The Horse With My Name (26 page)

She unhitched the door and led him out, still patting him. I gave him one myself. For Ulster. Mandy nodded at Bosco. ‘Go and see if you can find Trudy up at the house, we’re going to have to get moving.’

Bosco handed her the leather gear, then headed for the yard again.

I said, ‘I’m happy for you.’

‘Thank you.’ She looped the leather over the horse’s head. He snorted appreciatively.

‘That’s some tongue on him, that is,’ I said. ‘He could look you in the eye and lick your belly button at the same time. If I could do that I’d be made.’

‘Stop it.’

Bosco was back in the doorway in world record time. Literally. Or perhaps he never truly left. Perhaps the unhappy man with the two unhappy flunkies had something to do with it. We stopped, we looked, we knew the game was up.

‘Daddy,’ said Mandy.

‘Darling,’ said Geordie McClean.

Derek and Eric stepped out of his shadow. Each of them carried a shotgun, hung lazily over their shoulders. I knew
they wouldn’t shoot Mandy, I wasn’t so sure about myself.

‘Howdy,’ I said, ‘long time no––’

‘Shut the fuck up, Starkey,’ Geordie growled.

‘Okay.’

‘How did you know?’ Mandy asked, her voice still defiant, yet a shade tremulous.

‘Well I pulled in every favour I was owed. And when I exhausted both of those, I consulted your friend and mine. The Horse Whisperer.’

‘
What!
’

‘Yes my dear, shot by your own side. Funny really, I’m at last beginning to see the value of it. When all else failed, I spotted a juicy little snippet about a horse in hiding at these very stables. Didn’t take much to work it out.’

Mandy pulled Dan the Man a little closer. ‘You can’t stop me, Daddy. He’s mine.’

‘I can stop you, and he’s mine until your birthday.’

‘You
gave
him to me.’

‘Yes, and you can have him stuffed and mounted when I’m finished with him, but for the immediate future I need him back.’

‘That’s not fair, and it’s not right, and I won’t let you take him.’

‘Fair and right? Enter the real world, darling. I’m afraid you can’t stop me.’

Her back straightened, her mouth tightened. ‘What’re you going to do, shoot me?’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’ He nodded at Derek and Eric. They advanced. Dan the Man whinnied, threw his head up. Mandy looked despairingly back to her father.

‘Daddy, please, don’t . . . if not for me, for Mummy, she wanted me to have him, she wanted me to run in the National, please . . .’ Derek hesitated.

‘Your
mummy
is dead because she got involved in things
she knew nothing about. Because
you
demanded to ride in the National. I tried to protect you from it, but you wouldn’t listen and here you are up to your neck in it. Well it stops here, okay? Derek?’

Derek put a hand on her arm. She tried to pull away, but he held firm. Eric pushed himself between Mandy and the horse and took hold of the halter. Mandy made one last appeal.

‘Daddy,
please
. . .’

Geordie lit a cigar. He said nothing. As Eric led Dan the Man towards the stable door, Bosco stepped suddenly into his path. ‘Let him go,’ he hissed, raising a diminutive fist, ‘or I’ll crack you on the head even better than I did your fruity friend.’

Eric laughed. ‘That’s quite a mouthful, Bosco. And so is this.’ He punched him between the lips and Bosco was spitting teeth before he hit the ground. Eric smiled across at Derek, who smiled back. Geordie smiled proudly at both of them. Even Dan the Man bared his teeth. The only ones not smiling were Mandy and me. And she was glaring. At me, of course.

‘Are you just going to stand there?’ she wailed.

I nodded.

‘What sort of a man are you?’ she shrieked.

‘I’m Leo,’ I said. ‘The cowardly lion. Geordie, about this book . . .’

‘Not now, Starkey, we’ve a race to win.’ He nodded at Derek and his weeping daughter. ‘Put her in the car.’ Derek began to push Mandy towards the door. She dragged her feet, but the fight had gone out of her. Geordie threw his cigar to the ground and stepped on it. He couldn’t have had more than two puffs of it. He was still smiling. He looked back to me. ‘You’re welcome to come along for the ride.’

I looked at him, slightly incredulously. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ I said.

‘Better the devil you know, eh?’

I shook my head. ‘You’re quite pleased with her really, aren’t you? Daddy’s girl nearly got away with it.’

