The Horse Dancer Read online

  The grey mare would be safe for a few weeks more. Safe at Cowboy John's.

  'I had a nicker on that!' Ralph was yelling, face flushed, grabbing at her school blazer. 'Come on! Sal said if he won he'd buy us all breakfast when we get back to the yard.'

  Papa was there when she returned after school. He was in Boo's stable, bending and dipping as he brought a mirrored shine to the horse's quarters. Sarah could hear his fierce breathing even before she saw him, and saw the T of sweat along his carefully pressed shirt before he turned; Papa did nothing if he couldn't do it properly. It was all those years of military training.

  As she entered the arches, Cowboy John was leaning against his stable door, drinking a mug of varnish-coloured tea. He never seemed to put much effort into anything but somehow the yard always got done. 'Circus Girl's here,' he observed, and Ralph, leaning on the rump of a slab-headed black-and-white cob, winked at her.

  'Bus was late,' she said, resting her bag on a bale of hay.

  'She forgot her tutu,' said Cowboy John.

  'You got your maths test back yet?' Papa asked.

  'Twelve out of twenty.' Sarah waved the book, hoping he wouldn't see the tyremarks and dirt on the cover. She caught Ralph's eye; he suffered a sudden fit of coughing.

  'Did I tell you Maltese Sal bought and sold that black horse today, the one he got from the Italians over at Northolt?'

  Her grandfather rested his hand on Boo's chest, and the horse moved backwards obediently. 'The pacer?' he asked. Maltese Sal was forever buying and selling trotting horses.

  Cowboy John nodded. 'Man came to pick it up this afternoon.'

  'He'll be lucky to get that horse out of a walk,' said Ralph. 'Runs like a bow-legged cowboy in stilettos.'

  'Way he sold it, it was Bucephalus.' Cowboy John mimed the shaking of his head. 'Horse came out of its stable like it was ready for the Kentucky Derby.'

  'But how--' Sarah began.

  'He stuck a marble in its ear,' interrupted Ralph.

  Cowboy John hit the boy with his hat. 'You been listening in on me?'

  'You've told everyone who came past this morning,' Ralph protested.

  'That horse came out shaking his head something wild. Money he got for it, he bought two more. They're coming Saturday. Both for racing.'

  Sarah knew Papa disapproved of the old dealers' tricks. He was pretending not to listen.

  Ralph removed a piece of gum from his mouth and stuck it on his stable door. 'Do you remember when you sold that old palomino to the Italian bloke over on the marshes and stuck a piece of ginger in its arse to liven it up?'

  Cowboy John's hat shot out again. 'I didn't know how it got in there!' he insisted. 'There was nothing wrong with that horse. Nothing. You kids are slandering me. You're lucky I even let you stay in this yard, the badmouthing I get from you. You should be at school. Why the Sam Hill you never go to school . . .' He stalked off towards the gates, muttering to himself, breaking off to yell at a middle-aged redhead walking past the gates. 'Mrs Parry! Was that you I saw on television last night?' The woman continued walking. He removed his hat and waved it for her attention, as he stood beside the gates. 'It was! I knew it was you!'

  She checked her speed, turned her head a little, perplexed.

  Ralph groaned.

  'On Britain's Next Top Model! There - see? You're smiling. I knew it was you. You want to buy some eggs? I got some beautiful avocados too. A whole tray of 'em, if you like. No? You come back soon, you hear? When that modelling contract's finished.'

  He was grinning when he came back to the railway arch. 'That Mrs Parry from the post office, she is fiiine.' He dragged out the word in appreciation. 'If she was twenty years younger . . .'

  '. . . she could hand you your Zimmer frame,' said Ralph.

  Papa didn't say anything. He was brushing again, hard, brisk strokes: every so often Boo had to brace himself against the pressure.

  Cowboy John took another swig of his tea.

  Sarah loved afternoons like this, when the horses stood sleepily in the sunshine, and the men traded good-natured insults. Here, Nana didn't feel like a gaping absence. This was where she fitted in.

  'Girl, I keep telling your grandpa. This is why he ain't never going to get himself a new girlfriend. Look at that!' She followed his gaze to where Papa's brush swept briskly down Boo's gleaming flank. Cowboy John held out his hands and slid them dreamily to one side, winking at her. 'I tell you, Capitaine, women like a slow hand, gentle treatment.'

