The Country Lovers

by Walker, Fiona

Pacing the pen’s perimeter, Beck let out a flurry of barrel kicks, the metal frame shaking. Luca retreated back behind the kitchen wall.

  ‘It is your New Year, I believe,’ the prince was saying. ‘Kul am wa antum bi-khair.’

  ‘And Happy New Year to you and to all your family, sir.’

  Luca had only worked for the prince briefly, a majestic and magnanimous man with a hundred horses, twelve daughters, five homes, three wives and just one, much-adored, son. To have saved the life of that precious only son, as Luca now knew to his cost, was to be bound in perpetuity.

  Granted a status somewhere between courtier and adopted child, Luca had spent the past six years cherished and protected like all of the family’s most valuable assets, be they people, horses or money. The prince’s office kept tabs when he changed yards so that he could call, a fatherly gesture which also served to remind Luca who was in control – both reassuring and unsettling. His patron paid absolutely no heed to time zones, weekends, holidays or start dates, loathed mobile phones (‘walkie-talkie calculators for the young’), and wasn’t averse to giving a yard owner hell if he thought they weren’t treating Luca well enough. For a long time, he’d tried to procure the Horsemaker lucrative jobs and even set him up with his own yard, but he now understood the nature of Luca’s free-ranging spirit, his urge to go where he was needed, not wanted. ‘Like Nanny McPhee!’ the prince often exclaimed. He watched a lot of kids’ movies because he was a big, obstinate one himself.

  It should have been the greatest of privileges to have such patronage, tied by honour for one heroic, life-saving act. But if the son whose life you’d saved hated you more than any man alive, it felt more like living under close surveillance.

  ‘I was speaking about you with Prince Mishaal only last week.’

  Luca’s sinews tightened in reflex at the name.

  ‘He is very happy that you are in England. It is his new wife’s favourite country. They are regular visitors, and indeed Mishaal is coming to London this month to buy a football team, I believe.’

  Not good news.

  ‘You will not recognise him, I think. He has changed a great deal.’

  Luca pitied the poor wife, no doubt chosen by Mishaal’s family for her great patience and tolerance, just as his horses were.

  ‘Endurance races are his passion now, you know?’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ He could hear Beck bellowing again, furious at being left alone, and quashed an illogical urge to slam the phone down in case the call was being recorded and they recognised the whinny.

  ‘It is all he talks about,’ the prince went on, ‘racing across deserts like a dust storm, racing through forests, racing over mountains. Beautiful horses, like Al Khamsa. He is very successful, but his people are not trustworthy, not wise. He needs a horseman with your backbone, Luca. They want him to win at all costs and that is not God’s way, is it?’

  Luca knew precisely who wanted to win at all costs. Mishaal was a far more serious character than his father, devoted to his sport and deeply competitive, but lacking the talent and mindset, he’d always tried to buy his way to the showjumping podium. It came as no surprise to Luca that he would try the same approach in another discipline.

  ‘He obviously commands great loyalty,’ Luca said carefully.

  The roaring laugh. ‘You always think so positively, Luca! We have a saying: be wary of your enemy once and your friend a thousand times because a double-crossing friend knows more about what harms you.’

  ‘You sound like my father,’ said Luca.

  ‘Luca, I am your father!’ He laughed with great hiccupping whoops this time, the Star Wars joke a favourite. They had always got on well, the older prince’s robustly silly sense of humour rewarding the fiddle-playing, trick-riding horseman with a regular audience during his employ, his wives and twelve dancing princesses delighting in their father’s faris.

  ‘Your family are well, I think.’ The prince – who had a long-standing love of the Irish, stemming from forty years of owning and breeding race horses – hadn’t confined his largesse to just one O’Brien. Luca’s brothers all benefitted from his sponsorship and connections, all volunteered without his knowledge, the pet leash tight. ‘You are happy with your new position, Luca?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And what are the horses like there? Is there one I would like to buy?’ Picking up a horse wherever Luca went, like souvenirs, was another generosity Luca was trying to wean his indulgent, likeable, infuriating benefactor out of.

  ‘Not this time,’ he said firmly, although he had only met one of them so far. But that was a horse the royal family must never know was here.

  ‘I have told Mishaal to contact you,’ the Prince said, his voice hardening. ‘Do as he asks, Luca. It’s extremely important.’

