I led Marli out, mounted her, and waved goodbye. It was a muggy day without a breath of air anywhere, or so it seemed. The clouds were low overhead, the cow-parsley on the verges turning to seed. Suddenly summer seemed to be waning, the landscape wilting under the heat from the sun.
“Be careful,” I shouted to Mum. “Don’t open the door to strange men. Drive carefully. Don’t take risks.”
“Oh, Jean, darling, I’m not an utter fool,” she called after me. “Stop worrying, anyone would think I was a little girl. It’s too stupid for words, you’re not my mother, darling.” She was still laughing as I pushed Marli into a trot.
I had caught Rachel’s feeling of approaching disaster. What did she mean? I trotted on, not seeing the traffic, the road – not even Marli’s pricked ears. I was riding automatically, my mind on Rachel. I wish I had never met her. I wish stupid Mrs Parkin had kept her mouth shut, I thought. What’s wrong with me? Three weeks ago I was happy.
I could see the house now. Aerials, wires and masts, two satellite dishes, stark and alien in the Oxfordshire countryside. I thought of the room packed with communications equipment – laptops, satellite phones, all the latest gadgetry. I understood none of it, and did not want to understand it. Hated it, even.
I pulled Marli into a walk and could see Mrs Watson in tweed skirt and pink jumper (in spite of the weather), holding a small, grey donkey. The yard was crowded with cars. Music blared through open windows, drowning the country sounds and making a mockery of the birds’ songs.
I wish things never had to change, I thought. I wish Mrs Mooring was still here with her wild white hair, the yard full of squawking geese, cats everywhere and a smell of cow hanging over everything. Not forgetting the creepers covering the windows and the house looking so old with its crooked chimneys and sloping doors.
Rachel waved from the railed paddock and called a greeting.
I dismounted slowly. “You’re still alive, then?” I asked. “Shall I let Marli go?”
She helped me take off Marli’s tack, while Mrs Watson stood admiring the house.
“What a change. It doesn’t seem possible, does it?” she said. I could see there was a new trough full of clean water in one corner of the field.
“Yes, it is changed,” Rachel said. “The house is full of people, otherwise I would ask you in. Half of the visitors speak no English so I don’t think you would like them much.” She had dark shadows under her eyes and no make-up, looking physically and mentally exhausted. “I don’t know how to thank you, Jean,” she began.
“Don’t then.”
“Do you need a lift home?”
“I can walk.”
I went home with Mrs Watson who talked all the way. “What a set up! They must be very clever people, like your father.”
“Yes,” I said. “They must be. But things around Rachel seem to die, so I expect Marli will die soon; she says there’s a curse on her.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, don’t say such things,” cried Mrs Watson. “Of course there isn’t a curse. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. We’re not living in the Middle Ages.”
“Listen,” I said. “Thunder. Do you think we’ll be struck?”
“For goodness sake, Jean,” exclaimed Mrs Watson, stopping at our gate. “What has come over you?”
I was like that all day. The storm came later, bringing Angus home on his battered old bike, soaked to the skin, calling, “We just cleared the eighty acres in time.”
Dad was still in London. He was staying another day, and might have to fly straight to New York without returning home.
“Why? He’s never at home now,” I wailed, as thunder growled and lightning flashed in strange, jagged shapes.
“He’s dealing with important government contracts,” Mum said, but it meant nothing to me.
I thought of Marli standing in the railed paddock with Maggie, old and disreputable, beside her. They had nowhere to go, no shade, no shelter, no hedges, nothing. Donkeys are more delicate than horses, and Arabs are not like moorland ponies.
I stood at the sitting room window biting my nails, watching the rain pouring down in torrents, bending what was left of the corn in the fields, whipping the petals off the flowers, flooding the gutters. It suited my mood, added to my feeling of impending doom.
But all things end. The sky lightened, the rain became a drizzle, the bent grass straightened and the puddles were suddenly lit by the sun. Mum opened the windows again while Angus wolfed down enormous doorstep sandwiches.
