The Horse Dancer (25 page)

‘What do you think?’

When she looked up from the prints, Mac’s gaze was on her. He really did want to know.

‘I’ve not seen anything like them, that’s for sure.’ Her eye was caught by another image, a horse rearing, a slight but familiar figure clinging to its back. A break in the clouds had illuminated the horse’s head in sunlight, an ethereal juxtaposition against the grimy street behind. She realised, with a jolt, that she had seen it before. Once, from a moving train.

‘But do you like them?’ Mac’s voice had lifted. ‘Because I was thinking of doing a photographic project. I was going to show the curator at that gallery near Waterloo – you remember? The one where I held that show three, four years ago? I told him about them and he’s asked me to show him.’ He leant forwards, adjusting his broad hands around the one she was holding. ‘I thought I might crop this one, just here. What do you think?’

He had shot this set on film, not digital, he continued. He had used his old Leica, and these were about a tenth of the images on the contact sheets. It had been impossible to take a bad photograph in that place. Everywhere he looked there had been a framed shot for the taking. It would be a lost world, this yard, before long. The cowboy had told him. John knew of maybe five left of an original thirty. Mac might even go and check out the others Perhaps he could make it a series. He was voluble, enthusiastic. She had not heard him talk like this about his work for years.

Eventually he tailed off. ‘I’m boring you,’ he said, smiled apologetically and collected up the work.

‘No,’ she said, handing him the prints from her lap. ‘Really. They’re wonderful. I think they . . . they’re the best thing I’ve seen you do.’

His head shot up.

‘Really,’ she said. ‘They’re beautiful. Not that I know anything about photography.’

He grinned. ‘You are the woman, after all . . .’

‘. . . who once shot a whole roll with the lens cap on. I know.’ They laughed awkwardly. In the ensuing silence, she tapped out a tattoo on her knee.

‘Anyway,’ he said, standing up, ‘we’ve given her an hour and a half. We’d better go and see what trouble National Velvet’s causing down the road.’

She straightened the magazines on the table, feeling, peculiarly, as if she’d lost something. She couldn’t look at him. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we’d better.’

They walked back down the lane towards Howe Farm, muffled against the cold air, Natasha self-conscious and out of place in her blue wool coat. As they walked their elbows bumped and she moved away.

She had heard couples describe their exes as their best friends. How could that be? How could you segue so easily from passion – whether love or hatred – to the kind of easy familiarity where you might link arms? She could remember moments when she had hated Mac so much she had wanted to kill him, times she had wanted him so much she had thought she would die from it. How could all that energy be converted into something as neutral, as
beige
, as friendship? How could he have divorced himself from that without a visible scar? She knew the end of their marriage still lay too close to her surface, revealed itself in her gestures, her unnatural responses to him, her ever-present flashes of anger. Yet he sailed on, oblivious, a ship on perennially calm waters. Natasha thrust her chin down behind her scarf and walked a little faster, as if she was impatient to get there, hoping her confusion didn’t show on her face.

It was a long way from the cramped urban yard of Mac’s photographs. Around a picturesque red-brick courtyard, middle-aged women and teenage girls, slim thighs clad in rainbow-hued jodhpurs, chatted over a tinny transistor radio as they groomed horses and swept stables, brief snatches of their conversation carrying towards her.

‘He never tracks up properly on sand. It’s like he locks up behind.’

‘I was doing a three-loop serpentine with a change of legs in the middle . . .’

‘Jennifer had him on barley straw until he started coughing. It’s costing her a fortune in shavings . . .’

Horses stood patiently beside mounting blocks, or thrust noses curiously over their doors, engaged in silent communion with each other. It was a closed world, its language and customs alien, its inhabitants bonded by a passion she couldn’t begin to understand. Mac was observing it all with interest, his hands restless against his sides, as if they were lost without a camera to hold.

Sarah’s horse was not in his stable. The door was wide open. Mrs Carter came out of her office. ‘I said she could use the school for half an hour, against my better judgement. I thought she should let the animal rest, but she said he’d settle quicker if he was working.’ Her opinion was clear in the set of her jaw. ‘Can’t tell her much, can you?’

