The Enchanted

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘The Garda Milligan has a scorched earth policy here, man. He comes down like a mallet on drink drivers.’

  And so on they lurched in third gear at all of five miles an hour, with Anthony calling the directions from the passenger seat. By a small miracle and some fifty hair-raising minutes later, they arrived unscathed at a smallholding halfway up a hill, most of which was totally wreathed in mist and rain.

  ‘Padraig Flanagan’s as ever was,’ the giant deduced once he had levered himself out of the car. ‘Pray to God he is still alive.’

  ‘Why? Is there a chance he might not be?’ Anthony enquired.

  ‘We none of us know when we may be called, do we? Or when we may be spared. Padraig!’

  Reeling from the man’s enormous bellow, Anthony shook his head and tried to get his bearings, then went round the back of the car to wake his son.

  ‘Padraig! Padraig, ’tis I, Yamon! ’Tis I Yamon and a stranger come here to see The Horse!’

  ‘How tall are you?’ Anthony said, gazing at the figure before him. ‘Just exactly how tall are you?’

  ‘Shorter than the mother, but not the father. The mother is still our tallest.’

  ‘That doesn’t precisely answer my question. You must be over seven feet.’

  ‘The mother can open an upstairs window with no use of a ladder. Padraig!’

  The summons echoed round the misted landscape like a fairytale ogre’s roar. Back the name came at Anthony – Padraig! Padraig! – whereupon at about the fourth or fifth echo the small round figure of Padraig appeared, limping his way across the yard and pulling his old battered hat down over his eyes against the rain, then turning his pipe upside down as an added safeguard.

  ‘What is it possessin’ you, Yamon? Ye’ll wake the whole county!’

  ‘I have a stranger here, Padraig! Come to see The Horse.’

  ‘I’m standing right beside you, Yamon,’ Padraig chided him. ‘There’s no more need to bellow. And how would he know about The Horse?’

  ‘He had heard tell.’

  ‘And I wonder what has he heard tell, Yamon?’

  ‘That you have this horse, so you have. And that he’s something special.’

  ‘Which horse in this country isn’t?’ Anthony asked, with half an eye on Rory who was slowly pulling himself out of the car. ‘Every horse I’m shown is something special.’

  ‘It’ll be no skin off my nose if you don’t want him, sir,’ Padraig said, eyeing him up from under his rain-sodden hat. ‘I have several interested parties and the horse isn’t even advertised.’

  ‘Did you breed him yourself, Mr Flanagan?’ Anthony enquired, looking round at the ramshackle yard.

  ‘I did not, sir,’ Padraig answered with perfect truth. ‘Though indeed he was born here. The mare came to us in foal.’

  ‘Ye’ll not be wasting your time, friend,’ Eammon, pronounced Yamon, loudly assured him. ‘Padraig here always has fine stock.’

  ‘I certainly don’t mind looking, Mr Flanagan,’ Anthony said, even though he was more than half convinced he was wasting his time. ‘If you want to show him to me, no harm in looking.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Padraig grunted, now eyeing both Rory and Anthony. ‘First I’d say you’re both in need of a cup of tea.’

  Nodding sideways towards a small cottage at the top of the yard, Padraig limped off, expecting them to follow, which they duly did, Yamon included. Padraig went straight to the kitchen at the back, calling ahead in Gaelic as he went. Anthony entered the room well ahead of Rory, who was still outside, taking a lot of deep breaths in an effort to clear his head. A girl with her back to Anthony, dressed in a heavy black Aran sweater and a dark green skirt under a white apron, was busy washing dishes in a bowl at the sink. Padraig said something to her in Gaelic that caused her to turn and stare at Anthony in silence. Then, wiping her hands on her apron, she took the garment off, threw it on the draining board, nodded to Anthony and ran out of the kitchen.

  ‘Something I said?’ Anthony enquired lightly, struck by the extraordinary beauty of the young woman.

  ‘Don’t mind her now,’ Padraig said, taking his hat off and slapping it against his leg. ‘My daughter Kathleen. She has her days. Don’t mind her at all.’

