3
In the overheated trailer, when he woke up, the afternoon had already started. He dressed and pushed the bed against the wall.
Two small boys were kicking a ball and dodging in between vans. He and the lads had hung around the bins at home, hiding lighter fuel until one of the bigger boys found out and they had to change the place to a gap in the wall by the lifts. They had taken turns to look out, until one of them moved to Liverpool to be with his dad. A journey he wouldn’t have minded making, even if he had to go to the other end of the country.
Feather chomped grass near the fence, her rope tied to a brass bed-head his grandad had found on a skip. The veins in her legs were prominent. Even he could see she pulsed with verve, the desire for movement. He stroked her nose and patted her neck. She turned, a flick of her head, tail lashing.
‘She’s a beauty, but I don’t have energy to be looking after her and I can’t afford her. Your mother’s needing taxis to the hospital.’ His grandad approached, an old rag for cleaning the car dangling from his hand. Feather’s dark eyes flickered recognition. ‘I used let go of her into any field I might find for a few days, but that time’s gone. Any farmer finding I’d done so now’d call the Gards. She’s lively enough but she needs room to roam and more looking after than I can give at my age. I’m hoping to get a good price for her.’
‘You going to sell her?’
His grandad nodded.
‘No other way out. You can’t look after her, can you? With all your skills of horsemanship.’ He laughed. ‘Much as I’d rather keep her with me, she’s getting on. I’m getting on. I’ll take her to the fair at Moynard’s Cross.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Up the country. You fancy a trip? You’ve been in bed for days. I’ll show you the countryside. Many’s the good time I had in the town. Trees as tall as the sky around the green.’
He could go. Get away as far as possible. It was distant enough to help him forget. He might run off to the most isolated place in the country, a den in a woods or a cabin at the edge of the sea. He would like to tell his grandad he needed distance, how there was a girl and before, someone he knew who he had injured badly. But it might alarm him. Or his grandad might tell his mum. As long as he got away. Anywhere would do. Anywhere to hide.
‘I don’t know whether you should be going anywhere, Dad, and I don’t see this lad travelling. The furthest he’s been is up and down to that cess-pit of a house.’ His mum appeared in the doorway in her red dressing gown. Her pink slippers were stained and dirty. Nothing stayed the same. She was ragged and tired, her skin slack and grey.
‘You trying to tell me I’m past it? Is this what you’ve come all the way for?’ his grandad asked.
‘It’s not what I meant. You could be robbed or have a heart attack or fall down in a ditch.’
‘I’m as good as ever I was.’
Early next morning, Torin checked the horsebox before they chained it to the car. He had an impulse to stay, for his mum had become slower and weaker, but he would be back. Soon. Too soon. The open road was best. It had attracted his grandad for years. It might do something for him and keep him happy. Torin blew up the tyres on the horsebox with a borrowed pump and checked the axles. The battery in the car was gunged around the top and his fingers were blackened from cleaning it. Dark green paint flaked above the wheels and the door was loose. His grandad said not to worry, to clear out the ropes and cans and it would do fine.
‘I had good times at the fairs. They bring great fun. Myself and the lads used to enjoy ourselves. If you can’t do so when you’re young, when can you?’ He slapped Torin on the back.
He was like a child with his rush of optimism, but raw, wrinkly skin fell over itself around his neck, betraying his age. Torin could not believe the old man wanted to leave but, if his granddad had any desire to, he would go too if there was a chance. He had to get out of the place and he could put up with his grandad. Travelling with him would not be as bad as waiting for Caitlin, with his pulse for her running through every day, every hour.
The sky cleared and lifted after the night’s rain as they drove out. A narrow road overhung with high branches led to the main road. They gained speed and his grandad hummed an old tune. The day grew fine and warm. They headed for town and, once out the other side, took smaller roads going between towns and villages. Some looked the same, with bland squares in the centre or a statue of a priest or soldier. Many had houses in shades of pink or blue, yellow or orange, a variety which surprised him.
