Blind Beauty (20 page)

Not like last time! Perhaps she was due for a slice of luck by the law of averages, but this euphoria in the winner's enclosure was something she would never forget. Not first, perhaps, but near enough.The old gels were overjoyed, and Jimmy and Peter hugging her, and complete strangers saying “Well done” – it was a magic day. Having seen the light on the canter down, to have fallen or failed would have wiped out her new courage. Now everything was different.

Or was it?

It didn't make Buffoon appear out of the blue. It didn't mean trainers started to clamour for her services. A fortnight later Raleigh offered her a ride on a solid old-timer whose owner didn't expect to win but enjoyed a day out. The day before, according to the press, Maurice had removed all his horses from Raleigh to another smart and up-and-coming trainer called Con Powers. Con Powers had a fast turnover of horses and also of owners, was very successful, but not well liked.

Raleigh was at a bigger course with better horses on the day Tessa rode for him, and it was Greevy who saddled her horse. To her surprise he was perfectly civil, even pleasant.

“You've got a nerve, going into this game. Rather you than me.”

“I'm no good at anything else.”

“This one'll give you no trouble. He won't win but he'll get you round.”

The old owner turned out to be a friend of the old gels. Was this to be her clientele, dear old no-hopers? Maybe she could get their horses up into the frame, at least. It took all her strength and more, but the horse came in fourth, and the old owner was in the winner's enclosure with Greevy, pumping her hand so hard that she thought her whole arm would come away at the shoulder.

“Great ride,” Greevy said.

Tessa nearly fainted. Or was it exhaustion? She couldn't speak. Her head was reeling.

But perhaps, after all, she had a future.

I
n December, on a cold wet day, Tom drove into the yard at Sparrows Wyck and asked for Peter. Tessa saw him and said Peter was out.

“Jimmy around?”

“Yes, he's in the school. Just finished, I think. Shall I fetch him?”

Tessa was business-like, seeing that Tom did not seem to be calling in friendly mode, but with a purpose. He still could not move very easily, so he nodded at her invitation and stood waiting. He was due to have his operation shortly, and Tessa thought he was scared – who wouldn't be? It required a different sort of courage to face, from galloping towards Bechers Brook, and one she was not sure she would be able to cope with.

Jimmy came and, after a few words, disappeared with Tom into the house.

“I didn't want to say in front of Tessa,” Tom said, “but I've found Buffoon.”

Jimmy looked up in surprise. “Still alive, eh?”

“Barely. That's the problem. If he comes back here, who will keep him? Tessa's got no money. I wondered if you just wanted to let it go. What will it do to Tessa? He's stone-blind and half-starved.”

“Oh Christ!” said Jimmy.

He rolled one of his cigarettes, stared out of the window.

“Kindest to buy him and put him down, no word said,” Tom said. “I'd do that, if you want.”

Jimmy shook his head.

“It makes sense, I can see that. But…”

He pulled on his scraggy cigarette, stared out of the window some more.

“No. He was a great horse. He deserves more. We'll get him back here. Put him down later, when he's had a week or two's cossetting.”

“It'll do for Tessa.”

“Yeah, well, she'd prefer that way to not knowing. She's tough. She'll survive.”

“I'll sort it then, if you like. Give me something to think about, instead of just waiting for–” He shrugged.

“Getting mended? You'll make it,” Jimmy said.

“If I'd been a horse I'd have been shot long ago.”

“Yeah, well, we're kind to horses. Who are these nerds who've let our old boy go to pot? What's wrong with them?”

“I haven't met them, just spoken on the phone. I saw the horse in the field and recognized him, then asked around. Seems a girl had him for eventing, he got hurt or she did – not sure which – so he got turned out, she got a boyfriend and left home and it sort of went on from there. He's on his own, blind, neglected.”

“Christ!” said Jimmy again.

“I'll see to it. Just wanted the OK, that's all.”

“They'll let him go, I take it? You can't always take it for granted that people even know how pig-ignorant they are.”

“Yes, I asked. If you want him, take him away, they said. Do us a good turn. It's near Newmarket, easy to lay on transport.”

“OK. We'll pay expenses. We're not that hard up,” Jimmy said. “And go from there.”

“And Tessa? Will you tell her?”