The next day I hacked with Rachel. She was riding well now and I had to admit that she was a quick learner.
“What a storm we had yesterday! One of our masts was struck by lightning. There was frightful bedlam.”
“Have your guests gone?” I asked.
“Yes, all but two.”
“Is Maggie all right?”
“Yes, fine.”
We talked like that all during the ride, the conversation staying on everyday things: on school and approaching exams, on the village shop and Mrs Parkin. It was as though Rachel was making up for what went before, trying to tell me that she was really quite an ordinary person.
Angus was combining on the farm. Mum had gone to Reading. We put Marli in Killarney’s box when we returned and drank mugs of coffee in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I was so gloomy the other day. I miss my real father. You do understand, don’t you?” she asked, taking her mug to the sink.
“Yes.”
“I get depressed sometimes. But today was lovely. I really feel I’m progressing. Do I look better on Marli? Are my legs in the right place?” she asked.
“Yes. We must meet and practise for the show some time. I’ll be your groom if you like – you know, go in when the saddles are off and flick a stable rubber round Marli. Mum usually does it for me, but somehow I don’t think your mother will want to do it.”
“Probably not. Thank you.” We went back to the stable. I helped her tack up Marli. She was wearing no make-up, her hair was even tangled at the back, and her boots had mud on them. She looked normal and relaxed.
“I’m so glad we’re friends,” she said, mounting. “I must hurry because I’m supposed to be preparing lunch today.”
Marli trotted away with an even stride, her head in the right place, her tail held at an angle befitting an Arab mare. I felt happiness gradually returning, until everything looked beautiful again. I’ll tell David Winter to build a shelter for Marli and Maggie, and to lay on a water supply. Then I won’t need to worry until the winter, I decided.
Mum was back from Reading now, laden with shopping.
“All right?” she asked. “Better?” As though I had been ill.
“Yes, fine. I’m sorry I was such a fool. I don’t know what got into me,” I answered.
“I expect it was the thunder in the air. Can you carry the eggs, please?” asked Mum.
I took the egg boxes from the car while Mum said, “When are you seeing Rachel again?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t fixed anything up.
“You’ll be able to help me then. I want to turn out some jumble for a sale in the village.”
“But I was going to school Phantom, pull his mane and take his tack to bits, whitewash the stables, and tidy the muck heap!” I cried.
“And, and, and,” exclaimed Mum, laughing. “Come on, it’s lunchtime and I’ve bought some ready-made lasagne.”
Over lunch Mum said, “You mustn’t become like Rachel. Just remember you’ve had a secure and loving childhood, and your father is still with us.”
“For the time being anyway. If he was killed, would you marry again?”
“I’m not discussing that. You are morbid. You grow more like Rachel every day. Help me find some jumble, then you can clean your tack and do what you want to do to the muck heap,” said Mum, dishing out stewed apples.
It was a wonderful afternoon and a beautiful, peaceful evening; the last one we were to have fo
r some time, but we did not know it then. Everything seemed drowsy that evening, slumbering – even the horses at peace grazing the dry summer grass.
I cleaned my tack in the kitchen, taking it to bits, cleaning inside the stud billets, noticing that my stirrups leather needed new stitching. Angus was too tired to do anything except idly turn the pages of a book. Mum made chutney. It was one of those evenings when life seems to last for ever, when change is unthinkable.
Later, the telephone rang. It was Dad saying he was being sent to New York. “It’s only a flying visit,” he said. He spoke to each of us in turn, which was unusual. “Don’t go far, Jean,” he told me. “Don’t go alone.”
“Why on earth not?” I shouted. “Can’t I go out on Phantom?”
“Oh, you’ll be all right on Phantom,” he said. How wrong he was! Why did I fail to touch wood? But Sparrow Cottage has an aura of peace about it, feeling safe inside.
“By the way, the CID may call. They are still worried about the burglary,” Dad told Mum.
