‘The job’s just the first part of the surprise, though,’ says Mum, as Ed and I sit down again. He narrows his eyes like a detective discovering a new, important clue.
‘I’d like to treat you both to something special to celebrate,’ Mum adds, more quietly. Her eyes look shiny in the candlelight. ‘Something from Dad and me.’
I look at Ed. His mouth has formed into a silent ‘O’ and now he’s quietly chanting ‘Remote-controlled plane’. My heart has started to beat quite loudly in my chest. I swallow hard, trying to suppress the rising hope that is surging up my body. Something I had believed impossible, something I have dreamed of since I was small, is coming into focus; a wish that is so big, even Santa couldn’t come up with the goods.
A horse of my own!
I’m looking at Mum and she is nodding, reading my mind, and before I know it, I’m rushing back round the table to hug her, forcing back a deluge of hot, happy tears.
‘Thank you,’ I manage to say, even though my throat is tight.
Mum holds me and reaches out a hand to Ed.
‘I’m really happy for you, Stick,’ he says, his face serious. ‘It’s the miracle we’ve been waiting for. A face transplant will change your life.’
I pick up Mum’s uneaten roll and throw it at him. Where annoying brothers are concerned, wholemeal is much better than white, carrying more weight and wounding capacity. Ed takes the blow on the head and flops back in his chair.
‘Shut up, idiot,’ I say, laughter unexpectedly bubbling up through my voice.
‘Brown bread,’ he croaks, and plays dead.
Chapter Four
I can’t sleep. Through the night, strong March winds have been whirling around the house, moaning and rattling the windows. I’m snug under my duvet, almost mummified, lying straight and still, eyes wide open, thinking about Mum’s promise. Ripples of excitement have been moving up and down my spine for the past five hours, mini waves with white horses on the top.
I’ve always loved white horses the best, ever since Dad won me a cute model one on the pier by shooting ducks in a row. I named him Al as he was an albino with pink eyes – a bit odd, when you come to think of it. He lives on my bookcase now, next to my framed photo of Dad and me on our Welsh riding-trip.
There is a creaking sound, the unmistakable noise of footsteps on our warped landing floorboards. The handle of my door is turning, ever so slowly. Despite being famously frightened of horror films and things that go bump in the night, I don’t even hold my breath. In fact, I’ve been expecting a visit.
‘Stick, are you awake?’ The voice is small and hushed. I can just make out the weird shape of my brother, in his oversized Spider-Man pyjamas, in the doorway.
‘Yeah,’ I tell him. At this, he launches himself at my bed and snuggles in next to me, his teeth chattering.
‘Aagh, your feet are really cold!’ I exclaim.
‘I’ve been doing stuff to the bomber,’ he tells me. Ed has trouble sleeping, but is quite happy to work on his kit planes until tiredness overtakes him. Mum and I often find him on the floor in the morning, covered in glue and fuselage parts, snoring.
‘Didn’t you go to sleep at all?’ I ask him.
‘Noooooooo,’ he sings, a high soprano.
‘Shh, Teddy, you’ll wake Mum up.’ I nudge him in the ribs, gently. ‘Me neither,’ I say. We grin at each other.
‘Stick?’
‘What?’
He motions for me to pull the duvet over our heads, so he can tell me something important. I’m reluctant to do this because before I can escape, he normally does something gross and smelly.
‘I’m getting a remote-controlled model PLANE!’ my brother squeals, making a drum roll in the bed with his feet.
‘And I’m going to find the most beautiful horse in the world,’ I whisper. It feels good to say the words out loud in the dark. It’s like announcing it to the universe.
‘Wish Dad could come and help me choose,’ says Ed, matter-of-factly. Ed often refers to Dad as if he’s away on a tour of duty and will be back soon.
‘Me too.’ We’re both silent for a few moments. Then Ed scratches his thigh and his elbow digs into me. I push it away, he forces it back. We have a contest for about twenty seconds and then give up and lie still again.
‘Mine’s a better present,’ Ed states.
‘How do you work that out?’ I yawn, getting sleepy now.
