CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It’s like riding a coiled spring. We skitter sideways out of the yard and Beth, closing the gate to the outdoor school, raises her eyebrows again.
‘She’s going to be full of it in this weather,’ she warns. I grin and wave a hand in acknowledgement and we surge forward. Mabel is bursting to gallop and leap and soar and fly, but we clatter on to the tarmac in a barely contained walk. Her shoes tap out her irritation in staccato bursts.
‘Almost there,’ I tell her. We can ride down the shore road and along the beach path to town, and she can stretch her legs on the footpath there.
It’s harder than I thought it would be, riding in jeans. The stirrup leathers pinch at the insides of my legs where the jodhpurs have protective padding, and my cardigan’s flapping in the wind, which hasn’t eased up. The rucksack is banging on my back and heavy on my shoulders. I sort of wish I’d brought a coat or something to keep me warm, but I want to look nice. Not weird. And it’s going to be amazing. Nobody else there will have a horse. Holly Carmichael doesn’t have a horse.
We pass the Spar and wait at the traffic lights, Mabel pawing the ground impatiently as we stand with a little yellow Volkswagen Beetle waiting for the lights to change. She’s good in traffic, but in this mood she wants to go and go and go, and red lights aren’t part of her plans.
‘Look, Mummy, a unicorn,’ says a little girl in a pushchair, pointing as she crosses in front of us.
‘No, it’s just a horse, sweetie,’ says her mum, and I glare at her for breaking the spell. She’s not just a horse. She’s magic and fire and she could be a unicorn if she wanted to. I give the little girl a smile and hope that she can read my mind. The lights switch to green and Mabel soars forward into trot. We make our way past the squat little bungalows that line the shore road, and cross over on to the beach path. The grass is bleached grey-blue with sunlight and sea wind and the tide is far, far out, miles from the shore. In the distance where the sea touches the sky, dark towers of clouds are bunched together. The salt marsh that stretches out towards the sea looks empty, but, as we pass, a flock of birds wheels up into the sky, their wings beating as one, the air stirring in a whoosh around them.
I can’t let the reins loose and let Mabel go, because the path is dotted with dog walkers. I’d forgotten they’d be everywhere. It’s why we don’t ride down on the beach – that and the broken glass, which lurks, waiting to bite, in hummocks of grass. So I keep the reins tight and Mabel tosses her head up and down in irritation, the metal of her bit jangling, her nostrils fire red.
I’d check my phone, but I feel safer with both hands on the reins when she’s in this mood. My excitement of earlier is being engulfed by a gnawing sense that I’m making a mistake, but it’s too late to do anything about it. I keep going as Mabel’s frustration rises. We dance past dog walkers and joggers until the wooden climbing frame of the shore park can be seen on the left, behind the wall where the go-karts circle round and round all summer.
I almost want to get off and lead her across the road, but I don’t. I don’t want to chicken out. This is the moment I’ve planned. I try to take a deep breath, but I feel like my lungs are made of lead.
‘Mabel!’
And it’s worth it then, because when we clatter along the path and Anna sees us she looks so impressed and proud and delighted that I’m glad I’ve done it.
‘Whoa,’ says Archie, and he carefully places his scooter down on the ground so it doesn’t make a noise. I am grateful for this because Mabel is virtually vibrating with excitement, and emitting small, brisk snorts. ‘You’ve got an actual horse.’
And everyone crowds round, Jacob and Tom and Jamie and Archie, and then there’s Gabe, and his cousin Marek with wide eyes, and Gabe looks up at me with his sparkly brown eyes and I think he’s impressed. And even though I know I shouldn’t be pleased he’s impressed, I still feel pleased. And a lot like this must be how it feels to be Holly Carmichael and be the centre of attention when you walk into a room and everyone looks at you.
Plus I’m quite high up so everyone’s looking up at me and circling Mabel, and I sort of feel like one of those statues you see in the middle of London, except my horse isn’t standing still in a noble and obedient manner.
‘OW,’ says Archie. ‘She’s on my bloody foot. Grace?’
I ease Mabel sideways so she steps off and I slide out of the saddle, running up the stirrups automatically.
‘She’s amazing,’ says Jacob. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got an actual horse as a pet.’
‘She’s not exactly a pet,’ I begin, and I realize Gabe is laughing at Jacob and looking at me and I feel like I’ve discovered the secret to life. I knew when I figured out that the boys only took their scooters and stuff to the park so they had something to do with themselves that there had to be an equivalent. I’d just have to take Mabel everywhere I go. She might find it a bit of a squash fitting into seats at the cinema, but I could work something out. It was worth it to feel like this.
