Grounded

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  I go back to my brushing but she hovers, if the very solid Vickyish way she hangs around could be called hovering.

  ‘As a memento. Not just of Flight. My whole childhood’s been at this yard.’

  Crap. Even before the fall that smashed up her leg and her nerve, Vicky never hung out at the yard much. The last few months she’s hardly been here at all. First her leg, then her A levels, so that Flight became more and more my horse.

  Until she and Darling Daddy sold him for £6,000.

  ‘And people don’t understand,’ she witters. ‘About horses. It’s like saying goodbye to a really good friend.’

  I bend over my brush and wonder if I can fit another few forkfuls of shavings into this load. ‘Can I get past?’

  Vicky pouts and shudders away from the teetering smelly wheelbarrow, then follows me all the way to the muck heap, going over and over all the reasons why her dad ‘made’ her sell Flight.

  I tip the wheelbarrow up and watch the soft damp landslide of shavings. Vicky stands at a safe distance, keeping her expensive trainers well away from the muck. I don’t think she even knew there was a muck heap before today. I spend ages shaking the upsidedown wheelbarrow to get all the loose shavings out.

  ‘Well,’ she says at last. ‘I suppose I should go. Last exam on Monday.’ She grinds her toe into the ground. ‘Thanks. And … well … thanks for your help with Flight. We wouldn’t have got such a good price if you hadn’t done so well on him.’

  I concentrate on wheeling the barrow back down the slope of the muck heap.

  ‘Oh,’ she says before she gets into her wee white Fiat, ‘you can have the name plate. I mean – I thought you’d like it.’

  Back at the empty stable I unscrew the name plate. But I don’t know if I’ll bother bringing it home. I want Flight, not a bit of brass.

  * * *

  ‘Declan?’ Cam looks round the door of the tack room where I’m hanging up the bridles from the lesson she’s just taken. ‘Do you want a lift home?’

  ‘I’ve got the bike,’ I say.

  ‘Throw it in the back of the jeep if you like.’

  ‘Nah, it’s OK.’

  She picks at a grassy slobber I’ve missed on Magic’s bit. ‘Declan, people change, lose interest; it’s not a crime. Not everybody’s as obsessed as you.’

  Interest. Like horses are just a hobby.

  ‘And it’s a fantastic home. Fintan Brady’s got one of the best –’

  ‘I know.’

  I wish she’d go but she starts fussing around a pile of saddlecloths that have fallen onto the ground.

  ‘Would you rather Lara’d bought him?’

  ‘God, no.’ When there’d been talk of Lara buying Flight I’d thought I’d have to steal him and run away with him. Flight hundreds of miles away is terrible but Flight here, owned by that bitch, would be a million times worse. Thank God when she tried him out Flight tanked round the school and then bucked her off.

  ‘Heard about any of those jobs yet?’ Cam spits on her hand and rubs it over one of the saddlecloths to wipe the hairs off.

  I shake my head. In the last two weeks I’ve applied for seventeen jobs with horses. Three down south, the rest in England. Sometimes they don’t even email you back. Those that did said they were looking for more experience.

  ‘You know there’s always your job here,’ Cam says. ‘Jim’s not fit for the heavy work now. And he’s too big to help me back the Welsh ponies next spring.’

  Two years ago the height of my ambition would have been to work here. It’s a great wee yard and I’ve learnt as much from Cam as I did at college. But I want to be a groom in a proper jumping yard where we drive off to competitions in a big silver lorry with our logo on the side, where I have the chance to ride wonderful horses, like Flight. To bring on talented young horses. To recapture that last amazing jump-off. To be part of that world all the time, even just as a groom. I can’t stay here without Flight.

  ‘It’s just … I think I should get away. Get more experience.’ The best bit of my course was the ten weeks I spent in a jumping yard in Wicklow. Not just the work, which was so hard I used to fall into bed about nine o’clock every night, but the craic with the other lads and being away from home. I missed Seaneen and Flight but nothing else.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You’re right. Go while you have the chance.’ Her voice is a bit sad. Cam was working abroad when her parents were killed in a car crash and she came home to take over the farm, turning it into a livery yard, doing a few lessons. I don’t think she’s had more than a day away from it ever since except for the odd three-day show. Though she takes a bit more time off now Pippa’s on the scene.