‘I don’t have to feed it, brush it, or clear up its poo. And I won’t need to do a thousand jobs to earn extra money to pay for its shoes and hairdresser,’ he tells me, holding his nose, making gestures that indicate my breath smells.
‘Horses don’t go to the hairdresser, idiot,’ I reply, huffing extra hard on him.
‘Who does all those plaity things, then?’ he asks, yawning too.
‘Their owners, usually.’
‘You don’t even brush your own hair,’ he says, voice trailing away.
I’m about to remind Ed that running his fingers once every morning through his own scarecrow tufts doesn’t count as a personal best in the style department when I see that his eyes are closed and his mouth slightly open. His breathing is regular and deep. He’s in dreamland, probably with his remote-controlled plane, making it do loop-the-loops, thoughts of hospitals, tubes and dodgy kidneys wiped from his memory.
‘Sleep well, Teddy,’ I whisper, folding the duvet back, allowing cool, early-morning air to ripple over us.
Chapter Five
I’m waiting at the end of our lane for the school bus. Ed is going to hospital for dialysis today so I’m alone, but for a New Forest pony and a donkey grazing on the green opposite me.
It’s nice that animals roam where they please here. I often wonder how their owners find them to check their health, or to sell them on at one of the regular auctions. It must be a massive game of hide-and-seek, but even the cleverest horse will be discovered in the end; the New Forest is contained by cattle grids and gates on its boundaries.
There’s a low mist meandering across the dewy grass. The animals’ breath mingles with it and it looks like they’re standing on clouds.
A rumble to my right tells me that my bus is arriving. My classmates’ faces are pressed against the glass, making them look like weird gargoyles. As the door flings open, a wave of harsh sound rushes out into the still morning. It hits my ears like small fists.
‘Morning,’ says Bill, the driver, cheerily. ‘All aboard for Disneyland.’
He says this every day with a big, toothy smile. My school, although rated ‘good’ in the results tables, is about as far from the Magic Kingdom as Iceland is from the Sahara Desert.
‘Morning,’ I reply, my eyes already scanning to see where the ‘safe’ seats are: the ones least likely to be in the firing line of Niall Taylor and his crew, who practise their throwing skills (anything from pens to packed lunches) from their regular places at the back. Susie Price and her mates, the ‘Glossies’, are also to be avoided. They think speaking while applying mascara counts as multitasking and reading Heat magazine ticks the English ‘background study’ box. Ed calls them the ‘Flossies’ because they all wear braces in the hope of achieving a Hollywood smile.
As usual, there’s an empty space next to Poppy Brill, who suffers from eczema and whose facial skin is deep red. She’s in my year and, like me, keeps herself to herself. Her lips are moving to some song on her iPod and she’s staring out of the steamed-up window, a slender hand tapping out the beat on her knee.
When I sit next to her, she glances at me and gives me a fleeting smile. I nod in acknowledgement and put my bag on my lap, like body armour. I’m wishing that Ed were here, even though he is annoyingly bubbly and talkative early in the morning. Having him around, until he gets dropped at the junior school, makes the journey go quicker and means I don’t get the chance to drift away into daydreams, which usually involve Dad and me galloping along the shore. It’s such a hard place to return from, and sometimes I have to shut myself
in the loo before registration just to get a grip so that I don’t explode when girls like Alice Hebden and Sarah Sparks discuss nail varnish or designer jeans like they’re the most important things in the world.
Lessons are OK, especially maths and science, but I’m happiest at the stables or at home with Mum and Ed. But now I have something amazing to think about – something that will help me get through the school day: soon I’ll have another life to care for, whose very survival will rest in my hands.
‘I’m floatin’ on cloud nine, babe,’ sings Poppy beside me, her melodic voice now louder than a whisper. The Glossies mimic her, like a cats’ chorus, but she seems not to hear – or care – and carries on happily.
‘Hope you’ve got a head for heights, rise up and you’ll be mine,’ I sing, joining in, clicking my fingers to the tinny beat from the iPod. I’m not sure where this burst of defiance has come from. There is a stunned silence from behind us.
