Joe

“Come closer,” I called to the young girls who’d come to the farm on a school trip. “Ava don’t bite.”

The gaggle of kids inched closer. Ava paid them no attention whatsoever and continued stripping a nearby tree of its bark, while I went on with my pre-packaged sermon on stable work. It was hard to tell who cared less: the kids, who just wanted to stroke the horses that were small enough to be cute, eat their lunch, and go home. Or me . . . who just wanted a nap.

Because, fuck, I was knackered. The escaped gelding from Crantock Beach—Buddy, apparently—had returned to his owners, but in his place had come two colts from an abandoned fairground in Swindon. Nursing the horsebox there and back and settling the weak youngsters into their stall had taken all night and most of the morning. I’d been on my way to bed when the minibus of bored tweens had shown up. Damn Emma and her bloody anxiety.

I didn’t mean that.

Ava got bored with the tree and wandered off. I clicked my tongue and Mani came to me. The children took a collective step back, and the temptation to hide behind Mani until they went away entirely was strong, but the gazes of their watchful parents were burning a hole in the side of my head, and I reluctantly coaxed Mani forward.

“This is Mani,” I said. “He’s the tallest horse here.”

“Do you ride him?” a young girl asked.

“Occasionally,” I said. “He’s quite old now, but he likes a turn around the field from time to time.”

It was a far cry from the wild rides Mani and I had grown up on—galloping along the beaches at dawn, hurling ourselves over rocks and waves, and tearing through the woods and fields, trees and fences no barriers for two young boys with energy to spare. But life was different now. Mani was old, and I was tired.

But still, the call to ride, combined with the disbelieving stares of the visiting children, prompted me to retrieve some reins from the box I’d brought out from the tack room and fasten them on Mani. I’d rarely ridden him with a saddle, or even a helmet, but I got the feeling the watching parents would do their nuts if I didn’t behave.

So I saddled Mani up and used the fence to mount him. I’d run out of words, so I turned Mani and took him on a slow loop of the paddock, easing him from a walk to a lazy trot. Beneath me, Mani’s muscles bunched, ready for his smooth canter, but I didn’t have time for that right now. “Sorry, old boy. I’ll take you out later.”

If I had time. Fuck it. I’d make time. Mani was born to gallop, even now, with his arthritic joints and knobbly knees.

Harry came out of the house as I trotted back to my starting place. He seemed taken aback to find the yard full of children, but to his credit, didn’t run screaming back inside—he was a better man than me.

He was also on my mind far more than he should’ve been since I’d convinced him to eat the Carter sausage casserole a few days ago, so I decided to have a little fun. “Hey, Harry! Come here.”

Harry moved his graceful bulk across the yard and came to the fence. “You rang?”

“I did. These lovely ladies here seem to think Mani is scary. What do you think? Pussycat, ain’t he?”

Harry glanced briefly at the gaggle of girls and then at me, his gaze as friendly as ever, but with a tinge of wickedness that I didn’t expect. “You’re a pussycat, Mr. Carter. Not sure about Mani yet.”

Wanker. I pursed my lips to contain my grin and slid off Mani. “There’s an easy way to find out. I’ve been riding Mani since I was nine years old, but Mr.—” Shit, I couldn’t remember his surname. Did he even have one? “Uh, Mr. Holistic, here, ain’t never been on a horse’s back. Think he should try now?”

The girls giggled as Harry took a step back from the fence, his eyes wide with mock horror that was likely more real than he cared to admit.

“Come on,” I goaded. “You’re as big as Mani, really. He’s probably more scared of you than you are of him.”

Mani wasn’t scared of anything and Harry knew it. He glared at me, his back to the children, and I thought for a fleeting moment that he would walk away, leaving the joke on me.

But he didn’t. He came back to the fence, laid his hands on the rail, and jumped over with a nimble grace that belied his broad frame. “If he runs off with me, I’m taking him back to London.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I beckoned him closer and brought Mani alongside him. “Stick this helmet on and put your foot on the fence.”

Harry obeyed. I fed Mani a hay cube and murmured in his ear. He ignored me entirely, which was his usual code for compliance. Mani was a wicked ride, but the rest of the time he was simply too lazy to misbehave. I patted his neck. “Atta boy.”

