The Wild Boy and Queen Moon (10 page)

‘Tell me, Miss Marlow,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Miss Mar
lin
,’ Polly corrected him. ‘As in spike.’

He grinned. ‘Very appropriate.’

‘Yes. What you should do,’ Polly said very pointedly, speaking as if to an infant, ‘is learn to ride properly.’

‘Like you, I suppose?’ he said insolently.

‘Yes.’

There was a long silence. They stared at each other. Sandy could sense decisions being taken, and realized, with both amazement and relief, that Sneerwell was actually digesting Polly’s criticism. His thick, thick skin was showing cracks. It had taken long enough.

‘Four months you’ve had that horse, and you
haven
’t yet jumped it successfully in the paddock, let alone across country. Even Sandy here could get him over these schooling jumps.’

Afterwards, Sandy felt somewhat grieved about the ‘even Sandy’, but at the time she was too pop-eyed at the course the conversation was taking. Sneerwell slumped in his saddle and looked quite pathetic.

‘Get off,’ Polly said.

He obeyed. Polly climbed the fence, hopped up on King of the Fireworks and shortened her stirrups. She had never ridden him before. Sandy saw the horse come together in his lovely noble fashion, prick his ears and paw the ground to go. Polly rode him away at a lovely gliding trot, beautifully on the bit, light as a feather. After three circuits she turned him towards the rails that Sneerwell had been trying to jump and popped him over without any effort or fuss. He never once looked like jibbing or refusing, and jumped with a lovely arch and obvious pleasure. Polly rode back to the fence.

‘Your aunt knew what she was doing. This horse is an absolute saint. They come like this once in a blue moon. You, even you, Anthony Speerwell, could learn to ride this horse cross-country if you take lessons.’

‘From you, I suppose? Well, I do need the money,’ he said. ‘I really do.’

‘What’s this deal then? Your aunt left you
something
in her will if you got round a team-chase course?’

‘She left me the horse. This on the strength of my staying with her a few times when I was little. She got me a pony and I used to gallop about and she said she hoped I would be a great horseman. Then I didn’t see her for years, did I? And she died. I got this horse delivered to me along with a great spiel from her solicitor, saying that she wanted me to carry on the horse tradition in the family and if I took King of the Fireworks team-chasing successfully then that would be proof that I was worth her faith in me and she would leave me all the family silver. This is worth about seventy thousand quid apparently. My parents say she’s raving mad, but the solicitor says it’s a perfectly legal and watertight arrangement. I have three years in which to do it.’

‘Have you got to win? How many have you got to win?’

‘No. Just be in a team, she said, and complete the course. Five times.’

Polly’s eyes gleamed. ‘Why didn’t you say all this before? Of course you can do it! If you
learn
, that is! Heavens above, Tony Speerwell, what an offer! You can’t fail with a horse like Fireworks! We’ve got the makings of a team from this stable – you and me and Julia – we only want one more . . . If you really want this, you can’t fail!’

‘I thought it would be easy, but—’

‘Why the hell didn’t you say all this weeks ago, instead of poncing about telling everyone you could ride?’

‘I can ride!’

‘Rubbish. You’re hopeless. But I’ll teach you, if you want. I’ll teach you to ride!’

Polly positively vibrated with excitement. Sandy watched the two of them, fascinated by seeing Polly’s will acting on Speerwell’s arrogance. His realization at last that he needed help to win his fortune was very hard for him to accept. The struggle showed as he glared at Polly. Nobody had told him to his face that he was hopeless before.

‘Look, if you want it, you’ll learn,’ Polly said. ‘But only if you accept right at the start that you don’t know anything. The only thing you’ve got going for you is good natural balance, and that is a very good bonus. Apart from that, you’re hopeless. You’ve got to acknowledge it.’

‘If I can’t ride, how do I know you can teach?’

‘You take my word for it. If I can’t get you jumping round this paddock by the end of the month, I’ll – I’ll—’ Words failed her. ‘I just will. You can start now, if you like.’

A long, long silence.

Then, ‘All right,’ said Anthony Speerwell.

‘I don’t believe it!’ said Leo.

‘It’s true. I was there. I saw it happen.’

‘And Polly said we could make a team from here?’

‘She said her and Fireworks and Julia and one other.’

