Sheltering Rain (10 page)

“Oh, God. Where's Bertie?”

Sabine stared at her, and then behind her at Bella. “I haven't seen him,” she said.

“He's gone out with the dog. He's not meant to go out by himself now, especially not with Bertie, because Bertie's young and knocks his stick from under him.” She stepped out from behind the table and went to remove her apron. “We'd better go and look for him before Mrs. Ballantyne gets back.”

“No. No—you stay here and watch the house. I'll get Thom to help.”

Sabine, her chest now tight with fear, ran to the stable yard, peering over stable doors and shouting his name.

Thom, a sandwich held to his mouth, poked his head out of the tack room. Behind him she could hear the radio, and just make out the seated figures of Liam and John John reading the
Racing Post
.

“Where's the fire?”

“It's—it's the old man. I can't find him.”

“What do you mean, you can't find him?”

“He was meant to be in his room, sleeping. Mrs. H thinks he may have gone out with Bertie and she says Bertie knocks him over. Will you help me look for him?”

Thom swore under his breath, his eyes already scanning the middle distance.

“Don't touch my lunch, you bastards,” he muttered, and then grabbing his coat, walked briskly into the yard.

“I'm really, really sorry. I just don't know what to do. He was meant to be in the house.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking hard. “You go and check up and down the road, and if he's not there, check the top fields. I'll do the bottom fields and the orchard, and I'll do the barns, too. You're sure you've looked everywhere in the house? I mean, he couldn't just be watching the telly?”

Sabine, now frightened by Thom's expression, felt tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. “Everywhere. And Bertie's gone. He must have taken him out.”

“Jesus, what did the old eejit have to go out for? Look, take Bella. And keep calling Bertie—if he's taken a fall, hopefully the dog might take us to him. I'll meet you back here in twenty minutes. And, here, grab a hunting horn, and if you find him, give it a good blow.” Handing her a spare, he turned, vaulted over the post-and-rail fencing and began to run toward the fields below them, both of which were surrounded by high hedgerow.

Sabine, with Bella chasing joyfully behind, jogged out of the front gates and up the lane, calling with every second breath. Unsure at which point she should actually turn around, she ran until her chest hurt, past the big farmhouse on the corner, the little church, and a row of smaller cottages. It had begun to drizzle, and the clouds gathered slate gray above her, as if heralding some great doom. Her head filled with unwelcome pictures of the old man in a crumpled heap at the side of the road, Sabine ran harder the other way, until, unable to see a clock, she decided she should go back to check the top fields. “Where are you, you bugger?” she whispered under her breath. “Where are you?”

Then she jumped, her heart briefly stalling, as a huge green tarpaulin half stuck into the hedge moved toward her.

Bella stood stiff legged, a few paces in front of her, her hackles raised. She barked once, in warning. Her heart thumping, eyes wide, Sabine stood still in the center of the road, and then, taking deep breaths, peered closer, lifting a corner.

If she hadn't been so anxious, she would have laughed. Under the huge plastic sheet stood a gray donkey, harnessed to a small cart. It opened its eyes briefly, as if acknowledging her presence, and then turned resignedly back toward the relative shelter of the hedge.

Sabine let the tarpaulin gently drop and began to run again, her eyes scanning from left to right. There was nothing. No sign of him. Above the pounding of her heart and heels, and the thin hiss of the rain in her ears, she could hear no welcoming bark, no impatient upper-class croak, no hunting horn. Sabine, now properly fearful, began to cry.

He was obviously dead. Everyone would blame her, she realized, half stumbling down the grassy hill. He would be found, frozen and damp, probably with his powdery bones broken where Bertie had pulled him over onto the hard concrete, and he would contract pneumonia and his heart would give out and it would all be her fault because she was too busy reading dirty books and being nosy to care. Her grandmother would be angrier even than when she let the Duke out. Thom would never talk to her again. Her mother would refuse to take her back, for effectively murdering her father, so she would be stuck here while the villagers looked on silently and pointed like something out of
Deliverance
, and she became known as The Girl Who Killed Her Own Grandfather.