He nodded as he walked off. ‘Yup,’ he said, as much to himself as anyone, ‘she’s certainly full of spunk.’

‘I know,’ I called after him, ‘mostly mine.’

I was hoping for a reaction, but there was nothing. Derek and Eric smirked when they realised he hadn’t heard. Geordie and Mandy started arguing again beside the car, but I’d had enough of it. I turned and wandered back into the stable. I was thinking that journalism was too dangerous for me. Even writing biographies and novels had proved detrimental to my health. I needed an ordinary, dull job. Something to do with big complicated forms or digging holes for no obvious reason. I could paint long walls white, and then repaint them the next day black. I could count pebbles on the beach or hunt for fossils. I could shampoo dogs or replace tiles on old roofs. I could sell hot dogs by the seaside or collect hymn books in church.

I needed excitement like I needed a hole in the head.

I needed the love of a good woman, and by good I mean one who goes to church on Sundays and wears a bonnet and makes cakes. We wouldn’t bother with sex; it only complicates things. I would become a monk. I would live on an island, although not Wrathlin. I would fish. I would study ancient myths and legends or become an astrologer.

I would phone Patricia and ask her advice.

I needed a mobile phone. That would solve a lot of my problems. I could talk to her any time, any place, anywhere. And she to me. If she’d only known where I was half the time, I’m sure she would have called. She’s had her own
dark moments of late, and no matter what the state of our love life, she knows there’s only one person in the world who understands her. And it ain’t some fucker with a beard.

Another thing: I didn’t want to smell horses ever in my life again.

I wandered back towards the stable doors. I’d thought they were all gone, I’d heard an engine and not bothered to turn, but as I was about to step back out into the sunshine I realised that what I’d heard wasn’t their departure, but another vehicle arriving. And now that I was closer, the sound of raised voices.

I moved deftly into the shadows.

Derek and Eric had their shotguns raised and pointed at a Land Rover and horse box parked in the middle of the triangle. Bending over the bonnet, pointing guns, were Jimmy the Chicken, Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner.

Jesus
. Any moment now Brian Rix would enter stage left with his trousers around his knees.

Didn’t anyone
ever
give up?

I knew instantly what had happened.

They’d been reading the Horse Whisperer as well.

‘I won’t tell you again,’ Jimmy the Chicken was shouting, ‘put those fucking guns down!’

Derek and Eric held firm.

‘Now!’ yelled Oil Paintings.

‘Why don’t
you
put
yours
down?’ Derek shouted back.

I pressed myself into the stable door frame. Jimmy and Co. hadn’t spotted me yet. If I backed up quiet as a mouse with slippers I could exit through the door at the other end of the stables. Then run away and really get that less dangerous job.

‘Put your fucking guns down or the fucking horse gets it!’

They had their guns trained on Dan the Man.

‘Be sensible!’ shouted Derek. ‘It’s the fucking horse you want.’

‘Don’t tell us what we want, you cunt!’ Jimmy shouted back.

Geordie said, ‘Come on now, take it easy, there’s no need for all this, let’s just settle down, we’ll work something out.’

‘Daddy! They’re the ones killed Mummy!’ Geordie’s eyes narrowed as they turned to his daughter. ‘They are! Ask Dan!’ She pointed towards my shadows. Guns shifted. ‘Please don’t let them take my horse!’

‘Get the fuck outta there!’ Dry Cleaner yelled. ‘And don’t try anything stupid.’

As if.

I stepped shyly into the limelight, hands raised. ‘I saw nothing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t have my contacts in.’

I don’t know about horse brains, but it looked like Dan the Man was starting to feel the tension. He was raising up on two legs and whinnying. Mandy jumped to grab hold of the leather. After two attempts she got it and began to talk gently to him, holding him firmly down at the same time. She also managed to look thunderously from her dad to me to Jimmy the Chicken.

‘We want the fucking horse, so let him go!’

‘Can’t do that,’ Derek growled, his eyes flitting from Jimmy, to Oil, to Dry.

Jimmy moved slowly out from behind the Land Rover. ‘We’re going to come over there and take him. Just stay where you are and no one’ll get hurt!’

‘You come any closer I’ll blow your fucking arms off, and that
will
hurt.’

‘Then let him go!’

‘No!’

‘That horse is ours!’

‘Ours!’

‘He’s mine!’ Mandy yelled.

‘Shut up, Mandy!’ shouted Geordie.