‘Rise up and you’ll be mi-i-ine.’ Poppy grins at me as we finish the verse with exaggerated feeling and our eyes screwed up, like the best pop stars.
My phone is vibrating. There’s a text from Ed.
Am getting a radio controlled plane :) As if I’d forgotten!
Race you I text in reply. My wonderful horse is going to run as swiftly as the wind.
Loser responds my brother, who by now is probably hitched up to tubes, watching his blood roller-coaster through its cleaning process.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, I imagine a red jet doing aerobatics, high in the sky. It starts to plummet towards earth. The crowd below holds its breath. Any moment now, its nose will pull out of the dive. Any moment now, applause will ripple across the expectant masses. But the plane is gathering speed and its engines are making a high-pitched scream. In the cockpit, the face behind the visor is ashen, vibrating with the velocity of the fall. I know the features as well as my own, the fine jawbone, the straight nose, the dark pigmented skin on the left cheek. Sweat lines, like silver beads, are strung under his eyes, which are narrowing into slits as the ground looms closer and beyond it, the ocean.
The pilot is my dad. He is trying to manoeuvre the plummeting machine towards the expanse of sea. There is a squeal of metal and a jolt and I am fighting to get off the stationary bus. As the doors open, I’m at the front of the surge of bodies that spills out on to the pavement. I stand, face almost pressed into the metal mesh fence, trying to steady my breathing.
I haven’t told Mum or Ed about my panic attacks.
‘You OK, Jodie?’ asks Poppy, her hand lightly on my arm.
‘Fine,’ I nod, managing a smile.
‘Thanks for the duet,’ she adds.
‘Maybe we should form a band,’ I manage to say, before my body is swept along in the tide of Brockenbank students. When I glance back, Poppy’s red head is only just above the water.
As I enter my classroom and sit at my desk, I feel my brow and realise I’m sweating. It’s hard to breathe, hard to stop my head sinking down under the waves.
Slowly, my lungs start to regulate. The ocean morphs into a riot of voices: gossiping, laughing, teasing. Words and faces are becoming distinct. Chairs scrape against the wooden floor as girls and boys assemble for registration.
I’m not drowning this time.
‘Jodie?’ calls our lovely form teacher.
‘Yes, here, Miss Dawson,’ I reply, grateful to feel the solid floor beneath my feet.
Chapter Six
Warm neck gently steaming. Soft hair hidden by a mane twitching under the pressure from the brush. Mouth nuzzling at my boots. Shod foot idly scraping at the straw in the stable. Tail swishing with pleasure. The sweet, musty smell of hot horse filling the dimly lit space, wafting over the half-closed door and dispersing into the darkening evening. All bad thoughts from the day easing out of my fingertips with every sweep of the brush against flickering flesh.
I put my arm over Rambo’s solid shoulder and lean my face against his, staring deep into his left eye, a brown fathomless pool. His raises his front hoof and lets it rest against my left foot.
‘Hey you. Leave my boot alone, I know what you’re up to,’ I tell him, as he lets me rub his nose with my fingers. That soft, velvety space between the nostrils is on my top ten list of everything. At this moment, it’s probably in my top three, after Mum and Ed (who tie first, natch) and giant chocolate buttons.
He’s pulling faces and showing me his teeth, which are huge and yellow. He’s not worried about having a Hollywood smile. I scratch his forelock playfully. He responds by leaning against me and standing on my foot. It’s his party piece. I reach into my pocket and produce a piece of browning apple. It’s the price for having my foot back.
‘You’re quite bad,’ I say, with affection. I’ve known Rambo for five years, ever since we moved to the Forest after Dad was stationed at Lyntonbury Haven airbase. At first, I wasn’t big enough to ride him. It took about eighteen months before I had the strength to handle his habit of grazing on the move. His unsuspecting young riders would often be thrown over his head for the sake of a dandelion or a patch of new grass.
That’s never happened to me, though. Rambo and I have an understanding. He knows that if he’s good on a ride, he’ll be rewarded with something nice from my pocket.
