by Jodi Taylor
I have no idea how long I sat there in the warm sunshine. I can’t even remember what I was thinking about, but I do know I was roused by the sound of Russell roaring back into the yard.
I got up stiffly and went to meet him.
He was peering into the field. ‘Jenny, where’s Boxer? Did you forget to let him out?’
Everything stopped. I stared, first at him, then at the empty field. Then at the empty yard. My whole body went cold. I forgot to breathe. They were gone. Both of them. Boxer and Marilyn. Their field was empty and the gate to the lane was open. There was no sign of either of them. Anywhere. I spun around. They definitely weren’t in their field. Or the yard. Or the stable. They weren’t anywhere, and the gate to the lane was open – as it always was.
Oh my God, they’d got out and it was all my fault. I hadn’t shut the gate to their field properly and they’d got out and it was all my fault.
Russell was already running into the house, shouting for Mrs Crisp.
By the time I caught up with him, he was on his phone talking to Andrew. Mrs Crisp was ringing the police on the landline.
He turned to me. ‘Jenny, I have to find them. God knows where they are. I’m going to check the village. I’m sure they’ll be there and someone will have recognised them and tied them up in a field or a garage somewhere. If not...’
If not, if they weren’t there, they would be out on the main road somewhere, and neither of them had any road sense whatsoever. Russell never took Boxer that way. A horse who could be terrorised by an inanimate telegraph pole wasn’t going to do well with traffic zipping past him. I tried to close my mind to what could be happening to them at this very moment. I saw them on the main road somewhere, huge lorries roaring past, horns blasting, missing them by inches. I saw Marilyn frozen with fear, eyes squeezed tight shut, because that’s what she does. All donkeys do. They’re cleverer than horses. In a crisis, they stand still. But horses bolt. I saw Boxer, terrified by the traffic, running blindly, until the inevitable moment when a lorry, brakes screaming, horn blaring, didn’t miss him at all...
I struggled back to the present. Russell was talking to me.
‘I’ve rung Andrew – he’s putting the word out.’
Mrs Crisp replaced the phone. ‘I’ve informed the police.’
‘Thank you. Stay here both of you, in case anyone rings to say they’ve got them. Let me know at once if that happens.’
As he crashed out of the back door, his phone rang again. I heard him shout, ‘For God’s sake, Franny, not now.’ The engine started, and he was gone again.
Mrs Crisp said, ‘I’ll ring the Braithwaites,’ and I nodded because it was a good idea, and ran back out into the yard, just in case some miracle had occurred and they had come back home. I ran to look into our second field, just in case they had somehow got themselves into the wrong one. I ran around behind the stables, where Russell parks his Land Rover, just in case they had wandered around there by mistake. I ran into the lane and looked up and down, just in case they had only gone for a stroll, and even now were standing only a few yards away, grazing the grass verge. And all the time, a voice in my head said, ‘You didn’t shut the gate. You didn’t shut the gate. You didn’t shut the gate.’ Because I hadn’t shut the gate. No matter how hard I tried to remember, I just couldn’t remember hearing the latch click behind me. I remembered pulling the gate to, sticking my hands in my pockets and walking away, thinking about stupid Christopher and not, not in any way, thinking about closing the gate behind me. If anything happened to them ... If anything happened to them, how would I ever be able to face Russell again?
Because Russell absolutely adored Boxer. Yes, he was hard work and cost him a fortune in vet’s bills, but Russell was the only one who could do anything with him. By taking him in he had, quite literally, saved his life. Ex-racehorses don’t always have much of a future, especially one with the brain capacity of a teapot, but Russell had brought him here to live quietly as a family pet. I remembered Mrs Crisp telling me that once you were taken in by Russell Checkland, you had a home for life, and that was perfectly true – Boxer, Marilyn, the cat, even me. All of us taken in and cared for. Only I’d repaid him by leaving the gate open and now we’d lost Boxer. And Marilyn as well. When I thought about what could be happening to them...
