Jasmyn Page 5

  ‘And Hemp too,’ he said. ‘We sold Ambrosia and Demmy but we still have Mr Ed, Hemp, Rumba and Polo. Enough to keep you busy, eh?’

  I nodded, suddenly feeling I couldn’t wait to get into the saddle. ‘Do you think Gran will mind if I take Ed out for a ride now?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ my grandfather replied. ‘Take him out for a good long run and we’ll have dinner waiting when you get back.’

  I pulled riding boots on and went down to the stables, too impatient to change first. When I opened the door of the barn I was overwhelmed at once by the familiar smells - the sweet scent of hay mixed in with saddle soap and that distinctive horsey smell that instantly made me feel like I was eight years old again. Even after all those years it was still an ingrained habit of mine to move as quietly as possible around the stables in case I should see a faery again. I’d been no more than five years old but I still remembered it so clearly, like it was yesterday. I was not allowed in unsupervised at that age so was with my grandfather, standing on one of the mounting blocks and helping to groom the horses. After a while he picked me up off the block and sent me around to Bessie’s stall next door to fetch the brush he’d left there. I went in, keeping to the walls to avoid the horse’s back legs as I’d been taught.

  And that was when I saw her. She was sitting on Bessie’s shoulder, apparently making a tiny plait in the horse’s mane. My mouth dropped open and I stood there staring, completely motionless. She was not quite like the faeries I had seen in books for her hair was ice blue in colour, falling loose about her perfect, elfin features; her wings were transparent and delicate, like woven strands of a spider’s web; and her cyan blue dress was raggedy about the hem where it fell down to her tiny bare feet.

  I didn’t move, hardly even daring to breathe in case I scared her away. But she had seen me and leapt up into the air at once. I couldn’t help it - a squeal of pure delight burst from my lips and when my grandfather rushed around into the stall to see if I’d hurt myself I pointed up at the faery fluttering about in the rafters.

  She was up there for at least a minute and seemed to shine with a sort of white glow that made her easily visible, so I remember being frustrated with my grandfather who stared up stupidly in the wrong direction saying, ‘Where? I can’t see anything.’

  ‘There! ’ I cried, tugging at his sleeve and pointing. ‘There! She’s right there!’

  Then she flew out through the door and was gone. I showed my grandfather the tiny plait in Bessie’s mane and for weeks afterwards I talked of nothing but the faery until my parents must have been sick of hearing about it. Of course, I told Liam all about her too and when he came to stay during the school holidays we would spend hours at a time sitting silently in the stable with the shuffling horses, hoping to catch a glimpse of another one. I had more patience for this game than Liam and if he spoke I would promptly shut him up with a sharp poke to the ribs lest his voice should frighten a faery away.

  My grandfather encouraged my belief that faeries came to the stable sometimes and told me he’d seen the faery too but, years later, during one of my visits with Liam just before we got engaged, he admitted that he’d never seen a thing, for all that she had been right there, flying about in plain sight.

  ‘I saw her,’ I insisted. ‘She was there.’

  ‘Maybe she was,’ he replied with an indulgent smile.

  ‘He doesn’t believe me,’ I said to Liam when we were alone later on in the stable, saddling up to go out for a ride. ‘No one does.’

  ‘I believe you, Jaz,’ he said with a smile, taking my hand and kissing the palm softly. ‘If anyone could see faeries it would be you.’

  There would certainly be no faeries in the stable today, however, for Ed was making far too much noise kicking his treat ball around in his box. They’d been bought for all the horses but Ed seemed to have been the only one smart, or greedy, enough to work out that if he kicked the ball, a treat would eventually fall out of one of the holes. The problem was that he didn’t seem to understand the concept of the ball being empty and once the treats were all gone he would continue kicking the ball around for hours, getting more and more bad-tempered when no treat emerged to reward him. As I stopped at his box, a particularly savage kick sent the ball into the door hard enough to shake it on its hinges and Ed snorted irritably.

