by Kate Lattey
“What’d he do?” I ask, worried. I don’t know what the man’s limits are, if he even has any.
“To Mum? Nothing. God, she’d kill him if he lifted a hand to her! Ow,” he says, bringing his hand to his jaw. “Man, this hurts.”
He turns his head as he speaks, and I realise with a start that he has two teeth missing from his upper jaw. Knocked out when he hit that water tray, no doubt, and abruptly the horror of the accident and its terrible aftermath comes rushing back to me in intense, brutal details. I feel suddenly ill as I unwillingly relive the moment that he hit the ground, Jess’s wild eyes and foaming lips, her head shoving hard against my shoulder, and then the awful sounds of the gunshots in the night. I can’t take it anymore and the floodgates open as I start to cry. The worst and ugliest type of crying, loud uncontrollable sobs between gasping breaths. I keep telling myself to stop, and I try to control myself, but I can’t. Something inside of me has broken and I’m choking and struggling to breathe. I cover my face with my hands and try to stay upright as my knees start to tremble. Alec limps closer to me and puts a warm hand on my shoulder. I scrub at the tears as he drops one of his crutches and wraps his right arm around me. His grip is firm, and he smells of dogs and horses and hay. I drop my head onto his shoulder, my heavy tears soaking his shirt as he rubs my back gently. We stand very still for a moment, and I can feel his heart beating against mine, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Slowly my sobs subside and I realise that he’s saying something to me, murmuring reassurances.
“It’s okay,” he keeps saying. “It’s gonna be okay.”
I wish I could believe him, but the more he says that the less I can stand it, until I pull back suddenly and look him square in the eye. “You call this okay?”
He blinks twice, a line appearing between his eyebrows. “We’re still standing,” he offers.
“Barely,” I choke out. He says nothing and I stare at him, utterly dumbfounded. “How can you be so calm about all of this?”
He sighs and looks over my shoulder, staring into the distance. “Nothing I can do about it now.”
I can’t believe how defeated he sounds. “You can’t just forgive and forget,” I insist.
He chokes out a laugh. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”
We stand in awkward silence for a moment. Heavy raindrops begin to fall, and we both look up at the dark clouds over our heads.
“You might want to postpone that ride,” he tells me, but I shake my head.
“I’m not made of sugar,” I remind him. “I won’t melt.”
I lean down and pick up his discarded crutch, handing it back to him. He takes it without a word and I feel his eyes on my back as I dash across to the woolshed to get Finn’s tack. The rain thunders heavily down onto the corrugated iron roof. Maybe I should wait it out. Glancing out the door, I see Finn standing with her head down in the yard, disgusted at the notion of doing any kind of work in this weather. Alec is slowly hobbling back towards the house, raindrops splashing heavily on the ground around him. He’s soaked through and looks like a drowned rat. I’m about to call out to him and ask him to wait up when I see that Liam is standing on the porch, watching his son approach with his arms folded tightly across his chest. Alec raises his eyes and looks at his father, then continues his slow shuffle towards him. I grab Finn’s saddle and head out into the storm.
Her hooves send mud splashing up around us as we canter up the logging road. We’re both utterly drenched. The cold rain has soaked through my jeans and the rough fabric is rubbing the inside of my knees raw against the saddle. I ignore the pain and push Finn on as the track gets steeper, urging her on faster and faster.
We reach the top of the rise and she’s blowing hard, so I rein her in and pat her steaming neck. Her breath is puffing out in little clouds and I start to shiver, feeling soaked to the bone, but I’m not ready to go back yet. We walk on for a way before reaching the firebreak. I rein Finn in and stare in shock at the sight in front of me. I’ve been hearing the milling for the last few days, but haven’t paid much attention to what was going on. Now I’m faced with a picture of utter destruction. The tall towering pines are gone, leaving behind only broken branches and sawn off stumps. This entire section of forest has gone, and the fallen lumber has been hauled down the hillside, leaving deep scars in the soft earth. I sit in the saddle and stare at it through the driving rain, feeling as though someone has reached inside my chest and ripped out my heart. It’s not that I care all that much about the forest itself, but that it’s yet another thing in my life that has been destroyed. Sometimes it’s hard to let yourself care about anything, to constantly put yourself at the risk of being hurt. Finn tosses her lively head and I pat her gently before turning back and walking her back down the hill, my misery weighing heavily on my shoulders.
