Finding Hope at Hillside Farm

by Rachael Lucas

  She stepped through the gate, lifting her arms wide out at her sides. The little herd turned, moving along the wall in a fluid motion. She beckoned Tor with an index finger and he stepped forward, ears pricked up, his long forelock hanging in his eyes like a teenager. She lifted the same finger and he paused, still looking intently at her.

  ‘Good,’ said Ella, and took a treat from her pocket. She held it out and he took it from the flat of her hand.

  ‘He’s my star, this one.’

  Miranda stood leaning on the gate, her phone forgotten. The horses had this effect on almost everyone – they were all so beautiful, their long manes and tails shining after their grooming session, their dark eyes kind and curious.

  ‘And you use this to train them?’ Miranda motioned to the pile of wooden poles and brightly coloured plastic cones and tubs.

  ‘Yeah. Most of it.’ Ella climbed over the post and rail fence, springing to the ground neatly. ‘So these cones are used to set up a little walking course – it’s one of the first things we do in the arena. And these –’ she pointed to some wooden steps – ‘are used once people are more used to dealing with the horses. We get them to step over them – it’s an interesting exercise. If you can imagine, it helps you think about the issues you’re coping with and how to step over those. That might sound simple, but it’s surprising how people handle it.’

  ‘So if you can get a horse over, you can get over it yourself, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Near enough. The issue is always in the head. We build things up to be so much bigger than they really are.’

  You should know, Ella told herself. She’d managed to ride out the beginnings of the panic attack, and her pulse rate and breathing seemed normal again. Only the clammy dampness of her T-shirt, soaked with sweat beneath her coat, betrayed her true feelings.

  ‘And the horses don’t mind doing this sort of thing?’

  ‘They love it. They love people, and they develop a real bond with the clients. I’ve got people who still come back years later just to say hello.’

  ‘So your clients aren’t just from Llanidaeron then?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Ella shook her head, laughing. The people of Llanidaeron were politely wary about her strange horsey goings-on. They knew she did something to do with therapy, but most of them seemed to think she was some sort of counselling service and the horses were just a bit of a side helping, a bigger version of the soothing goldfish who swum around the tank in the waiting area. The idea of horses delivering the therapy was hard for people to get their heads round. It was nice, in a way, because it meant that the clients she got were already open to trying something new and different. They approached the stables with trepidation but a desire to make changes – that was part of the fun of it all.

  ‘I get clients from all over the place – they often stay overnight at the Lion, and come up for the weekend. It’s good because as I’m sure you know, the village needs all the investment we can get.’

  ‘True. And you’ve no plans to move away or expand?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere – the farm belongs to me, now. But we’re hoping to take on more clients, which is partly why I thought –’

  ‘We?’ Miranda said, looking up with interest. ‘Is there a Mister Ella in the background?’

  Ella had a brief vision of Nick’s hand caressing the waist of the blonde girl in the pub at Hallowe’en, and his look of surprise when he saw her.

  ‘Definitely not, no.’

  If things had been different maybe he’d have been up here one day, his van parked in the drive, his big feet up on the sofa, a beer by his side and the rugby on – actually, for the first time the thought of all that hit her. As an on-off bit on the side, Nick was great. But actually living there? In her house? She hadn’t really thought that through. She’d have been compromising herself for the sake of feeling that she ought to be in a relationship. Well – she realized, examining her thoughts more closely – that, and the fact that Bron leaving was going to make for a pretty lonely existence for a while.

  ‘No, there’s nobody else. I’m quite happy here with the horses.’

  Miranda flicked a glance at her.

  ‘I suppose you must have to be quite – well, sorted? Emotionally, I mean?’

  ‘To do this job?’ Ella cast her mind back, thinking of the seemingly scatty Maddie who had trained her in equine therapy, helping her along the way. She too had been through her own painful experience, coming close to death through an infection caught when she was backpacking solo around the world. Lying in a hospital bed in Colombia, she’d decided that when she returned to the UK she was going to do something good and make a difference. And she had: the countless people who had passed through her doors, and the clients Ella and her other protégées had worked with meant that Maddie could feel good, knowing she’d done her bit. But Ella knew she still felt torn, desperate to return to Colombia, where she’d worked with children who had so little that they were delighted with the gifts she’d brought from the nearby city. And Ella, of course, was carrying the scars from her own experience. The physical ones had healed, and the mental ones – well, they’d healed as well as they could. The dreams at night were all the evidence she had now.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Ella. For a moment she felt a familiar stab of guilt and regret at the things she’d said in the past. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she worked through it, the feelings still lingered.

  She walked across the yard, beckoning Miranda to follow.

  ‘This is the waiting area, and I’ve got a little room here –’ She opened the door to the therapy room, furnished with two comfortable chairs, a side table with tissues, and some black and white charcoal drawings on the walls.

  ‘Those are beautiful.’

  ‘My friend Lissa, she’s an artist. Well, she’s a teacher, but she likes to come up here at the weekend sometimes and sketch the horses.’

  ‘Does she do commissions? I’ve got a friend who would love something like that.’

