Dead Man Riding (16 page)

‘Tide's just turned,' the Old Man said. ‘Be in and out again by morning.'

He seemed pleased with himself. We'd gathered on the way that the plan was to sleep in the sandhills then get up at first light for a gallop along the beach before turning for home. This evening we simply walked the horses down to the sea, to cool their feet and legs in the waves that were breaking as slowly as a big animal breathing, with hardly any foam. Afterwards we tethered them to graze just behind the sandhills near the stream, so that nobody would have to stay up all night to watch them. Robin and the Old Man produced bread and hard cheese from their saddlebags and shared them out, a few mouthfuls for everybody, washed down with water from the stream. Later we rolled ourselves in our blankets and slept in a hollow between the sandhills. The moon was full in a clear sky, turning the sea and sandhills black and silver. I lay awake listening to the sea and looking up at the moon, feeling some of the tension slipping away.

*   *   *

It was light at four. The Old Man was up before any of us. I saw him with the horses, standing beside Sid. He wasn't stroking him or talking to him, just standing there. The rest of us came awake slowly, stiff-limbed and heavy eyed because you never sleep as deeply outside as under a roof, unless you're used to it. Robin helped us sort out the tack. I knelt to drink from the stream, splashed water over my face and went to find Sheba with her head up and nostrils flared, sensing excitement. Most of the horses had come down to gallop on the beach before and knew what to expect. Only Bobbin, solid as a wagon, seemed unaffected and went on cropping grass. I felt a flutter of nervousness as I adjusted the tack. As far as I could see there was nothing to stop us between there and the Solway Firth and the pace was likely to be wild. Also, from what I'd seen the evening before, the beach needed more caution than it was likely to get with all of us going full tilt. Avoiding the rocky patches wasn't going to be easy. Still, the Old Man and Robin knew what they were doing and if I stuck close to them, all should be well. The Old Man was mounted before the rest of us and waited at the top of a sandhill looking out to sea. When we joined him he turned and smiled.

‘Are we ready, then?'

There was a little edge to the smile and his voice. Perhaps even he was nervous too. Without waiting for an answer he pressed his leg lightly against Sid's silver flank, cantered down the sandhill and on to the beach.

We followed in an untidy bunch, backing into each other, hooves sliding on the sand. Once we were on the beach Sheba went off like a stone from a catapult, so fast that I could hardly think or even see beyond a blur and all my efforts were concentrated on staying in the saddle. When things cleared a little I saw Robin and his big bay ahead of me to the right, on the landward side, and the silver streak that was Sid further ahead, closer to the sea. Given the bay's wildness I decided that following the Old Man was the safer option and nudged Sheba over a little with my right leg. From the sound of several sets of hooves thudding along behind me, I guessed others had made the same decision. We galloped along, getting faster if anything, and with Sheba's smooth pace it felt like being suspended between sea and sky. The only worry was that we must hit a rocky patch soon and I wondered how we'd slow down. Then I saw the Old Man signalling with his right arm. He seemed to be telling us to bear right, back towards the shore. Sheba turned as soon as I thought it and the others followed. I glanced left, expecting to see the Old Man turning too but he was going straight ahead. Then suddenly, as I looked, he wasn't there. Only sea and sky and the silver stallion checking for a moment then turning, still at the gallop, in a long curve to join the rest of us, riderless. Robin must have seen it as soon as I did because he'd pulled the big bay round and was cantering towards where the Old Man had disappeared but I was nearer. Somehow I managed to pull Sheba up and turned her in the same direction. There was another rider beside me. Meredith.

‘Has he fallen?'

I didn't say anything. We came back from a canter to a walk because the beach was dangerous now, first scattered pebbles, then larger stones and small rocks covered in green weed – just the place anybody with sense would avoid. We found the Old Man sitting on a rock. There was a gash on his forehead and tears running down his face. He looked at me.

‘I've made a mess of it, haven't I?' he said. Then, ‘Is Sid all right?'

‘Yes.'

‘I knew he would be. Sure-footed you see. Bred for it.'

Meredith was off his horse by then. He went up to the Old Man and offered him a clean handkerchief to put to his forehead. The Old Man waved it away angrily and tried to get up.