  ‘What does Seaneen think about you going away?’

  ‘I haven’t said much.’ I wish Seaneen wanted to go away too but she’s a homebird and she’s got a good job in a daycare nursery on the Falls Road. ‘I should head on,’ I say to change the subject. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want a lift?’

  ‘No. Thanks.’ Most of the time I’d jump at the chance, especially as my bike – a cast-off from my old teacher Mr Dermott – is a rattly heap, but tonight I welcome the ride. Nobody can get to you when you’re on a bike, or make you talk. It’s just you and the wind and the leg-killing, mind-numbing slog.

  But all the way home, though I try not to think, my thoughts swoop and dive with the bike. Whooshing downhill, the air still warm and the fields glowing, I can push the ache of never seeing Flight again to the edges of my mind. I convince myself he’s just a horse. If I’m going to work with horses I’ll have to get used to seeing them go. And it’s daft to get hung up on other people’s horses that are bought and sold on a whim. The next horse I get to care about will be mine. He’ll be so talented that people will be begging me to sell, saying I can name my price, but I’ll just smile and say he’s not for sale; he’ll never be for sale. And he’ll know me the way Flight knew me, only even better.

  And when I get home, maybe there’ll be a letter – from the big yard in Kildare, or the small but successful one in Galway. And I’ll be miles away from that empty stable.

  It’s only when I’m urging the stupid heap of junk up the hill to the estate, cars up my arse and fumes up my nose, that reality crashes back in to taunt me. That I’m never going to get a horse of my own. That being one of the best horse-care students at college hasn’t led to a single job offer. Vicky’s driving home in her brandnew car and I’m dragging myself up the Stewartstown Road on a second-hand pushbike with a stupid lump of brass digging into my back through my rucksack.

  2.

  The estate’s quiet, a few kids hanging around Fat Frankie’s chippie.

  ‘Oi!’ shouts one. ‘Go into the offie for us?’

  It’s that wee toerag from the other day. Cian or something. He doesn’t recognise me. I say no and he calls out, ‘Be like that, fruit!’ and gives me the middle finger.

  Cycling past Seaneen’s house, I keep my head down, but not before noticing that her bedroom light’s on. The instinct to be with her, to lick my wounds, is fierce, but I’m trying to wean myself off her. It’s going to be hard enough leaving her.

  At least Saturday night TV should have Mum safely pinned to the sofa. If I time it right and land in in the middle of one of her programmes, then with any luck she’ll just give me a quick wave and carry on watching and I won’t have to talk.

  I go round the back and wheel the bike up the path to the door. She won’t let me bring it into the house. We haven’t got a shed so I usually fling an old blanket over it and lean it against the fence, only tonight I can’t be bothered.

  The kitchen light’s on, and two teabags slump on the speckly surface of the worktop. I touch the kettle. Still warm. Two teabags? Mum’s always bringing whiney women home since she started going to all these support groups.

  Sure enough when I open the kitchen door voices come out to meet me. Boys … aye, you’re right there … two wee girls … no bother �
�� och lovely …

  I have to go through the living room to get upstairs so I brace myself. I hope it’s not Mairéad, Seaneen’s mum, who always wants to know far too much about me.

  But the woman sitting on the sofa opposite Mum is somebody I’ve never seen before. Younger than Mum, skinny with big dark eyes in a thin, prettyish face. Blonde hair with reddish roots.

  ‘There he is,’ says Mum, proving that she’s been talking about me to this stranger. ‘Declan, this is Stacey. From across the road.’

  There’s a plate of funsize Twirls between them on the coffee table. I grab this week’s Horse and Hound out from under it. I’ve already checked the jobs pages but I can have another look in case I missed anything.

  ‘Irene’s house,’ Mum goes on like I’m interested enough to want details. She turns to Stacey. ‘Declan goes with Irene’s granddaughter. Over two years.’

  ‘Two years,’ says Stacey. She turns to Mum. ‘Och, at their age.’ She must think I’m about twelve.

