The Wild Boy and Queen Moon (3 page)

Perhaps Anthony realized that he had been found wanting, for he showed no sign of wanting to stop and gloat over his new acquisition, but turned to go.

‘You have to look after him,’ Sandy said anxiously. ‘You’ll come up in the morning to feed him and exercise him?’

‘I’ll probably find a better place tomorrow. Yes, I’ll be back.’

He departed without a word of thanks.

‘I don’t believe it! That anyone can be so rude!’ Sandy raged. The responsibility was hers if he didn’t come. She was quite sure he knew nothing about mucking out. ‘A better place! Not for what we charge! The cheek of it!’

She was deeply insulted by the boy’s arrogance. But the horse was gorgeous.

‘You have to admit, he’s a winner,’ Leo sighed. ‘Don’t send him away!’

Leo thirsted to have lovely things in her life. Her pony was a scrawny little roan gelding called Puffin which she adored, because he was a goer and honest and wanted to please, but he was no looker. Her parents could not afford the likes of
Big
Gun from Minnesota, could hardly afford the modest livery charged at Drakesend, but they approved of Leo’s interest and had scraped to buy her Puffin. She knew when she was well off, but she couldn’t help her dreams.

They gave the new horse a feed from their own store, and then escaped before their liveries came back, pleased to think how amazed they would be when they saw the handsome new head looking over the corner door. King of the Fireworks and Empress of China seemed to have taken to each other and, just managing to touch noses, were whickering lovingly at each other.

‘All these names!’ Leo said. ‘King of this and Empress of that. Let’s call ours King George and Prince Puffin.’

‘Baron Blackie and Sir Surprise!’

‘D – d – Doctor Dodo—’

‘
Duke
Dodo.’

They could feel the giggles rising. Leo fetched her bike.

‘Goodnight, Lady Leo.’ Sandy bowed deeply.

‘Goodbye, Senorita Sandy.’

Sandy went indoors. The Fieldings lived mainly in their kitchen, which was large and warm, with a lobby full of muddy gumboots, old jackets and dog baskets. Her father, Bill, wasn’t in yet; Ian had been and gone. Mary Fielding was looking in the oven.

Sandy told her about Anthony Speerwell.

‘He’s absolutely horrid. But it’s only for one night.’

‘They’re not into horses that I know of. Fast cars and big dinner parties is what I’ve heard.’

‘It’s a gorgeous horse. He kept saying it’s only till he finds something better.’

‘There’s nowhere better,’ Mary Fielding said staunchly. ‘More expensive, perhaps.’

‘There’s nowhere else at all, unless he goes miles.’

It was a remote area. There was no hunting, and the scattered population was not heavily into horses. There was a Pony Club but rather far away, a dealer’s yard, and one riding school with quiet hacks.

‘It’s a pity he’s horrid,’ Sandy said, and went into a dream about Anthony Speerwell being as gorgeous as his horse, and after a few years falling passionately in love with her and taking her to live at beautiful Brankhead Hall, while his mother removed herself to a Marks and Spencer part of the world.

Sandy went into dreams quite a lot. Much as she adored George, a fat skewbald of thirteen and a half hands (the sort, as Leo pointed out, that was more often to be found on a tether at the side of a road), she hankered after a pony that would win at shows and move like a dancer and turn on its hocks at a touch of the heel. A pony that would cause people to stare and envy, and
who
would put its trust in her completely, do anything for her, greet her with a loving whinny. George greeted her with a whinny but only if she had a food bucket with her.

Both she and Leo were getting big for George and Puffin now. Neither of their fathers sounded as if they were going to shell out for new ponies, quite understandably, as they seemed to find it hard to pay for boring necessities like blazers and shoes and a hockey stick, not to mention a new car. Sandy knew better than to mention it. She knew she was lucky. But the Julia Marsdens of this world . . . ! Sandy knew that her remark in the school bus had been provoked by jealousy, and felt ashamed. Julia had everything and hated it. What was there to be jealous of?

