Peripheral Vision (14 page)

Something to Take Care Of

The girl balances on the top rail of the round yard, her heels knocking against the middle rail, one-two, one-two. Inside the ring, her grandfather steps closer to the chestnut filly. The horse is part Arab with a fine narrow head and a short straight back. The end of the lead rope dangles from the grandfather's left hand. He stretches his right hand toward the filly but in the distance a chainsaw starts up and she startles and breaks into a canter around the outer rim of the round yard. Her hooves hitting the sand sound like the thud of doors shutting in the distance.

‘It's okay,' he murmurs to the filly. ‘It's okay, lovely girl, don't worry, it's okay.'

Joe, the girl's stepfather, stands in a larger square yard that encloses the round yard.

‘Can you see her tail, Holly?' he says. ‘See how she holds it up when she gallops? That's the Arab in her.'

Beside Joe is a second small pony that will eventually be his ride. The stocky dun gelding with a cropped mohawk mane throws his head up and down as the Arab heaves out a great snort before slowing to a trot, then a walk.

Joe rests his hand on the dun pony's neck. When he and the grandfather went to buy the horses, cheap because no one had ridden them for a year, the filly was the wilder of the two. She had been broken in and never ridden again. ‘We'll settle her down,' the grandfather had said at the exact moment she swung her head around to nip at the man who was tapping her rump with a stick to move her forward. Joe cracked out a nervous laugh. But Holly was begging for a pony of her own, and it would be a distraction. They could do it together with the grandfather's guidance. Learn to ride. Take on the responsibility of looking after an animal.

The grandfather had instructed him and the girl in some basics before the horses arrived. Never stand behind a horse, never stand directly in front of a horse, keep a hand on the horse at all times to let it know you're there, always speak gently. Then Joe had spent hours and hours on the internet watching videos of horse-training. Nothing had prepared him for these warm-blooded wilful animals with ears that seemed to have their own semaphore language.

Now the three humans and two horses have passed four days together. Joe has groomed the pony each day, brushing the mud and dust from its shaggy coat and slowly untangling its tail. He has learned how to lift its hooves one by one to check for stones, how to fit a halter and how to hold the rope correctly. He has walked it around the agistment property ten times, watching other owners handle their horses, and then he has come back to learn more from the grandfather working with the Arab in the round yard.

‘Holly, look,' Joe says. ‘Look over here.' Holly turns, and as he says to the pony, ‘We're good buddies now, right?' he reaches under its chin and tickles the long hairs to make the pony toss its head as if saying yes. Holly giggles.

Joe's hands are always busy. Although his jeans are held up by a belt, the weakness in his left hip means they slide down and he must hitch them up every once in a while.

He tugs on the halter rope. The pony resists, bracing itself on the sandy surface so that its weight cannot be shifted.

‘I can't move this stubborn mule again,' Joe says to the grandfather.

‘Remember? Walk past his shoulder, catch his eye, then turn and walk away and he'll follow you. Don't look back.'

The grandfather has done the same thing with the Arab. She stands close behind him, her head at his shoulder, her warm breath fanning his ear, and he reaches up around her neck and plays with her mane, moving his hand up the arch to the poll to massage the tendon underneath. As the Arab dips her head he presses his cheek against hers, still scratching the top of her neck.

‘That's my girl. That's the way.'

‘When can I ride her?' the girl asks. ‘Today?' She is like her mother. Driven mad by waiting.

‘It won't be too long. She's a fine little filly, she just needs some love, time and love.'

‘What about Bobby?'

‘I thought you wanted to change Bobby's name. Didn't you say it wasn't a good name for a horse?'

Joe is leading Bobby past the girl now. The pony plods with an even gait but Joe drags his left leg and when he turns he has to heft his body in a stiff action instead of swivelling on a heel or a toe. Before Holly's mother left she had started needling him about his limp.
Hurry up, you useless cripple.

Holly swings her legs over the rail and jumps to the ground. Bobby curls his neck to look at her with interest.

‘Can I pat him?'

‘Of course you can. He's our horse now.'