‘Her grandfather’s pretty knowledgeable. He teaches her most things.’

‘Didn’t teach her much in the way of manners.’ She sniffed. ‘I’d better go up and take a look. Make sure she’s not messing up the arena.’

Natasha caught Mac’s eye, and realised, dangerously, that she wanted to giggle.

They followed Mrs Carter’s slightly arthritic limp, trying not to step on her Jack Russell, and turned to where Sarah was standing in the middle of a sand school. The horse was on two long reins, trotting around her, changing direction and back again to some unseen instruction, now slowing until it appeared to be trotting on the spot. She stood close by his quarters, almost pressed against him. Surely the one place you were not meant to stand was directly behind a horse.

Natasha thrust her hands deep into her pockets, watching in silence. The horse was trotting so slowly now that he appeared to be floating, his knees lifting, a gentle bounce to his gait. She could see the animal’s intense concentration, mirroring the girl’s. His flanks were quivering; his head dipped as he lifted and lowered his hooves in time to some unheard beat. And then he was off again, cantering in a small circle around the girl as she murmured again.

‘It’s like ballet for horses,’ Mac said, beside her. He had his camera to his face, and was shooting off a reel of film. ‘I’ve seen her do this up-and-down thing before. Can’t remember the name of it.’

‘
Piaffe
,’ Mrs Carter said. She was standing beside the gate, watching intently. She had become rather quiet.

‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ he said, lowering his camera.

‘It’s a talented horse,’ Mrs Carter conceded.

‘She wants to do . . . dressage with him. Something like that. Kind of ballet movements. Air something.’

‘Airs above the ground?’

‘I think that’s what she said.’

Mrs Carter shook her head. ‘I don’t think you can have got that right. She wouldn’t be doing airs above the ground. Not at her age. That’s the preserve of the European academies.’

Mac thought for a moment. ‘She definitely said dressage.’

‘Well, she needs to work on her basic tests to start, prelim, novice, elementary . . . If she’s good she can work up to medium in time, with proper instruction, but she won’t get anywhere if she’s not competing him.’

She sounded so certain that Natasha felt a pang of sympathy for Sarah. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but the girl was so lost in concentration, so focused on the horse’s movements. There was no sign here of the resentful teenager, just a kind of calm competence, love of what she was doing, a silent, willing reciprocation from the animal alongside her. This is it, she thought. Your great passion.

‘You haven’t seen her ride yet,’ Mac was saying, as if in Sarah’s defence. ‘She’s fantastic.’

‘Anyone can look good on a halfway decent horse.’

‘But she just sits there. Even when he does this rearing thing . . .’ He mimicked the action of a horse coming on to its hind legs.

Mrs Carter’s eyes widened. ‘No horse should be encouraged to rear,’ she said firmly. ‘If it falls over backwards it could injure or even kill itself. And its rider.’

Mac made as if to speak, then let out a long sigh and closed his mouth.

They had finished. Sarah turned now, and began to walk Boo towards the gate. His head was low, and he appeared relaxed. He nudged her back with his nose as she approached them. ‘He likes it in here,’ she said, apparently forgetting herself for a moment. ‘His whole action changed. He thinks it’s springy.’ She was grinning. ‘He’s never been in an arena before.’

‘No? But where do you work him at home?’ Mrs Carter opened the gate to allow her out. Natasha took several nervous steps back.

‘In the park, mainly. There isn’t really anywhere else.’

‘A park?’

‘I’ve marked off an area next to the playground.’

‘You can’t work in a park. In the summer the ground’s too hard, and in the winter you’ll damage his tendons if it gets muddy. You’ll wreck his legs if you’re not careful.’ Mrs Carter’s voice held a hint of scolding, and Natasha saw Sarah bristle.

‘I’m not stupid,’ she retorted. ‘I only work him when the ground’s good.’

The brief exultant open smile was gone. This is how it goes, with children, Natasha thought. One hard word at the wrong time, and they feel squashed. She guessed that Sarah would not smile again at Mrs Carter.

‘Well, put him in the stable now. The one behind the others. As we discussed.’

Sarah stopped. ‘But he’ll get lonely up there by himself. He’s used to being with other horses.’

