Taking Flight

by Sheena Wilkinson

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked a bit embarrassed to be caught out talking to a horse. ‘Cam asked me to groom him.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now. I’ll take over,’ I said. I knew I should say thanks. He handed me the body brush and went away. I ran my hand over Flight’s shoulder and it was like silk.

  ‘Can I get in to muck out?’ It was Declan with a wheelbarrow. I straightened up and he pushed past me into the stable and started forking up the dung. I leaned over the half-door to watch. I wanted to be able to find fault with him – after all, Dad was paying for this – but he was annoyingly quick and competent. I took out my irritation by yanking the plastic curry comb through Flight’s tail, which was full of mud – obviously Declan hadn’t got that far. In seconds my eyes were full of tiny mud-specks.

  ‘He looks great.’ Declan paused and looked out.

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. Like I needed him to tell me how my horse looked!

  ‘Are you going to jump him? Only Cam’s got a lesson so the school’s not –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was only saying.’

  I fetched Flight’s tack, making a mental note to take it home for cleaning. This time next week would be the final – and the end of term – and nearly Christmas. And Rory was taking me to a party tonight. I knew I was being stupid to let myself get annoyed about Declan being all over Flight. Because at the end of the day, whatever fuss Cam made of him, he was always going to be the one shovelling the shit, while I was the one saddling up my four-thousand-pound horse.

  Declan pushed out past me again and for the first time I noticed that he was wearing proper riding boots instead of the steeky trainers he usually wore. He caught me looking.

  ‘Your mum got me them,’ he said, even though I hadn’t asked. ‘Early birthday present.’

  ‘Oh.’ I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  ‘She’s in great form, isn’t she?’

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I suppose she has been in extra good form this week.’ And if you think I’m hinting that it’s because you’re not around any more, then good! I thought.

  But that’s not what he thought.

  ‘As long as he’s worth it,’ he said, brushing up the front of the bed. ‘None of my mum’s ever have been. But then – a teacher at the university. That sounds OK, doesn’t it?’

  Something cold opened out inside me. I swallowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘This Brian. Is he nice? Have you met him yet?’

  I’m going out to dinner later. And last week it was the cinema. And I had been too stupid to work it out. But she’d told him.

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. I hauled on Flight’s stirrup leathers, grabbed my hat and pushed past Declan and out of the barn. Without waiting to warm up I kicked the surprised Flight into a trot and belted out of the yard.

  Chapter 27

  DECLAN

  From the battering of Flight’s hooves on the concrete I can tell Vicky’s stormed off.

  I go back to mucking out. Flight’s bed looks perfect – even Jim grunts less at my beds now – so I push the wheelbarrow next door to Nudge’s, which is bogging as usual.

  What’s her problem? Does she hate Colette’s boyfriend? I thought she’d be less nasty now I wasn’t living in her house, not more. Maybe she’s just raging at her mum having a boyfriend. I wonder when Colette told her. She didn’t exactly tell me – I just overheard her talking to Mum about it.

  But I’m trying not to think about Mum. She wasn’t up when I left the house this morning but last night she was all sort of, ‘Och, son, would you really be bothered heading away up there on a Saturday? It’s awful far,’ and I kind of know she’d rather I stuck around home. I sigh and scoop up a big pockle of shit with the fork.

  Vicky can be as mean as she likes; she’s not going to spoil being here for me. She’s only ever here to ride Flight anyway – rides him and goes home or back to her da’s or wherever. Like he’s just some toy she can pick up and put down. There’ll be hours and hours every weekend when she’ll be nowhere in sight and I can just get on with it. Get on with my job. All week the thought of coming here has kept me going. Kept me working when the words on the page were dancing and blurring. Kept me in the house every night with that clingy look in Mum’s eyes.

  I’ve read all that stuff about the tech so often that I know it off by heart. And sometimes I can’t believe it’s anything to do with me. Other times, like now, finishing off Nudge’s bed, noticing that it’s taken me a quarter of the time it used to, hearing the noise of hooves and Cam shouting orders in the school and just breathing in that warm, damp horsey smell, I know this is the right place for me to be. And Mum can sigh and Vicky can sulk as much as they like.