‘Just sit there for a moment, sir. You'll be—'

But the Old Man ignored him and got to his feet, rather shakily and unmistakably furious. Meredith took hold of his arm and I slid off Sheba and tried to support him on the other side, but he pulled away from us.

‘For Christ's sake don't make such a fuss about it. And don't tread on your bloody reins.'

By this time Robin had arrived and dismounted too. He got the same reception and the three of us walked back to where Alan and Nathan were waiting with the Old Man striding ahead of us. Alan had hold of Sid's reins. The Old Man ran his hand over Sid's legs, then snatched the reins and swung himself into the saddle. Then, without a word, he rode off the beach and through the sandhills, not watching to see if we were following.

*   *   *

The ride home through the stifling day seemed endless. At one point, on a wide path through some woodland, Meredith came to ride beside me.

‘A nasty fall for an old man.'

‘It wasn't a fall,' I said. ‘He deliberately threw himself off.'

‘You're sure of that?'

‘As I'm sure of anything. He wanted to kill himself.'

‘I wondered. But I thought he wouldn't risk the horse.'

‘He said Sid's sure-footed. The idea was to ride him as close up to the rocks as he could get then throw himself off and break his neck. Only his neck turned out to be tougher than he thought.'

‘Poor man.'

‘Yes. He thinks they'll either hang him or put him in a lunatic asylum. He'd decided to go the way he wanted, off a horse galloping by the sea. Only it didn't work.'

Chapter Ten

W
E GOT BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON
. Imogen ran to Alan before he'd dismounted. Kit caught his eye and raised a hand in what might have been a welcome back to his friend, but not a very warm one. Midge jokingly helped Nathan down from the saddle and perhaps he needed the help more than in joke, because the ride had been a hard one for him. Dulcie stood at a little distance with a smudge of flour on her nose, smiling at everybody, seeming glad to have us back. There were the usual inquiries about whether we'd had a good time and we said yes – except for the Old Man who said nothing. As soon as we got into the stable yard he'd dismounted without speaking or looking at anybody, unsaddled Sid and led him to drink from the stone trough. It was only when he was leading Sid past the rest of us to take him back to the paddock that anybody noticed the gash on his forehead.

Imogen gasped, ‘Oh, what happened?'

He glared at her. ‘Bit of a fall. Nothing to make a fuss about.' Then he and Sid marched on out of the yard.

I was bending down undoing the girth. When I looked up Meredith was looking at me across Sheba's back, signalling a question as clearly as if he'd said it, ‘Well, do we tell them?' We'd discussed it on the way back and come to the conclusion, probably no. It was a long ride so we came to it from all directions. Ethically, it turned out that we both took the Stoic view on suicide, that there were circumstances when it might be the act of a rational man or woman. This was probably one of them. The Old Man was eccentric to put it mildly, but obviously capable of taking decisions. Legally it was a serious offence to try to kill yourself, but we agreed the law was an ass in that respect. What would-be suicide was ever deterred by the thought that the magistrates might not like it? Humanely – well, that was the problem and what we talked about most of the time. What was best for the Old Man? It was a pity for him that the thing hadn't gone as he intended, but as far as we could tell we were the only two who knew what had happened. Robin had given no sign that he guessed and Alan and Nathan had been too far away to see it. So it was up to us to decide whether to tell Alan.

‘Or perhaps Dulcie,' Meredith had suggested.

‘Why Dulcie?' I could guess, but wanted to know what he'd say.

‘They're hardly trying to hide that fact that she's more than his housekeeper.'

I liked the fact that he could say it to me, adult to adult, with no hypocrisy or sign of disapproval. So we changed the question to whether to tell Alan or Dulcie or both and decided tentatively against it. There were all sorts of reasons, but in the end it came down to the Old Man's pride. Meredith agreed with me that he was a survivor from a more buccaneering age and we both respected that. If we told either of them he'd feel diminished in their eyes by his failure. But our decision was provisional. We agreed that if the Old Man gave any signs of wanting help, then we'd speak to one of them – or both. His decisive rejection of Imogen's sympathy answered that question at least. If either she or Alan had pressed the point it might have been another matter but they had other things to think about, as I found out when she followed me up to our loft when I went to change back into a skirt. I asked her if anything had happened while we'd been away.