‘The road over there’d take us to the castle your man Essex besieged. The beggars had no chance and were left with nothing,’ his grandad announced as they passed a crossroads, leaving a spreading town. His mouth sank, the lines around more pronounced. His hair was white in the sunlight.
‘Essex who?’
‘The man of Queen Elizabeth.’
‘The Queen?’
‘Not the one now. The other. The one a long time before. The first one. Do you not know your own history? They fought for five days and nights. Didn’t your mother tell you?’
Torin shook his head.
‘She should have. Only right you should know where you come from.’
Torin sank back. There was no stopping his grandad. He should have thought of how he would be trapped. But it had to be better than being on the site, hanging around, in fear he would run into Shane or Caitlin. The rubber mats under his feet were worn. The plastic fascia was scuffed. If he had a car he would make sure it was decent.
‘Did she teach you any songs, either?’
‘No.’ Torin shifted, leaned forward, distracting himself with the contents of the glove box. A piece of string. A cloth. A worn medal of St. Christopher.
‘I’ll do it so, before it’s too late and I’m over the hill.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The minstrel boy to the war is gone, in the ranks of death you’ll find him...’
Despite wishing his grandad would stop, and straining to find interest in the fields they passed, the tune soaked in. Torin saw a boy, light glinting off his blade. A field rugged with ploughed mud. Hooves raging. The minstrel might have walked or had his own horse.
‘I’ll make a scholar of you. See, if we went west from here I’d get to the rock where Grania and the young fella jumped into the sea. She must’ve been awful taken with him but in those times perhaps one would.’
Torin saw a couple on a headland. The crash and sprawl of waves as the young man jumped in. He had limp blonde hair like Pauley’s, lifting in the breeze, the day they found the oysters. The day he saw Caitlin.
Moynard’s Cross, when they arrived, turned out to be a drizzling little town overcome with crowds. A strict-faced grey building stood on the outskirts. He wondered if it was worth coming.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘The prison. You wouldn’t want to be landing up there,’ his grandad laughed.
Torin shivered and rolled down the window for air. If the police wanted him. If they knew where he was. He needed to keep moving. Weeks had passed since he had left. They might have found him if they had wanted to.
They drove through the narrow streets of the crowded little town to a green at the centre. Surrounding roads were overtaken by vans, cars and horseboxes. The grass was full of horses and men holding ropes or reins. A dark brown horse was led around the green.
‘Beautiful creatures. Fine good necks on them. They came from Spain years back. You can see the strain in them,’ his grandfather said as the horse raised its head.
Haughty. Proud. He was right. Something about them.
Rough voices crammed the air. Men shouting at each other, at the same time. Nobody listening. Some with flat caps moved between the animals, pausing to examine them. He could stay. Get a job. Whatever the town was like, it would shield him. He would be lost and could forget. Forget Caitlin was serving men in a bar, h
ow she knew Shane and the others, how she belonged and he didn’t. Forget about the tight hold of her room which was not a room when he was there but a world, a land, a continent, with life forms and offerings from the beach and the shore.
‘I’m glad to arrive. I don’t want her agitated.’ His grandad stroked Feather’s forelock. ‘She must be shown for the beauty she is, docile and well pleased with the world, the way I first saw her, on the side of a hill in Connemara. No need for mustard in her backside to make her lively.’ In a snug pitch, the far side of the green, he loosened the rope on Feather and tied her to the horsebox. He threw down straw and slapped her hind-quarters.
The houses opposite were blue, green, pink. A ripple like the summer. A light breeze ruffled the trees. Torin gave Feather a drink and her fat tongue slurped.
‘I’ll take a look around,’ he said.
‘Do. Make yourself at home.’
