‘That’s all,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in your garden.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he said fiercely.
‘Yes… I know… anyway, sorry…’
I could have left a note instead. This is stupid.
‘The thing is,’ I pressed on, ‘I was wondering if. I mean, I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t say anything to anyone. About me.’
Still nothing. Stupid to ask, of course.
‘All your cats,’ I said, looking round, trying to make light of things.
‘They’re not mine,’ he said bitterly.
‘Oh! Well. I’d better…’
I can revert to normal, just like that. I smiled at his scowl. ‘So, is that OK then?’ I said. ‘You know. Like, that you don’t mention anything? About me.’
His face turned harder. Nothing, nothing. He wasn’t going to say anything else, so I just turned and walked round the side of the house, towards the lane, thinking, now he’ll go and tell everyone in the village about this mad woman who… and my neck got a creeping feeling. He was behind me. I looked back. He was standing at the corner of the house. When I got to the gate he came lumbering down the path so I got out quick and put the gate between us, but it was OK. He just leaned his meaty arms along the top of the gate, didn’t meet my eyes, and said, ‘Take what you want,’ as if he was telling me to fuck off.
‘What?’
‘Doesn’t make any difference. I’ll turn a blind eye,’ he said, and walked away.
12
There used to be a horse in the field but it’s not there any more. First there were three, Little Sid, Pepper and Lady. Then Little Sid’s people took him away. Then Lady – what happened to Lady? Then there was just big Pepper, who was a very old horse by the time he’d left for sea, and gone by the time he got back. Now that was a beautiful animal. Got to ride him when he was fifteen. Pepper belonged to Gallinger who had the farm, but he was past his prime and living out long peaceful days, and when Dan had gone up and asked if it was OK, they just said, yeah, sure, here, take his tack, it’s hanging up in there. He’d never caught a horse before, never saddled up, but he’d seen it done many a time; never ridden but there was no doubt in his mind he could do it. What a horse. Turned that great head as Dan approached. Sprayed a greeting from loose wet nostrils. Knew him of course, the kid who hangs on the fence, strokes his face if he gets near enough. Stood quiet and willing as the harness slipped over his head, didn’t puff out his belly when the girth went round, swung his head round now and then to see how things were getting along. And when finally the big clumsy boy put his foot in the stirrup and hauled himself up and over, being careful not to land too heavily, Pepper shifted his feet expectantly, raised his head and shook his long ginger mane. Dan knew what to do, dug with the heels, gentle, and away they went walking, just ambling along the edge of the long sloping field. After a while they veered towards the centre, and he pulled on the reins. Pepper stopped. He remembered that feeling still sometimes, there’d never been another like it – like when you read in a book or something – his heart soared. That’s what it was like: the high blue sky, the musky horse smell, the distant droning of insects.
Sitting out back, pushing midnight, the big drunk sky. Weary. What was it with him? The way these times kept happening, times when a thought of an old horse could get him maudlin. Fuck, that’s pathetic. Time to stop. Funny thing, all that. You just have to forget it. All stupid anyway, all that madness and crying and stuff for nothing. We’re all still here. It doesn’t matter.
The things he hadn’t had gathered round him. Too late now. All that. It was awful, sometimes everything that came into his head seemed set on giving him a pang. Things in the paper. Things underfoot. That horse, Pepper, when he rode that horse round and round that field, at one time rising to a glorious canter, there was no fear and nothing gauche, he was strong and graceful, he and the horse together. Of course Pepper, for all his size, was just a soft old thing a baby could have ridden, but still. And he remembered how, when he got home, his mother had already heard from someone about what he’d done and he’d had to pay for it for days.
Couple of days later he ran into Eric in the village.
‘Hello there, Dan. Howya doin’? So how’s it going?’
What a fucking stupid question.
‘OK,’ Dan said.
You want the full story? I’ve got this pain – here – and my fucking knees creak, and this shooting pain that’s really scary, sort of simultaneously front and back, but then it goes away again and you feel a fool going all the way down town to see the doc.
‘So-so,’ he said.
‘Aren’t we all?’ Eric’s frizzy grey hair was tied in a ponytail, his small eyes squinted past Dan’s shoulder into the low evening sun. ‘Have you noticed anything funny around here lately?’
‘Funny how?’
‘Seen anyone hanging around?’ Eric chewed the inside of his cheek and his mouth twisted to one side and made him look like a flounder.
Don’t tell anyone about me, she said. Why would he bother?
‘Don’t think so.’
‘No? No one hanging around?’
‘Hanging round?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why? Should there be?’
‘Just Murph saw smoke in the woods. Like a campfire. OK now when it’s damp, but