“He was probably right, you know,” Pip tells me, leaning on the yard railing beside me as we watch Finn eat her dinner. My pony pins her ears back as she gobbles down her feed, warning us not to interrupt her mealtime. The rain has eased off to a light drizzle, but there are more dark clouds looming on the horizon, and a cold Southerly wind is picking up. I stand there awkwardly, wishing Finn would eat faster, unable to meet Pip’s eyes. Nothing she can say in defence of her father is going to make me think any better of him, but she goes on.
“Jess was crazy, everyone said so. That’s why we got her, because she’d been through several homes and no-one could manage her. This was her last chance.”
“Still doesn’t make it right,” I mutter angrily. “They don’t shoot people for being insane.”
“No, they lock them up. But is that really any better for them?” Pip shrugs. “I’m no expert in psychology. Who knows what makes someone crazy? But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Dad did what he did, and no matter how much he regrets it, he can’t undo it.”
“Does he?”
“Regret it?” she asks, and when I nod, she sighs. “I think so. It’s always hard to tell with him. He’s been in a foul mood the last week though, and Alec won’t talk to him. They weren’t exactly close in the first place. But no matter how hard people think my Dad is, he does love us. He’s just useless at showing it.”
I pick unhappily at the lichen on the fence, scraping my fingernail across the silvering wood. “He must have known Alec would be angry.”
“I doubt he was thinking very clearly. He was furious, but most of all he was scared. His brother was killed when he was nineteen in a fall from a horse. Everyone had said the horse was unrideable, but Russell had refused to listen to them. After that, Dad gave up riding, and he never wanted us to get into it. Mum talked him round years ago, but he still gets freaked out when we fall off, and you can’t really blame him for that.”
The arguments rising in my throat, ready to be yelled out, slowly die away.
Later that night, I check my emails and find a new one from Becky. She’s horrified by the recent events, just as I knew she would be, but for some reason I find no comfort in that. She tells me, as I knew she would, that people over here must be crazy and that I should come home to a proper, civilized country.
With a sigh, I sign out of my email without replying. What would I say? I can’t tell her anything until it gets better again. If she thinks I’m really unhappy, she’ll keep trying to convince me to come home, and the more she does that, the more I’ll find myself wanting to.
* * *
Pony Club rallies aren’t the same without Alec. He’s back in school and almost back in the saddle, but he’s not allowed to jump for a couple of weeks yet. I hack Finn all the way to the rally grounds on my own, and ride Finn around in circles while everyone congregates around the clubrooms, sensing them staring at me, but avoiding talking to anyone. Someone starts telling people to get into their groups, and I ride slowly over to where Tegan is standing with Sarah, Amy and Natalie.
Jenny rides up to us on her big bay Thoroughbred and halts. “You guys up for some cross-count
ry today?”
The others are just as enthusiastic at the prospect as I am. Maybe this rally isn’t going to be a dead loss after all. I loved doing cross-country jumping on Jigsaw, and after the way she cleared that gate, Finn’s surely going to love it. Jenny swings her horse around and he starts walking out toward the course, Natalie and the twins right behind. I bring up the rear, Tegan trotting alongside me.
Jenny has us warm up in two-point position, yelling at us to drop our weight right down into our heels, keep our butts out of the saddles, our backs straight, chins up, knees bent…the list goes on. I’m doing my best, but as soon as I get myself into the perfect position, Finn starts rushing, or pulls hard at the reins, or steps sideways and throws me off-balance. I feel unstable when I’m riding all stiff and perfect like Jenny insists, so I give up and ignore her, sitting down in my saddle and cantering around behind Nugget, who is cheerfully trying to pull Tegan’s arms out of their sockets. I can see Jenny watching us with a distinct lack of satisfaction. She calls to us to change direction, and Tegan sends Nugget charging through the middle of our circle and almost collides with Spider, who breaks into a trot. I follow Tegan, ignoring the dirty looks that Natalie is giving us both. Behind me I hear Amy yelp as Topaz bucks on her way downhill, sending Amy onto her neck. She manages to struggle back into the saddle and turn the little palomino to follow me as Sarah canters Mickey in a smooth curve behind her sister, perfectly in control and sitting correctly. Happy to have someone doing it right, Jenny praises her loudly, and Tegan pulls a face over her shoulder at me.