Then I turned to Harry. “Just grab his mane and vault up. Piece of piss—uh, I mean cake.”

“Right.” Harry took a fistful of Mani’s mane. “You sure I won’t hurt him?”

“You think I’d let you hurt my horse?”

Harry had no comeback to that. He tightened his grip on Mani’s mane and heaved himself up onto Mani’s broad back. The movement was light and easy, like I’d known it would be, and when Mani stayed stock still, staring disinterestedly into the distance, the apprehension in Harry’s face faded.

He grinned and the sunshine beating down on us was suddenly brighter. “Hey, it’s not bad up here. I can see Emma hanging the washing out at the bungalow and even the circus up the road. Who else wants to see?”

Spending an hour lifting kids on and off Mani hadn’t been in my game plan, but it seemed that Harry had got my number. He’d played me at my own game and won. And my morning was all the better for it.

The minibus departed a few hours later. Harry helped me pack up the equipment we’d used and carried the box back to the tack room while I brought Mani into his stable for some water and a light feed in the shade.

I was fussing with his mane when Harry returned. “What was all that about?”

“All what?”

Harry rubbed Mani’s neck like he’d been doing it his whole life. “Getting me up on this monster. I mean, it was fun—empowering, actually—but I didn’t think it was your MO to fuck with people’s fears.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because Emma hasn’t left the bungalow all week, and you haven’t tried to make her, even though everyone else has.”

“Toby hasn’t.”

“Toby is equal parts terrified and totally in love with her.”

“True that.” There wasn’t really room for Harry and me in the stable doorway, but somehow we made it work. His shoulder touched mine and I forgot about the long afternoon of hoof trimming that awaited me. “But to answer your question, I can’t fuck with Emma’s shit because I don’t know how. The others know trying to help her won’t work, but they do it anyway so she knows they care. I . . . I dunno. I don’t see the point in rowing with her about something she can’t change. It just makes her feel guilty.”

Harry nodded, his gaze thoughtful. “What makes you think she can’t change it?”

I looked at him properly. “What makes you think she can?”

Harry shrugged. “Experience. I work with a lot of MS patients, ME too. Many of them battle with anxiety and depression, I think much of it is because they can’t visualise their situation ever changing—that they’ll live debilitated and in constant pain forever.”

“A physical illness isn’t the same as an anxiety disorder.”

“Not exactly, but they can share a psychology. I don’t know enough about Emma’s condition to make a judgement, but don’t assume that nothing can change. Life can always be better, Joe.”

Harry punched my arm and walked away. The impact of his fist was gentle, like his words, but I felt it for the rest of the day.

* * *

It was a rare morning that I slept past dawn, but on the third Sunday that Harry was with us—because that was how I apparently measured time now—it was gone nine by the time I rolled off the couch.

I stumbled into the downstairs bathroom and then into the kitchen. The smell of bacon lingered, but there was no one around, not even Sal, which accounted for the stack of dirty plates in the sink.

Chin-deep in a mug of tea, I wandered outside. And then blinked. What the fuck? Sunday often drew visitors to the farm, and so we tried to get the stables done first thing, but all the mucking out done this early was unheard of.

Most of the horses had been turned out to the fields. I checked on the ones that remained and found their stalls spotless too. “What’s going on, eh?” I muttered to Mani, but he had no answer for me or any bright ideas about where everyone had got to.

I let him be and drifted across the yard to the tack room, noting that Harry’s car was MIA too. It wasn’t unusual for him to take my mum to the market in the week, but Sundays usually found him using the hay barn as some kind of assault course, and the realisation that he wasn’t on the farm doing just that hit me kind of strange.

Puzzled, I set to work on the mountain of overdue tack cleaning, trying not to listen out for every engine that neared the farm. And failed, obviously, because I was waiting in the yard when Harry’s car pulled up an hour later.

I opened his door before he’d turned the ignition off. “Your break discs are warped. I can hear ’em. And what the fuck is she doing in your car?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at me from the passenger seat, though it was tough for her to appear angry when her grin was a mile wide. “I heard the clunking too, so I showed him where Freddie’s place was so he can get it fixed tomorrow.”

“Freddie’s place is three miles away.”