  Girls are weird anyway. Like Seaneen. Haven’t been able to shake her off for weeks – Thursday night she kissed me, for God’s sake, and then yesterday she just stuck her nose in the air and bounced out the door with Kevin.

  ‘Declan?’ It’s Cam. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Just Joy’s and then that’s me.’

  She looks into Nudge’s stable and smiles. ‘We’ll send you off to college knowing how to muck out anyway.’ I like the way she says this, like it’s a definite thing. ‘OK,’ she goes on. ‘I’m heading out to pick up some rugs from the cleaners soon. You’ll be OK on your own? When you finish here, can you groom and tack up Sparky and Hero?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She trusts me. Vicky can just piss off, jealous bitch.

  I make an extra effort with Joy’s bed, because Cam said Fiona’s offered to let me ride her any time I want, and Cam says that’s fine as long as I have all my work done first. ‘When the lighter nights come in the spring, you could head off into the farm trail after work.’ I can’t wait. Being out there in the fields with a horse and no one else, looking over at the mountains – it must be wicked. Like being a cowboy. Princess Vicky doesn’t know how lucky she is.

  When she clatters back into the yard she doesn’t look like she thinks she’s lucky. Flight’s foamy with sweat and he shifts and fidgets when she flings herself off, like he feels her bad mood.

  I pull down the clean shavings from round the edges and spread them over the bed. Vicky’s face, red-cheeked, appears over the half-door.

  ‘Sucking up to Fiona now? You don’t really think you’ll be able to ride Joy, do you? Face it, Declan. You’re only here to do the dirty work.’

  I bite down hard on my lip, the way I do when Emmet McCann tries to wind me up. Don’t let her get to me. She’ll be out of here in half an hour, until tomorrow. This isn’t about me. It’s about Brian.

  But I can’t help my hands tightening on the fork.

  She smiles when I don’t answer – not a real smile – then starts talking in this dead ordinary, conversational voice, ‘Do you know how Cam’s parents died?’

  I set the fork on top of the wheelbarrow and start brushing back the bed. ‘Yeah,’ I mutter. What’s that got to do with anything?

  She scratches Flight’s sweaty face. ‘They were killed in a car crash.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So guess who caused it – joyriders.’ She says it carefully like it’s a foreign word she’s just come across.

  My breath shudders in my throat.

  ‘Yeah,’ she goes on. Joyriders. Surprised you didn’t know that. But then Cam doesn’t know much about you, either, does she?’

  I grab the broom handle tighter in my suddenly sweaty hands.

  ‘Well, not yet,’ says Vicky. She gives that smile that isn’t a smile again.

  Just concentrate on sweeping and breathing. Breathing and sweeping. She wouldn’t do it; she’s only trying to scare me.

  ‘Vicky!’ Cam’s voice flits through the open door of the barn. ‘I’m leaving now. Come if you’re coming.’

  ‘Don’t go without me!’ shouts Vicky, all sweetness. ‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’

  She throws Flight’s reins at
me. ‘Since you’re still working here – well, for now – you can put him out for me.’ And she leaves without another word.

  For a few moments all I can do is lean against Flight and swallow down rage. I breathe in the salty, hot tang of him. Leather and sweat and something sweet and alive that’s just horse. I never smelled that smell until three weeks ago and now it’s as familiar as cigarette smoke.

  But it’s over.

  I know it is.

  Who have I been kidding? ‘Course you can do it,’ Mr Dermott kept on saying. ‘You’re not stupid.’ But I am stupid. Stupid to have believed in this.

  Every second I stand here Vicky’s telling Cam.

  Flight whiffles in my ear and cocks his tail. Automatically I go for a shovel. I hear her voice in my ear: ‘That’s all you’re good for – shovelling shit.’

  Flight rubs his nose against my arm, leaving a trail of snot. I look at him standing there, tack on, stirrups not even run up. Ready.

