The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  Joel looked down from the painting to stare at Cassie with an even deeper frown than usual. ‘Good health,’ he said finally, raising his glass. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Slainte,’ Cassie said, raising her own glass back.

  ‘It was one of the great love matches, right?’ Joel asked after he had drunk some wine. ‘I remember reading about you two in some magazine or other.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to answer that,’ Cassie said.

  ‘Then don’t.’ Joel returned to staring at the painting, saying nothing else until he had finished his first glass of champagne. Then he wandered over to the desk, poured himself a second glass, topped up Cassie’s, and settled in an armchair directly in front of the fireplace.

  ‘I remember the article quite well,’ he said after a silence. ‘He was very popular with all his women owners – in fact with women in general.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie agreed carefully. ‘Women seemed to like him.’

  ‘Women seemed to love him,’ Joel corrected her. ‘Yet apparently you were it. You were the only one.’

  ‘You find that surprising,’ Cassie said, for want of anything more audacious.

  ‘I find it amazing,’ Joel replied. ‘In the world we all live in. Who’s this?’

  Cassie turned to see where Joel was looking and saw Erin at the door with young Padraig all ready for bed holding one of her hands.

  ‘This is Padraig,’ Cassie said with a smile as Erin led the child to her. ‘Come to say good night.’

  She lifted the child onto her knee, allowing him to stand to put his arms around her neck and kiss her.

  ‘Will you read to me tonight?’ he asked. ‘Please?’

  ‘Ah now sure that’s hardly fair, Pad,’ Erin said kindly. ‘Certain people are just a wee bit tired after their long journey.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ Cassie said, kissing the tousle-haired little boy on one cheek. ‘I’ll come up and read to you in just one minute.’

  ‘And so will I,’ Joel said gruffly. ‘That is if I’m allowed.’

  ‘He doesn’t normally like strange men,’ Cassie said after they had sat down to dinner.

  ‘I’m not that strange,’ Joel protested.

  ‘People he doesn’t know,’ Cassie smiled, opening out her linen napkin. ‘But he couldn’t have enough of you.’

  ‘It’s not what you tell it’s the way you tell ’em,’ Joel replied, rearranging his place setting, before beginning his soup. ‘How long were you married?’

  ‘Not long enough. How about you?’

  ‘I wasn’t really married. We didn’t have children and I don’t count that as being married. Not wanting to have children, that is.’

  ‘We wanted—’ Cassie began, and then stopped.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was just going to say we always wanted a large family, that’s all,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘But you couldn’t which was why you adopted,’ Joel said, without looking up from his soup.

  ‘Right.’ She looked down the table at him and found him looking back at her. Neither of them smiled, they just looked at each other. Then Joel slowly raised his dark crescent-shaped eyebrows until his eyes were wide open and it seemed to Cassie that she saw him perhaps for the first time.

  ‘I’m very glad you decided to come across here with me, Joel,’ Cassie said when they got up from the table. ‘Even if that call last night meant nothing, I’m still glad you came.’

  ‘Good,’ Joel said. ‘I’m glad too.’

  But the call had meant something, and when its meaning became apparent Cassie was even more grateful for Joel’s presence at Claremore.

  Anxiety came and went to a greater or lesser degree, but never more than at night when Cassie would find that by some miracle whatever tiredness she had been suffering during the day fled and she became as bright as the electric light that burned in the old lamp by her bedside. She would lie propped up against her pillows reading or staring round her at the contents of what had once been her marital bedroom. Everywhere there were photographs of Tyrone, everywhere their gifts to each other, paintings bought for each other, little boxes specially commissioned, everything that told of those years now gone and of Tyrone taken from her so early, leaving her alone.

