Anna’s kind of terrain, though. She’s become one of those over-groomed yummy mummies you see in certain London postcodes, all glossy hair, glowy skin and expensive acrylics, decked out in lululemon or Eileen Page, wielding pushchairs like shields.

  Her lips soften into a pout and her hands move into prayer. ‘Please, please, please, please, please.’

  Anna’s shoes are off now and she’s pulling at the buttons on her jumpsuit. Her voice softens to a whisper, repeats its plea. ‘Please, please, please.’

  ‘Stop it!’ I’m laughing now.

  She wraps herself in a towel and contorts underneath it, removing her bra. In the fifteen years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen Anna naked.

  ‘I’m only really interested in why you chose an ammonite.’ She pauses long enough for me to read the sly slant of her mouth. ‘Is it because of Bo?’

  ‘You’re a monster!’ I pull off my trousers and hang them on the back of the chair. ‘Anyway, I already told you why I got an ammonite. That tattooist gave me a choice between that and a dolphin.’