by K. M. Peyton
“It’s the money, mainly.”
“Yes, well, he’s made his racing like that. He’s just stupid if he bets more than he’s got. How can he ever enjoy it?”
“Well, that’s Maurice, I’m afraid.”
Tessa stayed for the dinner, which was wonderful, roast pork with lots of crackling and gravy and roast potatoes. In the bleak caravan world at Sparrows Wyck such luxuries were impossible. She and Sarah shared a tin of corned beef or made cheese on toast most nights, but tonight she felt her emotionally-battered self needed the goodies Goldlands could supply. Several glasses of Maurice’s rare wine also lifted her spirits. If only the company were Peter and Jimmy and Sarah and Wisbey – what an evening they would have! The others had been euphoric at Buffoon’s performance, although they all knew he might have won if… they would never stop wondering this. The eternal question.
“I don’t know why you’re so miserable – you’ve got a great horse,” she said to Maurice at the end of the meal. “There’s always another day. He’s only nine.”
“Don’t you patronize me, my girl! What do you know about ownership? All you staff, you just take your wages and gossip your time away, it’s just a game to you. Don’t tell me how I should feel.”
“If your horse got killed, all you’d think about is the insurance,” Tessa said witheringly. “If you were nicer to your staff, they might be happier to work for you. Tom, for instance.”
She thought he was going to hit her, but he was too far gone to get up from his chair.
“Get out of here! You make me sick. You only come up here to see how much you can wheedle out of your mother – I know your tricks.”
“Oh Maurice, don’t! I love to see her, she’s all I’ve got!” Tears trickled down Myra’s cheeks. Tessa wanted to scream. Her stupid mother, to put up with such treatment! She was just like a rag doll, no stuffing at all.
“Yes, you don’t think I come to see you, do you, you selfish, stupid old git!”
It was now essential to depart. Tessa ran, bursting with the joy of delivering these words. He couldn’t touch her now – she was her own person, with her own home, her own wages, and her good friends. She had everything and he had nothing. But her mother! As she leapt over the ha-ha, the problem of her mother brought her up short. Oh God, her mother… would she never see sense? Myra’s hopeless tears distressed her. She walked more slowly, turning over the day’s doings, but the events were a tired and slightly inebriated jumble now. The moon was floating behind a gauzy cloud, and an aeroplane’s lights blinked like moving stars across the downs. Tessa stood still, sniffing the cold air.
And as she stood there, contemplating her life, a small noise penetrated her consciousness. So familiar, it caused a start like an electric shock to fix her rigid. She could feel all the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. A distant whinny… no, not Buffoon’s anxious noise, but the answer he had been fretting for: it was Lucky’s voice. It came from the old buildings of the Home Farm where she had once made her den. It was unmistakeable. It came again, very faint, but Tessa knew she was not mistaken.
“Lucky!”
She ran. Galvanized, she leapt over the frosty grass towards the dark huddle of buildings on the skyline. All the time – why hadn’t she thought of it? She had known all along that it was Maurice’s plan, she knew it was… the diabolical timing! Her breath was bursting her lungs as the slope steepened to the brow but she ran even faster, choking for air. The swine! The evil bastard!
“Lucky!” she screamed. “Where are you?”
But she knew her way around the yard and where the likely loosebox was, and ran down the row of darkened doorways, peering over the swinging half-doors. A familiar little head suddenly stuck out in front of her, and a now piercing whinny of recognition blasted her ears.
“Oh, my little darling!” She flung her arms round the pony’s neck, and dragged open the door.
The loosebox was full of dirty bedding, but there was hay and water; the pony had not been ill-treated. Tessa got hold of his forelock and led him out. She was shaking now with anger.
“You know your way home! Come along! Quickly!”
She dragged him by his mane out through the gate and on to the down and faced him down the long hill home.
“You know the way – off you go! Go and whinny at the gate and they’ll come running!”
She gave him a thump on the quarters and he trotted off, letting out a few bucks as he went. Then he broke into a canter, straight down the path for Sparrows Wyck. Tessa watched him, shaking. She knew she should have gone with him, but the compulsion within her was too strong, the hate rising like bile. She was shaking with violence. She turned and ran back across the field to Goldlands. The lights still shone in the room she had just left. The curtains undrawn, she could see Maurice deep into the whisky, moaning away at Myra. She hated him then so much that she stopped, frightened for herself. For a second she knew she must follow Lucky, cool it, go home. But then she knew she couldn’t. This had happened before and she knew it led to disaster, but it was beyond her powers to pull back. It was as if she was standing back watching herself, and knowing what was going to happen.
She was ice-cold now, and calm. But trembling like a trapped hare.
She went in through the kitchen door and into the dining-room. The pork joint was cleared away on to the sideboard and the carving knife lay beside it. Tessa picked it and walked over to Maurice. She heard Myra scream and saw, for one glorious moment, the look of abject terror on Maurice’s face, and then she stepped forward and thrust the knife with all her power into his chest.
“That’s for you, from Lucky. From Buffoon. From all of us. From me!”
And then there was blood all over her and Myra screaming, and screaming and screaming.
And Greevy came in.