  ‘I’ll ask.’ Ella smiled. The worst seemed to be over. She pulled the door to and brushed her hands down the front of her jeans, dusting off the horsehair that Tor had left there when he rubbed his head against her. They sat for a moment in the little waiting area, in an awkward silence.

  ‘That would be lovely.’ Miranda fiddled with her phone. ‘There’s just one more thing and then I’ll take some photos.’ She lifted the shoulder bag she was carrying. ‘I’ve got to be journalist and photographer – everyone’s the same in the business these days.’

  She looked at Ella, her expression kind and questioning. ‘You were in an accident.’

  Ella closed her eyes. Leaving it to the last minute, waiting until the interviewee was lulled into a false sense of security . . .

  ‘I was.’

  Miranda pushed on, twiddling the pen she was holding between her fingers. She leaned in, conspiratorially.

  ‘Do you feel that doing this work has been the secret to your recovery?’

  ‘I think any kind of work that takes you out of yourself is a good thing,’ Ella said, trying to redirect the conversation. ‘If you come up here with me, there’s a place where you can get a really lovely photo of the yard and the horses all in the outdoor arena.’

  They walked in silence up the track. Ella marched in front, fit from daily treks back and forth checking the horses. She could hear Miranda puffing slightly, but didn’t let up her pace.

  If Miranda had put two and two together, Ella didn’t want it going any further. The villagers knew what had happened – they were tactful, kind, never pushing – but it was never a topic of conversation when she was around. And of course in a place like this where life and death was far closer to home, with farming part of the community, it had become part of Ella’s past. She knew that some of the older villagers who’d known her years before, when her dad used to drive her across the hills to spend each summer with his sister-in-law, looked at her with concern in t
heir eyes.

  Ella had tried to find a balance between her natural inclination to hide herself away, throw herself into the one thing she’d discovered she still had a passion for – the horses – and the realization that it was slightly terrifying to think of another fifty years living alone on the hill, surrounded only by animals. But now, with the threat of bailiffs turning up on the doorstep, she was going to have to make some serious changes.

  She stood by Miranda’s side whilst she pulled out the big Canon camera and focused it on the farm below. The fields spread out like patchwork, the sheep dotted across them as if made of cotton wool. Smoke curled from the chimney of the cottage like a child’s drawing. The whole scene looked, Ella thought, as if someone had taken a primary school painting and brought it to life.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Miranda. ‘A couple of you with the horses would be great.’

  The photos done, Ella’s stomach churning with nerves as she waited for Miranda to pipe up again with more questions about the past, she waved her goodbye.

  ‘I’ll give you a shout if I have any further questions,’ Miranda said, throwing her bag onto the passenger seat. She unzipped her bright red padded coat and folded herself gracefully into the driver’s seat. ‘I often get home and write it up and realize I’ve forgotten some minor detail. With luck we’ll get it in next week’s edition.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ella held the gate open as Miranda drove through and headed back towards town. Her little red car beetled back down the hill, winding between the high hedges that sheltered the lane. Ella closed the gate and slid the lock across with a comforting clang.

  She couldn’t help feeling that she’d dodged a bullet this time, but only temporarily. The sick feeling in her stomach returned, and she ran a hand through her hair before turning back to the farmhouse, glad that Bron was still there – for now, at least.

  Chapter Ten

  Ella

  The sky is dark – no moon, just lowering clouds which have built over the day to a huge crescendo and released themselves – a torrent of fury and thundering rain in the darkness. Ella follows the horse box, radio playing loud enough to drown out the incessant squealing of the windscreen wipers which swing back and forth wildly, pushing what seems like a flood across the glass.

  The horse box is trundling at a snail-like 40 miles an hour on the dual carriageway, and a never-ending stream of lights pass by her shoulder as impatient cars hurtle past, desperate to get home to the warmth of their homes. Ella smiles to herself, thinking of her little house by the church, imagining the cats curling themselves around her ankles. The kettle will be boiling and their wet things heaped up by the front door. One of them will have run a bath. She can see it all, and it makes her smile. She pushes the indicator down, echoing the horse box in front, imagining her dad chatting away. She hopes they’ve got over the land war about who was driving – Dad being a cantankerous old sod was determined it should be him, but Mac, checking the weather forecast on his phone, had insisted that he was driving. Her dad was so bloody overprotective, a hangover from nearly twenty years of single parenting. She loved him to bits, but –

  ‘Honestly, Neil, I’ll take over. You have a break.’

  Ella shakes her head, remembering the argument the two men had in the car park of the arena. Neil had been driving his daughter to horse shows since she was a tiny thing, and he knew what he was doing, rain or shine. Ella, trying to keep the peace, had put a hand on her dad’s arm, telling him he could relax and listen to the evening play on the radio.

  ‘And you can have a coffee, and a bit of a rest.’

  ‘I don’t need a bloody rest. For God’s sake, you two – stop treating me like I’m some old git ready to go out to pasture.’

  Mac had winked at her behind his back. The truth was, her dad was recovering from a minor operation and could do with the break, but neither of them was going to point that out. He was a stubborn old sod at the best of times.

  ‘How about we split it?’ he’d suggested. ‘You do the first half, I’ll take over when we get to Warwick services?’