  Perhaps they already knew.

  *

  Leaving the stallion stamping around his turn-out pen, shouting for mares like a caliphate for his harem, Ronnie tracked Pax down on the yard, putting out lunchtime feeds, wild red hair slipping out of its clip. There were huge dark smudges under her eyes.

  ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,’ she said, turning back from dropping a bucket over a half-door, not looking her mother in the eye. ‘I’m angry about everything right now.’

  Ronnie nodded, heart going out to her. ‘Let me help. You look done in.’

  ‘I need to keep busy.’ Pax grabbed a shavings fork, letting herself into Beck’s empty box to skip it out.

  ‘Of course.’ She still remembered the zero-gravity confusion of her own marriage coming to an abrupt end. Seeing Pax stirred memories of the same whirlwind shock of anger, its guilt and fear still vivid almost thirty years later. Those awful phone calls, like flurries of gunfire. The power play and panic.

  Pax was a whirling dervish, dropping bedding everywhere, her head constantly turning in the direction of the cottage.

  ‘Do you think he’s off the phone yet?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Depends if his married stalker is threatening to tell her husband,’ Ronnie suggested, but Pax’s dark humour fell flat repeated back.

  ‘Your expert field, not mine.’ Pax squinted at the cottage. ‘You need a second landline.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s two hours since Mack called.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk to him?’

  ‘I don’t. But he told you he’d ring back, didn’t he? He’s not answering his phone. What if something’s happened to Kes?’

  ‘It’s New Year’s Day, they’re doing family things.’ Like us, she thought wryly as she gathered two brooms and handing one across. ‘Kes will be fine. Missing you, but fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sherbet.’ It was an old Percy saying, one Anne had coined from a gambling-mad Irish gardener, an abbreviation of ‘sure bet’. Seeing Pax’s half-smile of recognition as they swept cobbles side by side, Ronnie felt better. Was it terrible of her to admit that she was grateful for this rare time together, however awful the crisis? Its intimacy was a little foundation stone.

  ‘Maybe I should call him again?’ Pax fretted. ‘He has no idea my mobile’s dead. There are bound to be voicemails and messages I can’t access.’

  ‘He knows you’re here and he has this number.’ Ronnie spotted the cob’s bridle abandoned on a hook and picked it up. ‘Let him cool off.’

  ‘Really?’ Pax followed her into the tack room. ‘No, I definitely should call.’

  ‘Pax, when your father and I separated, I did exactly this, and it’s—’

  ‘I am not you! I will never be like you! I can’t lose Kes. I can’t! Shit!’ She turned away, mopping tears with her sleeve, batting away the hand Ronnie tried to put on her back, talking through gritted teeth. ‘I j-just need to use a phone. And I need to stop bloody crying.’

  Ronnie stepped back. Pax was right; the situations were very different. She’d run away with a lover on a madcap whim, light-hearted and impetuous, believing that she’d be reunited with her c
hildren within days. Having grown up in the lengthening shadow of its consequences, Pax had clung on to marriage until her fingers bled.

  ‘Luca must have finished that call. Let’s check, shall we?’ She found herself caught between talking to the toddler she’d left behind and the grown woman so like her younger self.

  ‘You go on ahead.’ Pax mopped her eyes with her sleeves. ‘I don’t want him to see me like this.’

  Even thirty years after being married to an alcoholic, Ronnie sensed straight away that Pax had spotted a drink. Johnny had hidden bottles in hunting boots, feed bins, gutters and every coat pocket going by the end.

  Her eyes alighted on the hunting flask, still in its leather holder buckled to the cob’s saddle. She fished it out with a casual, ‘I’ll just take this back.’

  Pax cleared her throat as Ronnie hurried out, tipping the contents in a planter as soon as she was through the arch.

  In Lester’s cottage, Luca had just rung off, turning to smile as she came in. ‘Sorry about that. An old friend.’ His eyes were that little bit too intense, thinking fast behind the mask. ‘Then I took the liberty of ringing home. My auld ma’s been passing the number here round a bit freely, I’m sorry to say; I hope you’ve not been bothered by calls?’

  ‘Just a few. Lester’s bound to have written them down somewhere.’ She looked around, her eyes settling uneasily on a bottle of plum gin abandoned on the dresser, where Lester must have filled his flask earlier. ‘You’re a popular man.’