  Papa looked balefully at him, then returned to his task.

  'And there was me thinking the French were meant to be great lovers,' said Cowboy John.

  Her grandfather shrugged, banging the dust from his brush. 'John, if you cannot yet tell the difference between loving and grooming, it is no wonder your horses look so confused.'

  The boys hooted. Sarah smirked, even though she knew she was not meant to grasp the joke, then straightened her face when Papa told her to run for her hat.

  The sun was sinking, edging low towards the railway bridge and the flyover beyond. Rush-hour was under way, and around the park queues of traffic waited, the drivers briefly diverted by what they could see on the grass.

  Sarah didn't notice them. Papa stood beside her, his arms outstretched, helping to build the contained energy that would propel Boo upwards. 'Sit up straight,' he murmured. 'It's all from the seat, Sarah. Keep your leg on . . . but still, still, ride him from the seat, comme ca.'

  She was sweating with effort. She could see Papa's whip out of the corner of her left eye - it never touched Boo's fine bay coat - could feel the power building beneath her. She sat as still as she could, her legs resting lightly against his sides, eyes looking straight through his pointed ears. 'Non,' he said again. 'Forward. Let him go forward. Now try again.'

  They had been working on piaffe for almost forty minutes, and the sweat had stuck her school shirt to her back, the sun beating down on her hot head. Forwards at a trot, then halt, then trot again, trying to build up the energy so that he would trot on the spot, the rhythmic gait that would be the starting point for the more elaborate moves - which Papa had told her repeatedly she was not yet good enough to progress to.

  Some months ago, when she had begged, he had shown her from the ground how Boo could be persuaded to levade, balancing on his hind legs, as if rearing, and she was desperate to try the movements that would bring him off the ground - the courbette, the capriole - from atop him. But Papa would not let her. Groundwork, again and again and again. Certainly no levade in a public park with people watching. What was she trying to do? Tell Boo he was a circus horse? She knew he was right but sometimes it was so boring. Like being stuck in the starting gates for ever.

  'Can we break for a bit? I'm so hot.'

  'How are you going to achieve if you don't practise? No. Continue. He's getting it.'

  She thrust her lower lip forward in mute protest. There was no point in arguing with Papa, but she felt as though they had been doing this same thing for hours. She thought of the little grey mare that morning. At least she had got to go somewhere.

  'Papa--'

  'Concentrate! Stop talking and focus on your horse.'

  Two children ran by, one shouting, 'Ride him, cowboy!' She kept her gaze between Boo's ears. The narrow gap between them was slick with sweat.

  'And forwards. Reward him.' She allowed the horse to move forwards, then half halted again, attempting to bring him back with a shifting of weight, the gentlest pressure on the reins.

  'Non! You are tipping forwards again.'

  She collapsed on to the horse's neck, letting out a wail. 'I'm not!'

  'You are sending him conflicting signals,' said Papa, his face creased with frustration. 'How can he understand if your legs tell him one thing and your seat the opposite?'

  She bit her lip. Why are we doing this? she wanted to shout. I'm never going to be good enough for what you want. This is just stupid.

  'Sarah - concentrate.'

&
nbsp; 'I am concentrating. He's too hot and bothered. He's not listening to me any more.'

  'He knows you don't listen to me. That is why he doesn't listen to you.'

  It was always her. Never the horse.

  'You sit there comme ca, you are teaching him not to listen.'

  She was too hot. 'Fine,' she said, throwing her reins into one hand, and sliding off. 'If I'm so useless, you do it.'

  She stood on the hard ground, stunned at her own defiance. She rarely contradicted Papa.

  He glared at her, his eyes burning so that, like a disgraced dog, she found hers dropping to her feet.

  'Je m'excuse,' he said abruptly.

  She waited, unsure what he was going to do. But he walked briskly to Boo's side and, with a slight grunt of effort, placed his left foot in the stirrup and sprang upwards, lowering himself gently on to the horse's back. Boo's ears flickered backwards; he was startled by the unfamiliar weight. Papa said nothing to her. He crossed his stirrups over the front of the saddle, so that his legs hung long and loose. Then, his back impossibly straight, his hands apparently doing nothing, he walked Boo once in a large circle, then prompted the horse into action.