‘She’s really soft,’ says Marek, running a cautious hand down her neck. I’m glad I spent so long grooming her this morning. ‘And thank you for my gift.’
He smiles at me and I smile back. And Gabe does a thing where his eyebrows sort of crinkle up his forehead and he smiles too and says, ‘Yeah, that was a nice surprise. Thank you.’ And he looks pleased, and I feel like today is officially Going Very Well.
‘I can’t believe you’ve taken her here,’ says Anna, in a low voice. ‘Your mum would literally explode if she knew.’
‘She doesn’t need to know, does she?’ I reply. ‘Anyway, she’s too busy with her new best friend.’
‘Mabel jerks my arm up, nudging me impatiently. She drags me across the path to the grass that tufts up beside the swings.
‘Do you think you should have a horse in here, young lady?’ says an old man with a walking stick. He settles down on the bench nearby. ‘She looks like a bit of a wild one.’
Mabel pulls her head up at that, with a piece of grass hanging out of the side of her mouth like a farmer. She looks into the far distance as if she can see something we can’t, and lets out a shrill whinny. It sounds weirdly out of place in amongst all the tarmac and metal of the park.
‘Is she OK?’ says Anna, looking at me, anxiously. ‘She looks a bit—’
‘She’s fine,’ I say, closing her down. Although I’m not sure she is, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now the initial excitement has passed. Archie’s picked up his scooter and is spinning one of the wheels with a finger. Gabe’s standing nearby. I notice that the collar on his plaid shirt is sticking up at one side and I wonder what it would feel like to reach across and fix it. And then I feel myself going weirdly fizzy inside when I realize that not very long ago I had my hand inside that same shirt and I could feel the muscles on his back underneath his T-shirt. It feels like something that happened to someone else. But he sent me a message and asked if I was going to be here, and I am here.
‘Anyone fancy going down the arcade to get a hot dog?’ Tom, who has been looking slightly edgy, shoves his phone back in his pocket. I don’t think he likes horses. In fact, I think he’s a bit nervous. Mabel stamps her foot, kicking at an irritation on her stomach. I don’t want things to change, but they are. It’s like someone’s blurred a picture with a filter.
‘What’s she doing?’ Tom steps back a bit further. I can see alarm on his face, his mouth set in a flat line. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine.’ I say. ‘Anna, did you bring the stuff?’
‘It’s here.’ She picks up a big Sainsbury’s bag.
‘You don’t need hot dogs,’ Anna explains to Tom. ‘We’ve got stuff for a beach barbecue.’
Tom curls his lip slightly. ‘Seriously?’
‘I’ve got chocolate and marshmallows,’ I say brightly. I realize I’m sounding like a children’s television presenter again and I can feel the awkwardness descending.
‘Oh well, if you’ve got chocolate and marshmallows,’ says Tom, with a look which might be serious or mocking – I can’t tell – ‘that changes everything. Fire it up.’
‘And maybe someone can have a ride on Mabel if they like?’ I hear my mouth saying. I have no idea why.
Anna shoots me a look. It’s a look that says this is not a good plan.
I look back at her and shrug. It’s out there now and maybe nobody else will hear. Or they’ll just think I’m joking.
Anna shakes her head slightly, frowning, and I’m not sure what the expression on her face says. And then a gust of wind blows her hair across her face so I can’t see it anyway.
And Gabe’s cousin Marek says –
‘I would love to.’
And he smiles at me and I think that maybe it’ll be OK. There’s a whistling sound as the wind gets trapped in the metal of the swings, and it makes Mabel stand taller, ears pricked, focusing. I shake her reins gently, trying to bring her attention back to me. One ear flicks in my direction but switches back again.
‘Come on, then,’ says Archie. ‘I’ve got to see this.’
‘Not here,’ says Anna. She’s chewing the inside of her lip.
Jamie says something, but I don’t quite catch it, and I realize that I’m crashing after the excitement of this morning. This happens. It always happens. I don’t want it to. I’m not going to let it.
‘I said why don’t you take her over to the beach path?’ Jamie looks at me, the expression on his face slightly odd, as if he can’t work out why I didn’t hear him the first time. I hear my heart thudding in my ears and there’s a sort of blurring of children on swings and whistling wind and I hear the tickticktick of the chain of Jacob’s bike as it spins, and Anna’s saying something because her mouth is moving but the sounds aren’t connecting with my head and I smell vanilla ice cream from a little child on the baby swings across the way.
