Riding on Air

by Maggie Gilbert

  “I have to do this, can’t you understand how important this is to me?”

  “More important than your life?”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  “How close did you come to breaking your neck or scrambling your brain today? Are you really going to sit here after we’ve just come back from hours of neuro-tests at the hospital and tell me you’re not putting your life on the line?”

  I sat and glowered, another tiny shiver rippling my skin at how close he’d come to the same thoughts I’d had earlier.

  “I’d already decided to be more careful,” I said truthfully.

  “How? Are you going to get someone else to sort him out while you give your hands a chance to get better?”

  “I—no, I was going to lunge him. And I wasn’t going to ride him past the goats or anything.”

  “Yeah, because lunging the guts out of him worked so well this week.”

  I bit my lip, stung by the unexpected sarcasm, and regretted confiding my training strategies to William while we sat in the waiting room at the hospital.

  “I overdid it, but I’ll judge it better this time.”

  William reached over and slid his hand around my wrist. He lifted my arm up and pointed at the angry swollen joints of my fingers.

  “And how is all that tacking up and grooming going to give these a chance to rest? What’s your answer for that? More pills?”

  I clenched my jaw and looked out the window rather than look at William’s almost accusatory stare and definitely anywhere rather than the aching, distorted evidence that my hands weren’t in a good shape for anything, let alone riding.

  “I’ll think of something,” I muttered. “I always do.”

  “Don’t ride until you’re better. Please.”

  He changed his grip, cradling my wrist as though it was precious, his fingers stroking the skin.

  “I have to, Will. I have to do this.”

  William’s eyes flared a brighter blue.

  “Don’t you care about anything besides that squad?”

  “No,” I said unthinkingly and could have bitten my tongue off as I saw William’s face go white.

  “I didn’t mean it like that William, of course I care about you, I always—”

  “Never mind,” he said and turning his shoulder to me, opened his door. He hauled his long frame out of the ute and slammed the door shut, making me wince. I watched him anxiously as he came around to my door and I was still fumbling for something to say to put it right when he helped me out of the car and slammed the door closed behind me.

  “William, I—”

  “Don’t talk for once, just listen. You might not care about yourself, but I do. So much that I don’t actually care what I have to do to keep you safe. If you ride Jinx in the next three weeks I’ll tell your parents that your hands are bad. And don’t think I won’t know—Gary and Brendan will tell me if I ask them.”

  “You wouldn’t really tell,” I said doubtfully. It went against everything I believed to go running with tales to someone’s parents and I didn’t think William was any different.

  “I don’t want to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Like I said, small price to pay to save you from your own stupidity. And yes, you are stupid. There, are you happy now?”

  “No! I can’t believe you’d do this to me. I can’t believe you don’t understand that this will ruin everything.”

  “It already has. I can’t believe you don’t get that.”

  I stood speechless at last as he walked away from me and opened the driver’s door of his ute.

  “Get Tash to ride Jinx and you stick to the pool. If in three weeks I can confirm that with Gary then maybe you’ll be able to go to your precious dressage competition after all. Oh and don’t count on your secret pill stash because you won’t find it there anymore. I noticed you have to ask your Dad for them these days and now I know why. Maybe having to go without them will make you admit just how bad your hands are.”

  And with that he got into his car and drove away, leaving me standing there shaking from a mixture of anger, regret and most of all, fear.

  I’d just been insulted, bullied and blackmailed. My boyfriend had just basically said he cared more about me than anything in the world, even as he’d betrayed me in the worst possible way by threatening to ruin my dream. And worst of all, although he hadn’t come right out and said it, I had a horrible suspicion he wasn’t actually my boyfriend any more.

  Chapter 19

  “No, Tash, stop,” Eleni called out. “You need to turn up on the quarter line, not after it, now circle and try again.”

  “Yes sir,” Tash mumbled, heavy on the sarcasm, but she turned Jinx and came around again in a springy collected trot past ‘A’.