She is ten years old. Even though it is school holidays she wears jeans, grubby runners and a red school jumper with the crest embroidered on the chest. Her blonde hair twists over her shoulders in scarecrow pigtails. When she reaches for Bobby's muzzle he tosses his head again, startling her. She retreats, looking to Joe. Even before her mother left she had trusted his word first.

‘It's all right,' Joe says. ‘Make sure he can see you properly. Stand to the side of his head.'

Holly inches forward, head high to conceal her nervousness, and strokes the pony's thick muscular neck.

‘Good girl. This old fella won't hurt you.'

In the round yard the grandfather is running his hands over the Arab, along her flank, over her withers, up and down her legs and under her belly, all the while talking quietly to her. She steps lightly around him but doesn't baulk. He's an old man and although he has no fear it's fifty years since he worked a horse. His own father was a jockey, an old-school type who flogged the horses when they disobeyed or ran too slow. The grandfather learned a different way to handle horses from a strapper girl he would have married if she hadn't run off with a track rider from another stable. She taught him how to train a horse with attention and patience.
They're talking to us in their own language
, she used to tell him.
You have to learn how to hear what they say
. The horse's muscles rippling under his hands, the petal-soft muzzle, the rich smell of horseshit baking in the sun, the snorts and whinnies of the other horses agisted in the paddocks nearby bring back such memories of that stable girl he can feel the grip on his heart that he used to get when he heard her voice ringing from the stalls.

‘Granddad, why do they call it breaking a horse?'

‘Because that's what they used to do. That's what they did with this girl. They beat her around the ears. See?' His hand slides up the neck of the filly and fondles her left ear. She shies away, puffing and rolling her eyes. He goes back to the steady reassuring strokes along her flank, rubbing her shoulder deeply, pushing the skin back and forth across the muscles. He's tired already but he doesn't want Joe and Holly to see. In an hour the light will be gone and he can go home and sit in front of the fire and think about the stable girl, her smell of straw and sweat.

‘That filly is so much better already,' Joe remarks.

‘Maybe it's time we put the bridle on Bobby, see how he takes the bit,' the grandfather says. ‘Bring him back in here.'

Holly unlatches the gate. Joe catches Bobby's eye then walks away with the rope slung loosely from his left hand. Bobby follows him into the ring.

‘He's not going to like it,' the grandfather says. He has unclipped the lead rope from the Arab's halter but she stays beside him, alert, watching Joe and Bobby approach. He nods at Holly to latch the gate behind them.

‘Can I call her Princess?' the girl asks.

‘She already has a name, darling. She's Redling Dana, remember?' It's Joe who answers, although she could have been asking either of them. She doesn't call him Dad because he's not the dad she knew for the first six years of her life. She doesn't call him Joe because when he first moved in it didn't seem right. It went on like that for so long, her not knowing what to call him, that it became natural for her not to call him anything. When she wants his attention she goes to him, touches his arm or gets right up to his face to speak.

‘Can I call her Princess Redling Dana?'

Neither of the men answers. The grandfather has fetched the bridle from the bucket of horse tack sitting outside the round-yard rail. He turns his back to Bobby and Joe as he untangles the leather straps.

‘I'm going to put the bridle on him,' he tells Joe, hiding it behind him as he approaches Bobby. ‘Hold the pony steady, there, high on the rope. And pat him, reassure him.'

Joe takes hold of the pony's halter under its chin while the grandfather drapes his arm across the pony's poll. Bobby is tense. They wait, Joe stroking his flank, the grandfather resting his arm over the poll. After a couple of minutes, Bobby relaxes. His head drops. The grandfather eases the bit between his lips and against his big yellow teeth and pushes his thumb into Bobby's mouth. Bobby won't open.

‘He doesn't like it,' Holly calls from the top rail where she has climbed up again to watch. She shades her eyes. The sun has come out again, although it is chilly, and the breeze cuts into their cotton clothes. Thin clouds are flowing across the sky like spills of pale milk.

‘No, he doesn't like it much. We'll be patient.' The grandfather is breathing heavily as he wiggles his thumb into Bobby's mouth to persuade Bobby to open. ‘Keep him steady, Joe, I don't want to lose my thumb.'