I was wracked with guilt. I just couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. And Russell hadn’t uttered a single word of blame, which made everything even worse. How could I have been so ... so – I couldn’t even think of a word bad enough to describe what I’d done. I put my head in my hands, crushed by guilt and despair and that’s when it happened.
Childhood fears are the strongest of all and they never really go away. They can be deeply buried, or shut away out of sight, or forgotten, but they never truly go away, and now – with all the force of an explosion, from nowhere – an old thought punched into my brain, taking up its old position with an ease and familiarity that told me it had never really gone away.
Stupid Jenny Dove.
I’d heard it so many times. In the playground, in the street, at home, from Francesca, from Christopher – definitely from Christopher, and even, by implication, from Aunt Julia and Uncle Richard. The only person who had never said it was Russell Checkland, who had believed in me and helped me, and I’d repaid him by forgetting to shut the gate properly. Just a simple action, but obviously far too difficult for stupid Jenny Dove.
I became aware that I was still standing in the middle of the lane. I rubbed my eyes and tried to block out that awful, repetitive voice that just wouldn’t shut up...
I took a deep breath. And then another. And then I looked around me. Russell had driven off down the lane and was searching the village. I looked up the lane – we’d heard nothing from the Braithwaites, who would have bundled the pair of them straight back home again faster than ... well, than something that was very fast. I couldn’t, at that moment, think of anything. But, in between them and us was Mrs Balasana’s place. No – if they were there then our telephone would have burst into flames, and she would probably have called out the army to deal with the situation, closely followed by every solicitor in Rushford demanding they be put down at once and claiming massive compensation. Our telephone remained uncombusted so they couldn’t be there.
She might be out, said my internal voice, doing something useful for once.
I opened my mouth to call to Mrs Crisp to telephone Russell, and then had second thoughts. I might be wrong. I probably was wrong. He should stay where he was, searching the village. I could check this out myself.
I shot up the lane. Never before had it seemed so steep or stony. Or so long. I ran until I was breathless and then I trotted, until finally, lungs heaving, vision blurred, I arrived, panting and sweaty, outside Mrs Balasana’s immaculate five-barred gate, painted in gleaming white and with the words, ‘Pear Tree Cottage’ picked out in black. Very smart.
I craned my neck to see over into the garden. Please God, let them be here. Please, please let them be here.
The relief made me stagger. For a moment, I had to hang on to the gate for support. They were here. Both of them. Actually, three of them were here and, far from indulging in an orgy of accidental destruction, Boxer was staring at the coal bunker – also painted in black and white, Marilyn was investigating a clump of Michaelmas daisies, and the cat was sitting on the wall nearby, blinking his one eye in the afternoon sunshine.
I looked up and down the lane. No one was in sight. I might get away with this. I wrestled with the latch, which was very stiff, and it took two hands to get it free. I pushed open the gate, and crept through.
Despite everything Kevin said, it really was a very pretty garden. The wide gravel drive on which I was standing led around the side of the cottage to the garage. At the front, a small circular lawn was surrounded by beautifully maintained flowerbeds. The traditional summer favourites were just beginning to go over, but the dahlias, Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums were c
oming into bloom. A small sundial sat in the centre of the lawn, and a brightly polished horseshoe hung over the front door, quite unlike the rusty object hanging over our stable door at Frogmorton which, far from being a symbol of good fortune, frequently came adrift from its fastening and brained anyone unlucky enough to be passing through the door at the time.
To the side of the garden lay a small orchard, where ancient moss-covered apple trees stood in prim rows. The trees bore very few apples that I could see, and under Mrs Balasana’s regime, I wouldn’t give much for their chances of survival if they didn’t sort themselves out soon.
I stood on the drive, still breathless from effort and relief, and said, ‘And just what ... do you ... three think you’re up to?’
Marilyn withdrew her head from the daisies and batted her eyelashes at me. Her nose was speckled with pollen. She looked like a picture on a chocolate box. Whatever was occurring here was obviously nothing to do with her, and she was completely innocent.
