Phantom Horse 4: Phantom Horse in Danger

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  “Is that Stour 862324?” asked a man’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve advertised a grey gelding for sale. Can we come over and see him at twelve?” he asked.

  I wanted to say no. I could say he’s sold, I thought, or lame or ill, or that we’ve changed our minds. But it wouldn’t be fair on Angus. “Well?” said the voice.

  “Yes, that’s fine. Do you want our address?” I answered. “He’s not a novice ride. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s all right. I want him for my son.”

  I told him our address and asked him for his name. He said he was called Captain Hickman and that he lived on the outskirts of London and would be keeping Killarney at livery near Wimbledon.

  I put down the receiver, feeling rather sick.

  Killarney won’t like London after Ireland, I thought. He won’t be able to lie in the sun or roll. He will be inside all the time. I hope somebody else rings up.

  “Any luck?” asked Angus, returning indoors.

  “What luck?” I asked.

  “Anybody telephone?”

  “Yes. A Captain Hickman. He’s arriving at twelve.” I told Angus about Wimbledon.

  “He won’t be bothered with flies in the summer if he’s in,” said Angus, “and a livery stable will look after him properly. He won’t be lonely. He’ll have other horses; he’ll be all right. You do fuss, Jean; he’s only a horse, after all.”

  Then the telephone rang again. “I’ll get it,” said Angus. “Find me a pencil and some paper. We must be organised. We don’t want to get our customers mixed up.” He was smiling now, suddenly sure of getting his moped, while I seemed to be seeing him for the first time, and I didn’t like what I saw.

  “Stour 862324,” he said, sounding business-like. “Yes, that’s right … Yes, he’s a lovely horse, perfect in every way. He’s Irish … Yes, he can jump almost anything … No, he’s no trouble to box. Yes, do come. Three o’clock will be fine, but we have got someone else arriving at twelve … Okay, eleven, then. Do you want our address? … First turn off the motorway, exit nine, then it’s ten miles; it’s only a hamlet … Fine, see you then. Goodbye …

  “She sounded very nice,” said Angus. “She wants him for horse trials. Are you going to help me get him ready?”

  “What about the telephone?” I asked.

  “They can ring again later. We’ve got enough customers for this morning,” said Angus, starting to laugh. “I bet you a pound he’s sold by lunchtime.”

  I found the body brush and soon we were both covered with grey hairs. When Killarney’s mane was glistening in the sun and his legs looked like polished pewter, we rushed indoors to change our clothes.

  “I’m sure I’ve asked too little,” cried Angus. “I bet he’s worth more than three thousand pounds. I’m a nut case.”

  I didn’t answer. I could feel a well of sadness inside me. Angus was finishing a chapter of his life without realising it. He was giving up horses. Today was like a farewell. In future I would ride alone, plan my horse shows and other events alone, share my triumphs alone. It was the end of an era.

  “But whatever will I do with all that money?” asked Angus. “I don’t want to travel because I’ve travelled so much already. I suppose I could keep it for my sports car: that’s the next thing.”

  I thought of Mrs Parkin and wondered whether her predictions always came true.

  It was now ten-thirty. Angus spent a long time brushing his hair. “I shall ride him first,” he said, “while you put up some jumps and make suitable comments. You know what I mean – a horse in a million, quite unblemished, a child could ride him … You know the chat, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you care, don’t you care at all?” I asked incredulously.

  “Not much, not really, you see I want to change. I want a new image. I’ve been horsey long enough,” replied my brother, looking at me seriously with his brown eyes. “After all, how many of our male friends ride?”

  “Well, Dominic Barnes, for one,” I answered. “He’s started point-to-pointing.”

  “Well, he’s a special case. I mean, his father was a National Hunt rider before he took up farming. And he’s not exactly highbrow, is he? He’s always milking or on a tractor. He’ll never be prime minister.”

  I had no answer, for now we seemed to be on a different wavelength. The Barneses have always helped us out. They looked after our ponies, Moonlight and Mermaid, and Twilight, who is a yearling and belongs to Angus.