Disturbed, Sandy went upstairs to her room. Sometimes it was hard to know what she wanted – this great, strange, throat-lumpy feeling of longing and longing for she knew not what would take her up and make her head spin: as if she was drifting through outer space amongst the galaxies that were so far away they were a mere blur of paleness in the sky, not even proper stars. Sometimes she wondered why she was Sandy – who had arranged it? – that she should have been born at Drakesend, instead of in Bombay or Japan or Tierra del Fuego. Why did Ian, too, want what he couldn’t have, while Duncan, the boy who did the cows, said he would give his right arm to
be
Ian and have his own farm to inherit? Who arranged all that so badly? God? And why did they have wishes at all, when they were loved and fed and happy, and millions were starving and dying and didn’t have so much as a string vest let alone a pony? Why was Anthony Speerwell so horrid when he had everything a rich boy could desire? Why was her sister Josie so happy when she lived in a house without electricity and a lavatory down the garden and had a baby she hadn’t meant to? (Actually, there was an answer to that one: she was in love and lived with her lover, Glynn, who laughed a lot and loved her back.)

Nobody knew Sandy had funny thoughts like this: she was known as ‘stolid’ (not an uplifting word) and unimaginative. She got jobs at school like clearing up sick because she wasn’t squeamish and she didn’t complain. She was said to be dependable. They liked her. She was boring, she thought. They didn’t like Julia, but Julia was spirited and pretty and temperamental, not
stolid
. They liked Leo but found her confusing because she was quirky and too clever and sometimes malicious in her teasing way; they were never sure of her, like they were with boring Sandy.

So Sandy, not pleased with herself, gazed out of her bedroom window in the darkness and saw the beautiful scene she was so used to that she really never took it in: the marsh fields seamed with ditches lying like silver threads, and the river
winding
like a silver serpent in the moonlight.

And on the sea-wall, lit by the moon and the stars, a boy on a pale grey horse galloping, silhouetted against the glittering river.

Sandy sucked in her breath, staring – the Wild Boy! The rider no-one had seen close to, no-one had spoken to, no-one knew about . . . the boy who rode at night. As she watched, he turned the horse and came down the wall in one bound and headed for the lane where Julia had ridden earlier, the lane that came up close to the farm and past Flirtie Gertie’s. If she were to go down now, run, she might see him at the corner of the lane, coming up from the river.

Sandy ran. She jumped down the stairs three at a time and ran down the passage and through the kitchen, where her father was just coming in.

‘Whatever—?’

But Sandy shoved past and out of the door. She ran as if she were being chased, as fast as she could, past the back of the stables and down the farm drive towards its junction with the lane. She heard the hooves coming up the lane, still galloping, and ran till her heart nearly burst, but all she saw was the tail of the grey horse passing and the silver glint of its flying shoes. There was a slim boy bareback, leaning forward, with black hair flying, and no saddle, and only a rope for a rein: that much Sandy saw, but no more. The
horse
was gone and the thudding of its hooves receded into the silent autumn night.

There was a mist curling up slowly over the water-meadows and nothing moved again, only a heron kraaked from the reeds, and Sandy walked slowly home.

‘HURRY UP, JULIA!
You’re number ninety-four, and eighty-five is just going in now – you’ve got to warm him up!’

It was always a rush, getting home from school, boxing up and getting frustrated in the rush-hour traffic on the way to the Equestrian Centre . . . trying not to forget anything. Once she had forgotten her jodhpurs. Julia scowled as she pulled up Minnie’s girths.

‘He doesn’t need warming up. He needs cooling down!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Julia’s mother was a hyperactive, leathery lady in her forties who drove her family with passion to achieve the heights in the sport she had once excelled in herself. A bad accident had stopped her riding several years ago but hadn’t stopped her drive. She held the dancing Minnie’s head while Julia mounted.