He walked across the green as it filled with horseboxes, vans, and old cars looking as if they could not last a drive down the main street. The late afternoon warmed. A police car was parked near the green. Two fat policemen sat in the front eating chips. Of course. Any big gathering drew them. Coming had not been a good idea. What had he been thinking? But he was stuck. He crossed the street, out of their sight, quickened his step, walking in the opposite direction. Boutiques and craft shops lined the road. He turned a corner past tiny cafés and their queues running on the pavements outside. An old lady with a shopping bag on wheels tried to pass a girl in a flowery skirt with a buggy. The girl pulled the buggy over and smiled. With her cap of curls falling about her ears and one arm angled on her hip, she was like Caitlin. His heart gasped. He wanted to stretch out a hand to touch her, to test if it was.
Further down, a larger, modern, glass-fronted bakers was emptier; he bought a can of Coke and a doughnut. He walked to the lower slopes of the green, which fell away to a church and its frontage. Groups of people sat drinking and talking. He lay back. Coming was easy. His grandad’s chat partly filled the gap inside him but he did not know how he could go on when they got back to the site. His mum was likely to make demands on him to stay there.
The girl in the flowery skirt pushed her buggy onto the grass but the baby was crying. He hoped they would sit at a distance, but she sat near and released the child. She rocked him, his chubby little face turned up, and gave him a bottle. Quiet fell. A simple need, Torin realised, for when she had finished the bottle, or the baby had enough and was content, she tucked the baby in the buggy and walked over the grass to the street.
In the evening, his grandad said they had to ready themselves to settle for the night in the back of the car, an old jacket for a pillow, two worn blankets over them. He said, he expected the following day to be fine and they were likely to do good business.
‘Feather’ll be well rested and in fine humour. We won’t hear a peek. She’ll be quiet as ourselves.’
‘This is old.’ Torin pulled a scratchy blanket over his shoulder.
‘Don’t mind. My mother had it off a farmer’s wife we used to call to. She made it. Had the wool from her own sheep and spun it herself. It may have a few years done but it’s pure wool. You couldn’t find better.’
‘Okay.’ He wanted to sleep. For the night to sink in to his bones. Out here, it would be easy to let go. No police. No Shane. Nothing to remind him.
The next day, they were up and ready early. His grandad brushed down Feather and plaited her mane, saying it would never be as good as the way Kate trickled in a red or gold ribbon.
‘She has a good smooth coat and her muscles are strong. Look at the big rump. I’ll get her to stand tall, the full sixteen hands,’ he urged, tapping Feather’s hind leg with a stick. She shuddered and stepped forward. Muscles moving over bones, fluid as water.
Crowds pushed and melted in between horses; men with stubble, boys his own age who might be jockeys. He stared into the distance, certain it was Abdul, Harjit’s friend who had long hair. His brown face was distinct in the crowd. Abdul out of loyalty had followed Torin. Come over and trailed him. Torin turned, attempting to hide.
‘What are you doing, lad? Stand out there and let the crowd know you’re selling,’ his grandad said.
He fell back to where he had been standing. It was too late and didn’t matter. Abdul would have seen him. It would be over. But no. It was, as he gazed on, not Abdul or anyone like him. The face of a woman was before him. Her tanned, bony face was her own. He turned to Feather. Wanted to cry at his shrieking anxiety, stripping through. If only the day was over. All the days were over.
In the evening, as the crowds left, they strolled across the field to a pub. His grandad recognised a face and talked to a couple of men. He was always talking, not letting go of people, as though afraid of being alone. He found the man was not one of the McMasters from Kildare but another branch; horses were fetching a good price this year, a gangly man said on his way to the bar.
‘Some buyers are over from England. And Scandinavians here too. They love the coloured ones to stand the bad winters,’ a man shouted, his brown eyes sharp in the dim light. The bar was brash with loud voices. A young man played an accordion and another sang, but Torin could not take in the words. He strained towards the door. Anyone might come in. The police. If Caitlin was there, he would be all right. Protected. Safe. Everything which had passed between them would have passed and they could start again. With every movement of the door, he fidgeted. It opened and a girl swung through. Caitlin. Someone had told her where he was. He hadn’t expected anyone would, but they must have. She had chased up country and everything was going to be all right because he would forgive her, and she him. He had been stupid and rushed to the wrong conclusions.
