Suddenly she laughed and took his hand.
“Don’t be silly. You are here now,” she started walking, dragging him along, “and you’ll make a great slave. Because as for payment? There isn’t any. After a couple of months Lisa might offer you some free lessons. Might. If you’re reliable. After a couple of years of servitude and if she thinks your riding is up to it she might offer you the permanent loan of a horse with free livery and feed in return for your continued devotion. Might. If you are lucky. You’ll still have to find the money for the farrier and the vet yourself though,” she sighed deeply and let go of his hand.
Just in time, he thought with a twinge, for the original gesture not to become awkward or meaningful.
“Which can be really tough when there isn’t enough food in the cupboard at home,” she added after a pause.
Tull could only imagine.
Compared to Liberty’s family Tull and his mum were positively rich. The fact that he’d compared his own momentary hunger the day they had met to any she had experienced in her life made his ears burn when he thought about it now.
It was amazing how much he’d already known about the girl who was presently walking silently by his side through the increasingly dense rain without ever realising.
As soon as they had arrived outside the shabby looking extended bungalow she lived in the day before, a whole number of jigsaw pieces had fallen into place.
One of her brothers had been in the junior football team he’d helped to coach the previous summer. The trainer had dropped both of them off once, little Jacob first, and Tull had remembered the house. Another of her brothers worked at the same supermarket. It was a large store and Tull had barely ever spoken to the guy but the other one had congratulated him on the team winning a match once. And on it went. Little nuggets of information from here, there and everywhere had tumbled into his consciousness overnight to form at least the ghost of a picture.
As far as Tull knew there were eight kids in their household altogether, cramped into one of the largest social housing properties around. They were collectively known as The Ellis Boys and Tull had always been under the impression that they were indeed all boys. He would never have associated her with them. Facial reconstruction, calluses and grubby finger nails aside she had a regal air about her with her straight posture and her confident walk that set her entirely apart from those of her siblings that he had met. There was also the fact that he could not recall ever having seen her around before that day in the school canteen despite living on opposite ends of the same estate. He on the private and she on the council side. But having listened to her gruelling daily schedule the previous afternoon he’d realised there was no real mystery there.
She got up at quarter to five every morning to be at the yard an hour later then helped until half past seven, before leaving to go home and change for school. After school she went directly back to Brownleaf until late evening, ‘then home, food, homework, bed’ she had added cheerfully. On weekends she spent all day at the yard other than on Sundays when she went from the morning shift there to tutoring Maths and English to the son of one of the liveries because in spite of her endless work load, Liberty was rather good at school.
They had reached the edge of the estate where the pavements ended and the country lanes began. Before they started walking single file along the grass verge Liberty stopped for a moment, took a head torch out of her coat pocket and put it on.
Soon after, they turned onto the farm track that led up to the yard, the beam from her forehead illuminating a narrow path in front of them. To the left lay the total black of a ploughed field that had carried sweet corn in the summer, much to Tull’s delight. To the right the Brownleaf paddocks began, the grass giving them a slightly lighter shade of darkness. Liberty turned her head to shine the light onto a cluster of five ponies huddling around a large shelter. Tull knew this lot well, had fed them many a handful of grass over the summer when on one of his corn on the cob reconnaissance missions. There were four almost identical looking duns whose withers came to his shoulder and his personal friend, a little grey Shetland who was always the first to gallop to the fence. Liberty took a key out of her pocket and opened the bicycle chain that secured the gate.
“Right, first we get this lot to the yard. They’re getting their feet done later today, so they’ll go in till then. Do you think you can handle leading two at a time? If I show you how? It’s okay to say if you don’t think you can manage. I can’t think of anyone else I’d ask on their second day around horses ever but you seemed quite capable yesterday and it would save an awful lot of time.”
“It’s fine,” he reassured her, the unexpected compliment showering him in confidence and silly pride. As he followed her into the paddock and to the shelter, he stepped in a puddle and mud squelched into his already soaked trainers, dousing his feet in ice-cold water but he bit his tongue. He didn’t want her to think him a limp biscuit after all.
“Wait here a minute,” she instructed, parking him amidst the ponies.
She disappeared to the back of the shelter, taking the light with her.
Five soft noses pushed towards him in the dark, sniffing and breathing warm air over his freezing hands. He petted them softly while he listened to Liberty rummaging around to the rhythm of the rain drumming a steady beat onto the corrugated iron roof above them. Despite the cold and wet, the darkness and the absurdity of the hour, despite the smell of mud, damp horse, ammonia and manure Tull suddenly felt a warm glow spread through his core.
Belonging.
This was where he’d belonged all along.
Liberty pushed her way back through the ponies holding a maglite and a bunch of headcollars. She took the head torch off and gave it to Tull.
“Here, you take this. I can lead and hold a torch at the same time. You’re not qualified for that yet. You’ll have these two,” she pointed at two of the duns, “Toffee and Butterscotch. They are as good as gold. I’ll put the headcollars on, show you how to lead them and then I’ll take the other two and you follow me out.”
