“Have you rung the police?”
“Of course, and all the abattoirs as well,” I answered, turning Killarney round.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But if you don’t find him, I promise I’ll find you something else.”
“I don’t want something else, I want Phantom,” I shouted, riding on to the road. “There’ll never be another Phantom.”
Killarney is the kindest horse I know. Phantom shows off, moves with a flourish, bounces underneath you, sometimes his hoofs hardly seem to touch the ground. Killarney has a marvellous long, even stride. His head is steady, his ears a long way off. He is a large, high-powered station-wagon, while Phantom is a sports car: zippy, quick to accelerate, easy to turn.
It was dusk when I returned home. I did not even ask for news as I dismounted in the yard, for I knew there was none by the silence which lay over everything like a reproach. Killarney was missing Phantom, too. He looked across the paddock, ears pricked, then sighed and looked mournful.
I turned him out and he whinnied, then walked up and down alongside the fence, then whinnied again. If Phantom did not return, it would be the end of an era, I thought, trudging indoors where Mum looked at me and, saying nothing, held out a mug of tea. What was there to say? Absolutely nothing. In my mind, I was beginning to accept that I might never see Phantom again. The sale was our last hope, and what a hope! I thought before asking, “When does Dad return?”
“Sunday, probably on the afternoon plane.”
“To Heathrow?”
She nodded.
“Is that definite?” I asked.
“As definite as anything ever is,” said Mum.
I cleaned Killarney’s tack, playing my music full blast to drown my feelings. Angus was oiling his bicycle again.
“Tomorrow we’ll go to the sale,” he shouted, and then, “I think somebody is tapping our telephone. Did you know?”
I switched off the stereo and stared in disbelief. “Are you sure? But why on earth?” I asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
“Have you told Mum?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to upset her. It’s probably MI5. Dad’s been doing some pretty secret work lately,” replied Angus.
“Personally, I wish he owned a shop; then we could earn money helping and he would be here all the time,” I said.
“What sort of shop?” asked Angus, laughing. He lifted his eyes heavenwards as though calling upon God to witness my stupidity.
“A tack shop, of course, which he could take to shows,” I shouted, elaborating. “In a horse box which we could use as well. We could also buy all our clothes cheap, then I would be even smarter than Rachel Finbow.”
“You couldn’t. Whatever you put on you’d never look like Rachel,” said Angus, seriously. “You’ll always look like a country girl and, if you had tea at the Ritz, oats would fall out of your pocket when you took out a hankie to blow your nose. Your shoes would leave Oxfordshire mud on the exquisite carpet and …”
“I don’t want to go to the Ritz, and I don’t want to look like Rachel,” I interrupted, angrily. “I’m happy as I am, and I’m going to build a better world for horses – and that’s far more important than how you look!” I finished.
“Listen! Telephone!” shouted Angus.
I rushed indoors and snatching up the receiver, covered it with a thin layer of saddle soap. But it was only Dominic asking, “Any news?”
I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice as I answered, “None, absolutely none.”
“Angus says he may be at the sale tomorrow in the market. I can’t go but, if he does, I’ll fetch him back in the trailer. You know that, don’t you?” Dominic asked.
“If he goes. Thank you, thank you very much.” I put the receiver down slowly and, as I did so, there was a strange click. Now, as tears gushed down my cheeks, I knew I didn’t want to think about Phantom any more.
I slept badly with muddled dreams, where Phantom and Dad were both on an express train hurtling towards a precipice, and I could do nothing but watch. I got out of bed and saw the dawn break. Killarney was lying down by the gate of the paddock; there were rabbits everywhere and a hedgehog walking across the paving stones below the window. The honeysuckle clinging to the wall smelled like sweetened incense. At ten to seven I took cups of tea to Mum and Angus in bed.
Mum was sitting up reading a detective novel. “Oh darling, how lovely,” she cried. “I couldn’t sleep. Could you?”
