15
Fly Away
There were so very few of us in the crematorium. We’d been her family, or at least all she could have called family. Once a lively and beautiful woman, in a second her life had been extinguished. The police never found the hit and run driver, instead choosing to blame Anne, ‘she had a high blood alcohol level’ as if she had been driving the car which had hit her.
I couldn’t listen to the words read by the vicar, I felt as if I had lost my mother all over again and, as the coffin slipped through the curtain I fell to my knees and wept. So this was it, not only the loss of one life the breaking up of many others.
Anne’s sister Gill was there, I remembered her from my brief meeting at Seacrest and the lift to the station all that time ago. What had remained of the stables would be broken up, that meant mostly ourselves. Some of the better horses would go to Seacrest, the land was highly valued and would soon be apartments with an ‘easy commute to the West End’. A large sign had been installed describing luxury city living before we’d even packed up the yard. It was a far cry from our lodgings under the arches. In the end, her sister would do very well financially however she wept more loudly than any of us as Anne’s coffin vanished.
I walked outside, the weather was warm as we gathered together, there was to be no wake, the celebration of her life had taken place the night before. A few polite drinks in the public bar in the pub a few steps from the now-empty stables. We’d swapped phone numbers and promised we would keep in touch knowing, of course, that nomads like us would fall out of contact quickly. It was not deliberate, it was just who we were.
Sue had decided she had finally had enough of long hours and cold mornings and she would soon be working in a call centre. We had laughed and joshed she would be back outdoors within the month, unable to cope with the restraint of an office and the requirements to minimise her blue language to a dull roar. I was devastated, Sue had been like a sister to me. I’d burst into tears in the pub, she’d taken me aside, holding my hand telling me she would always be there for me. I promised her that, when I had my own yard I would call for her. She’d laughed, telling me I was sweet and she was sure I would succeed, but that she had spent too many years with horses and it was time to, in her grow words, ‘grow up and get a proper job’. We’d hugged and again, I had never wanted her embrace to end.
Michelle was going home to her parents, somewhere near the seaside. It had been years since a falling out over working with horses had stopped them talking. She had joked that once she had been out with her mother and someone had fallen ill, a call had gone out for a doctor. Her mother had turned to her and said ‘that could have been you. Why don’t you go to them and tell them to keep their heels down.’ I didn’t hold up much hope that she would stay there long.
Liz, of course, wasn’t here. I still wondered what may have happened to her, and the thoughts of what she might have known and who she may have told frightened me. It was the same reason I had not seen Edwin. They had not issued bail so he been kept in a prison, he had written to me, asking me and then begging me to visit. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The terrible stories about him and his organisation, what they had done to people how crossed them. I saw him in a new light and realised it was time for me to move on also, my heart broken, I had told myself he had never lied to me, but he had never told me the truth. I had been naive, stupid even. I had to put it behind me, no matter how much it hurt.
Sue came over to me, wiping tears from her eyes. “This is it now, isn’t it.” I nodded. She hugged me tightly. “Mandy, you keep safe. Look after yourself. Shit, I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too…” I tried to hold it together but my lip was trembling. I couldn’t help notice smoke rising from the building behind us and it broke my heart. “Fly away Anne…” Sue looked up and we both sobbed loudly.
***
I sat for some time in the memorial garden, I needed some time to clear my mind. I had somewhere to go. Sue had goaded me into looking for something and so there was another job clipped from Horse and Hound. They had been impressed enough with me over the telephone to tell me they wanted me to start with them at their small livery yard in Wiltshire, a place I’d never heard of. I’d had to ask Raj to lend me an atlas to find out where fate would be taking me next.
So, as the last of my surrogate family left and another hearse pulled up with another group of mourners, I left. A short bus ride and then two trains took me to Swindon. I stepped off the train at the bustling station remembering the last time I had travelled by train. I walked down the stairs and was met by a smiling