‘Let’s take her over, then,’ I say, and my voice sounds brittle and louder than I meant it to. ‘Come on, Mabel.’ I turn and she follows me like a kite in the wind.
‘Grace,’ says Anna, warningly.
‘It’s fine.’ I don’t catch her eye. This is what cool people do. They take risks; they do exciting things. It’s not like I’m downing a bottle of vodka and jumping off the pier.
‘You OK?’ says Gabe, and he catches my elbow as we stand waiting on the pavement, me and my horse and a bag full of sweating sausages and my best friend and her not-yet-boyfriend on a scooter and our friends with their long legs folded up on short little BMX bikes and Gabe my I-don’t-know-what, and his cousin Marek from Warsaw, who wants to get on my horse and ride on the beach and have an adventure.
I turn to look at him and I realize how ridiculous I must look with my riding hat on and I wonder if my ears are sticking out of the sides, because sometimes they do. And I notice that he’s got a little constellation of freckles under his left eye. And I look down at his hand, which is still sort of cupping my elbow in a way that feels sort of – kind.
‘Fine,’ I say brightly. Because I don’t know how to say all the other things.
We cross the road, horse and people and bikes and scooters and noise and jumble, and one by one pass through the little metal gateway that leads from the promenade down to the beach path, and then we stop on the grass. The air smells of wet sand and dirty seaweed and all the things that people don’t mention when they dream of living by the sea, the things we just take for granted. And the wind is whipping across us. I can’t work out whether the spots I’m feeling on my face are sea spray or the beginnings of rain and I wish again that I wasn’t just wearing a cardigan and a T-shirt. A shiver passes through me.
Anna pulls the barbecue out of her bag and I throw her the matches, which are in the pocket of my rucksack. I watch her squatting down to try to light the corner of it, and Archie cupping his hands around to stop the wind from the sea blowing out the flame and eventually there’s a flare of light and they catch. Mabel snorts in horror, pulling back against me so the reins, wrapped around my hand, tighten.
‘Can I give you this?’ I say to Gabe. I pass him the rucksack full of food so I can hold on to Mabel with both hands. ‘It’s got the food in it,’ I explain, pointing at the zip.
‘Here,’ says Anna, ‘I’ll take it.’
Everyone is sort of milling around and the tiny little aluminium barbecue is not quite the focal point I imagined.
Tom is looking at something on his phone and I catch him saying he might just head back, and asking Archie if he wants to head up to the skate park. Archie shakes his head, though – he’s helping Anna rip open a packet of squashed-looking sausages.
‘What’s this?’
I feel my stomach disappearing through my feet and on to the floor. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. I turn round, and Holly’s standing there, legs akimbo in a short denim skirt, her hair pushed back from her face with a pair of sunglasses. She’s got something in her hand, and I realize it’s a cheap plastic kite with a scrunched up looking Spongebob on the front.
‘We’re having a beach party,’ I say, ‘and you’re not actually invited.’
My heart thumps really hard then, and I feel a bit sick. But she’s rude all the time, and it’s about time someone treated her the same way she treats me.
Tom mutters something out of the side of his mouth to Jacob, who bursts out laughing.
‘It’s a free country,’ says Holly. And she winks at Gabe.
And then – because somehow I’d forgotten – I turn to Mabel, who is something she wants and can’t have, just like Gabe is, and I run a hand along her mane and glare at Holly and don’t say anything.
‘Do you want to ride her now?’ I say, turning to Marek.
‘Please,’ he says, and he smiles at me. I lead her up to the edge of the beach path, leaving Anna and Archie poking at the barbecue.
And – because everyone always says that you can’t sneeze around here without the whole town knowing about it – a battered little red Vauxhall Corsa drives past as we’re standing there and I see Polly’s face in the window looking out at me and her expression says, what the hell are you doing, Grace?
And I half wish she’d stop the car and end this because I’ve messed up, and there’s a horrible feeling in the air, but it’s a bit late.
I take a look at Marek’s legs – he’s a bit taller than me – and I adjust the stirrups so they’ll fit. I check the girth to make sure the saddle isn’t going to slip when he gets on.
‘Here,’ I say, and I hand him my hat, because even when I’m taking risks I like to follow the approved safety procedures.