“I know.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Emma had barely left the bungalow in weeks, but if she had the stones for helping Harry out, I had a whole fucking list of—

Harry put his hand on my arm as he got out of the car. The contact was brief, but enough to stop my inner tirade in its tracks. He found my eyes and tilted his head subtly to one side. I had no idea what he was trying to say, but figured it was something along the lines of “don’t be a dick about this.”

Easy for him to say. He hadn’t been the only one driving every man and beast around for the last fuck-knew-how-many years. Roll on Toby’s driving test—if only the little shit could pass it first time.

Harry took a box of green nonsense from the boot of the car and disappeared inside. I watched him go and then turned my attention to Emma as she got out of the car too. Not being a dick about whatever I was missing was tough, so I kept my mouth shut as she came up to me and slipped her arms around my waist.

“Don’t be cross,” she whispered. “I didn’t know I could do it until I did it, and I don’t know if I can do it again.”

Of course she could do it again. She could do anything if she’d just fucking let herself. But I didn’t say it, because what did I really know? Anger, resentment, grief—they were all my friends, but I’d been spared the debilitating anxiety that had plagued Emma for as long as I could remember. Sometimes I thought I understood, but I didn’t. How could I?

I wrapped my arms around her, seeking comfort in her slender embrace, as much as I offered it to her. “How did you end up in Captain Harry’s car?”

Emma giggled. “Don’t call him that. I know you fancy him.”

“What?”

“Come on.” Emma turned a knowing, watery gaze on me. “You’re so vile to him, it’s obvious.”

“I’m vile to everyone.”

“Not like you are to him.”

“Piss off.” I glared down at her, picturing Harry’s cut arms and kind eyes. “I don’t fancy him. I don’t fancy anyone. Dead inside, remember?”

Emma’s humour faded. “No, you’re not. None of us are. We’ve just had a bad time of it. Things can change, Joe. We don’t have to be this way.”

I heard Harry in every word and wondered just what he’d done to convince her to get in his car. Then wondered why it mattered and where the fluttering in my gut had come from. Anything that rescued Emma from her bubble of introspection was fucking awesome. So why did I feel like crying?

Emma nudged me. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just woke up weird. And alone. It was strange finding everyone gone. What’s up with that?”

Emma took my hand and led me towards the house. “I came over early because I couldn’t sleep. Harry was up and offered to help around the yard. Then Lacey brought one of her mates down, and there didn’t seem any point waking you. You’re allowed a morning off, you know.”

“That’s not what you said a few weeks ago when you dragged me home from the police station.”

“That’s because you were acting like a twat, and you know what? Until today, I hadn’t left the farm since then, so how about we forget that day ever happened?”

Fine by me. I trailed Emma into the kitchen and sat at the table. Despite my luxury lie in, I was still profoundly tired. I slumped with my head on my arms, watching Emma do her best impression of our mother, until Harry reappeared a little while later.

He didn’t look at me, but his arm brushed mine as he passed me . . . I think, if the resulting goosebumps were anything to go by.

I sat up slightly, eyeing the bag of spinach he passed Emma. “What are you doing with that?”

Harry shot a grin over his shoulder. “Stick around and you’ll find out. It must be my turn to cook for you by now.”

He was getting better at eating the dinners Sal put in front of him. He pushed them around less, and he’d stopped hiding potatoes in his leftover pie, but that didn’t make whatever he had planned for me any more appetising. “It’s not that green slop you drink all day, is it?”

“Nope. But it will have green in it. Won’t do you any harm to get some more iron in your blood if you are as knackered as you look.”

He had me there. I put my head back down and observed him and Emma through hooded eyes as they moved around the kitchen like an old married couple. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was jealous, but lacking the energy to figure out why, I pushed it aside and focussed on the parade of weird shit being tossed in the wok my mum had never used.

A plate of rainbow food was presented to me a little while later. “No bacon?”

Harry chuckled. “Nah, but I did fry your eggs to ease you into the spinach.”

“So I see.” Fried eggs, teeny tomatoes, and giant mushrooms all sat on a mountain of spinach. I wanted to bitch about it, but I was too hungry to wait and too dazed to figure out a way of denying how good it looked.

I inhaled it, obviously, much to Harry’s clear amusement. He didn’t gloat, but he didn’t have to. And I wouldn’t have cared anyway, because watching him eat a full plate of food without fretting over it was a fucking gift.