  ‘Temper, temper,’ I said with a smile.

  The beautiful chestnut horse looked up at once, ears pricked forwards alertly and eyes as bright as I remembered them. Somehow I had almost expected him to be an old horse now - so much had happened since the day my grandfather had bought him and Liam and I had gone out riding him and Hemp. It felt like a hundred years ago to me. How odd that the rest of the world had stayed the same - it was only me who had changed.

  I unlatched the door and stepped into the box and straight away Ed was pushing his velvety muzzle into my palm, looking for Polos.

  ‘You greedy boy,’ I smiled, running my hand down his nose. ‘We haven’t even got reacquainted yet.’

  I took a mint from my pocket and held my hand out flat for him to take the sweet and crunch it between his large, yellow teeth.

  ‘Liam died,’ I said quietly. ‘So he won’t be coming out with us this time. But I’m going to ride you as often as I can whilst I’m here and we can still have fun even if it’s just you and me, can’t we, Ed? Although I suppose you won’t talk to me.’

  Mr Ed only talked to Liam. In fact, that was how he got his new name. It had originally been something else when my grandfather had bought him three years ago but then Liam and I had come to stay and minutes after our arrival we’d been taken into the stable to be introduced to him. And as soon as Liam began to talk, Ed started flapping his lips back from his teeth in that strange, comical way that horses sometimes do. We didn’t realise at first that Ed was doing it in response to Liam’s voice.

  But then the two of us went riding along one of the bridle paths and, after a little while when we’d slowed down to a walk, we started to talk, and I noticed Ed moving his lips again. We stopped and Liam dismounted to adjust the bridle in case the bit was making him uncomfortable, and that was when I finally realised that the horse was reacting directly to Liam’s voice and would only stop moving his mouth when Liam stopped talking. And the sight of it was so ridiculous that I had laughed until tears ran down my cheeks and my sides ached. It was lucky that Hemp automatically followed Ed when Liam got back in the saddle for I certainly wasn’t telling him where to go. In fact I was so limp with laughter that I was only just holding on to the reins, which would have been unfortunate if something had spooked Hemp and he’d bolted. And every time Liam tried to speak to me he just made it worse, for then Ed would curl his lips back from his teeth, twitching and flapping them until Liam stopped talking.

  Finally I stopped laughing - it was either that or suffocate - but the horse was Mr Ed from that day. It made my heart ache to think that I would never see that comical sight again. My grandfather had told me that Ed never spoke for anyone but my husband. For some reason the horse had taken a shine to him straight away, and Liam always rode Ed when we came here.

  I wished we could have got back here just one more time before he died. The last visit had been before we were engaged. After our marriage we had moved house and I had been settling into my new job at the school and we had both been so busy. And every time I mentioned going to visit my grandparents Liam always seemed to have some reason he couldn’t go. I had even wondered briefly whether he was avoiding it deliberately but I couldn’t really believe that was the case for we had always had so much fun there and Liam had loved my grandfather for teaching him to ride.

  I fetched Ed’s tack and as I was putting it on an idea occurred to me. I got out my mobile, rang my home number and put it on speakerphone so that Liam’s voice on our answering machine came out. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to change the message although I knew it made people uncomfortable to hear him when they rang, as if he was spea
king from beyond the grave: ‘You’ve reached Liam and Jasmyn. Sorry we can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.’

  I just couldn’t stomach the idea of recording it anew: ‘You’ve reached Jasmyn . . . Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now . . . Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can . . .’

  I, I, I . . . Who would have thought that a simple pronoun was capable of causing so much pain? The message started to play from my mobile but Liam’s voice didn’t sound the same coming out of such a small speaker and Ed did not react other than to gaze at me patiently until I flipped the mobile shut.

  ‘I know. A voice on a machine isn’t enough, is it?’ I said, patting the horse’s neck before grasping the reins and leading him outside where I pulled myself up into the saddle and we set off down one of the familiar bridle paths.

