Riding on Air

by Maggie Gilbert

  “What?”

  “Don’t be thick, Gary,” Brendan said.

  “Oh, right.”

  “I know I should get it cut—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Brendan said at exactly the same time as Gary said “But it’s so pretty.”. Guys and hair. I looked hopefully at Gary; maybe he wasn’t a lost cause. But before I could ask him, Dad came into the kitchen carrying a plastic file box and a CD case.

  “Right, I’m off then. Melissa, I want to make sure we’re clear, no riding for you today, OK? Not for the next few days, at least, and then we’ll see.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, my heart leaping in alarm. “But why?”

  “You know why.”

  “But, Dad, I have to train. We’ve got the competition at Goulburn and the selectors will be looking out for Jinx there.” My throat had tightened and I hated the way I sounded like I was about cry. I swallowed, trying to get on top of the rising panic.

  “The Goulburn comp is not a done deal. We’ll have to see how you’re feeling. Take a few days off, give your hands a chance to recover.”

  “But Jinx needs work. He needs to get better at self-carriage. I need to get better. Dad, please.” All my lovely plans of training were riding off into the sunset without me and I gave Dad my best begging pretty-please look, but my stomach sank at the way he was shaking his head.

  “Jinx needs a rest too, Melissa. He’s had a hard few days at camp; being ridden all day and standing around cooped up in a tiny yard at night with no grass. A week in the paddock to stretch his legs and graze will do him the world of good.”

  Even as I blinked back unshed tears, I scowled at my father. Bringing in Jinx’s welfare was a low, low blow.

  “A week? You said a few days,” I protested, but I was done and both Dad and I knew it. That meant I was going to be back at school before I was even allowed to ride again. And with winter coming, the days were getting so short I’d be pushing it to ride by the time I got home off the bus. It wasn’t fair.

  “This isn’t a punishment, honey. It’s a precaution. I want to make sure this flare up has run its course before you go aggravating those joints. OK?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, throat thick with frustration. So much for the silver lining. Whoever thought up that saying up is a total moron.

  After Dad left I sat staring at my plate, blinking frantically to keep the tears from falling. Gary would tease me for being a sook if he saw me cry over something so stupid. Only, it wasn’t stupid to me.

  “Melissa, are you gonna eat that?” Gary said finally.

  I shook my head, my appetite gone. “You can have it,” I said and went to push the plate towards him at the same time he reached out to grab the slice of toast. His hand banged into mine and a molten-steel explosion of pain engulfed me from my fingertips to my shoulder. I yelped and snatched my hand back, too late. I could only hunch over with it cradled to my chest, trying not to let the pathetic whimpers escape along with the tears that gushed helplessly out of my eyes.

  “Careful, Gary, dickhead!” shouted Brendan.

  “Shit, Melissa, shit. God, I’m sorry.”

  I sensed them hovering, hangovers and toast and everything else forgotten as they had to sit and wait for the pain to ease, me just as helpless to do anything about it as they were. I rocked, gritting my teeth, unable to speak or think or move. Only able to wait and pray and hope that eventually the millions of razor-sharp little knives slicing and dicing inside my fingers would stop waging their war on my joints. And after an eternity, they did.

  I trembled, gulping back tears and carefully sat up a bit, letting out a shuddering sigh that turned into a hiccup as the wicked claws finally released their grip on my bones. My vision cleared and I blinked as my stepbrothers’ anxious faces came slowly back into focus. Brendan was green again and Gary looked as though he might cry himself. I grinned at the thought and the relief that washed through their expressions would have been funny if I wasn’t still frozen on the edge of the pain shadow, when the dull throb of the after tremors started rattling up from my bone-marrow.

  I drew another cautious breath and leaned back gingerly in my chair. I lifted my other arm and used the back of my arm to swipe at the tears drying stickily on my cheeks. When I felt like I was steady enough to speak I looked at Gary. I didn’t want him getting all anxious and over-protective on me. He hadn’t meant to hurt me, it was just one of those things. I managed to give him a reassuring smile, even though my hands were doing a little crappy-dance, the pain tango.