  I sat in a folding camp chair outside the arena and watched Eleni striding around looking uncannily like her instructor, Iris, the image ruined only by the foam strap holding her arm up across her chest while her collarbone healed. She even sounded just like Iris whenever she yelled comments and instructions at Tash.

  It would have been funny except for the knot of mixed feelings lodged just under my breastbone. It was weird to see Tash, mocker of all things dressage, riding Jinx in extension and collection, practicing halts and transitions and attempting shoulder-in. Jinx still hadn’t got the hang of that and Tash and Eleni were concentrating on it today. Eleni had decided Tash and Jinx, after four training sessions during the week, were now used to each other enough to take it up a notch.

  I agreed with her, even though this was the first time I’d seen Jinx working all week. I’d been banned from the early training sessions—Eleni had insisted that she and Tash needed to be free to get on with it without me hovering and distracting them. When I first admitted to her and Tash that I needed their help, Eleni had hesitated for so long I thought she was going to say no. But she just said she could only do it if I didn’t interfere all the time and she didn’t know how to say that to me, so in the end she had to just blurt it out.

  It was a bit hard to hear, but then everything about this was hard. It was hard to ask them for help in the first place. I wanted to train Jinx and qualify for the squad by myself—that was almost as important to me as doing it at all. Getting Eleni and Tash to train and work my horse while I was stuck racking up mind-numbing laps in the pool wasn’t how it was meant to be.

  It had been hard to swim those laps this week knowing Eleni and Tash were working Jinx and I wasn’t there to see what was going on. I knew enough about training horses to understand why Eleni wanted me to stay away during those first few critical rides, but it was about the hardest thing I had ever done.

  Even though it seemed ridiculous, it was also hard to see how well Jinx was going. He looked amazing; his back rounded, neck arched elegantly towards the contact Tash offered him, black tail swinging softly with the relaxed rhythmic tempo of his strides. Tash sat so beautifully straight and still, always encouraging him in the proper direction, never hindering. When she made an error, Eleni’s critical eye picked it up and Tash corrected it quickly, with the result that Jinx was literally improving with every passing minute.

  I watched as Tash turned Jinx smartly up the quarter line and asked for shoulder-in. Jinx sucked back and slowed down, so Tash gave him a whack behind her leg with the long schooling whip she carried. When Jinx shot forward in response, pulling at the bit, Tash sat deep and blocked with her hands, preventing him from falling onto the forehand and running through her aids. Tash just kept asking, shaping Jinx the way she wanted him, with Eleni yelling out encouragement that she had it, she just had to hold it, yes, yes, half-halt and soften. And as if by magic, it all clicked. Jinx stopped resisting and started to listen. His body responded to all the little signals Tash was giving him, from the way her weight contacted his back through her seat bones, to the position of her legs and the contact she maintained through the reins. Jinx did one, two, as many as six strides of lovely flowing shoulder-in. Tash was lavish with p
raise, then straightened him and gave him a good strong trot across the diagonal, giving all that energy she’d created with the suppling lateral movement somewhere to go.

  “Excellent!” Eleni cried. As Tash circled back with a big grin Eleni turned to me, “Did you see that?”

  “Fantastic!” I called out, relieved not to have to fake enthusiasm. It was fantastic and I thought my heart would explode with pride, seeing Jinx transform like that. I squashed that tiny little niggle over it being Tash on his back rather than me.

  Glancing down at my hands, now resting in my lap to soak up the warmth of the afternoon sun, I had to admit they were feeling better after even just a week’s rest, not just from riding, but from all the other stuff I had to do with Jinx every afternoon. Tash and Eleni had been sorting Jinx out after their training sessions, putting his rugs on and giving him his dinner. All I’d had to do when I got home from the pool was go and visit him with a carrot. Not that I really had needed to do that—I knew the girls would look after him properly. But I missed the afternoon hours with him, even if my hands were thanking me for it. Although, it was William they really had to thank.