  When Rory appeared at the doorway, Padraig invited his guests to sit at the table and moments later had poured them cups of the strongest tea from a pot that was already standing hot on the hob. A tall gangly young man was the next to show, coming in from outside dressed in a short black oilskin and agricultural gumboots. Padraig addressed him also in Gaelic, whereupon the lad nodded and ambled back out into the rain, taking with him a bridle that was hanging on the back of the door.

  ‘Mr Flanagan has a horse he thinks he might show us, Rory,’ Anthony said.

  ‘I keep feeling I’m dreaming,’ Rory said slowly, blinking his eyes as if to try to focus on the proceedings. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Has the horse done anything, Mr Flanagan?’ Anthony asked, guiding his son to a chair by the table. ‘Has he raced at all?’

  ‘Has he raced at all.’ Yamon sighed, then repeated himself loudly. ‘Has he raced at all indeed!’

  Padraig eyed the big man and poured himself a cup of tea, stirring the sugar in with the stub of his pipe. ‘He has so, sir,’ he said to Anthony. ‘We gave him a couple of runs tail end of the last season. He ran in a point, then in a hunters. At Tramore.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was happy enough,’ Padraig said with a nod, returning to his tea.

  ‘That doesn’t tell me much, Mr Flanagan. How happy?’

  ‘He’d have won his point be a mile,’ Yamon said from where he was standing by the door as if keeping guard, his head bowed under the low ceiling, arms folded across his chest. ‘He’d have won it be a mile if he hadn’t been run out of it.’

  ‘A touch of the might have beens?’ Rory wondered, glancing at his father.

  ‘The boys had a hot horse running,’ Padraig said, now sucking at his pipe. ‘So they ran our fella out at the last with their other runner.’

  ‘Knocked him halfways to Skibbereen,’ Yamon added. ‘He’d have won be a mile.’

  Anthony nodded, pushing his empty teacup away from him and lighting a cigarette. ‘And the hunter chase?’

  ‘Sure the lad fell off of him!’ Yamon suddenly bellowed, as if still infuriated. ‘The lad only went and fell off of him!’

  ‘And I suppose he’d have won that too by a mile?’

  ‘At the very least, man!’ Yamon bellowed. ‘At the very least!’

  ‘He was twelve lengths clear at the last, sir,’ Padraig said. ‘And well on the bridle.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The boy looked round to see where the others might be, the horse jinked, and the boy fell off.’

  ‘Why run him in a hunter chase?’ Rory asked, beginning to come to. ‘If he hadn’t yet won his point? Or even his points, as in more than one.’

  ‘I was persuaded,’ Padraig replied. ‘That’s for why.’

  ‘Who persuaded you?’ Anthony enquired.

  ‘I did, sir,’ Padraig said. ‘He’s an exceptional horse, d’you see, and there’s a bit of money to a hunter chase while there’s next to none for a point.’

  ‘But if he had won, old chap,’ Anthony continued, ‘he’d have been out of novice class and straight into handicaps.’

  ‘This horse is no novice, man!’ Yamon thundered. ‘This horse has been here before! This horse has nothing to learn, man!’

  ‘Your man here means the horse would have had then to run straight in handicaps, Yamon,’ Padraig said.

  ‘This horse could run straight in a cup race, Padraig!’ Yamon insisted. ‘Ye could send this horse straight to Cheltenham and live in clover the rest of your days!’

  ‘If we’re going to have a look …’ Anthony said, consulting his watch, mindful that he and Rory had a plane to catch later – a later which was fast becoming sooner.

  ‘Sure you can have a look now all right,’ Padraig
agreed, opening the back door. ‘The boy should have him fixed.’

  They all went out into the yard, Anthony lending half an ear to Padraig’s imaginative account of the horse’s bloodline. It was still pouring with rain, but Liam had set up a course of makeshift jumps fashioned from barrels, boxes, planks and even broomsticks, and was leading a horse already saddled up from a stable.

  ‘In the name of God,’ Anthony said in some dismay. ‘You’re not going to put the horse over these?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Padraig replied. ‘Sure we’ll warm him up first, Liam?’

  Liam took his instructions, nodding as he fastened on a riding helmet that was at least one size too small for his head. Then with a leg up from his father he began to trot the horse round the enclosure.

  ‘There isn’t a lot of him, is there?’ Anthony observed when Padraig had come back to stand beside Rory.