Later we sat and talked, while darkness blotted out the orchard, the paddock and, last of all, the garden. A summer’s darkness full of the sleepy voices of birds. Bats flew past the windows, an owl hooted. In the distance a cow was mooing.
“Why on earth the CID? We’d better tidy up,” Mum said.
“Mrs Parkin is coming tomorrow. Have you forgotten?” asked Angus.
I opened my bedroom window when I went to bed and called out to Phantom and he answered, his neigh somehow muffled by the darkness. I could smell the roses still in bloom in the garden, and the sickly-sweet smell of honeysuckle.
In the morning there will be a mist, I thought. Cobwebs on the top of the hedge Dad has just clipped, the first dews of autumn.
Where was Dad now? I wondered next. Flying? Landing in New York? Already in conference?
I clambered into bed and sleep came quickly: a dreamless, carefree sleep. I did not know then that I would not sleep so well again for many a long night.
Next morning I rode again. Phantom was fresh, the morning mist soon cleared and the valley was suddenly empty without corn: a yellow wilderness which would soon become dark plough and then winter wheat. I galloped across the stubble and found Dominic and Angus tinkering with a vast machine.
“It’s gone wrong again,” said Angus, “and it’s only a few weeks old.”
“We ought to go back to horses,” Dominic said.
I rode on and found Mrs Barnes was hanging out dusters in the yard by the farmhouse.
Mr Barnes was leaning over a door in the farmyard looking at a newly-born calf. Hens scratched near the house. A cock perched precariously on a gate and crowed. I galloped back across the stubble. The machine was working now, with Dominic perched inside wearing goggles, while Angus stood waving his arms in excitement.
“Where’s Rachel?” he asked me. “Don’t you ride together any more?”
“I wanted to ride by myself, just for a change,” I said, turning Phantom like a polo pony and galloping home. I hosed him down in the stable-yard and scraped the water off with a sweat scraper. I was so happy I could not help singing, but I can no longer remember what I sang.
Then Mum called, “Your father’s just rung. He’s in New York.”
“Hooray,” I shouted. “I think I’ll ride Killarney after lunch. He hasn’t been ridden for days.”
We were halfway through lunch when there was a banging on the front door so loud that it sent tremors through the cottage. I rushed through the hall and shot back the bolts. Rachel was standing outside in riding-clothes, her face spattered with blood. For a moment I thought she was going to faint in my arms. Then she gasped, “Don’t let them kill Marli.” I helped her into the house and pushed her into a chair, while she said over and over again, “Where’s Marli? Don’t let them kill Marli.”
“She’s concussed,” said Mum, rushing to the telephone. “Try to keep her quiet. Draw the curtains.”
“But where’s Marli?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
Rachel refused to stay still. She was like someone demented, crying and screaming, “Don’t let them kill Marli. Where’s Marli, don’t let them kill Marli …”
In five minutes I wanted to scream too.
“Dr Cartwright says to take her straight to hospital,” Mum said, looking for her car keys. “Shouldn’t we ring her parents?”
“What’s their number?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look in the book.”
But their name was not in the telephone directory. Then we heard voices outside, and Angus calling, “We’ve got Marli. She’s pouring with blood again. Where’s Rachel?”
“Here. Concussed,” I shouted. “Do you know her telephone number?”
Angus rattled off a number. Mum dialled it. There was no answer.
“We had better call Mike Davis again,” said Angus, and I saw that Dominic was with him, in overalls and cap.
“She jumped off the track and got caught in the spike harrow. The harrow shouldn’t have been there. It was my fault,” he said.
Rachel looked at them, crying, “Don’t let them kill Marli.”
“She’s outside. She’s all right,” I said, but it made no difference.
“You sit in the back with Rachel,” Mum told me. “I wish the doctor had called, she could do with a sedative.”
We bundled Rachel into the car between us, while Angus shouted, “Shall I send for the vet, then?”
I shouted that old platitude, “Better safe than sorry.”
