Springtime at Cherry Tree Cottage (5 page)

‘It's quite an empire then.' My fingers tighten on the wheel as I suppress a twinge of regret and envy that Robbie's family are involved and supportive of each other, while mine has been fractured by the choices I've made and my parents' stubborn refusal to back down on their prejudices. I can hear my mother now, expressing her disappointment when I told her I was giving up my well-paid job in sales and marketing to learn how to shoe horses.

Don't come running to us when it all goes pear-shaped, when you're fed up with working in the mud and freezing rain, and your back's killing you. After all we've done for you, paying for the best education and supporting you through your degree, this is how you show your appreciation.

‘Did you ever ride or have your own horse?' I ask Mel.

‘No way. I had a go, but it wasn't for me. I spent my time driving tractors and running Talyton St George's YFC. The Young Farmers' Club,' he adds in explanation. ‘It was a great way of meeting lots of single ladies. I broke a few hearts along the way, but some of them remain good friends of mine, especially the horsey ones who use me as their farrier.'

I'm uncomfortable listening to Mel brag about being a heartbreaker in his youth when he's old and married, but I have a feeling that his local knowledge is going to be more of a help than a hindrance. All I have to do now is to forge relationships with his clients and prove that I can shoe horses as well as anyone.

I pull into the turning behind the house to find two massive dogs running out towards the Toyota. I brake and toot the horn. The grey rough-coated creatures stand in front of the bonnet with their mouths wide open, as if they're smiling.

‘What now?' I look towards Mel for guidance as they wave their long tails.

‘Don't worry about them. They'll get out of the way. Drive on.'

‘I don't want to run them over.' It wouldn't exactly be a good start. I open the window and wave at them. ‘Go away. Shoo!'

One of them walks along the side of the vehicle and stops to cock its leg up the wheel.

Mel leans across me.

‘Robster, get your hounds under control, will you?' he bellows.

A figure moves out of the shadow of the overhang above the nearest block of stables that form one side of the yard. There are more stables and outbuildings through the gateway beyond. It's Robbie, without his hat this time. He has brown wavy hair, short at the sides and long on the top, and he's wearing a close-fitting grey T-shirt and stonewashed jeans that emphasise his broad shoulders and narrow hips. He strolls towards us with long easy strides, stopping beside the truck, where he stops and gazes at me, fixing me with his deep blue eyes.

Close mouth, I tell myself as a fly buzzes around my head.

‘I'm sorry about the dogs. They wouldn't hurt anyone.' He calls them. ‘Badger, Tatt, here.' They amble towards him and stand one at each side of their master. ‘You know that, Mel,' he adds, glancing past me.

‘I've been wary of dogs since I almost got bitten in the nuts,' Mel says crudely. ‘That's one big advantage of being a female farrier.'

‘If you're trying to say I have no balls, then you're wrong,' I say lightly.

‘Ha ha, she's quicker than you,' Robbie says, smiling.

‘So she should be. She spent three years at university, only to change her mind and become a lowly apprentice with one of my mates.'

‘Drive on through and park anywhere you like.' Robbie points towards the gateway into the next yard, where I stop the truck alongside another more modern block of looseboxes made from breezeblock and clad with timber. There's a barn filled with bales of hay opposite, a pathway leading to the fields and paddocks beyond, and a larger-than-average arena with a rubber and sand surface.

I suppress a wave of ‘yard envy', an affliction suffered only by horse owners, as I get out of the truck and admire the facilities: plenty of rings for tying up, a dedicated wash-down area and floodlights. I open the tailgate, slip into my leather apron and lift out the anvil and trolley, setting up while Mel looks on and Robbie fetches his horse.

‘Nelson's for new shoes all round.' He ties him to the baler-twine loop on a ring in the wall beside the nearest loosebox. ‘How is that crazy horse of yours?'

‘He's fine. It's me who's traumatised.'

‘What else have we got this morning?' Mel asks.

‘Scout – that's my brother's horse,' Robbie explains for my benefit. ‘And then there's T-rex, but he's for a trim, that's all.'

‘It's your lucky day, Flick,' Mel says. ‘T-rex is a real sweetheart.'

