The Wild Boy and Queen Moon (12 page)

‘Newmarket. She was too small to race – they threw her out. Lad I know, he told me. He loved her, didn’t want her to go to the knacker’s. I got her for carcass money. He paid most of it, to save her.’

Sandy digested this. She thought it was only girls who were like that. Soft.

‘I might have to go away for a while. If I do, she can come in your field?’

‘Yes. Oh yes.’

The two horses walked side by side down towards the sea-wall. It was like a summer’s day, the sky cloudless. Sandy felt her heart rising up in her like a balloon, lifting her up. She thought she might float away. At the bottom, he turned left, she turned right. He never said anything about taking her to the party.

Sandy wanted her ride to last for ever. She rode on the bank, slowly, watching the bright sun on the water. The tide was high, lipping at the wall, and the long-billed curlews flew over making their haunting, rippling cries. She could smell the sea and the warming earth and all her troubles dissolved like her breath on the soft air. He spoke to me, she thought.

Just before she got to the track up to Drakesend, two fishing smacks came down the river on the tide, going out to sea. Normally, she never gave the boats a second glance, but this time, taking in everything with her new, seeing eyes, she saw a boy on the foredeck, flaking down a mooring warp. It was Jonas. At the ship’s helm was hunched a gypsy-looking man with fierce eyes and a scowl. He was shouting at Jonas, but the words were indistinguishable above the thump of the diesel engine.

Sandy pulled up on top of the wall, watching . . . so that’s what he did! He was a fisherman. Everything slotted into place: his funny hours for riding, to fit in with the tides, his air of
belonging
to another place – a being apart. He worked the smack with his father.

As she watched, he straightened up, finishing his task. He looked up and saw her, and lifted a hand to wave.

SANDY TOLD LEO
what had happened, although she hadn’t intended to.

‘So he’s taking you to the party!’ Leo was deeply impressed.

‘No, of course not! It was Josie’s daft remark, but he never made a date or anything. I expect he’d die rather than take me.’

‘Who are you going with then?’

‘Nobody. You.’

Leo looked gloomy. She had asked Ian, and Ian had said he was going with Julia. ‘Blooming cheek.
She
asked him!’

‘He’s always stuck up for her rather,’ Sandy remarked, remembering how Ian had gone on the day she had made her terrible remark. At least Leo had gone off Julia now, which helped.

‘It doesn’t matter. We can go together.’

‘I thought Julia was in love with Tony.’

‘Yes, but Tony fancies Polly. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘She’s miles older than him.’

‘It’s all this schooling together. Every night. I never dreamed he’d get so keen.’

Polly’s strong will had prevailed upon Tony Speerwell and his riding had noticeably improved. They rode out together every night looking for cross-country jumps and King of the Fireworks had started to have faith in his rider as Tony learned to keep in tune with him. Tony was athletic and not unintelligent, and the thought of earning his auntie’s money kept him wonderfully on his toes. Also, as his confidence grew, he enjoyed it.

‘Who wouldn’t, with a horse like that?’ as Leo remarked.

Leo rode Empress of China more and more. Sandy wanted to make the fourth member of the team and rode the Empress as often as she could, but by the time she had done all the odd jobs round the yard, there wasn’t much opportunity. Faithful would jump anything for Julia and had an assured place in the team. Polly was already looking for schedules to find their first competition. Sandy reconciled herself, as always, to being a spectator. She hadn’t seen Jonas again, since her visit to Josie. That had all been a dream, too. Sometimes she wondered if that day had really happened. She wanted to ask Josie, but there was never any time to see her. Josie came over to see her mother with the baby, but mostly when Sandy was at school. Sandy
went
back into her gloom, dreading the party.

‘What are you going to wear?’ Leo asked her.

‘What am I going to wear?’ Sandy wept at her mother.

‘Parties are supposed to be happy things,’ her mother pointed out. ‘Josie goes to parties in those red dungarees. I thought it didn’t matter these days.’