‘No! He’s mine!’

‘He’s ours!’ yelled Jimmy the Chicken, coming closer, gun raised, held tight, sweat on his brow. Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner followed, slowly, cautiously. Derek and Eric moved between the advancing trio and the horse, guns held just as high, eyes narrowed, fingers already squeezing lightly on triggers, just waiting for the final application of pressure.

Soon the only thing between the Jimmy camp and the Geordie camp was little old me, hands aloft and heart in my shoes.

There was almost complete silence. I looked from one set of gun barrels to the other. I swallowed. ‘I guess this is what they call a Mexican stand-off,’ I said in a vain attempt to keep things light.

‘No,’ replied a voice from the roof of the barn, ‘
this
is what you call a Mexican stand-off.’

Five Chinamen, five guns. Holy manoley.

27

Shouting, yelling, five guns up top, three on one side, two on the other, five and three and two makes . . . ten. Say six bullets apiece – although six as a figure is a hangover from Western six-guns and movies where the bad guy has used up all his bullets but only the good guy knows it – so, say, for inflation and modern technology, ten bullets apiece . . . .minus Derek and Eric’s shotguns of course, two apiece, presuming they’re double-barrelled, makes a grand total of . . .

Shut up!

Stop that head whirring!

One moment, one moment amidst the yelling and swearing, one moment on one hair trigger and we would all be dead, including the horse with my name. It needed someone to stop it, someone with the will power, the tact, the diplomacy and the bravery to stand up and be counted.

Cometh the moment, cometh the man.

Bosco stepped out of the stable, hands raised, and for a moment all guns pointed to him. ‘This isn’t going to helth anyone,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Geordie.

‘What?’ said Dry Cleaner.

‘What?’ said the English-sounding Chinese.

‘This isn’t going to helth anyone,’ Bosco repeated.

‘Helth?’ said Geordie.

‘
Help
,’ said Mandy. ‘If your brutes hadn’t knocked his teeth out he’d be able to say it properly.
Help
,’ she repeated.

‘Exactly,’ said Bosco. ‘Listen, folks, we’re all going to end up dead, what’s the pointh in that?’

‘Pointh?’ said Oil Paintings.

From above came a low roll of laughter from the lead Chinese. Jimmy the Chicken grinned, and lowered his gun a fraction. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘fair point. Maybe we all need to cool off, no point in throwing the bathwater out.’

Derek and Eric, one gun on the Chicken crew and one on the Chinese, remained steady as rocks. Geordie McClean moved up behind them and gently put his hands on their shoulders. They relaxed, just a little. Everyone looked to the Chinese. Their team leader lowered his gun, the others kept theirs in place.

‘Okay,’ said the Chinese. ‘We will talk. With safeguards. One representative from each side to meet in the middle of the square.’

‘It’s a triangle,’ I whispered.

‘Okay?’ said the Chinese.

Eyes met eyes. The impasse seemed to stretch interminably.

Then Geordie made the first move, walking confidently across the cobbles, everyone watching. Even the horse. There was a moment of panic when he reached into his pocket as Jimmy the Chicken went to join him, but Geordie slowed down enough to show that he was only getting a cigar out. He offered one to Jimmy, who refused. Then came the Chinese. I half expected him to do a double somersault
from the roof and land barefoot on the cobbles, his chest bare, his lethal hands raised, ready to inflict mayhem, but as it was he merely disappeared for a minute while he made his way down and reappeared through the stable doors, carefully brushing bits of straw off his immaculate Armani suit.
Enter the Clothes Horse
.

Mandy, leading Dan the Man, came and stood by my side. She slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. I gave her an encouraging squeeze back. We watched. We couldn’t hear what they were saying across the way, it was all conducted in urgent whispers, but the finger-pointing gave us an indication that things had not started well.

‘Jockeying for position,’ I said.

Then they split and returned to their respective sides. Bar Geordie, of course, who stayed where he was, puffing quietly on his cigar, keeping his own counsel. Once he nodded across at Mandy, but when she ignored him he did not look in her direction again. After five minutes Jimmy walked back across to Geordie. A minute later the Chinese joined them and they began another session.

‘How can he even talk to those scumbags?’ Mandy whispered.

‘Who’re we talking about here?’ I murmured back.

‘Stop it. You know what I mean.’

‘As Michael Corleone would say, it’s just business.’