Authors: Barbara Kay
Nathalie looked down at the sealed envelope. “I don’t know what to do,” she said in a small, fatigued voice. “What should I do?”
Still struggling with her own emotions, Clarice said, “It’s not right for me to decide that for you. But what I think–if it were me–is that it would be unfair to burden him with this if you really intend to leave your marriage.
“I’m not one of those people who think the wishes of the dying always have to be respected, even if it means pain for the ones left behind. Morrie had his chance to make things right when he was alive. He couldn’t face it. It was the only act of cowardice in his life. Morrie was a brave man. But he couldn’t bear to hurt Polo. And he knew he couldn’t deal with Polo rejecting him, hating him. Because he really loved Polo, you know. My belief is that it began as a way for Morrie to heal. But it ended in love for Polo. For who Polo really was.
“Life is for the living, Nathalie. What Polo doesn’t find out won’t hurt him. He can’t modify the past, and if it’s what made him what he is, knowing this won’t change that. In my opinion he should only come to know this if he has you to work it through with. You’d need someone you love and who loves you to come out of this stronger than when you went in. I wouldn’t want to be alone with this photograph if it was my ghost. Would you?”
* * *
“Are you all right, Thea?” Polo asked, as Thea emerged from the bathroom, her face and hairline still damp, and reseated herself at the table.
“I think so,” she said in a slightly shaky, low voice. “That didn’t work out quite as I had imagined it would,” she said, smiling bravely, “I had assumed it would be me asking you if you were all right…”
“What happened there?” Polo was curious, but also relieved that Thea’s sudden emotional breakdown had given him permission to put aside the shock and confusion of his own reaction. He had been so caught off guard by her tearful collapse that he hadn’t even retreated in the usual nervous spasm of anxiety over a crying woman. He’d actually been calm and considerate–
appropriate
, Nathalie would have said.
“I think it’s just that I never told anyone before,” Thea said thoughtfully. “I’ve reviewed it to myself so many times, that’s why I remembered it so vividly. Until now it was all about how shocking and coarse and even frightening it was to hear this angry man threatening my husband. The contempt, the gutter language, the complete disregard for civil behaviour, the naked aggression, it just floored me…”
“Thea, you have to understand, that was only one side of Morrie,” Polo interrupted hastily. “It’s true he was impulsive and emotional sometimes. But if you knew him”–
“Oh Polo, there’s no need for you to defend him to me,” Thea said. “Let me finish. What I was going to say was that in saying it out loud, telling you, I realized for the first time, I mean realized in my gut, not my head, that what he did was not only all those things. At the same time it was a truly, utterly magnificent action to take. And I was just suddenly overcome with this tremendous sense of shame.”
“You’ve lost me, Thea. Why shame? Why magnificent?”
Thea drew a deep breath and took her hanky from her sleeve. “You know, I think I’ll have another glass of sherry, if you wouldn’t mind.” Polo brought the bottle to the table and filled her glass. Then he sat down opposite and watched her face with nervous anticipation.
“Thank you.” She took a deep swallow, and dabbed tidily at her eyes. “This morning, when you told me you knew nothing about what Morrie had done to change Harold’s mind, everything I’d thought about that incident shifted in terms of how I saw it. I had convinced myself that that performance of Morrie’s was a sort of bravado piece, something to impress you with. I found that idea very contemptible, and it coloured my perception of him as a person. Up until today, even though I had despised Harold for his treatment of you, I had actually felt sorry for him having to endure that barrage of abuse.”
She sipped again. “But just now I saw it for what it really was. The words were the same, but they meant something quite different to me. Polo, I know Morrie wasn’t your father, but what I heard that day was a father’s rage against the man who had dared to hurt his son. It was a primitive act of revenge, not in the least bit Christian”–she smiled wryly at the obvious irony –“but so completely natural, so–so appropriate in the circumstances. And I felt ashamed because I knew in my heart that my daughter had been in danger of being hurt before she actually was, but I had done nothing. And I should have done for Stephanie exactly what Morrie did for you. I should have protected her against the self–interest of someone in so–called authority over–”
“Thea, you’re wrong,” Polo interrupted quickly, feeling strangely agitated. “This wasn’t about Morrie’s feelings for me. This was about his own self–respect, his sense of justice, his–he couldn’t stand getting screwed, whether it was in business or”–
“Polo, you know a lot about horses, and I’d accept your word on anything you say about them, but you don’t have children, and frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thea said scornfully. “What Morrie did wasn’t about justice, it was about the instinct to protect someone he loved. He did it for love, and I don’t know why that should upset”–she cut herself off, frowned, and looked toward Polo’s right shoulder in surprise–“What are you doing?”