Sandy wondered about borrowing the dungarees, but Josie was stick-thin. She didn’t have a pot like Sandy. Sandy breathed in and stood upright, and found she looked much better. Short skirts were in. Sandy had strong legs like tree-trunks. Standing up and breathing in didn’t make them look any better.

Julia had masses of clothes.

‘Come to mine and have a look through,’ she said.

Sandy had never been to Julia’s, so accepted her invitation out of curiosity. Julia’s mother had come to terms with her daughter’s preferred way of life and now paid Faithful’s livery bill, and when Sandy arrived in her kitchen she was friendly in her sergeant-majorish way: ‘Sit here. Take those muddy shoes off. Tea or coffee?’

Mrs Marsden had found that driving Nick and Petra hard used up all her energies and fortunately they seemed to enjoy it, so Julia was let off the hook.

‘Lucky for me,’ Julia remarked. She opened
the
wardrobe doors in her bedroom and revealed miles of shelving and hanging space, all apparently packed with pristine clothes. Sandy could get all her clothes in one chest of drawers without even squashing them. She didn’t know where to start looking.

‘What are you going to wear?’

‘This.’ Julia pulled out a tiny crimson dress. It was mini and had a plain round neck and short sleeves. Sandy knew that it would look stunning on little waif-like Julia, who had no bulges.

‘I want something more – more swamping.’

‘Dark,’ said Julia. ‘Fat people look better in dark colours.’

In her usual stark way she was being helpful. She pulled out some silk shirts in purple and navy and forest-green.

‘These look OK loose, with jeans.’

They were miles better than anything Sandy had. They looked expensive and slithered over her arms in a luxurious way.

‘Look in the long mirror.’ Julia’s bedroom had its own bathroom, and a whole wall of mirror. Sandy looked and realized that Julia was right: fat people did look better in dark colours. When she straightened up and held her breath, she looked quite reasonable. She chose the purple shirt. None of Julia’s trousers fitted her.

‘That’ll look fine with jeans,’ Julia said.

She wouldn’t stand out, but she wouldn’t be an
object
of scorn. Sandy was satisfied with that.

Julia’s room was ablaze with rosettes. There were framed photographs of her show-jumping, and one of her receiving a rosette from Princess Anne. The bedroom had cream carpet all over and a pink flounced bed. Unlike Sandy’s, it was as warm as the kitchen below.

‘It’s funny, what you did,’ Sandy said. ‘Giving up all this.’ She waved her arm towards the rosettes. ‘Coming to us.’

Out of the window she could see a stable-yard all painted and perfect, everything in its place and of the best, with no trails of straw or forgotten buckets, no uncoiled hose or thrown-down head-collars. It was a far cry from the tatty yard at Drakesend which, try as she might, Sandy could never get looking any better than ‘homely’.

‘Oh, it’s much nicer at yours,’ Julia said as if there could be no argument. ‘My ma knows I’d never come back here.’

‘Why not?’

‘She can’t help it. If I came back she’d want me to take Faithful to shows all the time. Faithful’ll jump anything now, with me. I could get her right to the top. But she doesn’t want to do that, does she? It’s stupid. I just like messing about, like we do. Ride how you feel like. I’m really lucky my ma doesn’t go on about it all the time – I thought she would. She did for a bit, but she’s given up now.’

Sandy realized that even the sergeant-major could see she had met her match in her own daughter. Little, pretty Julia was hard as stone, just like her own mother. She did what she wanted to do.

‘It’s lucky she’s got Nick and Petra to work on. They love it. If she hadn’t got them—’ Julia shrugged. ‘It might be different. They all leave me alone now.’

Sandy had always thought Julia was hard to get to know, but realized now that perhaps her family thought the same. She was unnervingly her own person, not bothering what anyone thought about her. And while everyone about her was striving to make their horses competitive, she went her own way, jumping only what was in her path, not bothered with Polly’s rails, coffins and combinations. Polly did not press her, for they all knew that Julia only had to point Faithful at them for the little mare to jump.

For a hopeful, fleeting moment Sandy thought . . . ‘You’re not keen on being in Polly’s team-chase, then?’

‘Not really. But they need me, if Tony’s got to win his auntie’s money.’