“Take her with you,” Jimmy said. “You can cope! By the time she gets home she might be back on an even keel. I'm not good with Tessa in extremis. When I think of her going after her old man with a carving knife… I often wonder…”

“If you're safe?” Tom grinned.

“She's got that streak – yeah. It's not gone away. It's what might make her successful as a jockey – over-the-top commitment. When Tessa wants something – phew! Stand back, put your hard hat on. It's still there, the mad streak.”

“In the blood. Her parents are both mad, by all accounts. She's not like an ordinary girl, is she?”

Jimmy laughed. “No.”

“I'll make a date with her then. Tomorrow lunchtime OK?”

“Yes. You're not telling her beforehand?”

“No.”

“Rather you than me!”

When Tom called for Tessa the next day and they departed in his red Mercedes the others watched with open curiosity.

“What is this? The beginning of an affair?”

“What, with Tessa? You must be joking,” said Wisbey.

“Where are they going?”

“Tessa doesn't know, she said.”

Jimmy came in from the school, on his way to lunch.

He gave the orders: “Move Sky to another box. Clean the box out thoroughly, bed it down, bring Lucky in and groom him and have it all ready for a new occupant.”

They looked at him curiously.

“Who is it?”

Jimmy smiled. “Guess.”

 

Tessa had guessed too – the only thing it could be, this magical mystery tour. But she was too afraid to ask. She felt sick with it. Tom was wondering if he was doing the right thing, only re-opening old wounds in Tessa's psyche that were best left alone. The more he drove, the more he thought it was a mistake. But too late now to change anything. He did not say anything, and Tessa was too frightened to, and they drove without speaking, listening to the radio. She knew it wasn't good news, else he would have told her.

It was a cross-country drive, out towards Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. They drove into Newmarket and Tessa felt the tension rising, but Tom took a minor road out and drove out south through the rolling countryside dotted with studs and woods. They came to a bleak, intensively farmed hilltop, and looked over an empty landscape. Down a long hill, Tom signalled right, and turned up a winding lane. There wasn't a house or human in sight. An arable crop, just coming through, ran uphill ahead of them, unbroken across the horizon, but in the valley a few grass fields surrounded by hedges edged the road.

They came to a gate, stopped. A spatter of rain blew across the windscreen. Tom turned the engine off and the radio went dead.

“Here you are.”

Tessa turned blindly and tried to look where Tom was looking. Already tears blurred her sight. On the other side of the field, all alone, a thin horse stood with its back to the hedge, its tail clamped against its quarters. Its head was raised, ears pricked, turned questioningly in their direction. Now that the car engine had stopped and there was only the eternal silence, it whinnied.

“Tom!”

Tessa flung open the door, scrambled out, tripped and fell, scrambled up, over the five-barred gate like a terrier and hurtled across the field shouting, “Buffy! Buffy! Buffy!”

Tom stayed in his seat, groaning. Why the hell –! Yet he knew he could not have lived with any other course of action. Soft idiot that he was!

The rain was cold, Newmarket style. Was it ever warm in Newmarket? Tom eventually groped his way painfully out of his driving seat and staggered to the gate. Tessa was coming back slowly, the horse following with its nose on her shoulder. Even Tom's eyes pricked at the sight, it was so touching – the look on Tessa's face, and the old horse's muzzle trembling with – well, what? What do horses think? Tom wondered. Buffoon was miserable all right, abandoned alone in a completely dark and silent world. But one could hardly imagine he was planning revenge, or remembering happier days, or thinking of his mother. Animals weren't like that. Just hoping someone would come, no doubt. And now someone had. A voice he remembered.

“He's blind, Tom! He's blind!”

The tears streamed down Tessa's cheeks.

“Yes, well, we knew that was going to happen, didn't we? Before he was sold.”

“Can he be cured?”

“I don't know, I doubt it.”

“Tom!” Fresh floods.

“Shut up, Tessa.” Tom glanced at his watch. The afternoons were short and it was already growing dusk, the dismal landscape smudging towards invisibility through the rain.

“It's not all bad. A horsebox is on its way to pick him up, to take him home. He's yours, Tessa. Jimmy said bring him home. We've arranged it.”

“Oh Tom! Tom!” She sprung at him, embracing him wildly, nearly knocking him flat on his back. Her tears were wet on his cheeks.