Sabine had not thought to wear Wellingtons, and down in the boggy pasture, her feet became waterlogged by mud. Viscous and brown, it crept over the tops of her trainers, sucking and releasing each footfall, impregnating her feet with its chilled damp. A week ago she would have been hysterical about the state of her new Reeboks, but she was now so miserable she hardly noticed. Realizing it was now some half an hour since she had set out, she sobbed out loud, wiping her running nose on the back of her hand.

It was at this point that Bella, sodden and unhappy, began heading back toward the house.

“Don't you leave me as well,” Sabine cried, but Bella ignored her, apparently now determined to restore herself to shelter and the comfort of a warm Aga. She didn't know where to look next. She would have to ask Thom. She began to trudge up the hill behind the dog, unsure what she was going to say to Mrs. H, but certain that somehow she would be to blame.

Bella had disappeared by the time she got to the house. Sabine, pushing her wet hair from her eyes, trying to get her sniveling under control, lifted the latch on the back door, and pushed it open, hearing, as she did, footsteps pounding across the gravel behind her.

It was Thom, his hair plastered to his head, and his false arm holding the hunting horn awkwardly to his chest. She was about to apologize when she realized he was looking straight past her.

“You're late,” came a voice from down the corridor.

Allowing herself a second to acclimatize to the dark, Sabine stared down the flagstone passageway, where she could just make out the curved back, the third leg of a walking stick, and two chocolate-colored dogs, grunting happily around each other in greeting. “Lunch was at
one. One
. It's getting cold. I really don't see that I should have to tell you again.”

Sabine stood in the doorway, her mouth agape, subsumed by conflicting emotions.

“He got back about five minutes ago,” muttered Thom behind her. “We must have crossed paths with him.”

“Well, come on, come on. You can't possibly sit down looking like that,” scolded her grandfather. “You'll have to change your shoes.”

“The old bastard,” whispered Sabine, tearfully, and felt Thom's good hand on her shoulder in reply.

Mrs. H, leaning from the kitchen door, mouthed an apology and shrugged helplessly. “Will I get you a dry jumper, Mr. Ballantyne?” she asked, but was waved irritably away. She ducked back inside the kitchen.

Her grandfather turned stiffly toward the stairs, shaking droplets of water from his hat with his free hand. The dogs pushed past him, so that briefly unbalanced, he thrust out a spindly arm to catch hold of the banister.

“I shan't tell you again.” He muttered something to himself and shook his head. It was barely visible above the exaggerated curve of his shoulders. “Mrs. H, if you'd be kind enough to bring me my lunch, it seems my granddaughter would rather eat in a corridor.”

I
t had been shortly after tea that Sabine had begun counting up the money her mother had given her, to see if she had enough to get her back to England. Her mother wouldn't like it, but she couldn't see how living with her and the odious Justin could be any worse than staying here. This was impossible. Even when she tried to do the right thing, they acted like she'd deliberately done wrong. They didn't care about her. All they cared about were bloody horses, and their stupid, rigid rules. She could be lying in the kitchen with an ax in her head and they'd tell her off for bringing tools into the house.

She was scanning her ferry ticket for a booking line number when there was a soft knock at the door. It was Mrs. H.

“Why don't you come over to our Annie's with me this evening? Your grandmother says it would be fine, and it'll be nice for you to have some younger people around you.” What she meant was, it was probably best if you and your grandparents gave one another a bit of a break. But Sabine didn't mind. Anything was better than spending another evening in with them.

Annie was Mrs. H's only daughter. She lived in the large farmhouse farther up the village, which she ran as a bed-and-breakfast with her husband, Patrick, a much older man who wrote books. (“I've never read one—not my cup of tea,” said Mrs. H. “But I'm told they're very good. For intellectual types, you know.”) Annie's skills as hostess were less assured—the B-and-B was legendary, according to Thom, for never retaining guests for a second night. She forgot stuff, apparently. Like breakfast. Or even that she had guests at all. And some objected to her habit of walking around the house in the early hours of the morning. But neither Thom nor Mrs. H elaborated on that.