  Neil had harrumphed loudly and rolled his eyes, but grudgingly accepted. Ella knew he loved his new son-in-law and was delighted that she’d found someone who supported her love of horses. The idea of Mac taking over, though, was a step too far. Neil had cheered Ella from her pony club days, taking her to training camps and specialist instructors, determined to help her follow her dream of top-level dressage riding. She’d won the latest competition with Ruby, her huge, beautiful chestnut mare, and things were looking hopeful for the qualifying round of the national championships. The other riders had a string of expensively bred horses, but Ella had managed so far with just Ruby – there was talk of sponsorship, and a promising youngster had been offered to her for the following year. Ella, straight out of university, newly married, working hard at her psychology post-grad and teaching classes on the side, was stretching herself as thinly as she could.

  If it wasn’t for Mac, she probably couldn’t have done it all. They’d met in their first year at Edinburgh University and fallen almost instantly in love. He was cute, kind and funny – and thoughtful, the kind of man who’d bring her coffee at two a.m. when she was trying desperately to get the research notes written up for a project, even though he had work to do the next morning at six a.m. It was that kindness that had convinced Neil this man was good enough for his only daughter, the girl he’d brought up from the age of six. When Ella’s mother had died one morning – a brain haemorrhage as she made Ella’s packed lunch, crumpling to the ground in a second – they’d pulled together and found a way through. The horses had been the key, bonding them and giving them something to focus on. His sister-in-law Bron’s little farm with her Welsh mountain ponies had been a perfect escape for the two of them and they spent every summer there, hidden away from the world.

  Ella smiles to herself as they pull off the dual carriageway and onto the little country road that leads home. She imagines her dad turning to Mac, nodding happily, making the same joke about having forgotten something back at the venue and telling him they’d have to turn back. He’s done it every time they’ve gone to a dressage competition since Ella was small. She shakes her head. The funny little routines and habits that make up family life, the shared in-jokes and silly sayings – they’re precious to her. She supposes they are to everyone, but with such a tiny family somehow they seem even more important. They’re the threads that hold the family together. She’s glad that Mac, who comes from a strangely remote family, seems to have woven himself into their lives. She thinks of him jumping down from the horse box and swinging her into his arms, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes. He’s a good man. She is lucky.

  The familiar hill is steep and the horse box has slowed now to a chugging 20 miles an hour. The rain hammers down relentlessly and the music is giving her a bit of a headache, so she switches it off.

  The road is black and twisting and narrow. The crossroads leading to the hamlet of Brotherton is approaching and the tree-lined roads dip and meander through the fields. Ella sees the lights of an oncoming car before Mac does.

  There’s a moment when she sees it happening, knows that in a second her whole life has changed, realizes there’s nothing she can do. And then there’s an unearthly bang, a sensation of flying, and then silence.

  Ella woke with a start. She hadn’t had the dream for a long time now. She reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, feeling the familiar weight of Cleo curled up at the foot of the bed. The spaniel lifted her head and gave a few hopeful beats of her tail.

  ‘Come here.’ Ella reached out, pulling the dog into her arms. She was freezing cold, the covers trailing on the ground, and she buried her face in Cleo’s fur, trying to right herself.

  Miranda’s questions had awoken old memories. And it was ten years, she rationalized, so she was bound to be reliving everything that happened. She tucked the quilt around herself and took a sip from the glass of water b
y her bed.

  No wonder Miranda had made her feel that way. After the accident, when the inquest was taking place, she’d had her fingers burnt, speaking out of turn to a journalist who caught her off guard. She’d been tearful and completely alone, and the woman had taken her arm, guided her into the corner of a cosy cafe, and probed gently until Ella had told the story of the crash.

  The next day the papers were full of her anger and regret about the accident, and it had been the final nail in the coffin of her marriage. Mac, who had spent the last six months living with an angry, grieving, resentful shell, had walked out to stay with friends on seeing the words ‘It doesn’t matter what the inquest says, I can’t get past the fact my husband was driving’ in black and white. They were – in part – true; or they had been that day, at that moment. Ella’s feelings back then had veered from one moment to the next – if she’d only sounded the horn, warned them in the lorry that there was something coming, maybe she would have saved them. If her dad had been driving, would he – knowing the lorry of old, knowing how temperamental the steering could be and how it had to be nursed home after a long drive – have been able to act more quickly? Mac, furious, had turned on her after weeks of taking Ella’s desperate stress on the chin. There was no way anyone could do anything, he’d screamed at her – the truck brakes had jammed, and it was a miracle the other driver had survived. But Ella’s dad was gone, killed instantly in the accident, and Ella’s pelvis was smashed in the crash, broken in two places. She’d never ridden again. It was anger and regret for all of that that had poured out in the cafe that day, and the loss of control she’d had that day had been the catalyst for every change that had happened in her life since.

  Too proud and angry to deal with her husband’s bitter fury, she’d got on the train, throwing the barest of essentials into a suitcase. She’d told him to sell the house and that she’d send for her things. Fine, he’d said, in a one-word text that made her heart ache all over again with a raw throb that felt like it had been ripped out of her chest.