  ‘Seaneen’s a lovely girl. She fairly settled you down, didn’t she, love?’ Mum says, as if I’m a badly trained dog.

  This is a load of crap. If I did settle down two years ago, while Mum was away drying out, it was mostly because of the horses. And living with my aunt Colette, Vicky’s mum. Not that it wasn’t brilliant with Seaneen. The two of us would sneak away from school at lunchtimes to ‘check the house’. It was amazing what you could get up to in an empty house in three quarters of an hour. Always in my bedroom, at the back, so Seaneen’s nosy old cow of a granny over the street wouldn’t cop on to anything.

  ‘Maybe that’s what your Cian needs, a nice girl,’ Mum says.

  Cian. So that’s who she is.

  Stacey sighs and pulls her ponytail tighter. ‘God, Theresa, it’d take more than that. He’s going to end up in Bankside, I swear.’

  I need to get out before Mum tells this stranger about my two months in Bankside for joyriding. They’re getting on like they’ve been best friends for years instead of minutes. It’s a female thing. They do it with words. My mum can say more in a day than I would in a month, especially now she’s had all this addiction counselling and she’s in touch with her feelings and that.

  ‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say. ‘See you.’ I reach down and snatch a couple of Twirls.

  ‘Not seeing Seaneen tonight?’

  I grit my teeth. ‘No.’

  Pushing open my bedroom door, it feels like days since I left it this morning. I pull the curtains shut, even though it’ll be light for a couple of hours yet, and fling myself on the bed, not bothering to take off my dirty fleece. Usually I love the way the horsey smell travels home with me – sweat and haylage and leather – and works its way into the house. That sweet, dirty smell on my duvet cover is proof that it’s not all going to evaporate, that horses are the most real part of my life and I’m only back here for a short time until I get a job and go …

  Anywhere. Anywhere that’s too far for me to cycle home every night.

  I open the magazine and go straight to the jobs pages. But there’s nothing I’ve missed. At the start I was only interested in showjumping yards, but now I’d take pretty much anything. There’s one in Scotland that sounds so brilliant – caravan provided, lots of travelling to shows, own horse welcome – that I wonder why I didn’t circle it last night, until I see the bottom line – Must have HGV licence.

  I haven’t even got my normal driving licence. Seaneen passed her theory last week and has put in for her test. She gets paid more than me.

  Usually when I’m fed up, reading Horse and Hound cheers me up. Looking at the pages of beautiful horses for sale; imagining buying one of the houses with stables out the back and acres of land. Mum complains about the horsey magazines piling up beside my bed. I say at least it’s not porn. But tonight the fantasy doesn’t work. The words HORSES FOR SALE across the tops of pages just conjure up the white lorry driving off with Flight inside. All the pages of events and competitions, the photos of brave, lovely horses stretching themselves over banks and fences and walls jab at the angry bruise inside me. I hate every person in this magazine. All the ones who won’t give me a job. All those rich bastards who can do what they want with their horses. Flight was more mine than he was ever Vicky’s. He went brilliantly for me. Mine was the voice he’d calm down for if he was in one of his strops. I was the one he’d jumped his heart out for, launching at every obstacle as if he was going to jump out of his skin. The feel of him under me at that last jump-off, faster than flames, responsive, clever and brave, trusting me…

  It’s all meaningless now. Because the owner’s name on his passport wasn’t Declan Kelly. Was never going to be Declan Kelly. Owner. Strange word to think of in connection with a living creature. He’ll still be on the road now. Wexford’s so far away. I hope Brady stops and gives him a drink and lets him stretch his legs. What if he won’t go back into the lorry for a stranger? He’s not the best traveller.

  I fling the magazine away. As a distraction it’s useless. I almost wish I did have some porn.

  It’s too early for sleep. I lie on my bed with my hands crossed under my head and though my body’s aching from my marathon muck-out, my head’s buzzing.

  I half-feel like going out and having a few drinks. Only I’m not on drinking terms with anybody round here these days, except Seaneen. Plus I’m working in the morning and I know from experience, mainly in Wicklow, that horses and hangovers don’t mix.