“She's not that much older than you. Twenty-seven. How old are you again? Oh. Well, she's a fair bit older than you. But you'll like her. Everyone does. Just don't mind if she's a bit—well—a bit distracted.”

Sabine, walking slowly down the dark, wet road with Mrs. H, both huddled under a rather tired umbrella, was intrigued, picturing some Maud Gonne type, all wild red hair and floaty skirts, waving away domestic queries with a thin, artistic wrist. Annie's eccentric habits sounded a million miles from those of Kilcarrion House. A woman who forgot to make breakfast wasn't likely to want to hold a formal supper, was she? And a writer husband didn't sound like all he would want to do is talk about horses. She might be able to relax this evening, sparkle, and be witty in admiring company. Perhaps watch proper telly. Annie might even have satellite—lots of Irish houses seemed to. And besides, Mrs. H told her that Thom would pop by later. He often did, apparently, just to see how Annie “was doing.”

But the Annie who opened the door was not quite the glamorous eccentric she had envisaged. She was a short woman in a large sweater with straight, shoulder-length brown hair, full lips, and big, sad eyes. They wrinkled into a greeting as she held out her hand—not to shake Sabine's own, but to pull her gently in to the house. She was also, Sabine noted, a little sadly, wearing chain-store jeans.

“Sabine. How are you? Lovely of you to stop by. Hi, Mam. Did you bring the bacon?”

“I did. I'll put it straight in the fridge.”

There was no hallway; they walked straight into the living room, almost one side of which was taken up by an old stone fireplace, complete with fiercely burning log fire. Two long, slightly tatty blue sofas sat at right angles to it, while a coffee table sat between them, burdened by huge, precarious piles of magazines and books. Now that she looked properly, books were everywhere. They lined each wall on sagging shelves and sat under stools and tables in irregular heaps. “Those are Patrick's,” Annie said, from the kitchen area at the other end of the room. “He's a great one for reading.”

“Annie? What have you prepared for the supper?” Mrs. H stood up from the fridge and stared around her, as if expecting to see some pan bubbling on the stove. Annie rubbed at her forehead, frowning.

“Ahh, Mam. I'm sorry. It went clean out of my mind. We can stick something in the microwave.”

“We cannot,” said Mrs. H, affronted. “I'm not having Sabine going back to the big house saying we never fed her properly.”

“I wouldn't say that,” said Sabine, who really didn't mind. “I'm not that hungry anyway.”

“A skinny girl like you. In fact, look at the both of yous. I've seen more meat on a butcher's dog. Annie—you sit down and talk to Sabine and I'll do us some chops. I put some in the freezer a couple of weeks ago.”

“I—I'm not a great meat eater,” Sabine ventured.

“Well, then, you can eat the vegetables. And we'll do you a cheese sandwich on the side. How's that?”

Annie grinned at Sabine conspiratorially, and motioned at her to sit down. She didn't talk much, but in that way that prompted confidences, and before long Sabine found herself unburdening herself of the many unhappinesses—and injustices—she was subjected to at Kilcarrion House. She told Annie about the
endless
rules and regulations, and how
completely impossible
it was to remember them all. She told her how
ridiculously difficult
it was to communicate with her grandparents, and how
hopelessly old-fashioned
they were. She told her about how
alien
she felt among all these horse-obsessives, and how she missed her mates, and her telly, and her own home, and all her things, like her CDs and her computer. Annie just listened and nodded understandingly, so that after a while Sabine suspected she had heard much of this already from Mrs. H. That just fueled her sense of victimhood. For that was what she must be, she mused, if they were talking about her in sympathetic tones.

“And why's your mam not over here, Sabine? Is she working?”

Sabine halted briefly, unsure how much to give away. They were nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she did feel some loyalty to her mother.

“Yes,” she lied. “She wanted to come over, but she was too busy.”

“What does she do now?” said Mrs. H. “It's so long since I've seen her.”

“She writes.” She paused. “Not books and stuff. Just features for newspapers. About families.”

“Any old families?” Mrs. H shoveled a tray of food into the oven.