No false modesty there. Anyway, George would never get round – what was she dreaming of? In her heart, Sandy knew that Leo would get chosen for the ride on Empress of China. She was a better rider and had more drive

Julia was not the sort to offer words of encouragement or comfort. Sandy felt cast down – about loving Jonas, about being fat and not looking anything much, about growing out of George and not having another pony, about her missing livery money – but Julia did not sense her mood. They talked for a bit about show-jumping, and then Sandy went home with the shirt in a plastic bag.

She tried it on with her best jeans and Gertie said, ‘You look pregnant in that thing.’

‘Don’t be silly, Gertie. Everyone wears loose-fitting clothes today,’ Mary Fielding said sharply. ‘It’s lovely, Sandy.’

‘I had a dress once all covered in beads. It hung down just like that. I did the Charleston in it. With Tubby Malone. He asked me to marry him.’

‘He married Edith Edmonds – her with the big mole,’ Grandpa said.

‘Aye, and she were in love with Percy who helped the blacksmith, but Tubby were a good catch, weren’t he? I turned him down because ’e ’ad smelly feet. They were terrible. Did you know that? He ’ad a nice home and a good job but I couldn’t live with a man with those feet.’

‘He could ’ave kept ’is boots on.’ Grandpa started his wheezing laugh and then his coughing, and Mary had to fetch him a glass of water. Sandy ran out of the room, wanting to scream. She ran up to her bedroom, which was cold and had only a moth-eaten rug by the bed and no bathroom
adjoining
, and threw the purple shirt on the bed. She dreaded the party now worse than ever.

Mary Fielding drove them to the party in the car – Sandy and Ian, Julia and Leo. Afterwards, she was going out with Bill to see some friends, and the old couple would have to make their own cocoa and get themselves to bed.

‘Gertie won’t, bet you,’ Ian said. ‘You’ve spoilt her something rotten, Mum. She’ll wait till you get back.’

‘She’d better not! She’s perfectly capable.’

‘We all know that, but you—’

‘Oh, don’t tell me what I’ve done wrong,
please
! Do you think I don’t know?’

Mary changed gear with a jerk, and they all exchanged glances in the back. It was March and the evening was only just going dark. The sky was deep blue and flecked with stars and there was a smell of everything starting, damp and fresh, and the hint of the sea beyond the walls and the marshes. Sandy loved evenings like this, and would sometimes stand down by the ponies’ gate just smelling the air. She had reconciled herself to the party being nothing special, only the food, and was facing it with a curious sort of stoicism. She just had to get through it and try and enjoy herself. They had clubbed together, including Polly, and bought Tony a new numnah for King of the Fireworks.

When they got to Brankhead Hall, they piled out at the gate. There was a long gravel drive leading to the house, with a fine avenue of lime trees, and several cars passed them as they walked up. Brankhead Hall was in the stately league, a large early-Victorian, stucco-fronted pile with a fine porch. The gravel drive swept round majestically, edged by elegant lawns, and the house was framed by huge old trees. The cars were disappearing round the side to some hidden parking, decanting their passengers at the brightly lit door. The passengers seemed older and smarter than the party from Drakesend, who hesitated before the porch. Through the open door they could see waitresses standing with trays of drinks.

‘Cor,’ said Ian softly.

In a lull they moved forward. As they did so, a figure detached itself from the shadows beside the porch and came to meet them. It was Jonas.

‘Hi, Sandy,’ he said.

Sandy nearly keeled over on the spot.

‘Jonas!’

Apart from not being on Queen Moon he looked just the same as he always did, in jeans and a dark sweater with a hole in the elbow. Not for him long evenings agonizing over what to wear.

‘I – I thought—’ Sandy didn’t know what she thought.

They went in and a man took their scruffy anoraks and the waitresses offered up the trays
of
drinks. Sandy took something she thought was orange juice, and found out very soon that it wasn’t. Jonas didn’t take one at all. The others all took champagne. Sandy thought, ‘Mum’s not going to like this.’ She felt intoxicated and she hadn’t taken a sip yet.