  To hell with weaning myself off Seaneen. I’ve had enough goodbyes for one day. I text her: Are you in? Will I come round? Without waiting for a reply, I go and have a long, lovely shower with loads of the shower gel Colette got Mum for Christmas. I wash the smell of horses and my own sweat away, closing my eyes and forgetting everything but the hot needles pricking and soothing my skin. I shave for the first time in a few days and smile at myself in the steamed-up mirror. Working outside so much has made me tanned already, and I don’t seem to get spots these days.

  Back in my room I find some cleanish clothes. Seaneen’s texted back: Yes Yes xxx.

  * * *

  Seaneen nuzzles into my neck. As always her springy curls make my skin tingle. I smooth them back. The distraction worked. Even tonight, with her mum downstairs screaming at her wee sisters to shut up and go to bed and let her watch Casualty in peace, it was lovely.

  I don’t mean it was just a distraction. I sigh and trace the freckles on her bare shoulder with my fingertip.

  ‘You OK?’ she says, her lips fluttering against my skin.

  ‘Just Flight going.’

  Seaneen hasn’t a clue about horses but she knows a lot about me. She hugs me – awkwardly, since she’s lying half on top of me. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Missed you.’

  ‘I haven’t been anywhere. Just work. It’s been mad.’ That’s a lie. The yard’s been so quiet that I spent most of last week creosoting fence posts and watching Cam working with her new horse, a gorgeous grey called Spirit. And making the most of the dwindling time with Flight.

  She kisses my cheek. ‘I wasn’t complaining. I just missed you.’

  Seaneen never nags. She doesn’t complain that I’m hardly ever home and that, when I am, I’m knackered and sometimes stink of horses. She doesn’t point out that other guys my age are either on the dole, and so have plenty of time for their girlfriends, or else have jobs that pay a hell of a lot more than I get. I look at her, half asleep in her white bed with the pink duvet pulled up over us both. Opposite the bed a shelf full of old teddies grins down at us. Half of them are battered, with eyes missing and ears hanging off, but Seaneen won’t get rid of them. Our clothes are all over the floor, my jeans tangled up in Seaneen’s yellow spotty bra.

  ‘Seaneen?’

  ‘Hmm?’ She sounds half asleep.

  ‘Nothing.’ I pull her closer to me. Breathe in her warmth and her biscuity, perfumey, slightly sweaty smell. ‘Just … you’re the nicest person I know.’

  She giggles. ‘A
h, Declan, that’s so sweet.’

  It’s true though, and right now, looking down at her curls spread out over my chest, her freckled arm lying across me, I know that I want to stay here with her nearly as much as I want to go away. But only nearly.

  I wish I wasn’t going to break her heart.

  3.

  It’s horrible at the yard without Flight looking over his stable door or lifting his head from grazing when I call his name. Last night, after I left Seaneen’s, I lay awake for hours, my mind zooming all over the place, and today my eyes are gritty. And I have to go out after work to Seaneen’s friend Bronagh’s eighteenth.

  I swill out Flight’s old stable and leave the door open for it to dry. Cam sees me but doesn’t say anything. But later she lets me ride Spirit. He’s huge, a beautiful dappled grey, and she’s never let me on him before. The power and lift and bounce of him, the strength and willingness of a good horse, are fantastic. He’s as good a horse as Flight, but like Flight he belongs to somebody else so I’m not going to let myself like him too much. When I turn him out into his field behind the yard I don’t wait and watch him roll and drink and graze like I always did with Flight. I close the gate and walk away and don’t look back.

  As I’m throwing my leg over my bike my phone rings. I check the display but it’s an unfamiliar number. I press the green button, still straddling the bike.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Declan Kelly?’ A man’s voice, posh, semi-familiar. ‘Terry Mullan here.’

  ‘Oh.’ Terry was in charge of my horse-care course. A teacher’s never phoned me before.

  ‘Bit of news for you,’ he goes on, and I get off the bike properly and lean against the fence of the sandschool. ‘Are you sorted out yet?’

  ‘Sorted?’

  ‘With a job?’

  ‘Oh!’ I look round the yard that’s as familiar as my own street. The whitewashed buildings and the red doors Jim and I repainted last week. ‘Well, I’ve applied for loads but –’