  Sarah, her hand at her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun, watched as her grandfather, a man she had never seen on a horse, asked, with almost imperceptible movements, for something the horse did not know how to give, and Boo, his mouth white with foam, lifted his legs higher and higher while he moved nowhere. Sarah's breath stilled in her throat. Papa was like the men on the DVD. He did everything while seeming to do nothing. She found that her fists had clenched and thrust them into her pockets. Boo was concentrating so hard now that sweat ran in glossy rivulets down his muscled neck. Still her grandfather appeared to do nothing, while Boo's hooves beat a rhythmic tattoo on the cracked brown earth. Suddenly he switched to the rocking motion, the stationary canter of the terre a terre. And finally, out of nowhere, she heard a 'Hup!' and as she stepped back, Boo rose on his back legs, the front pair folded neatly under him, the muscles of his quarters quivering as he struggled to maintain his balance. Levade.

  Someone shouted, 'Woo-hoo!' from the pavement, and there was a collective murmur of concern from some people behind her. And then he was down. And Papa was swinging his leg over the back of the saddle, the only sign of his exertion the dark shadows on his blue shirt.

  He murmured something to the horse, running a hand slowly down his neck, thanking him, then handed her the reins. She wanted to ask how he had done it, why he no longer rode if he could ride like that. But he spoke before she could work out what to say.

  'He's trying too hard,' he said dismissively. 'He's too tense. We must take him back a stage so that he worries less about his balance.'

  A group of women were sitting on the grass, watching from a safe distance. They were eating ice lollies, their skirts above their knees, revealing sunburnt legs.

  'Do it again,' one called.

  Sarah was still a little stunned by what she had seen. 'Do you want me to keep trying?' she asked.

  Papa ran his hand down Boo's neck. 'No,' he said quietly. Then he rubbed his own face, his hand coming away slick with sweat. 'No. He's tired.' She let out the reins and Boo stretched his neck gratefully.

  'Mount up. We'll walk home,' he said.

  'There's an ice-cream van over there,' she said hopefully, but he didn't seem to hear her.

  'Don't feel too bad,' he said, as he walked. 'Sometimes . . . sometimes I ask too much. He is young . . . you are young . . .' He touched her hand, and Sarah realised that that was as close an admission as she would get that he had been wrong.

  They walked once round the perimeter of the park to allow Boo's muscles to stretch and relax, then headed down the footpath to the park gates. Papa was apparently lost in thought, and Sarah didn't know what to say. She kept seeing her grandfather riding. He had looked like someone she had never seen before. Papa had been one of the youngest riders at Le Cadre Noir, she knew. Her nana had told her that only twenty-two were allowed to wear the black uniform with the gold braid that marked them out as masters of their art. Most had already represented their country at international level - in dressage, cross-country or show-jumping - but Papa had done it the hard way: he had risen up through the ranks of cavalry until finally the son of a peasant farmer from Toulon had been accepted, as one of the elite, into the classical school.

  When she had first seen him, Nana had told Sarah, gazing at the photograph of them together, she had thought him so handsome on his horse that her heart had stalled and she had thought she might faint. She didn't even like horses, but she had travelled to watch him every day, standing at the front of the public auditorium, lost in contemplation of the man who was himself lost in concentration of something she couldn't understand.

  That was what Nana saw, Sarah thought, remembering how he had seemed just to sit there, and Boo had understood, as if by telepathy, what he was being asked for. She had seen magic.

  With a nod and a wave to the gateman, who never minded them, they walked up the road towards home, Boo's hooves clattering on the tarmac, his legs moving heavily.

  Finally, as they crossed the main road towards the stables, Papa broke the silence. 'John told me he is thinking of selling up.'

  He only referred to John by his name, rather than as 'the mad cowboy', if it was serious. 'But where would we put Boo?' she asked.

  'He says we don't have to go anywhere else. The yard is to be sold as a going concern.'

  Barely a month went by when Cowboy John wasn't offered money to move out of the yard, sometimes vast amounts, sums that made him giggle they were so ridiculous. He had always refused, asked the would-be buyer to explain where he was meant to put his horses, his cats, his hens.