  Ed was one of those horses who didn’t like having to go at a sedate walk and I had to keep him on a tight rein until we reached open ground and I could finally give him his head. It had been a long time since I’d been on a horse and bitter experience had taught me that I should therefore keep this ride down to about half an hour, but I was enjoying myself too much to turn back.

  My grandfather’s land joined directly onto common forest, so we kept straight on when we reached the boundary. There were no people around, possibly because of the frosty weather, which was perfect for riding. Ed and I passed forest ponies and a couple of pigs rooting for truffles but there wasn’t a car or a person insight - just rolling green countryside beneath a slate-grey sky.

  After an hour and a half we reluctantly turned back. I would have gladly continued the ride. I felt almost content for the first time in ages. But the sky was starting to darken and I knew my grandmother would be getting dinner ready. It seemed terrible that I would rather be with Ed than with my grandparents, but the fact was that I didn’t have to struggle to appear cheerful with him. And the horse acted exactly the same way around me as he always had with none of that all too familiar awkwardness or embarrassment that seemed to be all I’d seen in other people for months.

  We had just turned back onto my grandfather’s land when we rounded a corner in the path to find that it was blocked by a magnificent black horse. It was huge, even bigger than Ed. It wore no saddle or bridle but it was quite clearly a thoroughbred and - from the look of its glossy coat and beautiful physique - it must have been worth an absolute fortune. It stood completely motionless, the only movement coming from its dark mane and tail where they were tugged a little by the breeze. It stood in the very centre of the path looking straight in our direction as if it had been waiting for us.

  But I only had a couple of seconds to take him in because, for some reason, this black horse spooked Ed, who reared up. Not expecting it - for Ed was usually so dependable - I almost fell off, but tightened my grip and tensed my stomach muscles just in time, leaning forwards and keeping hold of the reins so that when Ed bolted past the other horse and down the path, I just about managed to stay on his back.

  I expected this sort of thing from Rumba, who would shy nervously if a twig snapped or a car horn went off in the distance, but I had never known Ed to be rattled before. The bridle path was a dangerous place to gallop because it was narrow and lined with trees that sometimes had low branches cutting across the path. I had to lean down close to Ed’s neck and cling on as best I could to avoid a branch smacking into me and knocking me off altogether. Despite myself, I couldn’t help enjoying it just a little. Although nowhere near Liam’s level when it came to daredevilry, I had found it quite exciting being on a bolting horse on the two occasions that it had happened before, for all that it was dangerous . . . But then perhaps that was simply because I had fallen prey to that common human delusion that nothing bad could ever possibly happen to me - that I was invincible and could not ever really be hurt, not seriously . . . I couldn’t have known it then but, before the year was out, I would learn just how untrue that belief actually was . . .

  When we finally broke out of the trees onto the three acres of lawn surrounding my grandparents’ house, Ed finally allowed himself to be slowed down to a trot before coming to a stop outside the familiar stable, still snorting and stamping his hooves nervously. I eased myself upright and stroked his neck, talking softly and reassuringly to him until I could be sure he wasn’t going to bolt again. Then I pulled my boots out of the stirrups to dismount, but when I slid off, my legs were so stiff from the long ride that I had to cling to the saddle to stop myself from crumpling to the ground as pain shot up my inner thighs, and I couldn’t help but groan.

  ‘Out of practice?’ a voice behind me said.

  I whipped my head around to see a man standing in the lit doorway of the stable, smiling at me. He was unusually tall - at least six foot eight - with brown hair and eyes. It was strangely difficult to judge his age. He could have been anything between twenty-five and thirty-five.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ I admitted.

  ‘You must be Jasmyn. I heard you were coming to stay.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m Luke - one of the stable-hands. I’ll rub Ed down for you if you want to go up to the house?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, passing him the reins. ‘There was a black horse-’ I gestured vaguely back towards the bridle path ‘-wandering about loose—’

  ‘That was probably Kini,’ Luke interrupted. ‘Don’t worry, he knows his way back.’