  I pressed my lips together and banished that thought. I was still too angry and upset to go there. I hadn’t heard from him all week, so I guess I had my answer to whether I was still his girlfriend or not. My phone rested beneath my hands in the pocket of my hoodie, a stubbornly silent lump of plastic and glass. I tried not to keep hoping he would call me. I refused to give in to the increasing urge to call him. That wouldn’t be cool.

  And besides, why should I call him? He should call me. He was the one who had ruined everything and set all these ridiculous conditions.

  As Tash and Eleni took Jinx through another shoulder-in on that rein and then changed direction to try it on his weak side, my brain swung between mingled jealously and pleasure at how well Jinx was going and an equally turbulent mixture of emotions worrying about William. He’d told me I had to swim instead of ride for the next three weeks but after that I didn’t know what was supposed to happen. We were already at the end of the first week and the Goulburn dressage competition was now only three weeks away.

  Of course, it didn’t really matter. I was going to ride Jinx in that competition no matter what. And providing I complied with William’s conditions for the next couple of weeks, there was nothing to stop me.

  In the arena, the sun glinted on Jinx’s shoulder and flank, turning his red-brown coat a burnished gold. As Tash rode him across the diagonal in a ground-eating medium trot, he finally looked like the dream dressage horse I’d been trying so long to turn him into. My throat filled with a surge of bitter-tinged pride and I blinked against the unwelcome prick of tears. He and Tash just looked so good together. I couldn’t help wondering if it really had been that simple, if it had just been me holding Jinx back these past few weeks. Maybe even longer.

  Oh, I knew my hands had been slowing us down, sure. I just hadn’t thought that it might be worse than that. I hadn’t considered that my lack of strength and feel was literally holding Jinx back and preventing him from realising his full potential.

  Eleni told Tash to give Jinx a long-rein walk and then came across to me, her eyes down on the ground as she crossed the cut up ground around the edges of my homemade arena. She stepped carefully over the tires, holding her injured arm carefully with her good one.

  “He’s going so great, Melissa.”

  “I can see that,” I said, getting awkwardly out of my chair. Eleni glanced at me swiftly and I realised I’d sounded a bit short. “It’s amazing,” I said, injecting my voice with all the pride I felt and carefully sieving out any of the resentment.

  “Not really, he’s a good horse,” Eleni said. She knew me and she knew how I felt about Jinx, so she knew I wasn’t feeling pure happiness right then.

  “Tash rides him so beautifully,” I said, then screwed up my face because even I heard the wistfulness that had coloured my words. Eleni pretended not to notice.

  Tash brought Jinx level with us and jumped off. She gave him a big pat on his slightly sweat-darkened neck and then took his reins over his head. Running up the stirrup, she reached down and loosened his girth.

  “God this horse is fantastic to ride,” she called out as she went around Jinx to run up the other stirrup leather. Coming back round, she paused to stroke his nose then glanced up at me. “You’ve done an amazing job training him. I wish I could get you to ride Betsy.”

  I shrugged, flattered and caught off guard, not knowing what to say. I held up my hands like kangaroo paws. “These are improving thanks to you guys, but I don’t know that I’m quite ready to tackle Betsy.”

  “Jeez, you and me both. I wouldn’t get on her, even with two good collarbones,” said Eleni.

  “Hey, that’s my horse you’re talking about,” Tash protested, checking Jinx’s girth and letting it out another notch. Jinx rewarded her by shaking vigorously, leathers and saddle flaps rattling as he vibrated every bit of him he could manage, even his knees buckling.

  “God,” Tash said, putting a hand to her chest dramatically, “he scared the crap out of me. Does he always nearly fall down like that?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Still holding my hands curled loosely in front of me, I stepped over the tires and went to give Jinx a hug. “Jinx does everything with his whole heart, don’t you baby?”

  I practically felt the rapid meaningful glance that flashed between my friends.

  “Speaking of hearts…” Eleni said.

  “Which we weren’t,” I said firmly.