The important thing was not to panic them. Well, not to panic Boxer, who was perfectly capable of climbing into the coal bunker if agitated. Marilyn didn’t do panic – unless you were trying to bathe her – and the cat was just a cause of it in others.
They looked at me. Well, two of them did. No, one of them did. Boxer resumed his inspection of the coal bunker, and the cat twisted suddenly, stuck a drumstick in the air and began a thorough wash of an area he should have attended to before he left the house. Marilyn and I stared at each other. I patted my pockets. I knew they were empty but she didn’t. You have to box clever with Marilyn. As Russell has frequently discovered, you can’t just walk up and grab her. We’ve never yet managed to work out how she does it, but one minute she’s there and the next moment she’s about thirty feet away. In his darker moments, Russell claims she can teleport.
Straining my ears for the slightest sound of anyone coming up the lane, I turned away as if I had something to hide, and I could tell by the sound of rustling foliage and snapping flower stems that she was fighting her way out of the border, almost certainly leaving a small trail of devastation in her wake. But, where Marilyn led, Boxer would follow. The cat could look after himself.
Not looking at any of them, and doing my best to pretend I had all the time in the world and I really couldn’t care less whether they followed me or not, I took a few steps towards the gate, waiting ... praying for the sound of tiny donkey hooves on the gravel path behind me. Yes – with a final sound of expensively rending foliage, here she came.
The cat, private parts now spotless, jumped down from the wall and strolled towards me, tail waving like a bottle brush. Boxer, finding himself alone and unprotected in this strange new world, followed Marilyn. Straight through the border, obviously, and anything that might have survived the tsunami of Marilyn’s passing, was submerged under his enormous feet.
We were fortunate that although he’s a big horse, he’s actually very gentle. He followed Marilyn down the path. Marilyn followed me. The cat followed the beat of his own drum.
I waited until Marilyn was pushing her nose into my pockets and then caught hold of her pretty red head collar. She’s so small it’s rather like taking a dog for a walk, but she consented quite happily.
I led her out into the lane, waited for Boxer to catch up, and then closed the gate and wrestled the latch back into place, breathing a sigh of relief. We were all on the right side of the gate. We were safe.
Oh no we weren’t.
A figure appeared around the bend. Of course it did. Smart Barbour jacket, quilted wellingtons miraculously still unsullied, and with a small dog at her heels. The Wicked Witch of the West was back.
Marilyn, to whom all dogs are wolves, stopped dead and dug in her tiny hooves. Boxer also stopped and peered amiably over my shoulder. The cat moved fractionally into attack mode.
I said quietly, ‘OK everyone. We’ve been on a pleasant ... afternoon stroll. Indoor ... voices. Best behaviour. Brace yourselves.’
She said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Checkland.’
‘Oh, hello ... Mrs...’
‘Balasana.’
I really wished she would stop doing that.
I said, ‘I’m sorry, but our donkey ... is frightened ... of your ... dog. We’ll go back...’ thus cunningly making it sound as if we’d come from further up the lane. Yes, I would tell her we’d been visiting the Braithwaites. All of us. A little odd, perhaps, but not completely unbelievable.
‘No need.’ She stooped and picked up her dog, tucking him under one arm. Marilyn pressed closer to me. The wolf was now taller than she was.
As we drew level, I said chattily, ‘We’ve ... just been up to ... see the Braithwaites.’
‘Really? I’ve just been speaking to them in the village.’
Why does this always happen to me? If Russell was here – and believe me, in a crisis Russell is never here – he’d have another Patagonian Attack Chicken moment, but the best I could manage was, ‘I know. They were out.’
Her gaze wandered over my entourage and she lifted an eyebrow.
‘I have to take ... Marilyn out ... because of her feet.’ I ran that sentence through my head and tried to make things better. I meant to say that because donkey’s feet are always growing, they need to be on a hard surface daily, and of course it didn’t come out that way at all. ‘She’s a...’
‘Donkey,’ she said. ‘Yes, I can see that.’