  ‘Accident insurance scammers, I’ll bet.’

  ‘They must think you’re particularly liable to personal injuries.’

  ‘Sure, I’m a horse rider.’

  Ronnie laughed, vaguely remembering him juggling love and work between Holland, France and Germany, his appeal to married women getting him into trouble more than once. Now he’d gone global, he needed his own switchboard. No wonder his mobile was out of credit.

  He was gazing around Lester’s museum-piece hallway, peering at the fox heads and old showing photographs hung in regimented grids above the dado rail. ‘Sweet old cottage. Lester’s the auld fella you told me about, is he not? Where’s he today?’

  ‘You don’t know about the accident!’ she exclaimed in horror, telling him about the stallion man’s fractured hip. ‘It means lots more work for us all, I’m afraid. Lester’s such a one-man army, I’m frankly not sure how we’ll cope without him. He’ll be off a while.’

  ‘Lucky I’m here.’ Luca raised a wry eyebrow.

  ‘You’ll be doing two jobs,’ she said, to make sure he was in no doubt. ‘The Horsemaker can’t lord it over everyone in his riding boots here, I’m afraid. You’ll shovel shit with the rest of us.’

  ‘That’s not a problem. The harder I work, the harder I play.’ The smile widened. ‘Unless it’s the fiddle; breaks the strings.’

  ‘I hope you have it with you?’

  ‘Ah now.’ His tilted his head. ‘Sometimes all the strings break. I was going to pick up another at home in Ireland.’

  Reading a coded message in green eyes that had once been so open, Ronnie crossed her arms and adopted her no-nonsense power pose. Whereas he’d always been full of naughty tricks, now it seemed he’d graduated. The court jester could play serious drama; the cherub had manned up. Yet his manner remained gentle, the quiet man with the heart-melting talent.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to come here, Luca.’

  ‘Sure, it’s good to see you.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. Worried he was about to try to hug her again, Ronnie stiffened with British ironing-board resistance, reaching up to hold his fingers like dungaree straps. The Percys had thrived for centuries with a no-hugs policy.

  ‘Your poor body clock must be in ruins.’ She could feel a chunky Claddagh band on one of his fingers, its crowned heart battered from long hours holding ropes and reins.

  Ronnie realised what had changed him so much since she’d last seen him: somebody had broken wandering minstrel Luca O’Brien’s heart.

  ‘Lunch!’ She patted his hands kindly. ‘Or would you rather to go to bed for a bit?’

  They could hear the dogs barking and growling outside the door, Pax calling them back.

  ‘Only reason to go to bed in daytime, is if you have company, so it is.’ New Luca might have sadder eyes than before, but the flirty patter was still there, a classic male on the rebound. He was looking at her, but Ronnie sensed he was seeing her through a lens blurred by self-absorption.

  ‘Or flu,’ she said briskly.

  There was a sharp bark as Stubbs bustled in censoriously, followed by Pax carrying the wide-eyed deerhound puppy, her pale face determined, tears dried. ‘Ah, good, the phone’s free. Your heelers are cougars, Mummy.’

  Stepping back, Ronnie brushed Luca’s hands off her shoulders, but not before she caught Pax’s sideways glance.

  ‘They won’t leave Knott alone,’ Pax complained as Ronnie’s younger black-and-tan bitch rushed inside, the old one lumbering in her wake. Both barked shrilly up at the wriggling puppy, tails gyrating.

  ‘Maternal urges,’ Ronnie sympathised, aware that her dogs weren’t the only ones plagued by them. ‘I’ll put them in a stable, then we’ll all have lunch.’ She edged towards the half-empty plum gin bottle.

  ‘There no food whatsoever in the house,’ Pax pointed out, glancing at the phone, desperate for them to be gone. ‘I’m going home to fetch some clothes soon. I’ll bring back eggs and cheese, and I think there’s half a gammon left.’

  ‘I’m vegan.’ Luca brought out the big guns’ smile. ‘Sorry, I know it’s a pain in the arse.’

  ‘That’ll be all the fibre,’ muttered Pax.