“What about this little guy?” Tull asked, scratching his favourite around the withers while the pony sniffed the boy’s knees. The Shetland was the only one of the five that didn’t wear a rug and as Tull stroked along his spine a mess of wet and muddy hair stuck to his fingers.
“Titch? He doesn’t need leading. If we take the others out, he’ll follow. Ready?”
“Ready.”
*****
It took almost three weeks for Lisa Vance to finally warm to him a little.
After seven days, when he’d turned up alongside Liberty every morning she’d finally stopped scowling at him. After a fortnight she had given him her first direct order. On the morning of the twentieth day, after Liberty and he had mucked out the stables, turned out who needed to be turned out and brought in who needed to be brought in, she offered him a cup of tea.
Lisa stepped out of the little office that was situated at the back of the stable block carrying a small tray with three steaming mugs and approached the last box that was being readied for the day.
Inside the box Liberty had just opened a bale of straw and was spreading it out, while Tull was grooming little Titch in the aisle. The Shetland kept ripping at a second bale by the stable door and Tull gently poked the fat belly under the thick wool of the gelding’s winter coat.
“Piglet,” he cooed lovingly.
Tull had yet to be invited to sit on a horse at Brownleaf Stables but in the meantime he had adopted the smallest pony on the yard as his to care for. Nobody had given him permission or asked him to do so but he’d figured out quickly that the Shetland was regarded as somewhat pointless and surplus to requirement in a yard where the youngest regular rider was already twelve years old. Though fed and looked after with the rest of them Titch didn’t have anyone else that paid him special attention, so Tull had quietly begun taking him out to groom whenever there wasn’t another job to do or wh
en Liberty was training with Oliver, her cob. Sometimes they would walk along when Liberty took Gingerbread Man, Lisa’s old arthritic chestnut, which had made Tull feel so welcome on his first visit, on gentle hacks out. Occasionally little girls would come to ride Titch on the lead rein – nieces, cousins or little sisters of other riders at Brownleaf - and Tull had quickly become the person of choice for the other end of the rope.
Lisa arrived with the tray on the opposite side of the Shetland and put it down on the bale. She handed the boy a mug.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. - Liberty?” she shouted over her shoulder, “Your tea’s here. Come out for a second, I want to talk to you both about the charity day.”
Lisa turned back to Tull who was warming his hands on the thick china and blowing on his tea. She took a swig of her own brew, examining him over the rim of her mug almost as if for the first time.
“How are you finding the early mornings?” she asked evenly.
“Early,” he answered with a small smile then took a breath, “Easy when I’m here, difficult when I’m at school.”
Lisa nodded, “You get used to it after about twenty years. What do your folks make of you spending all your time here?”
Tull shrugged, “My mum believes in self-actualisation, I’m self-actualising.”
There was the tiniest jerk of surprise in Lisa’s neck and she cocked her head slightly, examining him more closely. Tull dropped his eyes and ruffled the Shetland’s forehead. As soon as he’d stopped brushing, Titch had let off the bale and started nuzzling the boy’s knees nudging him to carry on.
“Can I ask you a question?” Tull enquired softly, looking back up.
“I don’t know,” Lisa answered with a glint in her eye, “but you can try.”
Tull dared to grin, “Okay, let me rephrase that, may I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“Whose is he?”
Lisa looked pointedly from boy to Shetland and back from Shetland to boy, “Yours at the moment.”
“No, really,” Tull was getting frustrated. He didn’t want to spar, he just wanted to know but at the same time he didn’t want to offend the woman now that she’d finally acknowledged his presence, “Who does he belong to?”
“According to his passport he is mine but, really, he is nobody’s anymore,” she studied the frown on Tull’s face and smiled sadly, “He belonged to a little boy. A little boy called Joseph who died from leukaemia seven years ago. He made me promise I would look after Titch until he dies, too,” she gulped down a mouthful of tea, “Thing is, he’s seventeen now, those little buggers can make it to forty, I’m fifty-two in January, chances are he’s going to outlive me.”
“Don’t say that,” sniggered Liberty who’d come out, taken her mug and sat down on the bale stretching out her long legs, “With good veterinary care and some decent winter rugs we’ll get you right into your eighties.”
Lisa turned to the girl with a smile so big that it crinkled up her eyes until they disappeared into their sockets and suddenly Tull realised that there was much more to these two than the master-minion bond Liberty often joked about. The older woman had given him such a wide berth until now that he hadn’t seen them interact before. Now he could see that there was true affection here, way beyond a connection forged by their shared love of horses. He watched Liberty sip her tea and look from Lisa to him and back.
“Right,” the girl nodded, “so what did you want to talk to us about? I’ve got an appointment with a shower and a stack of pancakes provided my brothers haven’t worked out where my secret stash is yet.”
It was long after Lisa had finished running through the list of things they still needed to organise, had already made her way back to the office and shut the door behind her when Liberty nudged Tull and grinned at him.
“Well done, you.”
“So you reckon she can see the ugly inside yet?”
The girl regarded him with serious, heavy eyes that set his whole being alight. Each cell in his body seemed to shudder separately under her scrutiny.
“Is there any?” she asked quietly after a moment and held his gaze.