‘It’s your attitude that’s wrong, Julia,’ her mother snapped.

Julia was perfectly well aware of this. As she rode out of the horsebox area through the big doors into the collecting-ring, she was also perfectly well aware of the spectators’ eyes fastening on her entry: Julia Marsden on Big Gun from Minnesota, the one they all had to beat. The big tan-bark indoor ring was occupied by the next ten or so ponies to go, warming up, taking turns over the practice jump. Julia knew them all well, and knew she had only one to fear – a boy called Peter Farmer on a strongly bitted grey gelding called Spaceman. His father had put the practice bar up to a ridiculous height and Spaceman was flicking over it contemptuously.

Julia despised such ritual as showing-off. Father Farmer was an unpleasant goader, interested only in winning (rather like her own mother). Peter was all right, but a bit thick. Julia was not friendly with many of her fellow competitors and knew they thought she was stuck-up too, like the people at school. She rode round miserably, putting Minnie through his beautiful paces, circling in both directions, slowing and quickening, and the spectators leaned over the wall and admired her cool, her professionalism.

It was a cold evening. The ponies’ breath smoked in the hangar-like indoor school and the lights glared harshly. From the adjoining arena where the competition was taking place came the familiar frantic thud of hooves, the
occasional
hollow booming of a falling pole, and the sporadic applause. The usual group of parents and hangers-on clustered round the entrance between the ring proper and the collecting-ring, criticizing and gossiping.

Just as Julia was riding past this group, a competitor came out. The round had been audibly unsuccessful and Julia looked to see who had wrought such disaster on the ring. It was no-one she knew, a slightly too large boy on a sweating bay pony. Not unusually, the parents went to meet him and give him a dressing-down.

‘She’s useless! The knackers’ is all she’s any good for!’ he shouted at them angrily.

‘We paid enough money for it!’ they screeched back.

Julia had heard it all before, but this time was struck by the demeanour of the bay pony. In its eyes she saw all the misery she was feeling herself – in fact, far more. She had never seen such utter dejection and bewilderment in a pony’s expression. It stood head down, trembling, its tail clamped down like a starving dog’s.

Julia half pulled up and the little mare lifted her head, looked at Julia and gave a pathetic little whinny. Its rider, having dismounted, chucked it in the mouth.

‘Pig!’ Julia hissed.

Whether the boy heard or not, she didn’t know. She rode on, disturbed, thrown by the funny little
whinny
. Ponies didn’t whinny like that except for a missing companion, or a food bucket. Perhaps I am the missing companion, Julia thought, with an extraordinary, emotional feeling of empathy towards the ill-treated mare. We both hate it, matie; we’re made for each other, Julia thought. What if she asked her mother to buy it? Sell the brutish Minnie and buy her the bay mare? Julia was so excited by this thought that she forgot all about her practice jump and heard her number called before she had even asked Minnie for a canter.

‘Are you fast asleep?’ her mother shouted at her angrily.

‘Oh, go and drown yourself!’ Julia shrieked.

She swung Minnie round and rode into the arena. She did two circles at a canter, trying to pull herself together. The course was difficult, the jumps all at angles with lots of sharp turns and awkward distances. She had walked it with her mother earlier and paced out the strides, and her mother had told her exactly how to ride it, but now it all seemed to have gone out of her head. She had a job to find the first jump.

Minnie was bombing underneath her as usual. The bell went to start and she rode down towards a brush and bar and jumped that easily, then on to some rails and then a funny thing that looked like a wall with a pergola over the top. Minnie jumped it so big that Julia nearly hit her head on the archway. Then he took off at a gallop and,
by
the time she had got him back, they came to a double spread all wrong. Minnie, being the ace he was, put himself right and jumped it well, but then Julia found herself at the top of the arena with a choice of jumps, one to the left and one to the right, and she had no idea which way to go. She chose the one that Minnie, she could feel, was fancying himself but no sooner had they landed than the bell went for wrong course and she was eliminated.