  “I still need someone to do my hair,” I said.

  “I’m really sorry Melissa.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know.”

  Brendan hopped up and turned the kettle on. “I’ll make you a tea, Melissa. Do you need a pill? I’ll think of something to tell Dad.”

  “Thanks,” I said and hesitated, really tempted. “Nah, not yet. I’ll wait and see if it settles down.”

  “I’m so—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get the picture,” Brendan said. “Dickhead.”

  “Shut up.”

  The kettle boiled and switched itself off, distracting Brendan, luckily, because he looked as though it wouldn’t take much to get him going. He’s usually by far the more easy-going of the two of them, but he doesn’t handle hangovers too well. Makes you wonder why he does it to himself.

  “I really do need someone to brush my hair for me,” I said. “Don’t tell Dad,” I added, more for Gary’s benefit. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, more that my problems were a bit beneath his notice most of the time. He’d been making noises about getting a place of his own for ages. He just hadn’t been able to find a place with affordable rent where he could have his dogs and horses.

  I didn’t want him to go. Despite the way he teased me and the way he and Brendan sometimes sniped at each other, making everyone else uncomfortable, he could also be counted on (after a suitable amount of grumbling) to provide lifts into town or home from swimming to save me the tedium of the school bus and he was an unbelievable source of wisdom on horses. He might not know dressage—he couldn’t pick a half-pass from a half-halt—but he’d helped me improve Jinx in more ways than I could count.

  “I’ll do your hair, Melissa,” Brendan offered. He put one of my mugs with the oversized handle down on the table in front of me and collected Gary’s and his own cups.

  “You make a fresh pot of coffee,” Gary said. “I’ll do Melissa’s hair. I suppose you want it braided?”

  “Yes please,” I said. “My brush and bands are in the bathroom.”

  Gary pushed his chair back and started out of the kitchen. He paused in the doorway to the hall and looked back at me.

  “If you tell anyone I braid your hair, you do know I’ll have to kill you, right?”

  I grinned. “Sure.”

  His secret was safe with me. If I was careful, one of Gary’s tight braids would last me for days and it would keep my hair out of the way when I worked Jinx in the round yard. Dad had said I wasn’t to ride and that Jinx would like a holiday. He hadn’t actually said I wasn’t allowed to work Jinx at all, had he?

  Chapter 6

  “And trot on,” I said to Jinx, who obediently moved from walk into trot, circling the perimeter of the round yard with his back nicely lifted and his neck arched as he reached delicately for the bit, legs moving in rhythmic pairs.

  “Good boy, and walk—and trot!” Jinx had slowed down at the walk command, only to bounce back into an energetic trot. This sort of rapid transition work was really good for getting a horse to shift his weight back onto his hindquarters and lighten his front end, an essential skill for good dressage.

  “And whoa.” Jinx gathered his back legs beneath himself and stopped smartly.

  “Good boy!” I tucked the lightweight whip I carried carefully under my arm and walked out to meet Jinx where he stood waiting beside the rails. He knew better than to come in, although it
had taken some persistence to get that through to him in the early days. As soon as he stopped he used to turn anxiously to face me and then I wouldn’t be able to get him to go forward again. I was glad now that I’d listened to my instructors and insisted on him doing it correctly. Not only did it make him more obedient and responsive, now that my hands were too dodgy to hold a lunge rope I had to rely even more on Jinx’s training rather than being able to influence him through direct contact from the lunge rope.

  “You’re such a good boy,” I told him as I tugged gently on the rein closest to me to turn him around so he faced the opposite direction. I checked to make sure the cotton rope and leather chambon he wore to encourage him to stretch his back and neck was sitting correctly and then stepped back, giving a gentle flick of the whip as I told him to walk on again.

  Jinx moved off calmly, his thick glossy black tail swinging like a swirl of dark silk from side to side, and I nodded in satisfaction at this visible proof he was relaxed and using his back properly. I glanced down at the oversized sports watch strapped to my arm to check the time and asked Jinx to trot. Five minutes in this direction and that would be all for today.