After a minute Bobby can't sustain his resistance. His teeth part. The grandfather slips the bit into Bobby's mouth, over his meaty tongue, eases the bridle up over his ears and the deed is done. Bobby doesn't like it but he can't get it out. He chews at the bit and rolls his tongue up over the metal pieces and then under them. The bit clanks against his teeth.

‘It's too loose,' the grandfather says as he slides the halter out from under the bridle. ‘We'll tighten it tomorrow. He'll be used to it in no time.'

‘So should I try riding him?' Joe asks. He is tired too. He's resting the weight on his strong leg, but he can keep going until the dark comes. They're making good progress.

‘Why not?' The grandfather backs up against the rail to give Joe more room. The filly is beside him, nosing the pocket of his jacket.

Joe knows from watching other people working horses at the agistment property over the last four days that he has to mount quickly and not let Bobby take control.

‘Do you think you should do it?' he asks the grandfather, who shakes his head and smiles. If he got up on a horse he wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow.

Holly is watching closely. Joe gives her the thumbs up and hauls himself onto the pony. Bobby is so surprised that for a moment he stands still. Then he takes off at a fast trot, heading to the rail to try to dislodge his rider.

‘Pull the right rein hard,' the grandfather calls, ‘hard! Hold it up against your belly. Push your weight to the ground!'

Joe drags at Bobby's mouth to force him away from the rail. Already he's sliding on the horse's back. As Bobby turns and his jerky trotting eases, Joe slips sideways and backward until, in an unplanned manoeuvre, he lets go of the reins, pushes off Bobby and miraculously lands on his feet behind the pony. Bobby trots to the opposite end of the round yard and stretches his head through the rails, straining for the grass growing on the other side.

‘That might be enough for Bobby for today,' the grandfather says. ‘Unless you want to try again?'

‘Not really.' Joe laughs. He doesn't look at Holly, who has her legs wrapped around the rail and is hanging sideways to pat Bobby's haunch. His hip is aching now. He looks at the sky, sees with relief the luminescence of the clouds fading to a sheety grey.

The grandfather turns his attention back to the Arab.

‘Let's get you moving, beautiful lady.'

After Joe has caught Bobby's reins and led him to the outer enclosure, the grandfather steps away from the filly and claps his hands twice. She kicks up and canters the length of the rail. He walks in a tight circle in the middle of the ring, staying just behind her direct line of vision so that she keeps moving. When she has been lunging for a couple of minutes, he stops and turns away from her. She slackens her pace and finally comes to rest, watching him. He moves to her, slowly, lifts his hand and strokes her long narrow nose.

‘You're a good girl. You're settling down now, aren't you? You're going to be just fine.'

‘I had a thought,' Joe says from the outer enclosure where he and Bobby have been idling. ‘Jumping on didn't work, so what if I put some weight on Bobby, like we saw that woman do yesterday with the wild pony?'

‘You could try it.' The grandfather looks at his watch. Half an hour of daylight left.

Holly has climbed down off the rail and is rummaging through the pile of horse blankets next to the bucket of gear. She chooses one to draw over her shoulders.

‘Look, I'm a horse.' She mock canters around the outside of the rail, the checked blanket flaring behind her. ‘What are we having for tea tonight?'

In the far corner of the yard, Joe stretches his arms and then his torso cautiously across where the saddle would sit on Bobby's back. He gradually lowers his weight onto the pony. His feet are on the ground, but the rest of him is hanging over the horse like a corpse. Bobby starts moving and Joe tiptoes alongside to keep his balance, still draped over Bobby's back.

‘This seems to be working,' Joe calls, his voice muffled from speaking upside down into the pony's flank.

‘Can we have fish and chips?' Holly asks.

Bobby doesn't seem to notice as Joe pushes himself
further and further across the horse's back until he can swing
his leg over and they are once again horse and rider. Joe's long legs hang either side of Bobby's round belly. He holds the reins loosely. They walk the perimeter of the square yard and when they reach their original starting point Joe slides off and pats Bobby on the shoulder.