But the girl leaned up at the bar and chatted to the barman; up on her toes as she stretched to point out a bag of crisps, she flicked her dark hair behind her ears. He was seeing things. What was he thinking? She had black hair but it was straight. She was not Caitlin and could never be. The evening fell flat and worthless. He did not deserve to see her. He probably hadn’t deserved her anyway. Laden with hollowing emptiness, he shoved on over to his granddad.
Torin’s head buzzed as they bedded down in the car. He lay awake and saw Caitlin riding bareback on beaches, a bit of rope for a rein. He saw hooves soft and clear in the sand. He saw her on Feather taking in the length of the field. He would never see her ride again. Not Feather or any horse, and all those days when he had been new to the site and the town were like an age back. Belonging to a different part of him.
The next day, he woke to the stink of shit and urine from the green. Too many horses gathered, and a fear that they may not sell Feather snaked in him. He followed his grandad out to the animals. A police car lurked nearby, the window down as an officer spoke to an elderly man who pointed his stick to a fine black horse, taller than Feather or any horse Torin had seen. The two laughed. Some joke. Was it about him? Torin pushed into the crowd to lose himself.
The air was thick with the crash of voices. Shouts about prices. The height of horses. Men arguing. Numbers hurled in the air. Deals made with a slap of the palm and spittle. Business was money laid down in another man’s hand.
A man examined Feather and slapped her sides. ‘What age is she?’
With his brown tweedy hat tilting off, he was like a gangster. But half the folks around could be, from what his grandad said.
‘There’s a good few years left on her,’ his grandad said.
‘I’ve seen a couple of mares but this one is more the kind I’m after.’ He walked her length and pushed back his hat to get a full view. Feather raised her head, eyes dark. She was unused to the noise of strangers, their hands upon her. She had no room to move. ‘She’s placid enough.’
‘She is for sure.’
‘Does she like kids?’
‘Gets on well with all of them. The young lads used ride on the b
are back of her,’ his grandad answered.
‘I’ve a daughter. She’s been at me to get her a ride.’ The man ran his palm over her flanks, along her nose and slipped his other hand quickly under her chin, and opened her mouth. ‘What’re you asking?’
‘Five thousand,’ his grandad declared.
He was a chancer. Had dared too much. They would soon see the journey home the same way they had coming, and Feather not sold.
‘Pricey. Will you take four and a half?’
Torin glanced at his grandad, who looked at Feather. He did not want to let her go. Jesus, they would end up with nothing to show for the couple of days’ venture.
‘You won’t get any horse better for the age or temperament. Make it four thousand and seven and she’s yours.’
‘You drive a fierce bargain,’ the man said, looking in her ears.
‘There was never a broken bone on her.’
His grandad had said that years ago Feather had knocked against the trailer, trying to edge out to the field, and there was damage to her leg. They needed to get the deal done and clear out quickly.
‘And the tack too?’ The man put his hand into his pocket, drawing out a crumpled envelope, fat with money.
Like taking the shirt off of his back, he could hear his grandad say.
‘All right. All included.’ His grandad slapped Feather lightly.
‘I’ll take her so. You’ve a deal done.’
The man pressed worn notes into Grandad’s palm while he counted them down with his eyes. ‘And one for luck,’ the man concluded.
Quick as a handshake Feather was gone. Into another life, another field, other people riding her.
His grandad loosened the rope and she and the man walked across the field to the other side, where the large horseboxes were parked.
‘They’re all the same. Clever scuds from the cities. But our business is over and we didn’t do too badly out of it, did we?’ his grandad announced on their way to the car. ‘Enough here for a good drink or two when we’re home.’
Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind Page 14