  ‘He only appears that way with the boy being tall,’ Padraig returned.

  ‘OK,’ Anthony said. ‘But you’re not exactly tall and I was judging the animal more by you.’

  ‘He must be under sixteen hands,’ Rory added, peering through the rain.

  ‘He just walks small,’ Padraig assured them. ‘He’s a different size altogether when he’s jumping.’

  As Liam began to trot the horse, Kathleen emerged from the stables, a small oilskin-clad figure with her face half obscured by a large man’s cap, and leaned with her back against the wall, watching the proceedings. She saw her brother was having trouble getting the horse to trot sweetly for him, but she ignored his call to her. She had little time for those who came to buy their horses, particularly the smart, moneyed ones from across the water.

  ‘He’s quite green, isn’t he, old man?’ Anthony said to Padraig. ‘Doesn’t seem to know how to use himself.’

  ‘Use himself?’ Yamon roared. ‘Use himself indeed! Use himself?’

  Padraig took his hat off and threw it to the ground, shouting something in Gaelic to his son, who shouted back to him in the same language.

  ‘Subtitles?’ Rory looked at his father.

  ‘All I know is caed mille failte,’ Anthony replied with an apologetic smile.

  The more Padraig and his son shouted at each other, the more the horse began to misbehave. It was as if he deliberately wanted to put on a bad display.

  ‘Put him over the jumps now, boy!’ Padraig called. ‘You have us all bored. Go on now! Have him jump something! Watch now,’ Padraig advised his English visitors. ‘Now you’ll see some form.’

  Liam got the horse half straight but it was immediately obvious that the animal was far from settled since he began to prance on the spot and buck when he saw the jumps in front of him.

  ‘Go on, Liam boy!’ Padraig shouted. ‘Go on! Go on now!’

  Liam tried to do as he was told, shortening the reins and kicking the horse on, but as soon as he did so the horse’s head came up and he put in a monumental buck that all but had Liam on the ground.

  ‘Really, old chap,’ Anthony said politely. ‘Thank you, but I think we’ve seen all we need to see.’

  ‘You have not,’ Padraig insisted. ‘You’ll not go till you’ve seen him jump!’

  Grabbing a Long Tom that was propped up against the shed, Padraig hurried over and cracked the whip sharply behind the horse to try to encourage him to get himself straight and go forward, but its only effect was to make the animal shoot ahead as fast as he could, the suddenness of his bolt causing the ill-prepared Liam to fall off sideways. He managed to keep hold of the reins, but far from stopping the horse he simply got dragged behind it as it charged around the yard, between them knocking over practically every barrel and plank set up for the horse to jump.

  ‘Well, he can certainly bolt.’ Anthony laughed. ‘And if it was a bolter I was after, old chap, I would look no further.’

  ‘Pull that horse up, boy!’ Padraig shouted at Liam as he was swept past them yet again at full pelt. ‘What in all the saints’ names do you think you’re doing?’

  But all Liam could do now to save himself was to let go of the reins and slide across the yard to crash into a small shed, which at once began to shake as if on the verge of collapse. Seeing this, Padraig rushed over to the jerry-built structure and shoved a heavy prop against one wall to prevent yet another disaster while the horse went on galloping headlong round the yard.

  ‘I also note he doesn’t object to the hard going,’ Anthony remarked wryly to his son as the sparks continued to fly. ‘So that’s something.’

  ‘Someone should take a hold of him, Padraig,’ Yamon advised loudly, ‘or you’ll be paying for a new set of shoes earlier than you wanted.’

  But in spite of Padraig’s madly flapping arms and shouts of Will you not whoa there now! the horse persisted in its wild journey until Kathleen could stand it no longer. Her ardent desire not to see her horse taken from the yard was at war with her wish that her pride and joy should not disgrace himself, and it was pride that finally won the day. Just as Anthony and Rory were about to leave, she pushed herself quickly away from the wall against which she was still leaning and whistled sharply. Recognising the sound, the horse stopped at once, slithering on the wet concrete before turning back to the caller.

  ‘Come here, will you, you crazy loon,’ she said softly to the horse as she walked towards him with her hand held out. ‘Come here before you do yourself a mischief. Come here and show them what you can do.’