  “I suppose you’ll sell Twilight next,” I said.

  “I shall have to think about it,” he answered, polishing his riding-boots with a tea-towel. “After all, even if I was still riding she’s only going to be thirteen-two, rather small for me, don’t you think?”

  “I thought we were going to break her in together,” I said.

  “I won’t have the time, not in two years,” he replied.

  We heard a car stopping outside. Angus threw open the back door and rushed out. I heard him calling, “Yes, this is it. Drive into the yard. He’s looking out of the second box …”

  The woman who stepped out of a white Shogun was called Lindsay Turtle. She had an upturned nose and was small and slim with grey eyes. I liked her at once.

  “He looks nice enough,” she said, studying Killarney. “What a lovely head. Why are you selling him? It’s exams I suppose, the usual thing,” she continued, looking at Angus.

  “That’s right. Shall I lead him out?” he asked.

  He stood Killarney up and she felt his legs, while the sunlight danced on our cobbled yard.

  I hope she buys him and keeps him for ever, I thought, while Angus trotted him up and down the road.

  We tacked him up together and Angus rode him in the paddock, sitting very straight in the saddle, trying to make a good impression.

  “Where did you find him?” asked Lindsay Turtle.

  “In Ireland. He belonged to a dealer called Donnie O’Reagan, a super man,” I said. “We are his first real home. He’s a horse in a million.”

  I was playing the part Angus wanted, not for him, but because I wanted Lindsay Turtle to buy Killarney, because she would be a good home. She mounted quickly while Angus held the other stirrup. She rode Killarney quietly and suddenly he did look a horse in a million – she was that sort of rider. She would have made the humblest horse look terrific.

  “I hope she buys him,” I told Angus.

  “We are selling him too cheap,” he replied. “We should have asked four thousand.”

  She cantered Killarney and he looked like a show hunter, with his head steady and his stride long and balanced.

  “He’s wasted on us,” I said.

  “On me, you mean,” answered Angus.

  “Can you put up a jump?” she called. “Anything will do.”

  We had a few heavy poles and some petrol cans, a couple of oil drums and an old door painted in different colours to look like a wall.

  We made a hog’s-back, a triple, and put up the wall.

  “That’s lovely,” she called.

  Killarney danced a little. He cleared the hog’s-back, did a cat jump over the wall and knocked down the triple.

  “He hasn’t jumped for some time,” Angus said.

  We put them up again and he jumped better this time. “He’s very promising,” Lindsay Turtle said. “What’s he like in traffic?”

  “Super, no trouble at all,” answered Angus.

  “Come on, he must have something wrong somewhere,” she argued.

  “No. He’s always been perfect,” said Angus.

  “Is he for you?” I asked, because I had to know.

  “If he’s good enough. If not I shall sell him on to a nice teenager,” she answered. “And I mean nice.”

  Angus looked at his watch, then he looked at me and smiled. “There’s someone arriving to look at Killarney in ten minutes,” he said. “I don’t want to rush you. If you want to think about him, that’s fine …�
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  “I think I want him. You said three thousand pounds, didn’t you? Can I give him a bit of a gallop?”

  We took her along the road to where Dominic gallops his point-to-pointers down a long grass strip between ploughed fields. It goes up hill and down dale and it stretches for nearly a mile.

  “I can promise you he’s sound in wind and limb,” announced Angus, looking at his watch again. “You can go as far as you like, it’s clear all the way.”

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” I asked.

  “It’s good business.”

  “I feel as though I was selling a friend,” I said.

  “Don’t be soppy,” answered Angus.

  “Why don’t you go back and look for our next customer. He may have arrived by now.”

  I didn’t move, because far away down the track I could see Lindsay Turtle dismounting. “Look,” I shouted, “something’s gone wrong.”

  “Don’t be silly. She’s testing him. She’ll get on in a minute, or she’s dropped her whip.”