Finally, when my legs are about to drop off, Jenny tells us to warm up over a log, followed by a spread of telegraph poles. Both jumps are fairly small, and Tegan heads off first, Nugget bounding over both fences and giving them plenty of air. As she jumps the second, Jenny calls to me to go next. I give Finn her head and canter her at the log. She races a little towards it, leaps over and rushes on towards the spread. She steadies her stride and jumps neatly over, and I give her a pat as we canter back to the others.
“Steady as she goes,” Jenny tells me. “Don’t rush it or if she gets her striding wrong and has to stop, you’ll be in trouble. These jumps won’t fall down if you land on them.”
Sarah and Nat look at each other and giggle as Amy sends Topaz over both jumps with minimal argument. Sarah follows suit, Mickey jumping with his eyes practically closed, bored with the ease of these jumps. Natalie heads off last, and Jenny is yelling at her to push her pony on.
“Wait, don’t jump, come around in a circle and wake him up a bit. You can’t go cruising in there in slow-motion.” With a scowl on her face, Natalie increases Spider’s stride fractionally and he jumps the two fences.
“Okay, let’s try the palisade,” Jenny calls, riding over to it. Tegan and I follow her, and behind me I can her Natalie whining about how Spider is being schooled for show hunters and she’s not going to undo all of his schooling and start encouraging him to rush his fences now. She says something about Horse of the Year again and Tegan rolls her eyes and turns in her saddle.
“Give it a rest! Spider’s never going to win Pony of the Year, so stop talking about it as though all you have to do is show up and accept the title.”
Natalie glares at her and starts to reply, but Jenny cuts her off. “Shut up, you lot. Jump this.”
This turns out to be a palisade, about ninety centimetres high with a wide ditch in front. “Who’s going first?”
Sarah volunteers, and at Jenny’s nod she trots Mickey away a few strides, then lets him into his ground-covering canter. He jumps it easily, and Sarah gives him a cursory pat as she walks him back. Amy goes next, and Topaz canters keenly towards the jump, but sees the ditch at the last minute and baulks, eyes out on stalks, front legs planting into the ground. Her little body recoils in horror from the jump as Amy is thrown onto her neck.
“Oh Spaz, come on!” Amy groans, struggling back into the saddle. She swings the mare away and then rides harder, as Jenny yells helpful comments like “Legs on! Look up!”
Tegan taps me on the leg with her whip. “Ten bucks Amy falls off before the end of this rally.”
“How about I just give you the money now?” I retort. “She’s guaranteed to come off at some point.”
Topaz clears the jump in a huge leap and Tegan kicks Nugget into action and follows suit. Natalie is next, and Spider canters in slowly and scrambles over hesitantly, a little taken aback by the ditch.
“Come again Natalie,” Jenny calls. “Ride forward, remember? Okay Jay, off you go.”
I pick up my reins and push Finn into a trot, then sit down in the saddle and we’re cantering. I sit deep and tight, legs firm against my pony’s sides. Finn gallops on keenly and flies over the jump, and I’m smiling widely as I bring her back down to a trot. Jenny isn’t.
“Are you trying to kill yourself? Let’s do that again with a bit more control and a bit less speed,” she says as Spider jumps the palisade more confidently. I turn Finn back to the jump and hold her in to a controlled show jumping canter. Finn’s annoyed but behaves, and jumps the palisade without any problems.
“Much better,” Jenny says, but as I tell Tegan, if I rode a whole cross-country course like that I’d come home plastered in time faults.
We go on to jump a roll-top, a bank and couple of portable oxers, and no-one has any problems.