  It’s important to work a horse evenly on both sides and to make sure he uses himself equally athletically. Just like people, horses usually had a stronger and weaker side, but dressage was all about symmetry. A big part of his training—and mine—was making sure we could do all the movements and paces equally well going to the right or the left. My right hand is more badly affected by the JRA than my left, which actually means I tend to have more trouble going to the left as that’s when my right hand has the outside rein, the more active and important one.

  Unfortunately, Jinx is most stiff going to the left too because he was always working in the same direction during his racing days and we sometimes found things harder than they needed to be. It sucked; when Jinx most badly needed me to help him through new movements or training hiccups, I couldn’t give him the support he needed. But free-lunging helped make up for that. With the chambon giving him the even contact my damaged hands can’t always supply, he can not only work with support, I can see exactly how he is going. Some training aids are cheating, or even worse, actually hurt the horse, but the chambon is a classic piece of equipment used by the dressage masters for centuries. If used incorrectly it can be bad, but just about everything we put on a horse, from a bridle to a rug, can hurt them if we don’t take care.

  I aim to always take very good care of Jinx and I watched him with that same care now as he trotted sweetly around, making sure the chambon didn’t need adjusting. Everything looked good, so I took Jinx through a few rapid walk-trot transitions, with a brief stint in canter, before a glance at my watch told me take him back to walk and finish up.

  “And walk,” I said. Jinx walked.

  “Good boy,” I said, just as a voice I knew very well said behind me: “Jinx is going well.”.

  Oh. My. God. William. Here. He’d snuck up on me yet again. A quick glance over my shoulder proved it was most definitely William, arms draped over the top rail of the round yard, hat pulled down low over his eyes.

  My next thought, as, flustered, I turned back to face Jinx, was ‘thank God he didn’t show up while I was still in my PJs with my hair snarled worse than a yearling’s mane’.

  “What are you doing here? Are you looking for the boys?” I forced my legs to move, one after the other, across the round yard to where Jinx waited obediently. I gave him a pat and started undoing the chambon. I was clumsier than usual—something I couldn’t entirely blame on my swollen joints. As I fumbled the oversized buckles Brendan had modified my chambon with so I could adjust it without help, I told myself that William was probably just here to see him, or maybe Gary. Not me.

  “I came to see you.”

  My heart lurched into the back of my throat. I busied myself with buckles and straps, my hands shaking, trying to collect the thoughts that were skittering as nervously around my brain as spring lambs. As usual I couldn’t think of anything to say, even as the silence dragged on and on. I don’t mean something witty or cute or even half-way normal. Just anything at all.

  I glanced over my shoulder again. He was still there. He grinned, the brim of his hat shading his eyes. He was so outrageously good looking I thought my heart was going to stop. A thought finally did occur to me.

  “Why aren’t you still at camp?”

  “No reason to stay,” he said.

  I froze with my hand resting cautiously on Jinx’s neck and wondered if he really meant what I thought he did.

  “Are you coming out now?” he asked me and I finally gathered my scattered wits enough to answer in the affirmative and cluck my tongue at Jinx to let him know to come with me. William unlatched the gate and swung it wide, watching Jinx as he walked beside me out through the gate. When I stopped, Jinx stopped. I didn’t have a halter or lead on him; at home I rarely did. Jinx usually went with me willingly wherever I wanted him to go.

  “That’s a neat trick.”

  “Saves my hands,” I said. I had a momentary pang at drawing attention to them, with their wobbly knuckles and puffy sausage fingers, but really, what was the use of trying to hide it? William had known me and my stepbrothers for years and he had been too aware of my hands at camp for me to kid myself that he didn’t know anything about them. I may never have really registered on his radar, but it was a safe bet he knew all about me having JRA. Everyone in and around Sutton, where our properly was, knew about it. I was over being annoyed about that. Mostly.