  “Have you heard from William?” Tash asked with her usual blunt disregard for social signals. I frowned at her, wondering if it was actually possible she just didn’t pick up on them or whether she really was bold enough just to ignore other people’s wishes.

  “I’m sure you will,” Eleni said, correctly interpreting my not-answering as a no.

  I, who wasn’t sure at all, just shrugged and ran a cautious hand down Jinx’s bony face. I stared at the fingers I could rest lightly on his finely-haired skin, aware of the reduced inflammation and the increase in sensation. Not to mention that they didn’t hurt nearly as much as they had almost constantly for the past three months. My hands would never win any beauty contests and I’d never get a ring on the worst-affected fingers, but functionally they were already hugely improved.

  If I was a better person I’d admit to William he’d been right. But I couldn’t do that. There was too much more wrapped up in it than just that. I hooked my thumbs under the straps of my swimming goggles and eased them down over my forehead and into place over my eyes. I pressed the heels of my hands against the lenses, settling them into place by wriggling my nose and pulling faces to make sure I’d got a watertight seal, then wriggled my butt forward on the edge of the pool until I could slide into the water. A whole lot of wriggling involved, just because I couldn’t just use my fingers or hands the way they were meant to be used.

  I gasped at the initial wet embrace, like I always did even though I’d been coming here four or five times a week for almost the last 10 years. It wasn’t so much that the water was cold—the pool was used by footballers and athletes and it was kept at an ideal temperature year-round—more that I always expected it to be cold. Maybe it was just the shock of being immersed; there was definitely no way of making any gentle transition between being dry and being wet.

  I bent my knees and pushed off the wall, easing into a slow freestyle stroke. I held my fingers lightly together as my hands cut slowly through the water, thumb and forefinger first, feeling my way as always down that first lap while I assessed how my joints were feeling. At the other end I slid my arm forward and ducked under, twisting my body through the contortion of a tumble turn without actually needing to think about it, feeling only the satisfaction of having judged it accurately when my feet met the wall cleanly, knees bent, and I thrust myself away from the wall for the return lap. I kept to the left of the lane out of habit rather than
any need; early on a Sunday morning there was hardly anyone using the lanes. I don’t normally swim on Sundays, but when Jennie had said the night before that she was coming into town to get a few things I asked if she’d mind dropping me off for a swim. She’d smoothed out her surprise in that practiced not-asking way she had and said she’d be happy to. So here I was.

  I flipped again at the shallow end and headed back up the pool for my third lap, turning my head to breathe with every third stroke so I breathed evenly to both sides, settling into a better stroke rhythm. The tension in the muscles of my arms and legs started to ease, as though the water washed it away or something. I could feel the stretch and reach in the muscles of my shoulders, a spreading warmth in my thighs and calves as those muscles loosened and worked.

  I hated the idea of swimming—the monotony of the laps, the fuss and bother of changing from clothes to swimsuit and back again, the wrestle with the humidity of the changing rooms and a snarl of wet hair dripping down my back. I never wanted to swim and yet once I was in I enjoyed it. I liked the way it felt when my body glided along the surface of the water, arms and legs moving rhythmically, everything warm and loose and functioning. Once I was in the water I felt strong and powerful and my cranky joints and swollen digits weren’t such a hindrance. At times like this, when my hands were feeling reasonable, I could almost forget, as I stroked with calm confidence up and down the pool, that there was anything wrong with me at all.

  My whole body was responding happily to the time in the pool as well as the rest from riding and all the other horse-care jobs that went with it. It wasn’t just my hands that were improving, my hips and wrists were nowhere near as sore as they’d been and that hot too-tight sensation had settled back to a bearable discomfort.

  For lap 11, I rolled over and changed to backstroke, eyes on the ceiling girders to keep me straight, watching for the rope that marked the halfway point then the flags at each end, counting strokes and tipping my head back for a reassuring peek before I turned even though my body knew the distances and I’d never yet misjudged it and flailed one of my vulnerable damaged hands into the wall.