“Okay, anyone want to try this one?” Jenny asks. It’s a corner and it looks immense. Built from big solid poles, it’s an imposing jump that needs a steady, calculated approach. Natalie blanches and Amy swears immediately that Topaz will fall down dead before she jumps that. Tegan’s game, as always, and Sarah’s jumped it before, so she goes first.
“Now remember, when you jump a corner you aim for the middle. If you try to be clever and jump the narrow end, you’re asking for a run-out. Sometimes they’re wide enough at the other end that you can bounce through, but this one’s not that one of those, so don’t even think about it. The optimum width for one this size is in the middle, so that’s where you ride to. And if your pony does drift slightly, you’ll still have room to get out of trouble. Off you go Sarah.”
Sarah and Mickey jump competently over the corner, making it look easy. Tegan and Nugget follow, the little black pony springing off his hocks and scraping over. Tegan pats him enthusiastically as Jenny looks around at the rest of us.
“Anyone else?”
I may as well have a shot. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”
Jenny raises her eyebrows. “Okay, if you’re sure. Remember, keep her steady and very straight, especially over a tricky jump like this one.”
I canter Finn around and then turn her towards the jump. She pricks her ears and lifts her head, her quick strides eating up the ground. I let her go on, lifting my weight out of the saddle in acquiescence to Jenny’s instructions, keeping my fingers firm on the reins. I lean forward, ready for Finn to take off, but she abruptly slams on the brakes, and disappears from underneath me. I see the ground rushing up towards me for a moment before I hit it hard. I can’t breathe at first, and I lie there in a momentary panic, my side throbbing where it hit the ground. After a few painful seconds, I manage to suck in a breath, and roll onto my side. Jenny is crouching next to me.
“Are you okay? Just be still, don’t try to move until you’re ready. Are you winded?”
Stupid question. How am I supposed to answer if I can’t breathe? I gradually get more air into my lungs and slowly sit up, testing my limbs. Nothing broken. Jenny helps me to my feet, and I look around for my pony.
“Where’s Finn?”
“Took off,” Amy says, sitting languidly on Topaz’s back, feet kicked out of her stirrups. “Tegan’s gone after her.”
It seems to take hours for Tegan to get back. Jenny makes me sit down and watch as Sarah jumps the corner again, and then somehow Natalie gets up the courage to try it. Spider takes a lead from Mickey and Natalie rides him forward for once. He jumps over competently, and Natalie pats h
im like he just won the Grand National.
Finally Tegan appears on foot, leading both ponies. Finn is dark with sweat, dancing on her tiptoes around Tegan, who’s struggling to control her. Nugget is walking staidly on her other side, ears pinned back at Finn. He moves warily sideways as Finn swings her quarters around towards him and Tegan gives a sharp tug on Finn’s reins.
“Cut it out!” Her tone makes it that it’s not the first time she’s told my pony to behave.
I scramble to my feet, trying to ignore the earth tilting under me, and the throbbing in my head. I take Finn’s reins from a relieved Tegan, and Jenny legs me back into the saddle.
“Trot her around for a bit, try to get her a bit more settled,” she suggests.
Easier said than done. Finn is totally worked up now, and she dances around the other ponies, sidling away, swinging her quarters around, swishing her tail and pinning her ears. She tries to take a chunk out of Mickey on her way past him, making Jenny yell at me to keep Finn further away. The mare’s coat is sticky with sweat, and I can see the whites of her eyes turning red as she rolls them constantly back at me. I try my best to keep her steady, but she’s not paying any attention to me.
I call over to Jenny. “Can I try the corner again?”
She’s been sending the others over a Trakehner, a rail with a big ditch underneath it. Sarah and Tegan have already jumped the big side, and Amy is lining up the smaller end.
Jenny looks over at me, seeming surprised. “Are you sure? Well, take her over something smaller first.”
There’s a low row of tyres just to our right, so I trot Finn towards it, then push her into a canter. Finn throws her head into the air, grabs the bit and canters full-tilt towards the jump. At the last possible moment, she ducks out to the left, leaving me swinging over her neck. I stay on this time, dragging myself upright and turning my pony back to the right. Drumming my heels into her sides, I growl at Finn.