“You are a marvel! I love you! We could never have left him here, could we? So lonely! And he is blind – how
could
they? To do this to a horse – how could they!”

Lucky, Tom thought, she did not have access to their address, and a carving knife. She was like a flame, the anger torching off her skinny frame, almost hissing in the rain. What an enemy! She flung her arms round Buffoon's neck, crooning rubbish to him, and he nuzzled at her with an enquiring nose, trembling a little in the legs. Poor old nag! Tom remembered the feel of him going over Bechers, the feel of himself too, his old strength and the horse's strength, and the glory of it all… and now look at them both, crocked up, on the scrapheap! Self-pity overwhelmed him suddenly, and in the rain it didn't matter if he cried a bit too, terrified of the path that lay before him and tired of pretending he was brave when he wasn't… All the fears he only ever admitted to himself in bed in the small hours of the night rose up and threatened to swamp him in that moment, set off by Tessa's emotion. He turned away, rescued by the distant sound of a lorry changing gear as it approached the hill.

“The horsebox…”

“Oh Tom, you are wonderful! To have found him! I love you! I love you!”

The kisses for Buffoon now veered in his direction, unabashed, and his mood was blown away, so that he dissolved in laughter.

“You are a nutter!”

The lorry drew up, a Newmarket transporter, and the driver got down, pulling up his collar against the rain.

“Blimey, what a night! He loads OK, I hope?”

“Yes, but he's blind.”

“Poor old sod.”

He went to open up the back ramp, and Tom fetched the headcollar he had thrown in the car. Tessa put it on and Tom opened the gate. They led him round the lorry and lifted his hesitant foot on to the ramp. He hadn't forgotten the routine and went up carefully, lifting his legs high, not missing the larger step up into the inside. He blundered in and Tessa tied him up.

“I'll travel with him.”

“Don't be an idiot. He knows he's safe in the box. Travel back with me.” He wanted her suddenly. He couldn't face that drive all alone, the way he felt now.

Tessa was unwilling, but came. The driver had Peter's address, knew the way.

“See you later, mate.”

They went off first, so that they didn't have to overtake the lorry. Tessa watched in the mirror as the lorry's headlights came down steadily behind them. She was overcome with the strength of her feelings, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, only saying, “I never thought this day would happen.” She was shaking but not with the cold.

“Don't expect too much.” Tom said.

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. He's not the horse he was, put it like that. He won't go back to racing.”

“He's back though. That's what matters.”

“You own him now. He'll be expensive to keep.”

“I earn money. I can pay!”

“A blind horse is useless. A liability.”

Tessa flared up. “Why did you bring me here then? What do you want me to do?”

“We thought,” (Christ, why had he started this?), “Give him a kind ending. Feed him, make him happy. Put him down. What else is there for him?”

“Oh no! I'll make him happy! Why shouldn't he be cured, anyway? You can cure cataracts. They can operate on him.”

“It'll cost a fortune! Where'll you get the money from? You know what vets' bills are like. Ask Peter.”

“I'll get the money! I'll earn it!”

“Earn it? You've only had three rides so far this season.”

“Why are you being so horrible? Why did you bring me, if now you're saying it's all useless?”

She started to cry again. Tom cursed himself.

“I just don't want you to get disappointed, Tessa, to think it's all a happy ending. It isn't really. You've got to be sensible about it.”

“I am being sensible! It's you who are being defeatist. You're just the same as Buffoon – all washed up. Suppose we said the same about you – you won't come back, you're finished? What's the difference?”

“I'm not a flaming horse! People might think that about me but they don't say it, because they're not so unkind. Only you!”

“Oh Tom! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Not like that! Just that, it's the same really, like you; he must be curable, like you.”

“But horses–” Didn't she understand? Horses were expendable and humans weren't. It might not be right, but that's the way it was. But he couldn't tell her Buffoon was expendable. She probably thought she could get him cured, ride him in the Grand National and win it. That's the kind of girl she was.

“Well, it's not my department, the future. I've done my bit. The rest of it is up to you, and Peter, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Tessa said. “It's up to me. Buffoon is mine.”

And an idiotic smile lit up her face, Tom could almost feel it, like an electric fire. What a girl!

In a little while she said hesitantly, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. About you being washed up.”