In his stable, it’s a different set of rules. He pushes his luck, but out of fun, not malice. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve groomed him, untangled his mane, brushed the mud from his belly, polished his tack, secured his rug and wished him goodnight with a kiss between his eyes.
He’s not the best-looking horse on the block, but he’s been my special responsibility after school and in the holidays for so long, he’s my number one friend, after Ed. I’ve waved him off on his hacks and welcomed him home with bowls of mash and a one-to-one beauty treatment. I’ve sat with him when he’s been ill and brought him treats on Christmas Day, including my version of carrot cake, a mix of grated carrots and pony nuts, which he loves.
When the world fell in two years ago, and the RAF welfare officer arrived on our doorstep with the worst news ever, I slept with Rambo, curled into the arch of his neck, my tears absorbed into the bristles of his mane. Usually a fidget, he didn’t move a muscle all night. When dawn broke, he nudged me awake, as if to say, ‘It’s a new day – look.’ He breathed into my hair, tickling my neck, and even made me smile.
And now, here I am, about to transfer my loyalties to a rival; a phantom horse that still only exists in my imagination, but could soon be taking all my attention.
The thought causes a sharp pain, like a lightning bolt, down my spine. I know this sensation. Guilt. It was a regular visitor after Dad died and I would lie awake wishing I’d done more to make him proud; been kinder, less selfish, a better daughter; spoiled him more on his birthdays, told him I loved him every time he said goodnight.
‘I won’t abandon you,’ I whisper in Rambo’s ear. He snorts back at me, softly.
‘There. You’re perfect and I’m hungry,’ I tell him, giving him a last scratch on his blaze. I wrap my brush and comb back in my carry roll and shift the stable-door bolt back before Rambo can try his usual delaying tactics – biting my jumper being his favourite. As I secure the lock from the other side, his head appears, his expression full of anticipation.
‘Last one, greedy guts,’ I whisper, delving into my pocket for the final piece of apple. Rambo lifts it from my hand and makes a big deal about chewing it, determined to get every last drop of flavour out of it.
‘Night night, Bo,’ I say, planting a kiss on his head. He yawns, and on his ridiculously long tongue there are bits of squishy apple. ‘Ugh. Your table manners are awful,’ I mutter, moving away across the yard, which is quiet, but for the occasional noise of hooves on straw and the contented munching of ponies enjoying their evening feed.
A figure emerges from the side of the office, carrying two pails of water. From her confident stride, I know it’s Rachel. She’s always the last to leave with Sue, the own
er. Sue usually gives her a lift home.
‘All done with that naughty boy?’ she asks me.
‘Yup,’ I reply. Part of me wants to blurt out my good news, yet something is telling me to be cautious. Lots of the girls who come to the stables tell Rachel they are getting their own horse to try and impress her. Often, it’s just make-believe. I can’t exactly ask her to keep it a secret and I don’t want everyone to know just yet. For a while, I want to hold on to it, like a glittering trophy, in the core of my being.
But in good time there will be practical issues to sort out. I’ll speak to Sue about livery and whether I can work some paid hours to offset some of the costs. I’ll need tack and equipment and lots of advice about vet checks and health monitoring.
First of all, I must start my search for the finest horse in the land.
‘See you tomorrow then,’ says Rachel cheerfully.
‘Okey dokey,’ I reply, brightly. Rachel almost does a double take. She’s used to monosyllables from me. Okey dokey is out of character; it’s Ed’s standard phrase and has obviously wormed its way into my subconscious.
Something definitely feels as if it’s shifting. As I freewheel out of the yard on my bike and on to the lane, my headlight illuminating the path ahead, the smile on my face is as curvy as the crescent moon.
Chapter Seven
I’m running in my ugly dog pyjamas and polar bear slippers down our drive like a clown, my dressing gown flapping and its belt dragging on the path. Charlie Bradstone, who delivers our papers and is always yabbering into his iPhone, is at this very moment stuffing The Times and The Hampshire Clarion into the green post box outside our gate, his bike between his legs. He looks a bit surprised at my crazy outfit.
‘It was like . . . well awesome,’ he’s saying into the phone. ‘He was offside, though, like, totally.’
Samphire Song Page 2