I feel a bit sorry for Shelby Dacre who, according to Bev, is a much-loved national treasure and respected actor, yet can’t seem to do a thing right for his own son.
So we lead the ponies down to our outdoor washing area by the barn and I enjoy feeling the sunshine on my face. I’m not sure that Lucas feels the same. We’ve already established that he’s more of an indoor kind of boy.
I show Lucas how to tie up Ringo and Buzz with a quick release knot, so that they don’t hurt themselves if they panic – not that these two usually do. If they get fed up, they’ll do a bit of hoof stamping, but nothing more. Both of the boys get hay bags to keep them amused while we wash them. Then I grab all the different equipment we use for grooming and cleaning and talk Lucas through it.
‘We’ll both work on Ringo first and then if you’re happy, you can see how you go with Buzz.’
He nods his acceptance, if not his agreement.
‘It’s a messy job and you might get wet. Do you want an overall? There’s one in the barn.’
‘No. I’m good.’ Clearly he’d rather be sodden than lose his street-cred.
‘Grab some wellies from the barn before we start. You don’t want to ruin your boots. Plus they have steel toe-caps in case Ringo accidentally steps on your foot.’
As Lucas lopes off to get his wellies, I fill some buckets for us and make sure that Ringo is securely tied and settled. Lucas is gone for ages and when he comes back he’s wearing wellies that look several sizes too big for him.
‘I’ll bring my own tomorrow,’ he says. ‘My father has dozens of them in our garage that he never uses. Companies send them to him.’
‘They’d be useful here, if they’re going begging. We’re always short of wellies.’
‘OK.’
‘If you’re comfortable, then we’ll begin. One main tip. Don’t ever stand behind a horse when you’re doing this – even a little one. These two like their baths, but if something spooks them and they decide to kick out, then you’ll be out of danger. I don’t want to be sending you home bruised or broken or your dad might have something to say.’ I hand him a rubber curry comb which he handles as if it’s a grenade. ‘We use this to loosen the dirt and debris from the coat before we shampoo them.’ I show him how and, tentatively, Lucas follows. ‘You can be firm, but gentle. Don’t rush this. Take your time, then you’ll enjoy it and so will the pony.’
After a hesitant start, he quickly gets into a good rhythm and Ringo stands nicely and doesn’t fidget or try to nip.
‘You’re doing well,’ I say. ‘Now the dandy brush to sweep away what you’ve loosened. We take that down the legs too, but gently.’
Lucas does as I show him. Instinctively, he steadies Ringo as he moves.
‘Good, good. You’ve got a nice way with him.’
‘He’s a cute little fella,’ Lucas says and as he carries on he talks to him in a soothing way. I smile to myself. A cheeky pony can soften the hardest heart.
‘Now we’ll soak his coat before we shampoo him. We only use baby products for Ringo as he’s allergic to everything else we’ve tried. Lather him all over and then we’ll rinse him off with the hosepipe on a low trickle. Ringo likes water on his face, but he’s the only one that does. Just go over him gently with the sponge. Make sure to do his little bit of mane, his tail and his belly.’
Lucas follows my instructions, doing everything thoroughly and gently. I look at him and wonder how it can have all gone so wrong at school for him. I’d take on a dozen boys like Lucas if I could. He’s sparky and clearly unhappy, but he doesn’t seem to have a destructive nature. Usually, you can tell that straight away.
When he’s wet through, Ringo shakes and sprays Lucas with water. The boy laughs out loud as he dodges out of the way. It’s a nice sound.
‘Don’t forget to do under his tail too.’
He looks at me aghast. ‘I have to wash a horse’s arse?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘And my father is actually paying good money for me to do this?’
‘Yes. Just be careful. Ringo doesn’t like cold water round his bottom.’
‘Does anyone?’ He shakes his head, but picks up his sponge nevertheless. ‘To think I could be in a cosy classroom studying Classics.’
‘School wasn’t working out so well though, was it?’
Lucas’s expression hardens. ‘I guess not.’
‘Want to talk about it?’ I ask, casually.
‘No,’ he says. ‘My father employs a ridiculously expensive shrink for that. I’m dragged there once a week too.’