  I don’t have a conscious thought. It’s like the night Emmet came to the door and said, ‘Look what I got!’ And the engine still running in the Peugeot 306 in the street. And Gran in the living-room, and me knowing she wasn’t well, and thinking, it’s not up to me, Mum should have stayed in herself if she was that bothered. And Emmet laughing, ‘Come on, man. You up for it or not?’ And me pulling the door closed behind me and saying, ‘Aye, might as well.’

  Next thing my foot’s in the stirrup and I’m swinging my leg over his back. He grunts in surprise when I yank him round, out of the yard and across the road to the farm trail.

  ‘Come on!’ I push him on and on, up the hill. He swings along in a powerful trot that eats up the path. We get to a downhill and I feel myself slipping and bouncing in the saddle. Sit back, I remember Cam telling me. Sit deep, feel the reins, and the horse will slow down. But this horse doesn’t want to slow down. Ragged and juddering we career down the hill like a skateboard with a wonky wheel. It shakes the crap out of me.

  The ground flattens and Flight lunges himself into a mad canter. I grab his mane and my arse finds its way back to the middle of the saddle. This is better than the trot. Better than running. His hooves pound the ground, striking out last time last time last time. For a few seconds it feels sweet, a million times faster than Kizzy. There’s nothing ahead of us but the path stretching between fields. Mud flies up from his hooves. Speed and air take over. I don’t give a shit what happens. The wind whips tears from my eyes and I’m blinded for a second before they run down my cheeks. I lean forward. Flight snatches the bit and then there’s speed like there’s never been and the ground flows past me and I’m terrified and elated and I never want it to stop.

  Something flies out of the hedge. Flight twists; there’s nothing in front of me, then the ground leaps to meet me.

  It whacks me so hard it forces the breath out of me. I pull myself up and look for Flight.

  But the path stretches ahead, empty.

  ‘Fuck!’ I jump up and run. My heart hammers. The ground pulls at my legs and my face burns in the cold air. Shit shit shit. Let him be OK. I don’t care what she tells Cam. Just let Flight be round the next corner.

  I’m running and fighting to breathe and praying and I think I can’t go any further and then there’s one more bend in the path and there he is, just beside the gap in the fence, head down, nosing at the undergrowth. He’s fine.

  My heart gives a huge leap. ‘Flight!’ I cry. ‘Thank Christ!’ I dash forward, my feet breaking twigs. Startled, he shies, catches his leg in his reins, and pulls back in horror.

  ‘Whoa, there, it’s OK, boy.’ I stretch out a hand but he’s out of reach.

  He flinches away, the reins break with a snap and next second he’s ducked out through the gap. There’s a car coming.

  I’m right behind him but the car gets him first.

  The squeal of brakes, the flash of metal and a high-pitched scream – I never knew horses could scream. A tangle of horse and car.

  And Flight’s body falling through the air. His legs flail and buckle.

  He gives a grunt, and then he’s still.

  Chapter 28

  VICKY

  Clean rugs were piled in the back seat of Cam’s Land Rover. I leaned back in the passenger seat and inhaled their sweet, chemical smell. Looked at Cam’s hand changing gear. No rings, like Mum. Mum used to have a sort of white mark on her finger where she’d worn her engagement and wedding rings for so long. It was only in the last year or two that you couldn’t tell there’d ever been rings there. She’d put them in her jewellery box. ‘I’ll keep them for you,’ she’d promised. ‘For your eighteenth, maybe.’ The engagement ring was really pretty with three sapphires. When I was younger I used to sneak into her bedroom and try it on.

  Brian. Why hadn’t she told me? All that getting her hair done. And going out. And being so cheerful. And I’d thought it was just getting rid of Declan. And he – he knew! Again I saw them on the sofa last Friday night; the two dark heads bent together, her hand covering his.

  ‘So?’ Cam’s voice broke into my thoughts. ‘Hello?’

  ‘What? Oh – sorry! I was thinking.’

  ‘About next week?’ She smiled. ‘He’s going well. You’ve put a lot of work in.’