  It was then that questions came endlessly into her head leaving her mind reeling sometimes with the thought of her own stupidity. Of course they had all been right. Never should she have taken up the challenge and run The Nightingale as a four-year-old. Instead she should have accepted the offer from Leonora’s mother for a third share in the syndication of the horse, founded her fortunes and been rich for life, but she had not. What she had done was to give in to her intransigence and go right in the very opposite direction, indulging herself in impossible and quixotic dreams, determined to stand up against those responsible for darkness in the world.

  ‘Fool,’ she would tell herself as she lay in the room built from her past, and then to try to put the thoughts from her mind she would read or sew, longing for morning to come, for the first weak shafts of light to appear at the side of her curtains, for the first sound of the birds, for the fear of night to be replaced by the comfort of everyday things, however mundane or domestic those things may be, however tiresome and endless some of the given tasks.

  But then sometimes she found herself unable to deal with the thoughts that came to worry her so late in the night, and with sleep a seeming impossibility Cassie often took to walking in the grounds in the small hours of the morning as soon as it began to get light. With Wilkie running deliriously ahead of her giving chase to any rabbits he could find to put up she would even take herself up into the hills behind the house to try to clear her head of her doubts and fears. First up the springy turf of the foothills and sometimes on fine mornings up into the rocky terrain of the very mountains themselves, far above where the trees and the shrubs stopped growing, until she stood high on a mountain with the fresh wind in her face and her beloved Claremore still asleep far below.

  On these long lonely walks she would often revisit the past, happy moments from her childhood when their neighbour Mrs Roebuck would make her granddaughters and Cassie hot muffins and pile the table high with butter and cream and home-made cherry jam. Moments when she and her childhood friend Mary-Jo would hurry to rise from their bunk beds at Mary-Jo’s parents’ farm, longing to be the first ones up and out to see Mary-Jo’s foal, to see him lying fast asleep in the lush grasses of his paddock or to catch him taking his first feed of the day from his mother.

  ‘Prince!’ Mary-Jo would call if the foal was just standing by or following his mother, while Cassie would whistle softly to beckon him, and inevitably he would soon come trotting across to them, his little ears pricked and his bright eyes shining, and stand happily while Cassie stroked his furry neck and Mary-Jo tugged at his ears before rolling his upper lip back in a grin and cantering off to rejoin his mother, performing en route one of those funny half-rears in which foals take great delight, and just to show that he could.

  ‘Wilkie!’

  In the woods behind Claremore early on the morning after Cassie had dined with Joel, the antics of Wilkie brought her out of her reverie as she realized the dog was trying to draw her attention to something ahead of them both something that had already caught his own. First he ran in front and then he circled back to Cassie, until eventually between the early morning mists she saw a shape through the trees and as she did so her pulse began to race. Far ahead of her was a large animal, tethered to a tree.

  Cassie knew who it was at once. She could feel his presence, even though the horse made no sound nor did he seem to move a muscle as she ran to where he was tied.

  ‘Nightie!’ she cried. ‘Nightingale! Nightingale!’

  He was tied by a length of rope which was far too short for his comfort to a tree on the very edge of the woods, a place where sooner or later he would be bound to be seen from the road. As soon as he saw Cassie he whickered, but not as he usually whickered. The sound that
he made was as if he was dying.

  ‘Nightie?’ she called again, unable to accept what she was calling. ‘Nightingale, is it really you?’

  Then when she was close she stopped dead in her tracks, hardly believing that the horse which stood before her was the magnificent creature she had last seen in all his pomp at Ascot, a horse which instead of staring majestically down at her with the look of eagles now looked back at her with glazed and sunken eyes. Gone were the pounds of hard muscle and gone was the hide of supple black skin, and instead Cassie found herself looking at a creature which seemed to be nothing but slack skin and protruding bone. She moved a step towards him but when she did so the horse grunted and began to roll his eyes and pull with all his remaining strength at the rope. Cassie put one hand up to steady him but as she did she saw a flash of teeth and only just stepped back in time before the horse snapped shut his jaws.