‘Do I detect some sarcasm in your voice?' I ask, relieved that I don't have to do all the Saltertons' horses at once. When I was working for Tony, he had a team of apprentices at different stages of training, so we could get through many sets of shoes in a day. It's a lot slower when there's only one of you.

‘T-rex is your typical naughty pony,' Robbie says.

‘So why is he named after a monster?' Mel jokes. At least, I hope he's joking.

‘Is tea all right for everyone?' Robbie asks. ‘Mum's got the kettle on.'

‘That's good for me,' I say.

‘Sugar, or are you sweet enough already?' Mel says.

‘I'm more than sweet enough, thank you,' I say firmly, making it clear from the start that I'm not going to put up with any nonsense.

I turn my attention to Nelson, making a quick assessment of his general health and temperament. Silky feather grows down from his fetlocks to partially cover his dark grey, almost black hooves. He looks well and he seems calm, the expression in his dark brown eyes bright with intelligence – but stallions can be unpredictable, so I treat him with extra respect.

I wonder if Robbie might want to get on with something else, but he stays, chatting with me and Mel. A few minutes later, an older version of Robbie, not quite as tall and with shorter hair that's greying at the temples, joins us with a tray of tea and biscuits. He places it on the roof of the Toyota, out of reach of the dogs, who are waiting for me to make a start.

Mel introduces me to Neil, Robbie's father.

‘I never thought I'd see the day.' He removes his rimless specs and wipes them with a handkerchief from the pocket of his pale cotton trousers, before putting them back on so he can get a better look at me. ‘I'm not sure this is a good idea. Women shouldn't be shoeing horses – it's dangerous. I'd hate to think that one of our horses had hurt someone.'

‘Give her a chance,' Mel says. ‘She knows her stuff.'

‘Excuse me,' I say, speaking up. ‘I am here.' A certain amount of curiosity is acceptable, whereas blatant sexism isn't. I still find it weird that when I was working in an office environment after my degree, there were all kinds of rules as to what constituted sexism and sexual harassment, but when I was out and about with Tony and the male apprentices, demeaning and lewd comments were encouraged – and the smuttier the better.

Robbie glares at his father. ‘There's no need to look at Flick as if she's an alien. Women can do anything they choose nowadays – you know that. I trust Mel's judgement.'

‘It wasn't my intention to offend, but if I have …' Neil is well-spoken and in his fifties. His fraying blue and white striped shirt appears to be from the same era. Smiling apologetically, he reaches out for my hand.

‘I find your opinion patronising, but I'll forgive you.' We shake hands. ‘You men are all the same.'

‘We're what?' Neil says, his eyes narrowing to slits.

‘She's winding you up, Dad,' Robbie says.

‘Oh, I see.'

‘I think we've all been guilty of sexism at one time or another.'

‘I've been harassed many a time,' Mel says. ‘When I was an apprentice, a lady owner slapped me across the rump for walking behind her horse without letting it know I was there.'

I can't help smiling. I've been guilty of harassment on a small scale too. When I was in my teens, we had two farriers. I classed the boss as ancient – as in, about the same age as my father. His assistant was in his twenties, shy and handsome, and I used to fancy the chaps off him. He used to drink every mug of tea that I brought him until he must have been brimming over. My mum took every opportunity to put him down – he wasn't good enough for me because he was ‘only a blacksmith'. I was destined for Maximilian, who played polo; even though, as I pointed out to her, he was clearly gay.

Robbie turns to me. ‘What made you want to shoe horses anyway?'

‘One of my first memories is the sound of the farrier on my parents' farm.' I recall the clank and hiss of hot horseshoes being dropped into water to cool, and the tapping of nails being hammered into the horses' hooves. ‘When I realised I was going to die of boredom working in the corporate world of sales and marketing, those memories returned. From then on, I didn't want to do anything else. I resigned from my job, applied for a pre-farriery course and never looked back.' I pause. ‘I'd better get on.'

‘Yeah, sure. Go ahead.'

