Barefoot

by Ruth Patterson

  They ambled along for another hour and a half, down smaller tracks and through bogs until she was completely disoriented, so she was amazed when the track ended unexpectedly and they were back in the clearing next to the farmhouse.

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘It’s really easy to get lost in the forest. I’ve had years of practice, that’s all.’

  He jumped down off Bramble, then untacked him, before turning him loose in the coral again.

  Toni untacked Buster as well, then she stood there, filled with indecision. Should she put him in with Bramble? Or back in the lorry? Unexpectedly his head shot up and he gave a gentle whinny as a group of three mares wandered into the clearing and stopped to graze. He held his tail high and began to prance around a bit, showing off, suddenly looking younger. Toni had the strongest urge just to unclip the lead-rope and let him go to join them.

  Is that what I want to happen?

  She remembered everything Ed had said and knew it would be the wrong thing to do. Wrong for Buster. And it wouldn’t solve anything for long anyway. So she led him back over to the corral instead.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket again and this time she took a deep breath and pulled it out. Three missed calls from her father, making her feel guilty instantly. She composed a quick text without bothering to listen to his messages first.

  ‘Am fine. Don’t worry.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I’ll be home soon.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, but she figured it might make him worry less.

  Cal was standing watching her. ‘They know you’ve gone?’

  Toni nodded. ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘So… What next?’

  She shook her head miserably. ‘I’m so tired I can’t think straight. What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Get some sleep and come at it fresh?’ he suggested.

  ‘You’re probably right.’ She climbed up into the lorry and lay down on the front seat, pulled a horse rug on top of her to shut out the world, and fell asleep immediately.

  ***** Eleven *****

  Toni was woken by a banging on the side of the lorry. Throwing back the rug, she opened the side door and found Cal standing there looking grim. Beyond him she saw her father’s silver BMW pulling up to the five-bar gate, with Arabella sitting in the passenger seat.

  ‘Shit. It’s my parents.’ She looked at Cal, really scared.

  ‘Don’t panic.’ He was trying to sound cool, but she could tell he was rattled, too.

  Toni stood there, not knowing how to handle the situation at all. When the car engine died, her father leapt out and opened the gate, strode over and hugged her hard. She felt uncomfortable and embarrassed in front of Cal.

  ‘Thank God you’re safe.’

  When he pulled away she saw the strain and worry on his face. Arabella stood silently by the car with her arms folded.

  Ed appeared from the house and Cal glared at him. ‘You called my Dad, didn’t you?’ he accused. ‘Told him we were here?’

  Ed shook his head and Toni’s father leapt to his defence. ‘No, he didn’t. We put a mobile tracker on your phone Toni, remember? In case you ever fell off out hacking and were lying unconscious somewhere.’

  She suddenly realised neither of them had met Cal and turned to introduce him, awkwardly. ‘This is Cal.’

  Cal held out his hand and Toni was shocked when her father ignored it.

  ‘You mustn’t blame him, Dad. He was just trying to help me.’

  ‘By breaking the law?’ Her father looked grim.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Arabella stole the moment. ‘Your boyfriend hasn’t got a driver’s licence.’

  Toni turned to Cal. ‘Please tell me that’s not true?’ She moved closer to him. ‘Cal?’

  He looked shifty. ‘I do. Sort of.’

  ‘Either you do, or you don’t,’ Toni’s father cut in. ‘The law is pretty clear on that point.’

  Cal sighed. ‘Alright, I have a regular driving licence. Just not one to drive the horse lorry. But I’ve been driving tractors on the farm since I was thirteen.’

  OMG. No wonder he didn’t want to stop for the police.

  ‘It’s cool, OK?’ Cal said.

  ‘No, it’s not cool.’ Her father tried to control his rage. ‘No driving licence. No insurance. You put my fifteen-year-old daughter at risk and everyone else on the road.’

  ‘Fifteen!’ Cal spun round to look at Toni. ‘You’re only fifteen!’

  It was her turn to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘If you would like to give me the keys?’ Arabella stepped forward and held out her hand. ‘I think it would be best if I drove it back, don’t you?’

  Cal gripped the keys tightly.

  ‘Just give her them Cal,’ Toni begged. He threw them deliberately low and they landed on the ground at Arabella’s feet. As she bent down to pick them up, Toni saw the look on her face.

  You just made an enemy. She won’t forgive you for that.

  ‘I’m going to get that pony loaded.’ Her mother walked round to the rear of the lorry and lowered the tailgate, leaving Toni standing there between her father and Cal.

  ‘You can come back with me.’ Her father turned and held open the car door.

  ‘What about Cal?’ Toni asked. ‘How’s he going to get home?’

  ‘Oh, he’s a big boy.’ Her father looked at Cal. ‘How old are you exactly? Eighteen?’