  They both stood stock still then, Cassie to allow the horse to see who had found him and the horse to watch and wait to see if yet another hand was raised against him. After a long silence Cassie said his name again, quietly, soothingly, softly, and the more she said his name the less agitated the horse became until he stopped trying to break away from the rope which held him by his head and stood quite still, watching Cassie as she now moved slowly towards him, watching with a dull but wary eye. He held his head half lowered and then just as Cassie finally reached him he slowly turned to stare with both his eyes at the woman beside him who was now holding up one hand.

  She made no effort to take a hold of the rough rope collar which tethered his head. Rather than make any such move which might frighten him again Cassie just lowered her own head and dropped her shoulders the way she always did when trying to attract a stubborn horse from a field, keeping her hand below the horse’s muzzle so that he could smell her familiar scent while she waited for him to make the move. For another minute or so neither of them made any real move other than for the horse to sniff carefully at the person standing beside him enough to slowly lower his tired head until his muzzle rested in the palm of her hand.

  And so they stayed for some time, the horse putting so it seemed the full weight of his head in Cassie’s hand, until at last he lifted it again and slowly turned it to bury his nose in her hair. She in return put her hand to his neck and held it there, the far side of his neck, round and under it, while The Nightingale pushed his muzzle further into her hair until after a while he dilated his nostrils and blew, just the once. When he had done so, Cassie put her other hand up slowly to his mouth and the horse opened his lips onto the palm of her hand to touch it carefully with his tongue. Again they just stood exactly as they were before a long time later with what sounded like a sigh the horse lifted his head and put it over Cassie’s shoulder where he left it to rest.

  ‘There now,’ Cassie whispered. ‘There now, my beautiful boy, you’re home now and everything’s all right and there’s nothing to be frightened of now you’re home, not ever again.’

  With his head still resting over her shoulder, Cassie wrapped both her arms now around his neck and gently hugged him to her, the centre of her life restored, the sun returned to her universe.

  ‘Come on, my old love,’ she heard herself saying as she undid the rope and with Wilkie at her side began the long slow walk back to Claremore. ‘Come on while we get you back to your box, the box we’ve had ready for your return since the day you disappeared. Come along with me now, and Bridie will wash you off all that dirt and mud, rub you dry, and see to all these cuts and scratches you seem to have collected.’

  She talked to the horse every inch of the way, her left hand on the leading rope at first and her right hand on the top of his neck. She walked beside his head telling him all, telling him how much she loved him and of the care that would be taken of him now, she talked to him until there was no need to lead him any more, until there was no weight on the halter at all and the horse was walking freely of his own accord beside her, one pace behind her shoulder with his nose just touching the back of her shirt.

  Twenty minutes later she stood below the window of Liam’s cottage.

  ‘Liam!’ she called. ‘Quick now, Liam, and out of your bed as fast as you can! The Nightingale has come home!’

  When they got to the gates of the yard, Liam opened them and Cassie led the horse in to where the rest of the staff had hurriedly gathered, some of them still pulling on their clothes while others who had already started seeing to their duties stood by with brooms and pitchforks still in their hands. No-one said a thing at first, no-one except Mattie who had rushed down from the house with Joel in response to a call from Liam.

  ‘Is it really him?’ Mattie said as he came to his mother’s side. ‘Is it really him after all this time? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that it’s him.’

  ‘It’s him all right, Mattie, just look at his markings,’ Cassie replied. ‘Not that I wouldn’t know him anywhere, but you can see his famous markings.’

  ‘I’m looking at his condition,’ Mattie said. ‘There’s nothing on him. He’s gone completely to nothing.’ Mattie put up his hand to stroke the horse’s neck but the moment he did so the horse reared violently, pulling himself almost free from Cassie.

  ‘No!’ Cassie cried. ‘Leave him – get away from him, Mattie! Don’t anyone come near him!’

  Everyone fell back, those near to him well away from him, and those far from him even further.

  ‘You must give him room,’ Cassie urged. ‘Give him space. God knows what this poor creature has been through.’