‘Not really.' But there was something in her voice that said otherwise.

‘What did you do?'

‘Midge and I just lazed around and read mostly. We didn't see much of Dulcie, and Kit hardly spoke to us. Midge wondered if his arm might be going septic and offered to re-bandage it and he nearly bit her head off.'

‘I wonder why.'

‘Why that tone of voice?'

‘Because you must have at least a suspicion why Kit's in a bad mood.'

‘Yes. Only it's more than a suspicion.'

‘So he did say something?'

‘Not say exactly, no. But I found a letter from him. I'd left my copy of Plato up in the barn with the men's books and when I went up to collect it this morning, there was a letter from him inside it.'

‘An angry letter?'

‘Yes, no … I don't know. Just so terribly
hurt,
Nell. Would you like to read it?'

‘No!'

But she already had the letter in her hand. ‘I want you to. I feel so sad about it and I want you to tell me it's not my fault. It really isn't.' She practically forced it into my hands so I sat down on my hay pallet and read in Kit's flowing black handwriting.

Oh my dear, the other and better half of me. I've tried hard to say nothing, even to see nothing, but it's like letting somebody you love stand there on the edge of a precipice and not calling out. There are so many things I could say to try to persuade you to step back – all the sensible rational things – but they would insult both of us. Simply, you know the path that you're taking is wrong. I sense that because there's not a thought you can have that's not my thought as well, not a breath or a heartbeat of yours that isn't mine. Perhaps I should have spoken out, but I simply didn't think I needed to because I was so convinced you guessed – no, not guessed, that you knew – everything that's in my head. I'm still sure that is true but I can't stand the thought of seeing you take an irrevocable step that can only cause hurt and grief to you and your friends because of a few words not spoken, or written at least. I love you. K.

I looked at the envelope on the pallet beside me. It had no address, only a circle with two crosses through it.

‘What's that? Kisses?'

She shook her head. ‘It's more Plato. One of his characters makes this wonderful speech about how all human beings were once completely round in shape, with four arms and four legs. Then a jealous god cut them in half, so we're all looking for our true other halves.'

‘And Kit is convinced you're his.'

‘You can't choose who you fall in love with. For a while, yes, I thought it might be Kit. But I did nothing to encourage him, Nell. Nothing to cause this.'

She took the letter from me and folded it back in its envelope. While I washed and changed my clothes and brushed sand out of my hair she lay back on her hay mattress watching me.

‘I'm trying to read your expression, Nell. Are you blaming me?'

‘No.'

‘I'm desperately sorry about Kit, but it makes no difference. I've made my decision.'

‘What about?'

‘You know, what we were talking about. While Alan was away it gave me the chance to think about it quite rationally and calmly and…'

‘So you're going to,' I said.

‘How did you know?'

‘When anybody talks about being rational and calm it's usually a sign she's going to do something irrational and wild.'

‘Nell!' She threw one of my rolled-up stockings at me. ‘So you don't approve.'

‘I don't approve or disapprove. You're a grown woman and I wish you luck with all my heart.'

She got up and hugged me and we went down to join the others. Obviously it hadn't been an occasion for talking about suicidal old men.

*   *   *

That evening we had supper together outside the barn as usual, slices of buttered bread and ham, sausages grilled on sticks over the fire, tea and bottled ale and the last of the golden gooseberries. The sun slid down towards the sea, the heat of the day faded to a perfect warmth and the martins on their last flights before roosting and the bats just waking up flew loops round each other. It should have been idyllic, but nobody seemed happy; even Nathan was too exhausted from the ride to make his usual jokes. Alan and Imogen sat apart from each other and talked more or less like rational beings but they were like two magnets parted, the air between them crackling with attraction. Kit couldn't have helped being aware of it but he sat staring out at the red setting sun, holding his mug of ale but not drinking much. Meredith talked about the year he'd spent at Heidelberg and led me into some stories of my wanderings in Germany, but that petered out after a while and once the sun was below the horizon we went to our various beds. Midge and I changed into our nightdresses and lay down on our hay mattresses. Later the moon came up over the roof of the stables and shone on Midge, curled up and making little contented noises too soft to be called snores and on Imogen standing by the window still fully dressed. I asked her softly, so as not to wake Midge, if she was going to bed. She shook her head.