I shook my head. “Today is our last chance. If we don’t find him today, I don’t believe we ever will,” I said.
“You mustn’t give up,” Mum told me. I saw that her hair was going grey on top where once it had been a glowing brown. “We’ll find him even if it takes months.”
“I don’t see how,” I said, shutting the door after me.
“Why so early? The sale doesn’t begin till ten. Are you insane or something? The palominos will be sold last, because they’re late entries,” Angus said, taking his mug of tea.
“I don’t care. I want to be there when they arrive,” I answered. “They may be sold privately, you know, on the side. Phantom could be whisked off to Scotland or to Poland; people visit sales from all over the world.”
“They would never get Phantom on to the plane. God knows how they got him into the horse box in the first place,” Angus replied.
“I think the police should be helping us more,” I said. “They’re not doing a thing.”
“They’re keeping an open mind. Go out please, I want to dress,” said Angus, throwing back his bedclothes.
Mum drove to the horse sale. I was wearing my dark glasses again, and it seemed years since we had been there with Rachel. We were far too early, but horses and vehicles were already arriving and there were driving enthusiasts everywhere, many with foreign accents.
I hurried from horse to horse with Angus in tow complaining that I was making an exhibition of myself, that I was making people stare and that there was no point in hurrying anyway. Mum stood talking to complete strangers about Phantom. Soon I was feeling sick with apprehension, knowing that if Phantom did not show up, I would lose all hope of ever seeing him again.
We watched each horse box and trailer arrive and each one unloaded. At times the suspense was unbearable. Some of the horse boxes carried driving vehicles inside and others Shetland ponies. But there were no palomino or cream horses to be seen. Nothing but blacks and bays and a dashing pair of greys.
Then, at twelve o’clock when the sale was half over, a cattle truck roared into the market and stopped so quickly that we could hear the horses falling about inside.
“This is it!” I exclaimed. “It must be.”
I felt sick. I clambered on to the wings and looked inside, but all I could see were two heads raised in fear. Men pulled down the ramp. The horses wore rope headcollars and were ungroomed; they could have been stolen. The way they had arrived seemed to confirm this, but they were cream and not palomino, and neither of them was Phantom.
“We may as well go home,” I said, feeling faint with disappointment. Everything seemed to move far away and then come closer until I wanted to scream because the whole air was suddenly suffocating. Mum took my arm to stop me from falling. Angus ran ahead to open the car door.
“All this for nothing. The whole morning wasted when we could have been looking, telephoning people. Why did we bother?” I asked, sitting in the back of the car.
“Because we hoped he would be here,” Angus replied.
Mum turned the car slowly, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “We’ll find him in the end,” she said without much conviction. “Don’t give up hope, Jean.”
We found Rachel waiting for us at home, sitting in one of the garden chairs swinging her elegant legs.
“They’ve found Phantom,” she told us. “The police rang. I had no idea he was lost.”
“Where?” I gasped. “Where is he?”
“Near High Wycombe. Get a map,” she said, smiling at Angus. “I hope you didn’t mind me answering the phone,” she added. It was only later that I wondered how she had entered the cottage which we had locked so carefully on leaving.
“We’d better phone Dominic. It’s too far to ride Phantom. Are the police quite certain it is Phantom?” asked Angus.
“Yes, but you can check. It’s the local police station.”
I ran to the stable for a head collar and oats while Angus rang the police.
“It sounds right,” he said, on my return. “He’s palomino and he was grazing on Southend common. No one seems to own him.”
“Where is he now?” I asked, my hands shaking.
“Shut in someone’s farmyard.”
Ten minutes later Dominic appeared with the trailer hitched onto his Land Rover. “Oh, Jean, I’m so glad,” he cried “Hop in.”
“I told the police we would be there in forty minutes,” Angus said.
Rachel squeezed in between us. There was no room for Mum now in the front of the Land Rover, but she said, “Not to worry, I’ve got plenty to do at home.”
It was now past lunchtime and none of us had had any lunch.