I approach Nelson and give him a pat. I pick up his forefoot and start to remove the shoe. It sounds painful to the uninitiated, but it's attached via bevelled nails, usually seven of them, to the wall of the hoof, where there are no nerves or blood vessels. This means that there's no blood involved and no pain for the horse. To keep the shoe on, the end of the nail that sticks out through the hoof is folded over. This is called a clench.

I use a hammer and a tool called a buffer to raise and cut the clenches, then when all the nails are straight, I grab the pincers to grip the shoe and gradually lever it off, starting from the heels and working round to the toe. Nelson is totally cool about it and stands like a rock.

As I work, I become aware that I'm being watched intently by Mel, Robbie and his father, and a fourth man.

I reach round to check that my jeans are belted snugly around my hips. No bum crack. I glance down at my chest, glad that I wore a polo shirt not a vest, so there's nothing to see there either.

As I'm bowed over, Robbie introduces his brother, Dillon. I glance up. He's fair-haired, blue-eyed, and a couple of years younger, and he's wearing a bottle-green shirt, black jodhpurs and long black riding boots.

‘Hello, Flick. It's nice to meet you.' He's good-looking, but not as beautiful as Robbie. ‘Can I trust you with my horse?'

‘Of course you can,' Robbie says, sounding slightly offended on my behalf. ‘I'm sorry about my family.'

‘I know what it's like, having a horse of my own. You want the best people,' I say. ‘It's all right. I've done my time – four years and two months, to be precise.'

‘When did you qualify?' Dillon asks.

‘Earlier this year.' I'm trying not to giggle because Nelson is nibbling at my clothes. I can feel him chewing at the belt on my leather apron and pulling up my top to reveal my loins. I let his foot down and straighten up. I give Mel a look, daring him to comment, but he merely nods with approval.

I move on to trim Nelson's hooves, which have grown just like human fingernails since the last time he was shod. Using the nippers I cut away clippings of horn, which the dogs fight over. Robbie intervenes, making sure Badger and Tatt each have a share to chew on.

Farriery is hard on the hands as well as the back, and when I said there was no blood involved, I meant from the horse's perspective, because when I'm preparing Nelson's fourth and last foot with the drawing knife, I manage to catch my finger. Blood pours from the wound and drips on to the concrete. In an attempt to downplay my self-inflicted injury, I scurry to the pick-up, grab a plaster from the first-aid kit in the glove compartment, and wrap it around my finger to stem the flow.

‘Are you okay?' Mel asks as I return to pick up the hoof knife from the trolley. The horse shifts his bum round. Robbie pushes him back.

‘It's just a surface wound.' I grimace.

‘You're bleeding through the plaster,' Neil observes. ‘Does that need a stitch?'

No way, I think, feeling like a complete idiot.

‘It's fine,' I insist, as the plaster starts to peel away – the glue seems to have suffered from the heat.

I hear a roar as Mel starts up the furnace, followed by the chink of horseshoes. It's like a branch of Clarks in the back of the truck, with a range of prefabricated shoes of different sizes to choose from. He selects a new set in Nelson's size and puts them in the fire to heat up.

‘I'll get you a fresh one,' Robbie offers, and before I can say it isn't necessary, he strides away and disappears into the first yard before returning a few minutes later. ‘Allow me.'

I remove the original plaster and watch him apply another, much larger one with a cartoon printed on it, to my finger.

‘Thank you,' I say, amused.

‘I thought that Peppa Pig would make you feel better,' he says, and I do indeed feel a remarkable improvement in my condition, but it has more to do with his close and personal attention than a cartoon pig. ‘You'd better not let Rafa see it,' he adds with a grin.

‘Hey, give it a rest.' I laugh and give him a gentle push, my hand on his arm.

I fetch out one of the shoes from the orange heart of the furnace, carrying it away on the pritchel, a tool with a pointed end that fits into one of the nail holes. I pick up Nelson's front foot and apply the shoe to the weight-bearing surface of the hoof to check the fit, triggering a series of crackles and a flurry of sulphurous smoke. I put the shoe down on the concrete and rasp away any bumps to make a flat surface for the shoe. When I'm happy, having given the shoe a couple of knocks with the hammer around the anvil (I'm being ultra-careful in front of my critical audience), I drop it into the bucket of water that Robbie brings.