Emma ate too, and she didn’t flee the kitchen the moment she was done. Damn. Was there something in the water?

I poured more tea from the chipped pot to make sure, forcing some on Harry just for the fun of it. Flicking sugar at him across the table had become one of my favourite games when mealtimes weren’t taken up by invoices and bank statements. “Where’s Mum?”

“On a date,” Emma said.

“What?”

She sniggered. “Joke, I swear. She got the bus to Truro to visit Aunt Deb like she does every other week, you numpty. What’s with you today? You’re starting to make me look sharp.”

Emma was sharp. For the thousandth time that morning alone, her stolen future flashed through my mind. Anxiety, the farm, her loyalty to me—any one of them would’ve been enough to keep her here by itself.

Harry got up and did something with the ancient blender Mum had dug out of the attic for him. The screeching motor cleared my scratchy brain. His hand on my shoulder a few moments later rinsed it clean. “Take this,” he said. “Top you up till dinner.”

And then he was gone, leaving me staring into a travel cup of something purple.

Emma kicked me under the table. “Blueberries, I think. He did say, but I was too busy trying not to puke behind the mushroom stall.”

“You went to the market too?”

She nodded. “Yep. Harry taught me some visualisation techniques and gave me a crystal to hold.”

“A crystal?” This day just got weirder and weirder. “Did it work?”

“Maybe. I didn’t die, so I guess that’s something.”

“Ain’t it always?”

Emma smiled and pressed a spiky purple stone into my hand. “Try it and see.”

“Close to death, am I?”

“You’re the one who claims to be dead inside, Joe.”

She had me there. I gave her the finger, and her fancy crystal back, and left her to the washing up. Out in the yard, there was still no one around, and I didn’t fancy the gloom of the tack room. The sunshine we’d been blessed with all week had faded slightly, but the skies were still bright and the breeze cool enough for a ride. Mani’s broad back called to me, but he deserved a rest day. Shadow was my other option, and for the first time in months, I felt patient enough to give him a chance.

I sloped up to the top field. Like he’d heard my thoughts, Shadow was by the gate, flicking his mane and blowing through his nostrils, his black eyes tracking me as I approached him with a saddle. Most horses responded to gentle mutterings and crooning as I saddled them up for work, but Shadow was different. True to his name, he preferred absolute quiet, and despite the cheery sunshine beating down on my back, the silence suited my mood.

Working with Shadow was exhausting. He fought every command, refused every turn, and kicked out at every little noise. Except when he didn’t, and then he was wonderful . . . those rare moments of perfection that made every painful wrangle with him worthwhile. Grandpa had often said he should’ve been my father’s horse for just that reason—that they both endured a fraction of the heartache they gave out—but I wasn’t convinced that either of them could’ve survived the other.

Hell, the rest of us barely did, and after three hours with Shadow, I was about done with the world.

I unsaddled him and released him. He galloped away like he’d been in a cage all afternoon, only pausing to glare back at me reproachfully, even though he went half-mad when I didn’t work him enough. That was the problem with clever horses—they needed constant stimulation or they became a beast who would kick you in the head just for something to do.

Perhaps he should’ve been my horse.

I lit a cigarette and ambled back to the house, daydreaming about Sal’s Sunday roast and a hot shower. Maybe I was daydreaming about Harry too, but I blamed the spinach for that. Huh . . . spinach. A million Popeye jokes came to mind, but I pushed them aside as I pictured Emma in his car—relaxed and laughing. It seemed surreal, but the odd feeling in my chest wouldn’t quit. I was proud of Emma, but there was also . . . guilt. What had Harry done for her that we hadn’t? How could he have loved and cared for her more than we had?

The answers weren’t there. Perhaps Harry would tell me. If he knew. Despite my propensity for being a dick, I’d learned enough about Emma’s anxiety to know that it rarely made sense.

Leave it alone, boy.

Jonah’s gentle voice kept me company up the path until the tell-tale goosebumps of Harry’s close proximity prickled my arms. I glanced up, expecting to see him playing volleyball in the yard with Toby or sitting on the steps, scribbling in a notebook and generally getting in my way.

But he wasn’t doing any of those things. Harry was with my mum by the feed store—standing in front of her, his body shielding her—as he went nose-to-nose with Dicky McGee and two of his friends.