“Well done the police,” exclaimed Dominic.
“Are you better, Rachel? When did you return home?” Angus asked.
“Ages ago. I’ve been in London since then, I’ve bought a present for you,” she said, handing him a pair of gold cuff links in an ornate little cardboard box. “I am getting you something, too, Jean, and you, Dominic,” she said.
“How is Marli?” I asked, changing the subject as I didn’t want a present from someone I didn’t like much at that moment.
“All right. I called to see when we could ride again together.”
High Wycombe was full of traffic and all the lights were at red. I started to bite my nails, while Angus and Rachel talked about London – a place Angus hardly knew but which he talked about as though he lived there.
Dominic turned to smile at me and his smile seemed to say, “Are you happy now?”
So I said, “Yes, thank you.”
Then we were in the suburbs, and soon driving along a country road with grass verges and straggly hedges. My heart was thumping against my sides like a sledge-hammer.
“Third time lucky,” Angus exclaimed.
“Is it the third time? Touch wood, anyway,” I answered, touching my head. I could hardly bear to look now.
Dominic knew the farm. “I once fetched two pigs from here,” he explained, stopping outside a pair of iron gates tied together with binder twine. A police car was parked at the roadside.
“That was quick,” said a policeman with a small moustache.“Follow me.”
I do not know how to describe the next few moments. The yard was empty concrete – no Phantom – but beyond lay a smaller enclosure which had probably once been a straw yard full of calves. These days the animals were kept in larger, newer buildings, called “units”, where they can be under strict control and fed hormones, steroids and tranquillisers, or so Angus says. In this smaller yard was a palomino, which turned its head and whinnied at me, its eyes flooding with hope, its ears pricked. But though it looked so like Phantom and welcomed me, it was not Phantom.
This time I did not feel like fainting. I simply felt numb all over, as I stood there saying nothing, while everyone seemed to be staring at me with hope in their eyes, the policeman even taking the headcollar from me and advancing on the horse.
I found my voice at last and said, “Sorry, it’s another mistake. I’m sorry we brought you all this way, Dominic. It isn’t my horse,” and my voice did not sound like me.
“Are you sure? It looks like Phantom,” Rachel replied. “It must be him. Look again, Jean.”
“She’s right,” Angus replied. “It’s Phantom’s twin, but it isn’t Phantom.”
We thanked the police and returned to the Land Rover.
“We’ll pay for your petrol, and what about your time?” Angus asked Dominic.
“Forget it,” Dominic replied, looking at me.
“Next time we’ll check it out better,” Angus told him.
“There won’t be a next time, and it’s no good pretending there will be,” I answered. “Forget telling me not to give up hope, and don’t say, ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope.’”
“Don’t say anything, in fact,” suggested Rachel, to which I made no answer.
As we travelled home it seemed to me that all my troubles had been brought about by Rachel’s arrival. Until then I had been happy, my future mapped out, no shadow of fear on the horizon. Now, as I looked at her rather thin face and at her eyes, where there seemed to lurk a glimmer of craziness, I hated her. But I said nothing.I probably appeared to be sunk in abject despair, whereas I was struggling to overcome an intense dislike and an unexpected, consuming anger.
I turned to Rachel, unable to contain myself a moment longer, and demanded, “What made you decide to live in Oxfordshire? Why didn’t you stay in London?”
Angus put up a hand as though to shield her from the venom in my voice.
“I don’t understand, Jean,” Rachel replied, unperturbed. “What is it you are trying to say?”
“Nothing. She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” interrupted Angus. “Ignore her.”
High Wycombe was still full of traffic and it was now unbearably hot in the Land Rover. Rachel asked for a cigarette. Angus gave her one, which surprised me because Angus did not smoke.
We could now see the hills of home, and Dominic, patting my knee, said, “If you never find Phantom, we’ll find you a wonderful new horse instead, an Anglo-Arab as fast as the wind, Jean.”