“What…?”
“Your hand…like a crossing guard…”
They both looked at Polo’s right hand.
Merde
.
With a small gasp of embarrassment he closed his splayed fingers into a fist, jerked it from the air and wrapped the fingers of his other hand around it to anchor it to the table.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He could feel his face flaming and wished Thea gone in a puff of smoke and himself out of here, on a horse, on an endless cinder track, galloping away, just galloping, galloping forever away…
But here he was, and Thea hadn’t budged, and was in fact staring at him with frank curiosity and compassion. He couldn’t meet her gaze, and suddenly Polo felt Thea’s words detonate a long dormant grenade of shame that was exploding in slow motion through his whole body.
Morrie, it’s true. You were magnificent. You loved me. What’s wrong with that? Why do I resist? What’s wrong with her knowing that? This is shameful. It’s an insult to your memory. This can’t go on. Morrie, forgive me. I slept that night. I handed my problem over to you and I slept. You made things right and I never even asked how. I was a boy then. I was a boy in need of protection and I got it. Boys need protection. Men take risks.
Thea said sadly in her low, beautiful voice, “I am really very sorry, Polo, I had no business talking about your personal life so cavalierly. I seem to have gotten caught up in my own little drama. Forgive me.”
Polo waved a vague dismissal of the need to apologize, and looked her in the eye. “Thanks for telling me about what Morrie did for me, Thea. Don’t feel bad. There’s nothing wrong in telling me I was loved. You’re right. It was a father’s instinct.”
“It was the tuxedo, you see,” Thea said softly. “He didn’t stop to think. He didn’t wonder about how he would look, or what might happen to him. The tuxedo just–got to me–that he didn’t stop to think…”
I stopped to think when Andrea was beating the horse. And the horse almost died because of that. But just now when Gilles went to sleep I said to myself that if someone walked in here right now and laid even a finger on this boy, I wouldn’t stop to think, I would beat the shit out of him…
“Thea, you’re right about the whole thing. It was all for me. He loved me. If I have a problem with admitting that, it’s mine, not yours. And–your daughter–I never really said…look, I didn’t know her, but I’m sorrier than I can say for your loss.”
He saw her eyes fill up, but again it didn’t make him flinch in the usual way. In fact, to his amazement, he felt the urge to give comfort. He found his hand reaching across the table to circle her wrist and squeeze.
“It’s been a strange few days, Thea. There’s a ton of information coming at me. It’s hard to take in. I just want to say that I appreciate what you’ve done for me. It took courage, and you stirred up a lot of pain for yourself doing it. And…two days ago I wouldn’t have even realized that–or been able to say it.”
Thea smiled through her tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.
There was a sharp rap at the door. Thea jumped. “Oh my goodness,” she said, looking at her watch, “I completely forgot about Sue.”
* * *
Guy let himself in quietly and stood in the hallway listening for movement within the house. He heard nothing and closed the door. The faint click of the latch released a pang of foreboding in him. Reluctant, but knowing the coming confrontation with Bridget was inescapable and soonest begun, soonest ended, he walked slowly into the living room. Bridget sat at her cluttered desk, twirling a pen between the fingers of one raised hand, absorbed in a fanned display of maps, timetables, lists, and much–annotated columns of figures.
“Hullo,” Guy said glumly.
Bridget registered his presence with a grunt, but did not look up.
“Are you feeling better, dear?”
“About what?” Bridget now looked up in apparent surprise at Guy’s question.
“Your cold,” Guy said. “You weren’t feeling well. I told Polo you were sleeping. He wanted to speak to you.”