Marek puts it on his head, and Archie grins at him and taps his own head. ‘Cool, man. We’re twins.’
Archie’s skating helmet is so much a part of him that I forget he’s got an actual head under there.
I hear the crack of Holly’s gum and realize she’s standing close by, watching. Her eyes on me make my neck feel prickly and hot.
Mabel is standing stock still, looking out across the huge expanse of muddy sand that makes up our beach. In the distance I can see the grey-white frill of water, almost on the horizon, which indicates that the tide is coming in.
I turn to Marek, who is stroking Mabel’s neck. ‘Do you know how to get on?’ She’s transfixed by something, her focus on the middle distance, and he might as well be a fly for all the difference his affection is making. Her muscles are taut and tense, and I can see the veins criss-cross underneath the seal-smoothness of her skin. She looks beautiful, but half wild, like a white horse of the seas come to land. The wind blows her silver mane up in the air.
‘Can you help me?’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘Grace,’ says Anna, appearing from nowhere.
‘Will you hold Mabel’s head?’ I turn to her and ignore the expression on her face. Her face is sort of rigid, and her mouth is held in a straight line. But she takes hold of the bridle on either side of Mabel’s cheeks, keeping her steady, and I tell her to keep Mabel’s head still while I give Marek a leg up.
‘Here,’ says Gabe, and he steps forward. ‘I’ll do it.’
I smile a small thank-you smile at him. I’d forgotten that he’d had experience with horses.
‘Lift your foot up behind you,’ he says to Marek. ‘Take hold of the saddle, here.’
And there’s a pause for a second as the sounds of raucous laughter and shrieks blow on the wind from behind us, and I turn to see what it is just as Gabe takes Marek’s bent leg in his hands.
Mabel tenses slightly and Anna shoots me a look of alarm.
I feel Gabe stepping back behind me and I feel the thinness of leather reins in my hands and the rush of the wind in my ears and Mabel jumps sideways, suddenly, with a snort.
Holly and her friends laugh loudly.
‘It’s quite high up here, isn’t it?’ Marek wobbles, still holding on to the top of the saddle as he’s been instructed. Gabe takes a step forward.
‘Are you actually going to go for a ride?’ says Jacob, and he reverses his BMX back off the path to clear the way and I look at Anna who shakes her head slightly and I say, ‘Sure.’
And again I take a moment to process the words before they make it into my head, and by the time I nod back at Gabe enough time has passed that I think he’s looking at me strangely and I wonder if he thinks I don’t understand something. But it’s not him – it’s the wind and my panic, which is rising, blowing up and up.
‘Shh, Mabel,’ I whisper, but the wind whips the words away as I chant them.
‘Be good, be quiet, be nice –’
‘Ready?’ says Gabe.
And we start to walk along the path. I’m holding on to Mabel’s head and Marek says something and I turn to hear what he’s said because with the wind and my brain melting I can’t catch it without concentrating. And in that second when my attention turns from her to him I hear a shriek and see Holly Carmichael and her cronies running along the beach, laughing and pointing, waving their arms in the air, and there’s a flutter as something yellow flies past my head, carried by the wind, something plastic and colourful and flappy, and it flies between me and Marek and wraps itself for a second around Mabel’s head and she pulls away.
I try to grab the reins back but I’m torn in that second because I can feel Marek slipping sideways. I reach forward to grab him so he doesn’t fall, and Mabel throws her head in the air, snorting again with fear. I see the white of her eye as she throws her head sideways, tossing it up to get the thing off.
As it flies up, I realize it’s Holly’s kite. It sails up into the sky.
And Marek falls then, landing backwards on to me with a force that knocks my breath out in a huff of surprise. Mabel takes a sideways leap and, realizing she’s not being held any more, she bolts, and it’s like everything just stops.
I can’t move. Marek’s half pinning me to the ground and I feel sick, as if I’ve been punched in the stomach, and everyone is flapping and screaming at Holly, at Mabel, at me –
‘Grace, I knew this was a bad idea!’ Anna screams at me, looming over me, her face all twisted with anger.
Oh God, come back, come back.
Come back.
I scramble up from underneath Marek and watch in horror as Mabel shies again at a pile of rocks on the side of the path, jumping like a startled cat and then pecking slightly as her leg gets caught in the reins which have come loose over her head and I can see her then broken and lying with her legs smashed and I know I’ve killed her and I’ve made this happen and everyone is still screaming and Holly is still shrieking and it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her here.
So I run.