  “She wasn’t carrying one,” I answered.

  We heard her shout something, then she picked up one of Killarney’s forelegs and looked inside the hoof. Suddenly I remembered my prayer of the night before, and I couldn’t look at Angus when he said in a horrified voice, “He must be lame. Oh no! How sickening – but why?” Then he was running down the track towards them, calling, “He’s never been lame before, I promise. What can have happened?”

  I turned towards the yard, not knowing whether to cry or laugh, and feeling guilty at the same time.

  I found a strange man knocking on the front door when I reached Sparrow Cottage and he said rather crossly, “Oh, there you are. Where’s the horse?”

  His son was with him, a smaller edition of the same person. They both wore flat caps, hacking-jackets, breeches and boots.

  “The horse is just returning, a lady has been trying him,” I answered. “He may be sold. I’m not sure …”

  “I see,” said the father rather disagreeably. “In that case our journey will have been for nothing.”

  “You might have warned us,” said the son, who spoke as though he had a marble in his mouth. “We are rather busy people.”

  “Here he is,” I answered, and as I spoke I could hear Killarney’s uneven hoofbeats on the road and knew he was still lame.

  “Captain Hickman,” said the man, holding out his hand when he saw Angus. “And this is my son, George.”

  Angus had a hunted look on his face. He said, “I’m so sorry, but Killarney has just gone lame. It has never happened before.”

  “I’m afraid it was my fault. I was galloping him when it happened. He must be throwing a splint or something. I can’t think of anything else. It’s frightfully bad luck, I must say. But I’m still interested in the horse, when and if he’s sound again,” said Lindsay Turtle.

  “Thank you very much,” said Angus, taking Killarney’s reins. “We’ll ring the vet at once, and let you know when he’s better.”

  Captain Hickman ran an expert hand down Killarney’s forelegs while Lindsay Turtle drove away. “There’s no heat anywhere. How extraordinary,” he said. “It’ll probably swell up later, though. No ill feelings. It’s just bad luck.”

  “Thank you for taking it so well,” Angus said. “And I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time.”

  “That’s all right.”

  They were walking towards their car now, talking to one another in low voices, no doubt trying to decide where to go next.

  “Well,” said Angus, as they were driving out of the yard, “why did it happen? Why? He’s never been lame before. Why today of all days?”

  “Perhaps it was fate,” I muttered. “Or God, or just bad luck, or like that woman said, he’s throwing a splint.”

  “Horses throw splints when they’re being worked hard. Killarney has hardly been ridden in the last three months. Don’t make me laugh.” He sounded furious and bitter at the same time, and he kept staring at me as though it was my fault.

  “You wanted him to go lame, didn’t you?” he accused me. “You willed it.”

  “I’m not a witch,” I said. “But I am pleased because now he can’t be sold, or not until he’s sound. That may take weeks or months and by then you may have changed your mind.” And I rushed into the house, slamming the door after me.

  I walked up and down the kitchen, which had a Welsh dresser, a big table in the middle and flowery curtains at the windows, and I wished that Mum was at home to calm Angus. I could hear him swearing in the yard and when he came indoors he ran upstairs, slammed his bedroom door and turned on his stereo so loud that my head started to ache.

  I made myself some coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Life goes on, I thought; the clock is still ticking the minutes away. All this will pass – Angus’s anger, Killarney’s lameness – and tomorrow will be a new day. But it didn’t make me feel any better. I felt as if I was to blame for everything, for Killarney’s lameness, for wasting everyone’s time. Lindsay Turtle would have been a good home and Angus would have had his moped if I hadn’t prayed, I thought.

  Then Angus opened his bedroom door and shouted, “Ring the vet, will you? It’s the only thing we can do,” then slammed the door again. I went to the telephone thinking, Why me?

  Our vet was small and dark, with quick, sensitive hands, and was called Mike Davis. His receptionist answered the telephone and said that he would visit us before nightfall if he had time. “But you know it’s extra on Saturdays, don’t you? Can it wait until Monday?” she asked.