  Yet even as Cassie tried to calm him the horse reared above her again, rolling his eyes and snorting until Mattie and Liam were both driven even further away.

  ‘Here, Nightie,’ Cassie said, allowing the rope almost to pass from her hand. ‘Here, old boy, here – it’s all right – no-one’s going to harm you. I promise.’

  Then as suddenly as he had tried to break away the horse was calm, back on four feet and standing stock still, allowing Cassie to raise her free hand and once more to drape it over his neck.

  ‘Come on now, old fellow,’ Cassie said once she was sure the horse was quiet again. ‘Come on while we get you in your box and Bridie sees to you and Liam prepares you your bran mash, with a bottle of your favourite stout in it. Come on now, there’s a good boy.’

  She didn’t try to lead the horse by his head in case he was still afraid, still frightened that someone – as someone had obviously done while he had been away – might again raise a hand against him, or hold him back away from them with a pitchfork stuck in his side. She just walked beside his head, slowly so as to lead the way, and as she went so the horse followed, less than a pace behind her with his nose once again touching the back of her shirt.

  Gone now was his toe, the famous bouncing jaunty walk of his, that flash of a pair of proud eyes, the pricking of his big ears and the rhythmic swing from side to side of his handsome head. Instead on unshod feet he shuffled his way forward in the way a hostage might when he is suddenly released from the darkness.

  Except that in this instance there had been no miraculous rescue. The captive had simply been returned to where he belonged without any demand and without any why or wherefore, which was why Cassie’s face now wore such a look of concern, for like everyone else in the yard she was wondering what the point of all this dreadful exercise had been.

  And then it came to her.

  ‘Pray to God that I’m wrong, Bridie, but I think I know what they’ve done.’

  ‘What?’ Bridie asked, turning back to Cassie, suddenly fearful. ‘What are you talking about, guv’nor? The horse is back here alive and in one piece so what can they possibly have done to him? Other than half starve him and beat him up. Sure in no time at all with care and good feeding we’ll have him back—’

  ‘That isn’t what I mean,’ Cassie said, reaching out over the door to turn the stable lights on before dropping to her knees beside the horse. ‘Oh God oh Jesus I thought so!’ sh
e cried as soon as she was down on the straw. ‘Oh God will you look what they’ve done! Oh, the bastards – the bastards! They’ve only gone and castrated him!’

  Ten

  The first thing Cassie needed to know after the initial shock had worn off was whether the horse was free from infection. Niall Brogan was up in the yard twenty minutes after Mattie had called him and after giving his patient a thorough inspection the vet pronounced him to be clean.

  ‘The horse is in bad shape, that goes without saying, but at least the castration was done professionally,’ he said. ‘For that at least one can indeed be thankful. We have to imagine that if this was the purpose of taking him the people who did it had to ensure the animal didn’t contract a lethal infection. That way they could be certain of getting him back to you alive in order to make their point. Otherwise it seems no-one cared that much for him. From the slackness of his skin and the tone of his muscles he can’t have been given anything much other than hay and grass. I’ve seen horses in better condition than this coming straight off the hills. Like us all, I’d give a king’s ransom to get hold of the sods who did this to him.’

  Even so, Niall was confident that under round-the-clock supervision they could nurse the horse back to fitness and so start him back on the road to health. To start the ball rolling he injected the animal with large doses of vitamins and iron, as well as giving him a full antibiotic cover, having first taken some samples of his blood to test for everything from anaemia to liver function.

  ‘It’s going to be a slog, Cassie,’ Niall said as they walked slowly out of the yard, leaving Bridie to rug the horse up and settle him down. ‘But I think he’ll make it. He’s a big tough sort of horse, with a fighter’s determination, so there’s every hope that if he husbands his strength we can get him back to his old bonny self.’

  ‘He’ll never be his old bonny self, Niall,’ Cassie replied flatly.