And she knew she should have gone home with Lucky.
The raindrops ran slowly down the window-pane, something to watch, something to do. Sit on the end of the bed looking out. There were bars over the window but she didn’t really see them any longer. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“In here for violence! You must be joking. She hasn’t the strength to lift a teaspoon, let alone a carving-knife.”
The parting words of her last visitor (a do-gooder) lingered on the air, deepening the worried look on Ma’s face. Ma ran the place. She was a sort of aged Sarah, frightening on top but, deep underneath, kind. The place was for wild girls and Tessa regretted that she hadn’t come here at a time when she might have enjoyed it, before all the Buffoon business, when she was looking for trouble. But now the company meant nothing to her. She shut herself away and stared out of the window, refused to go out, refused to talk, wished she was dead. Doctors came to see her and gave her pills for depression, but they didn’t make any difference. Something had died in her. No one would believe it was a horse.
Buffoon had been sold shortly after his Grand National. Mr Cressington had had a heart attack and died and his creditors took Buffoon to the sale yard. A vet had diagnosed incipient blindness through cataracts on both eyes, and one of his legs had swelled up with tendon trouble after the race, so nobody was much interested in buying him. He went to a dealer with a doubtful reputation and now no one knew where he was.
Tessa’s friends at the yard found it very difficult to tell her what had happened. Jimmy came with Sarah. Sarah told Ma it would break her heart. Ma said she’d never heard of such a thing but now, two years later, she was beginning to think Sarah had been right. She was arguing for Tessa to be released.
But the crime had been sensational at the time, especially in the racing press. Tessa had been given a heavy sentence.
What happened that night was something Tessa had blanked out of her mind. Save for the one thing. The look on Maurice’s face when he lay on the floor with the knife sticking out of his chest. Greevy had pulled her away and held her
struggles in arms suddenly as strong as iron shackles; Myra was screaming the house down, and Maurice had looked at Tessa with what she remembered only as satisfaction. It ate into her, Maurice’s satisfaction. The knife hadn’t gone in far enough. Greevy had stopped her, and Maurice knew, even at that moment, that it was enough to put her away, and to do him no lasting harm. After that look, self-pity took over and he moaned and wailed until the paramedics and the police arrived in a cacophony of sirens and blue flashing lights. Tessa sat watching, numb. Myra needed sedating, Greevy rose to the occasion. The few years coping with race-horses at Raleigh’s had taught him how to deal with emergencies. Unfortunately Maurice was not allowed to bleed to death.
The racing world and the national press exploded with the story. The print dared not say it, but it was freely remarked in Newmarket, Lambourn, Middleham, Malton and Epsom that the man deserved what he got, and pity the knife hadn’t gone farther. Big spenders in racing weren’t always likeable, but got what they wanted. Greevy knew what Raleigh and the yard thought about his father but had learned to live with it. He had grown away from his father, influenced by the people he now worked with. It wasn’t easy for him, pulled in two directions. He had come to admire Tessa since they had lived apart, and his horror at what she had done was more for her than for his father. He knew, with her record, that she would suffer far more and for far longer than his father. And he was right.
“She didn’t kill the man, after all – a stroke of luck for the child. Not for want of trying though. We’ve tried every approach, but she’s the most stubborn character we’ve ever come across. She responds to nothing.”
“Didn’t they say she had a jockey’s licence?”
“Well, she had. Whether she’s still got it after stabbing a leading owner is another matter.”
“It would give her direction, a job like that to go back to.”
“They want her back. She’s certainly got good friends.”
The powers-that-be were finding Tessa tiresome and expensive: shortly she would be in a psychiatric hospital, and Ma said there were better ways to spend public money. Nobody saw her as dangerous. It was domestic, essentially, they said. Domestic was – well, domestic. A private war.
While they argued Tessa went about the routine like a zombie, speaking to no one. All the other girls left her alone. She did what she had to and spent her time lying on her bed reading rubbishy novels. She did nothing wrong.
The Battleaxe came to see her, and once came with Mrs Alston. Tessa was shocked into attention.
“You got what you wanted from me that time,” Mrs Alston said, smiling. “I thought you were pretty bright. What went wrong?”
Tessa fell back on the old defence of saying nothing.
“Was it the horse?” Mrs Alston said softly.
Tessa’s eyes filled with tears but she still said nothing.
The two teachers ended up talking to each other. They made their farewells and walked slowly outside to their car.
“That girl,” said the Battleaxe, “is all heart, all brain. What is she doing in a place like this?”
“But violent too. She hasn’t learned to contain it. The stepfather deserved it, of course; I’ve not met anyone who didn’t smile with satisfaction at the story. Tessa just did what many, many people would have liked to do.”
They shook their heads. They did not mention the obvious, that the girl needed someone – or the horse – to love, it was too apparent. To love her.
“The mother once told me that Tessa thought – thinks – the world of her father, although he’s never come by nor near since the family split up. I wonder if there’s any chance of getting him to visit?”
“After such a long time?”
“The shock of it, you never know. Besides… ” Mrs Alston shrugged. “It’s his business, after all. His girl. It just might get a reaction.”