  I stared at him in confusion for a moment, then shook my head, ‘What do you mean, he knows his way back? Who does that horse belong to?’

  ‘He’s mine. Your grandfather lets me stable him here. It’s just that he doesn’t much like being inside, you see.’

  ‘But what the hell are you thinking, letting him wander around loose like that? The garden isn’t secure - he could get out onto the road or he could be stolen or anything!’

  Luke frowned faintly for a moment before saying, ‘You’re right. I suppose I’d better go and find him. I’ll do it as soon as I’ve finished with Ed.’

  ‘Good luck,’ I said, aware that I sounded frosty. ‘There’s a huge amount of ground to cover and it’s starting to get dark.’

  ‘Oh, I can always find Kini when I want him,’ Luke replied with a smile. And then he turned away and led Ed into the stable.

  He hadn’t seemed particularly offended but privately he probably resented me for telling him how to look after his own horse. I knew how I must appear - the hoity-toity granddaughter of the rich old man. It was just that Kini had been the most beautiful animal and I hated the thought that something might happen to him. If anyone who knew anything about horses saw him they would recognise what a fine beast he was and might be tempted to steal him, and I knew that my grandfather would have a fit if he knew.

  I walked back to the house with just enough time before dinner for a hot bath to ease my aching muscles. At least now I knew where the horse had come from. The way we had come across him so suddenly and the strange way Ed had reacted to him might have made me feel a little uneasy otherwise . . .

  I hesitated to say anything to my grandparents that evening about what had happened for I didn’t want to get Luke into trouble or, even worse, to lose him his job. So I didn’t mention him or his horse, deciding instead to check whether Kini was safe the next morning myself.

  The meal was a pleasant one and making conversation was much easier than I had expected. It was nice to be looked after just like when I’d been a child - to be in a safe, familiar place that had always seemed somewhat detached from the real world, out in the peace of the countryside. The only thing about the evening that upset me was that I noticed my grandfather seemed to have aged since I’d last seen him. He was starting to forget things and sometimes he got names mixed up as well. It shouldn’t have been a galloping shock - after all, he was almost eighty now, although he didn’t look it. But after everything that had happened recently, I didn’t think I co
uld cope with losing anybody else any time soon.

  When he asked if I wanted a drink early in the evening but then forgot to bring me one, I didn’t think too much of it. Then, a little later, when we were all sitting around the table, he asked how Harry was. It took me a moment to realise who he was talking about, for Harry was the dog I’d had at home who’d died five years ago now. Then when we started talking about the horses, he said something about the funny way Ed always used to talk for Ben. I didn’t have the heart to correct him and neither, it seemed, did my grandmother, who hurriedly changed the subject. When I mentioned it to her later on when we were alone in the kitchen she sighed and said, ‘It’s not too bad. It’s just the odd thing he forgets or mixes up. These things happen as you get older.’

  I nodded dumbly, feeling fresh fear squeeze round my heart - as well as guilt over not coming to visit them for so long. From now on I would make an effort to come and see them more regularly, for who knew how much time together we might have left? And I didn’t want to waste a single moment of it.

  When I went down to the stables early the next morning, I found that Luke had done a beautiful job of rubbing down Ed and had left him with plenty of fresh hay. But there was no sign of Kini. I checked the paddock, remembering what Luke had said about his horse not liking it inside. But the field was empty. So when I went back to the house for breakfast, I reluctantly brought the subject up. ‘I think you need to talk to Luke about his horse.’

  My grandfather looked at me as if I was talking in a foreign language. ‘Luke?’ he said blankly.

  At first I thought he was having one of his forgetful moments, so I swallowed and tried again, ‘You know - one of the men who looks after the horses. He said his stallion doesn’t like being kept inside so he’s been letting him roam around the garden loose.’

  ‘Jasmyn, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ my grandfather replied. ‘Larry and Calum look after the horses. I’ve never heard of anyone called Luke.’