‘Is it going OK?’
‘No. He’s a twat as well.’
‘We’re all just trying to help you, Lucas.’
‘Yeah. I can tell. Washing a horse’s arse is going to make me feel great.’
I laugh at that. ‘If it’s any consolation, it’ll certainly make Ringo feel better.’
And though he looks as if he’s trying very hard not to, Lucas cracks the glimmer of a smile too. Then, without further complaint, he washes Ringo’s bottom.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Lucas has finished his washing duties. I get the kitchen shears and cut his fringe – the pony’s fringe, not Lucas’s. ‘We have to keep his mane and his tail short too, because they give him eczema, otherwise. I’m not the best at this,’ I admit, ‘but it does the job.’
When I’ve finished, I can confirm that horse hairdressing is not high in my skill set. Ringo’s fringe is lopsided and looks a bit chewed even when I’ve faffed about with it. Having it this short will at least keep it off his face and while Ringo will stand happily for his bath, he tolerates his hairdo less well and I try to keep it quick as possible.
We give Buzz Lightyear a bath too, following the same routine, and then I show Lucas how to get the excess water from them with a squeegee so that they’re nice and dry before we put a scrim on them. Together we lead them back up to their paddock. Sometimes they go and roll straight in the dirt again and you wonder what all your hard work was for, but today we’re lucky and they busy themselves with eating grass.
‘Let’s go and have some lunch,’ I say to Lucas. ‘Hungry?’
‘Yeah.’ He sounds surprised that he is.
‘You’ve earned it. Good job.’ I hold up a hand and, after only a slight pause, he gives me a high five.
I know that some people might wonder about the benefit of what we do here at Hope Farm, but I only have to see someone like Lucas after a day or two here and I know that it works. There’s a lightness in his step as we head back towards the yard, despite his oversize wellingtons tripping him up. The tension he was holding in his shoulders has dissipated. I wonder, once more, what the real story is behind Lucas’s disruptive behaviour. Undoubtedly, he’s still grieving for his mother, but there’s an awful lot of anger directed towards his dad. Which is such a shame.
Everyone else is already in the tea room having lunch. Bev is dishing up cheesy pasta bake that she’s just lifted out of the oven. Most days she cooks on site but, occasionally, she’ll make a dish at home and bring it in. She spoons some onto plates for us. Lucas and I sit at the end of the communal table.
‘Everyone, this is Lucas. Some of you met him this morning but, if you didn’t, he’s new to us and we’ll hope he’ll be here regularly.’
There’s a variety of responses, from an enthusiastic cheer from Bev to a muted nod from Alan. The girls look at him with even more interest than they did this morning, it has to be said. Lucas holds up a hand, doing his too-cool-to-speak routine.
‘There’s two hours of lessons this afternoon,’ I tell him. ‘Everyone else will be attending, but while you’re settling in you can choose. Either you can go to lessons or do something else.’
‘Something else,’ is the swift response.
‘Not missing school?’
‘Seriously?’
‘I went to Glebe Road school,’ Tamara says boldly. ‘Which did you go to?’
Lucas doesn�
��t lift his head from his cheesy bake. ‘St Almsell’s.’
Tamara is clearly none the wiser, but doesn’t pursue it. ‘You didn’t like it?’
‘No.’
‘My school was crap too.’
And that’s it really. Lucas closes down any hope of conversation by avoiding eye contact and concentrating on his food. Tamara flushes and gives up, her girlish resources exhausted. I wink across at her encouragingly. She’s seen enough new students here to know that they pretty much all start out like that – as she herself did. There are some nice kids here and Lucas could do a lot worse than make some friends. I’ve learned from experience that you can’t force it and he’ll do it in his own time.
So we chat amongst ourselves and leave Lucas to his own devices. We all help to clear away and Tamara piles the crockery, making a beeline to wrest Lucas’s plate from him.
‘You’ll like it here,’ she says. ‘You can be yourself.’
He doesn’t snarl at her and he doesn’t smile either. But, instead of handing over his plate to her, he takes the stack that she’s struggling with. ‘Let me do that.’
She hands over the plates with a look of awe on her face. I’m just going to stand behind her in case she swoons.