“Thank you,” I replied stiffly, because I was holding back my tears. “Phantom is as fast as the wind. If I never find him I shall give up riding.”
“You see how mad she is,” commented Angus. “She’s totally unreasonable. He’s only a horse after all, but because he’s vanished, we must live in eternal mourning.”
“That’s not fair, Angus, and you know it isn’t,” replied Dominic in a level voice. “Jean loved that horse, didn’t you, Jean? I know what it’s like to lose an animal you love. My first dog died when I was eleven years old and I shall never forget it.”
“Well, Phantom wasn’t a dog, was he?” said Angus.
They’re talking about Phantom as though he’s dead, I thought, as we drove towards Sparrow Cottage. They are making him into history. Soon they’ll be saying, “Do you remember when Jean had that horse called Phantom?” But we don’t know whether he’s dead yet. We may never know. He could be anywhere by now. He could be being whipped, or ridden to death; or be travelling towards some distant foreign abattoir or sold as a riding horse but travelling in the hold of a ship, starving, thirsty, rocked from side to side by rough seas. Oh God, let him be dead rather than that.
Mum ran out to greet us. “How is he? Is he hurt?” she asked, surveying our blank faces with concern.
“It wasn’t him, and it never will be him,” I answered, pushing past her and running up the familiar stairs to my room, slamming the door and locking it before falling on to my bed to give way to an unstoppable flood of tears.
8
Some nights seem endless, while others disappear in dreamless sleep. I refused supper. I refused a hot malt drink. I refused a glass of milk and sandwiches, ice cream, trifle, even apples. You might think I was exaggerating my grief, but it was not like that. The thought of food made me feel sick and for an hour or two I did not even wish to go on living.
In vain Mum tapped upon my locked door saying, “Jean darling, there’s no point in locking yourself in. It won’t bring Phantom back.”
I knew it was true, but could not help myself. I think I wanted to hurt someone because I felt hurt myself and the nearest person was Mum. She lost patience with me in the end, saying, “Don’t eat anything then,” and went downstairs where I could hear her talking to Angus and Rachel in the kitchen; not th
e actual words, more the hum of voices. I hated myself for being so unpleasant.
As I have already said, sleep did not come easily that night. I heard Killarney whinnying for a lost Phantom. I heard the mournful hooting of a solitary owl.
I heard Mum locking up, calling goodnight to Angus, then adding, “Don’t worry, darling, Jean will feel better in the morning.”
I heard a car going down the lane, voices, silence, the bark of a distant dog. Through the darkness I could just make out the shape of trees. I thought dawn would never come. I slept fitfully. The night was of the endless variety, dawn a long time coming and with it unwanted sleep, and that the next thing I knew was Mum knocking on the door saying, “We’ve got to go to the airport soon. Are you coming?”
I sat up and called, “No, thank you.”
“It would do you good.”
“No thank you.”
“We’re fetching Dad. He’s coming into Heathrow,” Mum said.
“Good for you. I hate Heathrow.”
Then Angus stood outside the door saying, “Must you be so horrid? I’m going with Mum. Don’t you want to meet Dad?”
“No, and there’s no point in my getting up either,” I answered.
I looked at my clock. It was eleven o’clock. Normally, at that time, I would have leaped from bed, pulled on clothes, and rushed outside to see Phantom, but there was no Phantom, only Killarney – and he belonged to Angus.
Mum returned once more to my door to ask, “Did you give Rachel a key to the back door, Jean?”
“No.”
“How did she get one then?”
“I have no idea.”
“You won’t be coming with us then?”
“For the last time, no.”
“Do be careful then. Don’t do anything silly,” she told me. “And keep away from strange men.”
“For goodness’ sake, I’m not six years old!” I snapped.
I heard the car start up and then the crunch of tyres on gravel. I got out of bed and drew back my curtains. The day was sunlit, the grass dry, with only the buzzing of insects to break the silence.
Phantom Horse 6: Phantom Horse Wait for Me Page 7