  Papa shook his head. 'He says someone close by is interested, and that nothing will change. I don't like it.' He paused to wipe his face, seeming distracted. 'We got the eggs, eh?'

  'I told you we did, Papa. They're at the yard.'

  'It's this heat,' he said. His collar was dark with sweat. If anything, it was worse than it had been when he was riding. He reached up to the horse's neck as if for support, and ran a hand along his mane, murmuring to him.

  When she thought back, she decided she should have noticed then how his mood changed, how he failed to correct Boo when he wouldn't stand quietly at the kerb - he always insisted that a horse stood four-square and quiet when told to halt. Two lorries drove past and the driver of one made a rude gesture. Papa had his back to her so she returned it. Some men liked to believe that girls rode horses for the wrong reasons.

  They crossed into the quieter streets, the chestnut trees offering welcome shade. Boo stretched out, pushing at her grandfather's back, as if for attention, but Papa didn't seem to feel it. He rubbed his face again, then his arm. 'Omelette tonight,' he said. 'Omelette aux fines herbes.'

  'I'll do it,' Sarah said. They were crossing the road that led back to the yard, and she held up a hand to thank the driver who had slowed for them. 'We could have a salad too.'

  Then Papa let go of the rein he had been holding. 'You take . . . egg,' he said, and screwed up his eyes.

  'What?'

  But he wasn't listening to her. 'Time to sit . . .'

  'Papa?' She glanced at the waiting car. They were still in the middle of the road.

  'All gone,' he murmured.

  She couldn't work out what he was doing.

  'Papa,' she cried, 'we need to get across.'

  Boo was fussing, his hooves kicking up sparks on the cobbles, his head jerking back. In front, Sarah's grandfather began to sit down, as if he was folding himself on to a bed, his body angled slightly to one side. The man in the car sounded his horn once, impatiently, then seemed to grasp something was wrong and peered through the windscreen.

  Everything slowed down around Sarah. She threw herself off the horse, landing lightly on her feet. 'Papa!' she yelled, pulling at his arm as she hung on to the reins.

  His eyes cl
osed, and he seemed to be thinking hard about something going on deep inside his head so that he couldn't hear her, no matter how loudly she shouted. His face had sagged on one side, as if someone was pulling it, and this strange crumpling in a man she had only ever known as held together and contained frightened her.

  'Papa! Get up!' The shouting made Boo dance and pull against her.

  'He all right?' someone bellowed from across the road.

  He wasn't. She could see he wasn't.

  Then, as the man climbed out of the car and walked briskly to her grandfather's side, she clung to the wheeling horse and shrieked, her voice shrill with fear: 'John! John! Help me!' The last thing she remembered was Cowboy John, his normal saunter vanished as he took in the sight in front of him, shouting something she couldn't hear as he ran stiffly down the road towards her.

  The cleaner moved slowly up the linoleum, the twin brushes of his polisher humming efficiently. Cowboy John sat on the hard plastic seat beside the girl and checked his watch for the forty-seventh time. Almost four hours, they had sat here now. Four hours, and only one nurse stopping by to make sure Sarah was okay.

  He should have been back at the yard by now. The animals would be hungry, and he had been forced to lock the gates, so likely tomorrow he'd be getting seven shades of hell from Maltese Sal and the kids about not being able to get in.

  But he couldn't leave her. She was just a kid herself, for Chrissakes. She was sitting very still, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her bleached face a mask of intense concentration, as if she was willing the old man to be well again. 'You okay there?' he asked. 'You want me to get you a coffee?'

  The cleaner passed them slowly. He allowed himself a brief glance at Cowboy John's hat, then headed steadily for the cardiac ward.

  'Nope,' she said, then added quietly, 'Thank you.'

  'He'll be okay,' he said, for the tenth time. 'Your grandpa's tough as old boots. You know that.'

  She nodded, but without conviction.

  'I bet you someone'll come out any minute now to tell us.'

  A slight hesitation. Then she nodded again.

  And they waited, ignored by the nurses, who whisked past in plastic aprons, listening to the distant beep and hum of machinery. John fidgeted, wanting an excuse to get up and distract himself. He couldn't get the old man's face out of his mind: the anguished, furious look in his eyes, the jaw still rigid, as he went down, clearly mortified that something like this should overtake him.