  ‘So have you,’ I admitted.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, as long as you tell everyone where you learned when you win. Drum me up a bit of business. Now – what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

  ‘Um …’ I bit my lip. Was I really going to say it? Nasty Me wanted to all right, but Nice Me wouldn’t let her. Cam would think I was a bitch. And she’d be right. ‘I just wondered if you’d have time to clip Flight again this week. And pull his mane? Just so we can be a really good advertisement for your yard.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll see. Probably. Declan works so hard he’s been getting all the tack cleaned, which leaves Jim with more time during the week. He’s an absolute godsend, you know. I’m going to ask him to come up every day in the Christmas holidays. Do you think he’ll want to?’

  Go on! said Nasty Me. Perfect opportunity.

  But I couldn’t. Maybe my threat would be enough – he’d always be wondering if I was going to say something, and then maybe he’d leave of his own accord and I’d be totally happy – apart from Brian.

  We turned into Cam’s road. She peered ahead and frowned. ‘Something up ahead,’ she said, changing gear and slowing down; ‘looks like some sort of hold up.’

  ‘Probably Stanley’s cows again.’

  I was only half paying attention. Should I phone Mum and confront her about this Brian? How long would I have to wait before she told me of her own accord? Maybe I could talk to Rory tonight. He was picking me up at Dad’s and we were going to his friend’s eighteenth in Hillsborough. I was going to meet his friends for the first time!

  Suddenly the windscreen filled with trouble – an accident – and Cam stopped. Whatever was going on was happening right at the open gate to the farm trail. I peered out, sudden dread clutching my stomach. A car at a weird angle, like it had swerved, and something on the road, struggling; something brown …and the blood on the road … it had to be Stanley’s cows.

  But as I jumped out and ran up the road, the sun hit metal – a stirrup – and I knew.

  Prone in the road in front of the car that had hit him, blood pumping from his back leg, eyes glassy, was Flight.

  * * *

  ‘I heard you crying,’ Fiona said. I felt the bed give as she sat down beside me.

  I gulped and turned over on to my back. Tears, hot then quickly cold, ran down into my ears. I’d lost track of how long I’d been lying there. The afternoon had passed in a nightmare of vets and phone calls and cups of tea. And Fiona and Cam saying over and over again that they couldn’t believe it. Trying to piece it all together. I’d wanted to go home to Mum but she wasn’t answering her phone – probably out with Brian.

  ‘Come on, Vicky.’ Fiona pulled me to her. ‘This isn’t goi
ng to help anyone.’

  ‘I c-can’t help it.’ I hid my face in her shoulder. She smelled of perfume and baby.

  ‘I know.’ She stroked my hair like I was a child.

  ‘If that car had been a second later or if it had been going a tiny bit slower –’ I sobbed.

  ‘You have to stop torturing yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I know whose fault it was!’

  Fiona sighed. ‘I still can’t believe he … And then just to run away like that!’ She held me away from her and gave me one of those straight looks. ‘Vicky, are you sure you don’t know why he did it?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know! Why will no one believe me?’ But I felt my eyes slide away from hers.

  ‘Well, he must be feeling a lot worse than you.’

  I pushed her hands away. ‘How can you even care how he feels?’

  ‘I just wish I could understand what got into him. You’re sure he didn’t think you’d asked him to take him out?’

  ‘Of course not! He’s a joyrider and a thief. He just takes what he likes. I told you!’

  ‘Look, Vicky.’ She gave me a little shake. ‘You need to get a hold of yourself. You’re going to make yourself sick.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Fresh sobs shook me at the memory of Flight lying in the road, blood gushing from his back leg and the vet shaking his head.

  ‘Yes, you do.’ She set me away from her and pushed the straggles of wet hair from my scorching cheeks. ‘Now, listen. It was a terrible accident. A terrible shock. But you have to keep positive. You heard what the vet said.’

  ‘He’s going to d-die!’

  ‘He is not going to die.’

  ‘You didn’t see the blood! You didn’t see the bone sticking out!’ I retched at the memory and she took my hands.

  ‘I know.’ Her voice was very gentle. ‘But the vet said he’d seen worse. He said there was a fair chance of a full recovery.’