  I said, “Hold on,” and shouted upstairs, “Can it wait until Monday, Angus?” but his music was so loud he couldn’t hear.

  “We would rather he made it today, please,” I said, going back to the telephone. Suddenly I felt very tired. I put down the receiver and wandered outside. I looked at Killarney’s leg, but there was nothing to see, and I thought, Perhaps I am a witch with supernatural powers. Perhaps if I pray, his leg will be better, but I didn’t pray because the words wouldn’t come. He and Phantom were grazing together, shoulder to shoulder, and they seemed to belong in the orchard. It is their home, I thought, just as the cottage is mine, and suddenly selling a horse seemed one of the saddest things in the world.

  When I went back to the house, Mrs Parkin had arrived.

  “What do you want for lunch, Jean?” she called. “It’s twelve-thirty already and there’s not a potato peeled.”

  “Anything. I don’t mind. Bacon, please and scrambled eggs on toast.”

  She looked plump and comforting. I nearly told her everything, but just as I was beginning, Angus came into the kitchen, saying, “How about a cup of tea, Mrs Parkin, and how are all your many children and grandchildren?” and the moment was gone.

  3

  Mike Davis arrived later, when dusk had come to the yard. Birds were chirping sleepily in their nests and the primroses had closed their petals.

  He leaped out of the car calling, “Which one?” Killarney and Phantom were still coming in for the night and we had just put them to bed.

  “The grey,” answered Angus, fetching a head collar. “He went lame this morning when someone was trying him and there’s absolutely nothing to see.”

  “Whoa, old fellow,” said Mike Davis, slipping into the box after Angus, and running his hands down Killarney’s forelegs. “Which one is it, then?” he asked.

  Angus looked perplexed. “I can’t remember. Which was it, Jean?” he asked.

  I couldn’t remember either, so we led him out and trotted him up the road. It was the off foreleg, and he wasn’t any better.

  “I can’t understand it,” said Mike Davis.

  “There’s nothing to see at all. I’ll just get my hammer.”

  He tapped Killarney’s hoof in every possible place, but Killarney didn’t flinch. He stood, half angel, half horse, staring into the distance.

  “Amazing,” said Mike, putting his hammer away. “We can X-ray the leg if it gives any
more trouble. In the meantime I’ll give you some lotion to put on under a bandage.”

  Always in a hurry, he ran out to his car again, handed Angus a bottle, saying, “Soak a dressing in it and keep it on for at least twelve hours and ring me if he isn’t better in a week, or if there’s any new developments. If he gets worse, we’ll have his shoe off.” Then he slammed his car door and was gone.

  “No comfort there,” said Angus angrily. “Where’s the gamgee? And what about the leg bandages?”

  By the time we had finished bandaging Killarney’s leg, the sky was full of stars.

  “I shall never get that moped now, and the advert took all my spare cash,” said Angus, leading the way indoors.

  “He will get better. He must!” I replied.

  We had just finished a supper of baked beans on toast when the telephone rang. I answered.

  “Geoff Craig,” said a man’s voice. “I saw your advertisement. Is the horse sold?” I looked at Angus, who was listening.

  “No, he’s not quite sound,” I answered. “Otherwise he would be. We’ve had the vet and it’s nothing serious. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right, dear, we’ll come anyway,” said Geoff Craig. “Where are you?”

  I gave him directions from the motorway. “Is he for you?” I asked.

  “No, for my daughter – she competes, but we can always wait for him to get sound again. We’re not in any hurry,” he said.

  “That’s fine then, see you tomorrow morning.” I replaced the receiver slowly.

  “You are a fool,” shouted Angus. “Why did you say he wasn’t sound?”

  “Because I’m honest by nature.”

  “But he may be all right by tomorrow,” said Angus.

  “He didn’t sound particularly nice,” I told him. “Surely it would be better for him to go to Lindsay Turtle when he’s sound.”

  “But I want the money by Monday.”