As Bev is washing up, a car pulls in and it’s one of the teachers. Today it’s the turn of Ms Jessop and they all quite like her. She’s young and wears a nose stud. ‘Time for lessons,’ I say and there’s a collective groan – but it’s a half-hearted protest. ‘Get yourselves round to the classroom. Don’t forget to wash your hands.’
There’s a giddy five minutes while they get themselves ready and then they all crash out of the door together. Lucas hangs back.
‘Sit for a minute.’ He does as he’s told.
‘I think you have some fans there,’ I say as I stack the clean dishes back into the cupboard. ‘They’re good kids and are only trying to be nice.’
Lucas grunts. I wonder if he thinks that people only want him as a friend because of Shelby. ‘Do your friends think it’s weird that you have a famous dad?’
‘I don’t have any friends,’ he says, flatly. ‘Everyone hates me.’
‘Not everyone, surely?’ Lucas shrugs. ‘Because of who you’re related to?’
‘Yeah. And because I don’t fit in. All of this diversity shit is bollocks. If you deviate even slightly from the “norm”, you’re ostracised.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘It was bad enough before, but it’s even worse since he’s been going out with that woman. There isn’t anyone in school who hasn’t seen her with her clothes off. Me included.’
‘That’s tough.’
‘It’s bloody embarrassing,’ Lucas snarls. ‘That’s what it is. She’s fourteen years younger than him. How would he like it if I rocked up with a woman that age? He’d do his pieces. It’s grotesque. She hates me too. She just thinks I’m in the way. If it wasn’t for me they’d be swanning round Cannes or Venice or somewhere every weekend, doing what “stars” do.’
I can understand that it must be easier for Shelby Dacre to stay away than to come home to an angry, judgemental child, but he’s the grown-up here. Can’t he see that Lucas needs him?
‘Perhaps he’s hurting too,’ I suggest softly. ‘He’s lost his wife. It can’t be easy.’
‘It’s as if Mum never existed,’ Lucas snaps back. ‘He’s airbrushed her out of our lives.’
‘Maybe the two of you need to sit down together and get this out in the open.’
‘If he was ever at home that might be a possibility. You can’t talk to someone who isn’t there.’
I know that I’m happy with my own company, but it mustn’t be easy for someone Lucas’s age to go home to an empty house. No wonder he’s feeling miserable. ‘So what do you do when you’re at home by yourself?’
There’s a long pause and an even longer sigh before he says, ‘I write poetry.’
That makes me want to smile, but I keep it to myself. ‘Poetry, eh?’ I confess that I’d expected the answer to be a little more rebellious – smoking weed, watching inappropriate stuff on the internet. Again, I just want to hug him because I think that’s what Lucas needs more than anything. ‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It’s no big deal. It’s probably shit.’
Then Alan pops his head round the door. ‘I’m going up to big field.’ He nods towards Lucas. ‘Is he coming?’
Lucas folds his arms across his chest defensively, and realising that he’s let his guard slip and said too much to me, shuts down again.
The moment is lost, but there’ll be more. ‘Do you want to spend the afternoon with Alan?’ I ask. ‘It won’t involve any horses’ bottoms.’
‘Yeah.’ He pushes his chair away and stands up.
‘We’ll talk again, Lucas.’
‘Yeah.’
And, I’m pleased to say that it sounds like ‘yeah, we might’ rather than ‘yeah, not on your nelly’.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the event, it works out that I don’t see Lucas again all afternoon. I’m kept busy with Asha who has one of his rare meltdowns and it takes me and Bev half an hour to calm him down. They happened much more often when he first came here, almost daily, but we don’t see them so much now. We can’t get to the bottom of what kicks it off but afterwards, he’s left red-faced, sweating and exhausted. To restore his equilibrium, I sit with him in the rabbit run and we cuddle bunnies. There’s nothing like bunny-cuddles to soothe a troubled child.
It’s home time when I next see Lucas. He’s climbing into his swanky car, so I wave at him and he ignores me.