  ’Nineteen,’ Cal said, quickly.

  ‘Certainly old enough to make your own way home then.’

  Cal looked worried for the first time. ‘I don’t have enough money on me,’ he admitted.

  ‘Well, in that case you can travel in the back of the lorry with Buster,’ her father said. ‘Get in, Toni.’ He held the back door open for her.

  She sat in the back of the car, feeling like a young child again and wondered what Cal was going through in the lorry with Arabella. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. ‘How did you know Cal didn’t have a licence?’

  ‘I phoned everyone I could think of. Jen came clean and told us she’d been taking you to see Cal. I went over and saw his father.’

  Toni could imagine Matt’s reaction. ‘Was he pissed off?’

  ‘What do you think?’ her father snapped.

  ‘She was going to sell Buster, Dad. I had to do something. And Cal was only trying to help me.’

  He met her eyes in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I know he messed up,’ she began, ‘we both did...’

  But her father took one hand from the steering wheel and held it up to stop her. ‘You won’t be seeing him again Toni. This is one thing your mother and I do agree on.’

  Half-an-hour passed before he broke the silence again. ‘When did you last eat?’

  Toni realised she hadn’t eaten Ed’s bacon sandwich after all. ‘Dinner last night. Your lasagne,’ she admitted.

  ‘You hardly ate any of that. Now it makes sense, of course.’ He sighed. ‘We better stop for something then. I could use a shot of caffeine myself.’

  He pulled over in front of a small roadside diner, empty apart from a few businessmen breaking their journeys and busy with their laptops and phones. Her father joined the queue to order, and Toni went downstairs to the bathroom. She shut herself in, relieved to be alone for a few minutes.

  Catching sight of herself in the mirror she was shocked at how pale she looked. She ran her hands through her tangled hair, in a half-hearted attempt to tame it, but it was hopeless. She looked a mess. There was no other word for it. And yet Cal had thought she looked beautiful.

  She pulled her phone out to text him, but the bathroom was down in the basement and there was no signal. She splashed some cold water on her face instead and went back upstairs.

  Her father had reached the head of the queue now and was standing at the counter giving their order. He didn’t attempt to consult her on what she wanted, so she chose a table by the window and checked her phone again.

  Full signal this time.


  ‘I’ll take that.’

  She looked up in horror. ‘You’re taking my phone!’

  ‘You need some space from that boy.’

  Toni handed it over in disbelief. Her father had always been on her side. When the food arrived they both looked at it in silence. Toni knew she should be hungry, but found herself moving the greasy chips around the plate. He did the same.

  ‘For God’s sake, Toni!’ He slammed his hand down on the table and she jumped. When the waitress looked across at their table in concern he lowered his voice. ‘When exactly were you going to tell him your age?’

  ‘It just never came up,’ Toni mumbled. Which wasn’t strictly true. The truth was she didn’t tell Cal because she didn’t want him to back off. ‘Nothing serious happened between us.’ She felt embarrassed, but had to say it. She didn’t want him to think more badly of Cal than he already did.

  He looked incredibly relieved, but then tried to cover it by standing up quickly. ‘Let’s stop pretending we’re eating this crap and get going.’

  ************

  The journey home in the BMW took less than half the time of the lorry. Toni slept most of the way, waking only as they slowed down to turn off the road into the driveway. The sign at the entrance seemed to mock her this time as she was driven back into Arabella’s web. Her mother would sell Buster now. That was for certain.

  ‘I need to make some work calls,’ her father said. ‘We’ll sit down and talk when your mother gets back. The three of us.’

  Can’t wait.

  Toni went straight upstairs and had a long shower and washed her hair with relief. It seemed impossible to believe she had been away less than twenty-four hours. She dried her hair, put on clean clothes, then went downstairs to the kitchen. Ben jumped up on her lap and she hugged him close to her chest and let him lick her face.

  It was after nine by the time the lorry pulled into the yard and she walked out to meet it. With a shock she saw Cal’s father at the wheel, with Arabella sitting alongside in the passenger seat.

  Her mother flung open the cab door and jumped down. ‘If you were waiting for your boyfriend, you’ve been wasting your time.’ She didn’t attempt to hide her look of triumph. ‘We dropped him at Poplar Farm. I needed to get Matt to drive the lorry back over there.’ Arabella headed round to the rear to let down the ramp.

  Matt clearly had no intention of getting out, leaving Toni no option but to walk over to the driver’s side to look up at him. ‘I’m sorry for all the trouble we’ve caused.’

  ‘I don’t know what you thought you were playing at.’ He looked even grimmer than last time she had seen him. ‘We’ve got enough on our plate as it is.’