“Maybe we could trace him. It shouldn’t be all that difficult.”
They put the idea to Ma. Ma got in touch with Myra. Myra rang old, half-forgotten friends, and second cousins once removed, and the Irish racecourses, and sent the message out on the horsey grapevine of Ireland: Declan Blackthorn, ring home. The number she gave was the yard at Sparrows Wyck. Myra had no wish for Declan to turn up at Goldlands. Myra was not convinced it was a good idea but no one had come up with anything better.
Declan came over, as usual, for the Grand National meeting. He won a lot of money and got very drunk. In his pocket he had the address of the institution where Tessa was confined. Two days after the Grand National he got in a taxi and gave the taxi-driver the slip of paper. The taxi driver said the address was two hundred miles away but Declan merely said, “Drive on!” and fell asleep on the back seat.
It was just about opening time when they arrived at their destination and Declan needed a whisky or two to give himself courage. He asked to be put down at the nearest pub. He needed time to try and work out how old Tessa would be now. He remembered seeing her at the Grand National. She had looked about ten. Could she be only ten? This seemed a bit odd for a would-be murderer and he wondered if he had heard Myra correctly. But no, he had heard the story in Ireland. It had been all over the racing press: his Tessa stabbing Mr Maurice Morrison-Pleydell. He had been much congratulated. He had taken credit. He sat on in the pub, smiling to himself. What a girl! A chip off the old block. He and Myra had bred good stock. Myra… oh God! Myra…
He ordered another drink.
Some racing men came in and he got talking. The evening wore on and then it was too late to visit. He went to a cheap hotel to spend the night, and in the morning couldn’t remember where he was or why. He had lost the bit of paper with Tessa’s address. He went to the railway station to find out where he was, not liking to ask, and a train came in so he got on it, hoping it might be going in the direction of Ireland.
When he got home three days later he remembered why he had gone to that place. But it was too late by then.
Neither Ma nor Mrs Alston were surprised at the failure of their quest for Declan Blackthorn. When Mrs Alston visited again three months later she had thought of something else.
“That jockey, what was his name? The one that rode her horse in the Grand National? I think he was called Tom Bryant.”
“Tom Bryant? I’ve heard of him.”
“Perhaps…?”
“It might be worth a try. I’ll get in touch.”
Tom had a bad conscience about Tessa. He hadn’t visited because – hell – going into a girls’ madhouse wasn’t his cup of tea! He got mobbed enough as it was by far saner girls than Tessa’s companions. And what to say about Buffoon? He must have been put down by now, and how could anyone tell Tessa that? Peter and co had a conscience about not buying him back at the sales, but he had gone for more than they expected. Once bought, he would have been nothing but expense and trouble, neither of which Peter could afford. It would be hard to face Tessa’s questions.
Tessa was under everyone’s skin; they could not forget her. Tom thought of her radiant face, taking Buffoon’s reins, and the eyes that seemed to consume him. She wasn’t like any other girl he’d ever met. He would have liked to have had a bit of fun with her, like he did with most attractive girls he came across: he would have liked to kiss her, properly. She intrigued him. But there was an invisible fence round Tessa that said “Keep Out”. As Wisbey once said, it was “like she’s inside barbed wire”. Tom thought she hadn’t grown up yet, she was a late starter. She had never learned about relationships like ordinary, loved people. But she was almost eighteen now and physically maturing and perhaps, when she had come through this thing, she might… well, love him like she had loved that horse? He had to laugh at himself, thinking that. No man could be so lucky.
So when he had a phone call from someone called Mrs Alston, he promised her he would go. He told her he felt bad about having to be told.
&
nbsp; But the woman said, kindly, “I know it’s hard. I understand. But please go.”
Ma knocked on Tessa’s door and, after a moment, opened it.
“A visitor for you. Called Tom,” said Ma. “Very handsome.”
“Tom!”
This time there was a positive reaction. Tessa panicked.
“I can’t see him!”
“Why not?”
Because of things she could not bear to think about! But she was obliged to go downstairs with Ma.
Tom was looking out of the window (also barred), fidgeting nervously with the window blind. He turned round and stared at her, smiled uncertainly.
“Hi. Tessa? God, you look awful.”
Ma said, “That’s a fine welcome, I must say. I thought you were here to cheer her up.”
She went out and shut the door.
“This place is killing you! Sarah told me. I should have come ages ago, but it’s worse than hospital – you know – visiting… I’m pretty useless. But being visited – it matters. So I’m a bit of a shit really.”
He had been injured several times like nearly all jockeys and knew about hospital visiting.
“Sarah says you’re in a decline.”
Tessa shrugged.
“You can’t do this to yourself, Tessa. You’ve got to be ready when your time’s up to get your licence back.”
“I don’t stand much chance of that.”
“Don’t you believe it. What he did was criminal. Just as good as doping. The Jockey Club takes all that into account, after all. They couldn’t prove it was him, but everyone knows he paid someone to do it. And it wasn’t Greevy, surprisingly.”
“I wish I’d killed him.”
“Damned good try, all the same.” Tom laughed. “I don’t think he got many sympathizers visiting him in hospital. Raleigh never went.”