‘He’ll hear them,’ Mrs Carter said firmly. ‘He’s too big for that stable. And, besides, I have to get Brian to fix the holes he kicked in the wall.’

‘Do as Mrs Carter says,’ Mac urged. ‘C’mon. He seems happy now.’ The look Sarah gave him was of resentful compliance. Natasha couldn’t work out why it made her feel so odd, until she realised what else she had seen in Sarah’s face. Trust. The girl walked the horse into the new stable.

‘Right. I need you to fill in some forms,’ Mrs Carter said, steering them towards the office. ‘I’d like a cheque for the deposit, too, and the repairs, if you wouldn’t mind.’ She was picking up speed, her dog trotting behind her. She placed a hand on Mac’s arm – all women did that, given the chance. ‘You know, he’s not a bad horse. The best thing you could do for him, Mr Macauley,’ she said quietly, ‘is find him a new home. Somewhere he can fulfil his potential.’

There was a brief silence.

‘I think,’ Mac said, ‘I’d rather make sure that happened to his owner.’

When they got back to the cottage Sarah disappeared to her room. Natasha spent some time searching for clean towels and tidying the linen cupboard. It was only when she went back downstairs that she thought to check her phone, which had been on the table.

There was a missed call from Conor, and a text message from the estate agent:

 

Mac was outside, collecting logs from the woodpile. She watched him bending and stooping easily as he threw the dry logs to one side, then stepped into the kitchen to make the call. It was, the agent advised, a ‘sensible’ offer, only a couple of thousand below their asking price. The buyers were chain free and in a position to move quickly. ‘I’d recommend your acceptance, given the state of the market,’ he said.

‘I’ll talk to my— I’ll get back to you. Thank you,’ she said, and rang off.

‘I’m surprised you don’t have muscles like Schwarzenegger, lugging these about.’ Mac staggered through the doorway, somehow too large for the little house, bearing a full log basket. He dropped it with a crash beside the fireplace, sending showers of wood splinters and dust across the floor.

‘That’s because I usually bring in two or three logs at a time, not the whole basket.’

He dusted off his hands on his jeans. ‘Shall I build it up, then? Nice to get a fire blazing. You can feel the temperature really dropping out here.’ He shook himself theatrically, bits of bark spraying from his jacket. The cold had turned the tips of his ears pink.

She wondered at how relaxed he was, building a fire in what must surely feel like another man’s house. He arranged the logs on top of the kindling, then crouched, lighting the newspaper underneath, blowing until he was sure that the first licking flames had taken hold.

‘We’ve had an offer on the house,’ she said, and held out her phone. ‘Two thousand less than we were asking but they’re chain free. The agents think we should go ahead.’

He held her eye a fraction longer, then turned back to the fire. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said, placing another log in the grate. ‘If you’re happy.’

In a film, she thought afterwards, that would have been the point at which she said something. The point at which the whole thing really did become irretrievable, when feelings, actions, took on a momentum of their own. But no matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t work out what she wanted to say.

‘We’ll have to tell Sarah,’ she said, ‘in case . . . in case things move quickly and we have to find her somewhere else to stay.’

‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’ He didn’t look up from the fire.

‘I’ll go and ring them, then,’ she said, and walked back to the kitchen, her socked feet cold on the hard floor.

Mac had asked if he could cook. He pulled from the boot of his car a box of ingredients, covered them with a tea-towel, and announced that they were not to look until it was ready. Natasha, a little disarmed by her ex-husband’s acquisition of culinary skills, found she felt less thrilled by the prospect of this uncharacteristic treat than unbalanced again. Why did he have to turn into Mr Perfect almost as soon as they had split up? He looked better, behaved better, had committed to a grown-up job. He had lost none of his charm. Her life, in comparison, had stalled. It had been as much as she could manage just to keep going. She was oddly reassured when the food arrived on the table.

‘It’s . . . ah . . . Mexican,’ he said, the faintest hint of apology in his voice. Natasha and Sarah regarded the brown gravelly mound in the blue bowl, the tacos still in their packet. Strips of an unrecognisable substance lay in a slimy film of oil, interlaid with something red. Their eyes met briefly across the table and they broke into spontaneous giggles.