Bridget snorted derisively. “You’re an awfully good chap, Guy, but I do wonder how anyone can be so bloody simple. Did you really think I was sick?” She then put her hand to her chest, emitted a very authentic–sounding cough and croaked, “Oh I’m so sorry, Ma’am, I just couldn’t do my essay, I’m just knackered from this horrid bronchitis, you see…”
“Very funny. But why did you pretend to be sick today?”
“That should be obvious. The blasted show committee is coming here tomorrow at noon, and Marion will have a hissy fit if I can’t produce the budget and lists of volunteers and whatnot. I’ve been working like a good little Canadian beaver all afternoon and I’m just about there, although it won’t look very pretty. And I wanted to get Thea off my back. The course isn’t as ticketyboo as it should be either. And finally, if you must know, I needed an excuse not to be in the barn. I have no intention of being grilled by Polo over this Liam nonsense, and I certainly wasn’t going to be around when he took Robin out. I’m furious that Thea asked Polo to ride him.”
“Well, he is her horse, Bridget…”
“Gosh, Guy, whatever would I do without you to remind me of these details?”
Guy sighed again. He felt he really couldn’t bear Bridget’s sarcasm for another minute today.
“Bridget, please can we stop all this–this …playacting for a few minutes. I’m afraid I have to tell you a few things about what went on at the barn, as well as some other unpleasant truths, whether you want to hear them or not.”
Bridget heard the fear in his voice, went very still and her eyes narrowed with concentration. “Go on, then. I’m listening.”
And finally Guy knew that she really was listening, because she had dropped the posh accent and was speaking in her real, lower–middle class voice. This was a great relief, and he felt emboldened to share everything–almost everything–with her, and without his usual defensiveness.
Fifteen minutes later, having absorbed a full recital of Guy’s concerns, and holding the bank draft in her hands, Bridget finally spoke. Guy’s revelations had shaken her, but she was still in good command of her active intelligence.
“So Polo knows about the horse, and he knows about the cheques.”
“Well, he only knows about this one, and he can’t really know about the horse, he can only suspect.”
“Yeah, but that’ll set him thinking. He’s too clever by half, that bloke. He’ll tell Thea to get him X–rayed. He’ll start asking around. He’ll find out I talk a lot about going back and forth to England, but that I never actually do.” Bridget frowned and played with the envelope, bouncing it from short to longer edge on the desktop.
“Okay,” she said, “Now how long have you known about the horses?”
“I began to suspect when Stephanie told me she was having problems with him getting nappy after road workouts. I borrowed the portable X–ray machine from Ste. Hy, and that’s how I found out. It’s quite mild still, but it’s in both horses.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh Bridget, I just couldn’t. You were so thrilled with Rockin’ Robin, and here was the proof in Robin’s Song that he really was a great stallion–and it was such a lot of money involved. And it wasn’t really bad. Navicular is such a funny thing. It can stay mild for ages. All he really needed was some bute before a hard workout. So that’s what I did. I monitored it. Or at least, when I could…” Guy’s voice broke and he passed a trembling hand across his eyes.
“Ah, the light dawns. So that’s why you were so upset when you were too sick to go with Stephanie to the Timberline Three–Day…”
“Oh please, Bridget, don’t don’t
don’t
talk about that. I can’t bear to think about it.” Guy stifled a sob.
Bridget contemplated her friend. Her mind was swirling with the facts that were going to affect her life from here on, but she wasn’t oblivious to the terrible strain Guy was suffering under. He needed a strong and consistent structure to his life to keep himself in emotional balance. She could almost see the foundations crumbling in his pale face, darting eyes and huddled frame. Was he going to crack up? Sad for him if he did, but more to the point, how much could she depend on his discretion where she was concerned from now on?
“Steady on, Guy. I won’t mention it again.” She frowned. “So then why didn’t you give him bute before Polo rode him?”
“Well, I would have, except that Jocelyne happened to mention that Polo had asked Fran to do ground observation for him. I naturally assumed that he was only going to ride in the arena. And in the arena the horse is fine. How was I to know he was going out on the roads and the course afterward?”
Bridget digested this information. She said, “If Polo knows, then he’ll tell the others. If that little journalist cretin gets hold of it, then I am well and truly fucked. It’s the end of the line for me here. Wouldn’t Mummy be amused.”