  Arabella had unloaded Buster by this time and led him round to the front of the lorry. Toni reached for his lead-rope to take him back to his field, but her mother shook her head. ‘Oh, no you don’t. He’s going to stay in tonight where I can keep an eye on him.’

  Toni dropped her hand again.

  ‘And I don’t want to see you around Cal, or my farm again.’ Matt shouted out of the lorry window. ‘Get it?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Arabella called back. ‘Antonia won’t be seeing your son again. I can assure you of that.’

  ‘That’s the best news I’ve had so far this month.’ He rolled up the window, backed up the lorry and drove off.

  Toni waited for the talk her father had promised all evening, but it didn’t happen, and he disappeared to London the next morning without saying goodbye. Arabella ignored her completely. Toni caught the bus to school and confessed everything to Lauren, counting on her support, but was taken aback by her friend’s reaction.

  ‘So exactly how long had you guys been planning this?’ Lauren sounded bitter.

  ‘Just a few days. It all happened pretty quickly really.’ Toni felt uncomfortable as she tried to explain, but Lauren cut across her. ‘You had enough time to go to town and get cash out, to pack stuff and all that. But not enough time to let your best friend know what was happening. Not even a text?’

  Toni felt ashamed. ‘It wasn’t like that, Lauren, really. It just happened so fast.’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Lauren said tightly. ‘I just never thought you could be that secretive, that’s all.’

  Toni couldn’t believe how messed up everything seemed to be. She hesitated, but had to ask. ‘Can I borrow your phone? Please. They’ve taken mine. And my laptop.’

  Lauren handed it over without a word.

  But it was no use, Toni realised. She didn’t know Cal’s number, and if she called Poplar Farm, she would have to go through either Debs or Matt. She handed the phone back to Lauren and they sat next to each other for the rest of the bus journey in complete silence.

  Toni rushed to the computer room at lunchtime and logged on, praying Cal would be online too. But he wasn’t. And by the end of the afternoon she had convinced herself he probably never wanted to see her again.

  ************

  When she got home from school she changed and headed straight out into the yard to see to the ponies. Grace put her head over the stable door and whinnied a greeting, which was a step forward. Toni began to stroke her, delighted to see some progress, then paused with an uneasy feeling something was wrong.

  Usually Buster would whinny too, competing for her attention. She couldn’t see his head over the stable door and walked over slowly, dreading what she knew she would find.

  An empty stable.

  Please no.

  Her heart began to race. She ran out of the barn and down the field track, desperately scanning the fields as she went, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  No

  She reached the hedge at the very bottom of the track and the reality began to sink in.

  Buster had gone

  Toni sank to her knees in the damp grass and dry sobs racked her body. She felt as if she would break apart with the pain.

  No.

  It was quiet at first, between clenched teeth.

  No. Louder this time. Then she heard herself screaming out loud.

  NO!

  She was consumed with rage.

  Her mother had sold Buster, just as she said she would, and without even letting Toni say goodbye. She ran back up the track to the arena where her mother was watching a rider do her dressage test.

  ‘How could you?’ Her voice was choked. ‘How could you sell Buster like that?’

  Arabella turned and fixed her with her cold eyes. ‘Really, Antonia, you are so melodramatic.’

  ‘He was my best friend.’

  Arabella turned her attention back to the arena and let a couple of seconds pass. ‘Did you really think your stunt with your boyfriend would make any difference?’

  ‘You are such a bitch. I hate you! I really do.’ Toni’s fury and grief overwhelmed her. ‘You’re a complete monster!’

  ‘If you have finished, I have work to do.’ Arabella turned her attention back to the arena where the dressage rider had been standing looking uncomfortable as the drama unfolded.

  Toni turned to leave, utterly defeated.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ Arabella added.

  She turned back. Nothing her mother could do would hurt her now.

  ‘You‘ll find him in the far field by Hilltop Farm. In with the sheep.’

  ‘Who?’ Toni struggled to understand.

  ‘Buster.’

  ‘He’s still here?’ she whispered.

  ‘If I had my way, he wouldn’t be,’ Arabella retorted. ‘But your father seems to have other plans.’

  Toni didn’t know what to say.

  ‘But I won’t have him taking up my stable space anymore. He is to live out twenty-four seven.’

  Toni stood there reeling from the emotional rollercoaster.

  ‘And I want all his kit out of the tackroom and his stable left immaculate,’ her mother added. ‘I have a new horse coming in tomorrow.’

  *************

  It was Friday e
vening before she got her mobile and laptop back. ‘Use them wisely,’ was all her father said. The three of them still hadn’t sat down as he had promised and Toni couldn’t bear the look of betrayal on his face.

  ‘Can we talk, Dad? Please.’

  He wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Not tonight.’

  She retreated to her room and looked at her texts. They were nearly all from Cal.