‘Who’s the one other?’

Sandy had rather wondered that.

Leo said, ‘Empress of China would do it if she had the right rider.’

They both rode Empress of China. Sandy didn’t say anything, but noticed that Leo looked suspiciously vacant. Did she have ambitions? They were both growing out of their ponies fast.

‘Julia could ride Empress,’ she said. ‘Faithful’s too small for team-chasing.’

‘Faithful can jump anything.’

‘Team-chasers have to be fourteen two.’

‘Perhaps Jonas would come!’

They went into a trance, gazing into the distance. Jonas now acknowledged them when they met – a quick nod of the head, no words, no smile. He hadn’t been arrested for stealing Gertie’s money. No-one had. The police had found no clues to go on.

‘She’s coming home tomorrow.’

Gertie was coming to stay at Drakesend until she felt fit to go back to her cottage. Against her better judgement, Mary Fielding had offered the old girl a home. Sandy and Ian dreaded it, and Sandy felt bad about dreading it, but it made no difference – she just did. She thought her
mother
and father rather dreaded it too, but they didn’t admit to it. Grandpa drove them potty at times but he was their own and they were used to him, whereas Gertie . . . she wasn’t a quiet, smiling old thing sitting in a corner knitting, but a shrewish, waspish, talkative, fidgety, gossipy old bore.

Nobody could quite foresee how Grandpa would take it. The two of them! Sandy groaned. She still worried about Duncan and the penknife and not telling anybody, and about the fact that she had lost – lost? – another thirty pounds that Stick and Ball had given her for their rent. She had put it in her anorak pocket and hung her anorak in the tackroom while she groomed King of the Fireworks. In the evening when she had looked for the money it had gone. People had been in and out all the evening, as usual; the pocket was zipped up and the money couldn’t have fallen out. She hadn’t told anyone this time, except Leo, and her father thought she had used the money to buy feed – he was a bit lax about her accounts and left her to make her own ‘money-book’. For some reason she could not explain, she did not want to tell her parents. She was frightened of who it might be, afraid that she might be badly hurt in the discovery. Her world was close and good, and she didn’t want anything spoiled. But the loss haunted her.

‘It was my fault. I should have put it in my jods. But I never thought it would happen again.’

‘We’ll have to set a trap,’ Leo said, ‘and watch.’ She was vague as to the details.

‘Do you think it’s the same person that pinched Gertie’s money?’

‘Yes,’ said Leo.

‘That was wicked.’

‘So is taking money from someone who trusts you.’

Sandy did not want to think about it. It was very nasty. If anything happened again, she would have to tell her parents. But her livery venture was a success so far, one of the few successes around lately, and she did not want to add to her father’s woes. He was proud of the stable and told everyone how hard she worked and what a good little businesswoman she was. It was nice to be respected. If Anthony Speerwell was really going to turn over a new leaf that would be a great bonus, and if they made up a team from the stable . . . who could tell where success would take them? Everyone needed dreams.

The next day Gertie came home.

She appropriated Grandpa’s chair beside the kitchen fire and started a long rambling diatribe about life in hospital. She said the same things over and over again. Grandpa came in and wanted his chair, but Mary Fielding tactfully deflected him into Bill’s chair and said she would bring Gertie’s own chair up from her cottage tomorrow
and
he could have his chair back then. The only good thing about Gertie was that she was now sparkling clean and smelled of soap and talcum powder – a great improvement.

‘That bang on the ’ead not done ’er any good as far as I can see,’ Grandpa said loudly. ‘Take more than that to shut ’er up.’

‘Hush, Dad. That’s not kind.’

‘I never said she could ’ave my chair.’

‘Just for tonight.’

After supper, Gertie wanted a game show on television. Ian wanted his favourite sports report. Grandpa got his chair back by moving smartly from the supper table, and Gertie said the Fieldings had never had any manners and she remembered when old Herbert Fielding had farted in church during the Easter communion. Grandpa said she was a one to talk: he could remember her dropping her drawers to show the boys at a halfpenny a time behind the school coalshed—

‘Oh, shut up!’ Mary Fielding hissed furiously, crashing the dishes into the sink. She turned the television up.

Ian ran out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. Sandy followed him and found him in the sitting-room which was only used at Christmas, huddled over the faintly warm storage heater. It was dark and she had a terrible shock when she saw that he was crying.