  Although, if he did mean what I think he meant, maybe he had noticed something else about me. But I didn’t see why or how; it wasn’t as if there was anything exciting about me besides the JRA. I’m not tall and not short, not fat and not skinny, not blonde or black-haired, not blue eyed or brown. My hair is long and straight and the unremarkable brown of a tree trunk or a mouse. My eyes are hazel. My figure is on the boyish side of average. I don’t even have boobs or curls or fancy fingernails or anything to attract the notice of a guy like William. No, much as I wished it was true, it must just be that: wishful thinking.

  “Tash fell off yesterday after you’d gone, did you know?”

  “Yeah, she texted me.”

  “She was pretty much limping instead of dancing last night, but she was still there.”

  A pain totally unrelated to JRA stabbed through me at the thought. I’d been looking forward to that dance. Not that I actually dance, but being in different squads meant I hadn’t seen as much of Tash and Eleni as I usually did and the dance would have been a good chance to hang out with them.

  “Jack Patterson danced with her a lot.”

  I stopped outside the tack shed, Jinx stopping almost on my heels.

  “Jack Patterson?”

  “Yep. Want a hand?”

  “Uh. Sure.”

  I stood back as William moved past me and began taking off Jinx’s tack. Jinx poked him once with a curious muzzle and William just gave him a pat on the neck and kept about his business, so Jinx lost interest. He stood still while William took off his roller and the chambon and a big chunk of my mind was so proud of him. Jinx, not William. The other part was peering around the edges of the idea of Tash dancing with Jack Patterson. Jack was nearly 18, already an associate pony club member and if there was a Zac Efron of the pony club, he was it. All the girls got stupid over him because he was supposed to be so gorgeous and his horses were always really good. I agreed that Jack had beautiful horses; hardly surprising when he’d bought the current one from Tash’s mum who bred phenomenal warmblood performance horses. And I suppose Jack was the best looking guy in our club, but only because William had left to concentrate on polocrosse.

  I shot a guilty glance at William, but luckily he didn’t seem to have developed any super-secret mind reading abilities. He was frowning a little in concentration as he folded up my gear and slid it off Jinx’s back.

  I wasn’t surprised at Jack dancing with Tash
so much as I was surprised I’d never thought about how likely it was. Tash was, after all, the absolute knock-down best-looking girl there. And one of the best riders. And she and Jack had known each other for ages. They were made for each other. Well, if you ignored that fact that Tash had a boyfriend.

  “Did she look like she was enjoying herself?” I asked William as I cautiously hooked a body-brush out of my tack-bucket.

  “Well, sure.” William got out a dandy brush and started going over Jinx’s gleaming red-brown neck, deftly pushing the heavy black curtain of his mane out of the way. I concentrated on applying the softer body brush to smooth the silky hair, polishing the dirt out that William had just disturbed, automatically adjusting my grip and how much pressure I applied with the brush so I didn’t tickle Jinx or put strain on my joints. I followed William’s progress around my horse, wondering whether there was anything to this thing about Tash dancing with Jack. I didn’t really like Tash’s boyfriend—he was always complaining that Tash spent too much time with her horse. Jack would be much better. He’d never say something stupid like that. He was talented and ambitious and just as attractive as Tash.

  “Like just friends enjoying it or more than that?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” William said. “I wasn’t paying that much attention.” He swapped the dandy for a metal mane and tail comb and started working on Jinx’s tail, gently detangling the strands. Jinx’s head drooped, he sighed and shifted his weight, resting one hind hoof on the tip, relaxing.

  I watched William’s big sun-browned hands as he worked the comb patiently through Jinx’s tail and my heart slowly curled in on itself to form a clenched little knot in my chest. My stomach was quivery, almost crampy, as I imagined William using those hands on me, running his long strong straight fingers through my hair, separating the strands, plaiting it into a single braid, his knuckles brushing the back of my neck.

  I shivered, swallowed a gasp, and hurried over to the tack bucket to hide my reaction. I didn’t know why he affected me so badly. The muscles in my legs felt all weak and shaky, as if I’d just ridden a marathon dressage session in the heat. At that moment I desperately wanted him to go away so I could get myself under control, but just as fervently fantasised that he might come around Jinx’s rump and put the fantasy into practice, taking hold of the long plait Gary had woven my hair into that morning.