  ‘How fantastically disciplined,’ Ronnie said quickly. So much for fond memories of him in nothing but swimmers and an apron barbecuing rows of fat bratwurst by the Fuchs’ pool while she, Henk and a bunch of grooms smoked dope in the sun. She tried to remember what vegans ate apart from lentil dahl and chickpeas. ‘When I take Lester his things, I’ll try to find a supermarket that opens on New Year’s Day and we’ll all have a big high tea later.’ Picking up the plum gin, she slipped it nonchalantly under her arm, hoping the others wouldn’t notice. ‘I’ll show you to the attic flat, Luca.’

  ‘Do you want some ice with that, Mummy?’ Pax asked lightly, setting Knott down in his bed, shooing the heelers away. Stubbs was glaring at them all from under the table, horrified by the invasion. ‘Watch your toes in the attic bathroom, Luca.’ Pax straightened up and marched to the door to hold it open for them. ‘I laid mousetraps.’ She smiled.

  ‘There are mice?’

  ‘No, I just get pleasure from other people’s pain.’ She was standing outside, holding her arm out like a hotel doorman seeing off guests.

  ‘You’ll want to unpack, I’m sure.’ Ronnie hurried ahead of Luca, eager to park him, worried about leaving Pax too long in her brittle state. When she quick-fired sarcasm, it was a sure sign she was counting down to a big anger bang.

  Luca had paused beneath the cottage porch, trapping Pax outside. ‘Sure, a walk will do me good. I’d like to take a gander round the place. The sun’s coming out.’

  ‘Let’s all go together,’ Ronnie suggested.

  Pax was looking straight at the gin bottle under her arm. ‘I should call Mack.’

  Equally certain she shouldn’t, Ronnie pressed her case. ‘Leave that a bit longer. You always love seeing the broodmares. Let’s take Luca round, get some fresh air. You know the set-up here as well as I do.’

  ‘It’s been years since I played a part here.’

  ‘Longer still for me.’

  ‘Yes, remind me. How many decades ago was it you ran off and abandoned us all?’

  Ronnie glanced at Luca, who had stooped down to make a fuss of her dogs, politely pretending not to hear.

  ‘Well, I am not abandoning Kes.’ Tension was radiating off Pax like white heat, calm voice at odds with wild eyes. ‘Which is why I need to speak to his father to work out some
details.’ She looked away, encroaching tide of tears turned back by furious willpower.

  Three centuries of Percys not hugging were nothing to Ronnie’s burning need to wrap her arms around her daughter at that moment, but she knew that to do that would infuriate and upset Pax more. ‘A walk round will help to clear your head, take your mind off things.’

  ‘I don’t want my mind off things. I want to think about Kes and about Mack and his family and how we’re going to make this work. I want my head full of all the ways to ensure none of us hurts any more than we have to. I don’t want to take my mind off any of it, because it’s important. You took your mind off Daddy so long he drank himself to death.’

  ‘Whoa! That’s a bit harsh.’ Luca stood up.

  ‘You keep out of this!’ Pax snarled.

  ‘Yes, best keep out of this, Luca,’ Ronnie said quickly. ‘I’ll show you round.’

  ‘Good idea,’ growled Pax, pushing back through the porch and hurriedly closing the door.

  Luca blew out through his lips. He’d noticed the plum gin under Ronnie’s arm too, she realised as his green eyes levelled with hers, secrets reflected between them.

  ‘Just putting this in the car for Lester.’

  *

  Hangover lifted, Bridge felt refreshingly pukka as she drove home from the gym, Fantasy Ash bound and gagged in her car boot. Having willingly sacrificed her JOMO New Year’s Eve to red wine, girl talk and owning the village hall mosh pit, she’d decided she would make the most of her last night without Aleš and the kids: scented candles, comfort pasta, charcoal mask and serious job-hunting. Plans for a career swerve were fresh in her head. Her tiny, tidy house was waiting for her. Fantasy Ash could stay trussed up in the boot. He’d just clutter the place up, and she had some serious Zen me-time planned.

  Singing along to Anne-Marie, she banked the car up on the pavement outside the cottage, not caring how wonkily because Aleš wasn’t here to see her lousy parking.

  The cottage felt chilly and lifeless without the family, both cats out hunting. Bridge pulled on the chunky home-knitted sweater from Aunt Broda that Aleš teased looked like a poo emoji. She lit the wood burner, scraped her hair up into a tight bun secured with a popsock, selected a Rebel Girl playlist on Spotify and neatened every surface to OCD satisfaction before opening her laptop at the little crackle-glaze table.