I close the gate behind the car as it leaves. For some reason, it paints a bleak picture and I block the vision of him going home to an empty house. Sometimes I fail, but I do try hard not to get too emotionally attached to our students. Some of them have significantly more difficult home lives than Lucas does and I have to let them all go at the end of the day. I can’t rescue them like I can the animals. I just have to do my best to help them thrive in their environment and give them the best help I possibly can when they’re here. I sigh. Sometimes life is shit.
When Bev comes back down to the yard, I have a cup of tea with her, eat some of the cake that’s left and listen as she downloads her day.
‘How’s Shelby Dacre’s kid doing?’
‘Lucas? I like him. He’s just short on love and attention, I think.’ I shrug. ‘Same old story.’
‘Is he signed up as a regular yet?’
‘I’ve told Mr Dacre to come in and complete the paperwork. He told me to call his PA to organise it.’ I raise my eyebrows.
‘Plonker,’ is Bev’s verdict. ‘I bet the kid has abandonment issues.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree.
‘He’s bloody hot in his show though,’ she sighs. ‘He was in a field with his shirt off last night wielding a scythe.’
‘A scythe? Was this in your dreams?’
‘No.’ She gives me a dark look. ‘In the show. He looks like he works out.’
‘You’ve gone all pink.’
‘So would you if you saw him in the nip.’
‘It’s a long, long time since I’ve seen any gentleman in the nip. I don’t feel as if I’m missing out.’
‘You are,’ Bev says. ‘Believe me.’ She picks up her bag. ‘I’m off. I want to see what Farmer Gordon gets up to tonight.’
‘Are we having a bet on Alan’s T-shirt?’
Bev strokes her chin and muses before slapping down, ‘Radiohead.’
‘Nice,’ I say, sucking in a breath. ‘Very nice.’ I give it some thought before coming back with, ‘I see your Radiohead and offer The White Stripes.’
‘I like it,’ Bev says. ‘But you won’t win.’
‘I bet you a bottle of the cheapest red we can find that I do.’
‘Done.’
And while Bev goes home to drool once more over Shelby Dacre, shirt or no shirt, I go to my caravan to stress over the finances of the farm.
Account books give me a headache. No matter how long or how hard I puzzle over them, I can never make them balance. I know that I should do outreach or fundraising stuff in the community – Bev tells me often enough – but the very thought of it brings me out in hives. The potential for things to go wrong are many and varied.
I do my late-night round of the animals with a heavy heart. When I get back, I make myself a tomato Cup a Soup for dinner, but that fails to cheer me too. I’m just about to fall into bed at ten o’clock when Big Dog starts to bark.
‘Quiet, Big Dog,’ I say, but Little Dog simply joins in too. Something’s obviously amiss. I should put on my jacket and have a look outside just in case.
Then my phone rings. I don’t recognise the number and the overwhelming temptation is not to answer it, but something makes me pick up and say, ‘Hello.’
‘It’s Shelby,’ the voice says. ‘I’m at your gate.’
‘Oh.’ That’s why the dogs are barking.
‘I know it’s late, but I’m on my way back from the studio. Can I do the paperwork for Lucas now?’
It’s as good a time as any, I suppose. ‘I’m in my pyjamas.’
It’s Shelby’s turn to say, ‘Oh.’
‘But I don’t mind if you don’t,’ I add hurriedly. I’ve already learned how busy Shelby Dacre is. I’m not judging him but, most of the time, he doesn’t even seem able to spare a few precious hours for his son. My finances are precarious and I need to get this paperwork completed. If I send him away now it could be days, longer even, before we get another chance and that will send me deeper into the red.
‘Right. OK. If it’s not a problem. Shall I wait here then? The gate’s locked.’
‘I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll just make myself decent.’ I hang up.
I’m not used to entertaining gentlemen in my caravan, let alone in my pyjamas, and the rashness of my actions hits me. What a fool. Why didn’t I ask him to come back in the morning? I feel self-conscious enough in his presence without adding my nightwear into the mix. While I’m still rationalising my decision, I tug a jumper over my jim-jams, pull on my wellies and head out of the van. Little Dog and Big Dog drop into step with me, eager to see if our new arrival is worthy of a lick or a chew.
Happiness for Beginners Page 8