Now Rachel changed her tune. “I want Marli,” she said over and over again. Then, “Where is Marli?” as tears streamed down her face. “Where is Marli? I want Marli. Don’t let them kill Marli …”
I put my hands over my ears.
There was blood on her hair, blood on her cheek, blood trickling down her black tee shirt. She must have hit the harrow, I thought, and then somehow found her way to us, more by instinct than anything else.
The hospital was crowded when we reached it. Nobody seemed perturbed by Rachel’s repetitive cries. We were told to sit in a corridor and await our turn. Mum fetched us cups of tea, but we did not give Rachel any, afraid that she might need an anaesthetic. “She shouldn’t have gone out alone,” Mum said.
“Even if I was with her she might still have fallen off,” I replied, trying to silence a feeling of guilt.
“Don’t let her ride again on her own,” said Mum, severely.
“She is sixteen,” I replied. “She’s not a little girl, she’s older than I am.”
Rachel was still talking like a tape in a continuous loop. A woman told us, “You shouldn’t ride ’orses. They’re nothing but trouble, start to finish, cluttering up the roads, eating good grass, spoiling the footpaths. Stick to your bike in future.”
At last we were fetched by a bright young nurse and taken to a cubicle. I left Rachel there with Mum in attendance. My head was aching and Rachel was still saying, “Don’t let them kill Marli.”
I sat on a bench with my head in my hands and I thought: It’s all my fault. If I had ridden with her, if, if …
But when Mum reappeared a few minutes later she was smiling. “They’re going to keep her in tonight, just to be on the safe side,” she told me. “It’s the best thing.”
“So we can go home?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Have you filled in all the forms?”
“I hope so. They will contact her parents,” Mum said, running outside.
Mum was already in the car when David Winter stopped in front of me, his small eyes blazing, his huge eyebrows standing up like hackles. “Where’s Rachel? What do you mean by bringing her here?” he stormed.
“She fell off Marli. She’s concussed. We tried to get you on the phone.”
He grabbed me by the arm. “And what has she said?” he demanded.
“Said? She keeps saying the same thing over and over; it�
��s about Marli, nothing significant.”
Mum was hooting the horn now.
A man in a scarlet shirt with bleached yellow hair and a chain round his neck asked, “Why don’t you leave the kid alone?”
David Winter let go of my arm. “She’d better be all right,” he said, swinging on his heels. I looked at my wrist: it was red where he had grabbed it.
“What was that about?” asked Mum, leaning over to open the passenger door.
“Rachel. He’s furious. Angus must have rung him. Mr Winter wanted to know what she said,” I answered. “Look at my wrist. It’s scarlet where he held it.”
“I expect he was anxious. I would be if you went riding and didn’t return. I’d be having kittens. And when men suffer they take out their frustrations on someone else,” said Mum, starting the engine.
“I wish they had never bought Hill Farm House,” I said next.
“They’re renting it. It isn’t theirs.”
“But they’ve erected all those masts and things.”
“I expect they’re to impress customers. They’re just glorified electricians and computer experts.”
“But they’re rich,” I replied.
“Yes, they’re clever businessmen, and not very honest either,” Mum answered. “Anyway, they could be living on borrowed money, lots of people do.”
When we reached Sparrow Cottage there were plainclothes policemen waiting for us.
“I hope it’s all right. I let them in,” Angus told us. “Marli’s all right. It’s just the old wound opened up again. Mike gave her a jab of penicillin. He says she’ll be completely recovered in a day or two. How’s Rachel?”
“Crazy. Still shrieking. Did you ring her father?”
Angus nodded. “Her stepfather, you mean.”
“He appeared at the hospital. He was in a terrible rage,” I said.
We left Mum to deal with the detectives and went outside. I fetched a body brush and started to groom Marli.
“David Winter slammed the receiver down on me,” Angus said. “Do you think he beats Rachel? Batters her? You know, like you read in the papers?”
Phantom Horse 6: Phantom Horse Wait for Me Page 5