I was hot all over. Every word just made things worse and any moment now she was going to notice that Hurricanes Marilyn and Boxer had touched down in her Michaelmas daisies. We would pay for the damage, of course, but I had planned to send her a cheque in the post – not actually to be present at the moment of discovery.
I sought for neutral ground. ‘I ... like your ... dog.’
This time her face did soften. ‘Her name is Bundle.’
The little dog looked up at the mention of her name and wagged her entire body. Mrs Balasana’s face softened even further.
Russell would have called her a tree rat. The dog, I mean, not Mrs Balasana, although now I come to think of it ... Anyway, Bundle was a tiny Yorkshire Terrier with her topknot tied up with a red ribbon in true Yorkie style. She wagged her tail again, gazing up at Mrs Balasana. The two of them obviously loved each other. Beside me, Marilyn shifted uneasily and I remembered I had only a head collar with which to hold her, and nothing at all for Boxer, should he take it into his head that this was actually a shoebox-sized wolf.
‘She’s ... very pretty,’ I said, wondering what on earth to do. In two minutes she would see her garden. The devastation wasn’t massive, but one border was considerably less immaculate than the others. Some people might not even notice a few chewed flower stalks or trampled plants, but she would, I was certain. It would take her less than five seconds to put two and two together and descend on Frogmorton in justified fury. And if Russell happened to be on the premises at the time, things might not go well. I decided on a pre-emptive strike.
‘It was us,’ I blurted, because, as usual, the need to impart information was severely compromised by my inability to get it out in the first place. ‘I’m ... sorry, Mrs Balasana ... but .... Marilyn has been in your front ... garden. She didn’t ... mean any harm – it was my fault – and I’ll ... gladly pay for the ... damage if you ... could let me know how ... much.’
She stared at me, saying nothing. Oh God, this was just awful. I battled on. ‘And I ... wanted to say as well ... that if you would like ... one day ... I ... mean ... Russell is usually out in ... the afternoons and ... I don’t know if you know many people...’ I could feel sweat running down my back with the heat and the embarrassment and the effort. Gritting my teeth, I ploughed on, closing my eyes and imagining the words appearing over her head where I could read them, because sometimes that helps. ‘Perhaps ... you ... would like to ... call in one ... afternoon. It would be nice ... Although I expect ... you’re very busy...’ And that was it. I was done. Exhausted. I stared down
at my dusty trainers and waited.
Several lifetimes later she said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Checkland,’ although whether she was thanking me for owning up, the offer of compensation (which I could only hope wasn’t too massive otherwise none of us would be eating for a month or so) or the invitation, I had no idea.
Behind us, further down the lane, I could hear the familiar clatter of Russell’s approaching chariot and the chicken dispersing toot he always gave as he pulled into the yard. It broke the spell.
‘I ... must ... go.’
‘Yes,’ she said, briskly, ‘so must I. Good day to you, Mrs Checkland.’ She turned away but I did notice she took several strides away from Marilyn before putting down her little dog. I was still completely in the dark as to her intentions regarding prosecution, demands for compensation, or gaol sentences, but the important thing now was to get my flock home before Russell called out the Coastguard. And possibly Mountain Rescue as well.
He was so pleased to see us.
‘Jenny! Oh, thank God. Where were they?’
I gestured up the lane. ‘Mrs Balasana.’
‘Shit. Does she know?’
I nodded.
‘Did she see them? What did she say?’
‘I told her. She was OK.’
Marilyn pushed past me to say hello.
As his wife, I stood, uncomplaining, as he first greeted Boxer, who amiably slobbered down his front, gently pulled Marilyn’s ears, ignored the cat, and herded them both safely back into their field. With no idea of their narrow escape, they dropped their heads and began to graze. I opened my mouth to say something, but at that moment, his phone rang and he turned away. ‘Franny? Look...’ He began to walk away.
I stared at his back and then turned away myself. I went to check on Joy, who was fast asleep, but I could still use her as an excuse. I picked up her toys and tidied all her drawers, sorting and re-sorting her clothing, and doing all the other million or so tiny things necessary for the upkeep of an eight-month-old infant.