If she had been any other girl he would have tried to kiss her then, would have finally given it a shot to find out what those ragged edged lips tasted like.
But she wasn’t any other girl.
She was Liberty, holding the door open to where he belonged.
*****
They dropped Titch off in his field and carried on walking unhurriedly. It was Saturday and with no school to go to they had lingered over their chores longer than on weekdays. As they made their way to the end of the farm track the sun rose on what promised to become a glorious December day. A couple of cars were turning onto the track, horse owners coming for an early hack. The first car crawled by, careful to avoid the potholes. The second was packed to the brim with teenage girls, chauffeured by a harassed looking woman, less mindful of the road conditions.
She swerved to avoid the walking pair and Tull recognised the group. The woman at the wheel and three of the girls, her daughters, had their own horse and came every day, the other girl was a part-time loaner who only ever appeared at the weekends. They waved and Tull waved back. He could see them turn to one another, giggling.
“What’s it like?” Liberty asked when they had passed by.
“What is what like?
“Being that attractive. Having girls swoon over you wherever you go.”
He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know what she was talking about. He’d always been the object of a fair number of females’ desire at school but at Brownleaf, by the nature of the beast a nest crawling with teenage girls where the only other male was a retired mounted police officer, it had reached almost epic proportions. Much as Tull loved the early morning shift alongside Liberty alone, he often dreaded coming back in the afternoon when the yard was heaving. Especially when she was not by his side, riding out or off with Lisa, he generally tried to avoid the stable block and spent time in the field with Titch and the duns instead.
“Objectifying,” he replied wryly and glanced at her sideways in time to see a small smile curl around her mouth.
They had rounded the corner to the country lane and he slipped in behind her on the verge. As he watched her straight back, her elegant legs taking their measured strides he suddenly felt distinctly honoured to be walking behind this girl and also incredibly grateful for what she’d done for him so far.
“Liberty?” he shouted at her over the noise of the traffic zooming past.
“Yes?” she shouted into the air above her.
“Those pancakes, do they come in a packet?”
“Afraid so.”
He swallowed and told his heart to shut up for a second.
“How would you like me to make you some real ones?”
She stopped abruptly and turned on her heels to face him.
He’d thought he’d learned the whole dictionary of Liberty frowns over the last three weeks but this was a new one still. It came with eyes narrowed to slits and a half raised eyebrow.
He held his breath.
“Tempting,” she finally replied, “But at what price?”
“Eternal gratitude?”
“Too expensive.”
He stepped up to her close enough so they didn’t have to raise their voices any longer.
“No, mine,” he said quietly, “They are more than paid for, Liberty. I just want to thank you, that’s all.”
She tilted her head to look up into his eyes, “You’re still not my type, you know.”
It hurt but he managed to mask it with a grin, “That’s okay, as long my pancakes are.”
She stepped aside, “Lead on, McDuff.”
*****
“They were fantastic. You are a great chef. I’m stuffed,” Liberty pushed the plate away and crossed her arms on the table, “Not just a pretty face, are ya?”
“They are jus
t pancakes. You want to come for dinner and try my ratatouille some time.”
She leant forward, examining him, “Dinner? Are you still trying to get into my pants?”
“Liberty Ellis!” he exclaimed trying to hide the blood rushing to his face by getting up and collecting their dishes.
“Sorry. Seven brothers, you know. - You’re blushing,” she stated with an amused twitch of the nose, “You know, that was one of the first things I noticed about you. You’re a blusher. It’s quite sweet.”
“Well,” he mumbled looking down, “you’re not making it any better right now.”
He quickly made for the safe haven of the kitchen and took a breather before he returned to the living room.
This was much harder than he’d thought.
As long as they were at the yard or walking to or from it things had a pre-prescribed rhythm and at school nothing had really changed. Liberty had no interest in sitting with his friends, neither had Tull any longer if he was honest but the unwritten rules of separation still applied. He sat with his group and she sat on her own, working. In one way or another she was always busy and this was the first time he was with her without a blueprint to follow.
When he came back to the table she had half turned in her chair, looking around the room with interest.
“So, when did you learn to cook like that?” she asked, still surveying the surroundings.
He shrugged and sat back down.
“It’s just my mum and me, she often works till late, so I picked up a cook book a couple of years ago and started. I like it. It’s relaxing.”
She turned back to him and smiled.
“I can’t even imagine a house with only two people in it. What does your mum do?”
“She’s a counsellor.”
“She gives people advice on their problems?”
“No. That’s not how it works. She’s more like a listener. She listens while you work out your own solutions. But it’s like, proper listening. What does yours do?”
“My mum? No idea. She’s not around anymore. Probably collects dolls. She scarpered after Jacob was born. You know Jake, right? You coached him last summer. Strange woman, my mother. I saw a programme on women who are addicted to being pregnant once and I think that was her problem. You would have thought she’d had enough when baby number five came out with a gaping hole in the face but no, she carried on getting impregnated. After Jake though, her uterus pretty much fell out and she couldn’t have any more. Soon as she weaned him, she just packed up and left.”
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