‘I can’t stand this place! I can’t stand it!’

Sandy, for once, could not find it in her heart to criticize him. She stared out of the uncurtained window, pretending she hadn’t noticed his tears, and said blankly, ‘It’ll improve. Mum’ll sort it out. It’s only until she’s better enough to go back to her cottage.’

‘Grandpa’s just as bad!’

‘You mustn’t take any notice.’

It was true that Grandpa was always telling Ian how young boys today had it made, were mollycoddled . . . ‘When I was lad I was out to work when I was eleven, hoeing turnips.’ Grandpa didn’t think a boy should work at his books. Cissy stuff. But Ian was strangely uptight these days. Sandy had a sudden horrendous thought that
he
might have taken her thirty pounds. He had come in the yard that night, she remembered suddenly, to get some binder twine. She felt all her insides go cold. She could not take this! Not after thinking about Duncan too.

‘I’ve had thirty pounds stolen, out of the tackroom. My livery money. I haven’t told Mum and Dad, but I don’t know what to do.’ She turned round and faced him. Neither of them had put the light on, but the room was filled with the cold moonlight of the February night. She saw Ian lift his head up from the storage heater.

‘You should tell them,’ he said.

She felt better then.

‘It’s horrible. You suspect everyone. After Gertie as well.’

He shrugged. ‘Everyone I know is short of cash. If you leave it lying about, what do you expect?’

Sandy was shocked. ‘Why? You wouldn’t, would you?’

‘No. I wouldn’t. But I know a lot that would.’

Who, Sandy wondered? But the icy fear of suspecting Ian had left her. How foul it was that this person’s offence polluted normal thinking – that she could have sprung to such a suspicion!

‘It’s hateful when you feel it must be someone you know.’

Ian blew his nose, his self-pity deflected.

Sandy switched the subject. ‘I suppose we could come here, away from
them
, if we light a fire.’

‘There’s no telly in here.’

‘Perhaps we could get one of our own.’ Julia Marsden had her own in her bedroom, Sandy remembered.

It was a long time since she had spoken agreeably with Ian. He did have problems, she supposed. More than she did.

‘I’ll ask Julia if she’s got a spare. They seem to have two of everything at hers. Dishwasher, jacuzzi, yard-sweeper, electric groomer – she’s got her own video recorder as well as TV.’

‘I can’t think why she keeps her pony here.’

‘She likes us!’ Julia was getting too friendly
with
Leo, and had a crush on Anthony Speerwell. Sandy could never work out how well she liked her. She was a prickly girl, quick to take offence, but she worked hard and helped.

The house was freezing in February, but Mary Fielding agreed that to keep the peace there should be two living-rooms. The tractor was despatched up to the woods to bring home fallen timber for the sitting-room fire. She bought a portable television in a jumble sale and gave it to Ian. It had a ten-inch screen, but he didn’t complain. Grandpa and Gertie sat on in the kitchen, arguing and shouting at each other or else silently digesting soap opera and late-night sex discussions. Bill and Mary Fielding, divorced from the television, took up reading and tapestry respectively and found that they enjoyed their evenings more. Bill usually fell asleep, whatever he was doing.

By the end of the month Polly had taught Tony – now that he had come to heel he was called Tony instead of Sneerwell – to get King of the Fireworks round the little jumping course in the schooling field. She had taught him to sit properly, use his hands properly, go forward with the horse and leave the horse’s head free over the jump. Because he was ambitious and reasonably talented, Tony learned fast. It was hard for him to accept Polly’s rather abrasive teaching in spite of his determination, for his
natural
arrogance kept bobbing up, but after two or three weeks they had come to terms with each other. Tony’s pride became a lever for Polly, her derision steeling him to ‘show her’.

‘It’s unbelievable – the improvement.’ Julia was impressed. ‘He really will be able to do a hunter trials in the spring at this rate. Perhaps I’ll take Faithful, too.’

The competition fever was infectious: Sandy longed to have a pony that would do cross-country. George wasn’t a bad jumper but he stopped dead at anything he didn’t like the look of. He was very sensible. He hated water and ditches. And even his fastest gallop put him on the limit of ‘time allowed’. Besides which, Sandy’s heels came almost down to his knees.