  Straightening his tack and calming him almost at once, Kathleen set him right, then, hopping on to one of the few still upright barrels, vaulted lightly and easily into the saddle. As soon as she was up the horse settled, pricked his ears, snorted and began to walk out like a dressage animal. Liam reset the jumps while Kathleen continued her display, now trotting the horse, now extending his trot, and finally cantering him in a perfect collection round the inside of the course.

  ‘You’re not really going to ask him to jump on this surface?’ Anthony wondered. ‘It’s not only concrete, but wet concrete.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask a thing of him, Mr Rawlins,’ Padraig replied, ‘if I knew he couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Most of those jumps are at least four foot, Dad, and a couple are even higher,’ Rory muttered in amazement.

  ‘Not our horse, old boy,’ his father said. ‘Ours not to reason why.’

  ‘They’re off their chumps,’ Rory said, feeling his head beginning to throb. ‘But the girl certainly can ride. Look at that seat.’

  ‘I already have.’

  They watched, both privately coming to the conclusion, without publicly remarking on it, that now the horse was standing up and moving properly he looked bigger and stronger than he had when he had ambled out of his box as if he was a donkey setting off for work in the peat bogs.

  By no means a big horse, nevertheless he now looked nearer sixteen hands than fifteen, and considerably more athletic than before. He had the air of a street fighter, an animal that as soon as it was saddled up and faced with a challenge seemed to change its physical appearance, prepared to take on all comers, to see anyone off. Getting him ready to jump Kathleen gave him one stroke down the neck, rose up in her irons into the jumping position, then gathered him up.

  ‘Go on, fella,’ she whispered to him. ‘Show them what you’re made of.’

  Now the horse moved forward with quite a different look in his eyes, tight held and bouncing into the first of the jumps. No one could quite believe what they then saw, not Yamon, not even Padraig, and certainly not the two visitors from England. From a standing start on lethally wet concrete the horse flew round the yard jumping everything in his way with plenty to spare, arching his back and tucking his fore legs well up as he rose. He didn’t touch a plank or a broomstick. He simply skipped over the jumps in the style of a seasoned show jumper. Kathleen took him round twice before easing him up and bringing him to a standstill in front of the two Englishmen.

  ‘Well done, Miss Flanagan,’ Anthony called up to her. ‘And you,
little horse,’ he added, patting the horse on his neck. ‘Well done you as well. That was some display.’

  Kathleen nodded her thanks, despite her feelings.

  ‘Would you like to see him pop over a hedge in the field now?’ Padraig enquired. ‘The ground’s a bit sloppy but he’d not mind that. He’ll go on anything.’

  ‘He’s like a wave when he jumps, man!’ Yamon assured them. ‘Like a great big wave when he races, overlapping the fences and flowing like the sea itself!’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Anthony said, inspecting the horse more closely now, lifting up and flexing each fore leg before running his fingers down the tendons, satisfying himself that the legs were cool as could be and the tendons clean and sharp. ‘If you were going to sell him, Mr Flanagan …?’

  ‘I’d be axing you for twenty thousand of your English guineas, sir.’

  ‘You can axe away, old chap, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near that sort of figure.’

  ‘If we were in the sales at Doncaster you would have to, sir.’

  ‘But we’re not, Mr Flanagan, and if you really are thinking you might sell him, I might offer you ten thousand English guineas.’

  ‘And I’d take not a drop under nineteen firm,’ came the reply. ‘And I’ll not haggle further.’ Padraig spat on his hand in preparation of sealing the deal, watched now in horror by Kathleen who in the heat of the moment had quite forgotten what the purpose of this visit might be.

  ‘And I’d not budge over ten and a half, Mr Flanagan.’

  ‘Then we have no deal, sir. And you have missed out on the chance of owning something exceptional.’

  ‘Da,’ Kathleen chipped in, sliding down from the saddle and pulling the reins over the horse’s head and under his chin.

  ‘This is nothing to do with you, girl, this is men’s business,’ Padraig said without looking at her. ‘Now do your horse good, and that’s an end to it.’

  Kathleen glanced round at their two visitors, but they were both taking one last look at the horse before he was returned to his box. She said something to her father in Gaelic, but was met with a dismissive wave of his hand.