Sheltering Rain

  She had reckoned, however, without her daughter's inbuilt mulishness. And the capacity of the sixteen-year-old for self-righteous self-belief.

  "I can't believe you think you're always in the right," Sabine said, furiously. "Not after the way you've behaved."

  "What?"

  "Fair enough. So, Grandmother made you have other friends when you were living out in the tropics. She was probably only trying to do what was right for you. You would have probably gotten people talking about you and stuff, the way things were then."

  Kate began to shake her head, slowly, disbelievingly.

  "She's told me lots about it, you know. About all the rules and things. About how people got talked about if they didn't do things the right way. And even if you were right, it's not as if you've gotten it right since, is it? It's not like you ever put other people first. I mean you can't even be bothered to spend time with your own dad, even though you came here because you thought he was dying. You're too busy flirting with anyone who comes your way. So that you can add another bloody failed relationship to your list."

  "Sabine!"

  "Well, it's true." Sabine was aware she was overstepping a mark, but felt too infuriated to care. Who was her mother to judge other people? "You get through men like Grandfather gets through handkerchiefs. You don't seem to care how it looks. You could have been more like Grandmother and Grandfather and hung on till you found the right person. Had some commitment. Really stuck with something. You know, real, true love. But you just go from man to man without even caring. I mean, look at Justin! How long did he last? And Geoff? God, you don't even care about him getting married."

  Kate, about to launch into an equally heated response, froze.

  There was a brief silence.

  "What did you say?"

  Sabine paused.

  "Geoff. He's getting married."

  She took a deep breath, suddenly aware that her mother might not have gotten a letter after all. "I thought you knew."

  Kate looked down at her feet, stuck a hand out to a shelf, to steady herself.

  "No," she said carefully. "I didn't know. When did he tell you?"

  Silently, Sabine pulled the crumpled letter from her back pocket and handed it to her mother. Kate, now leaning against a desk, read the contents without speaking.

  "Well, that didn't take him long, did it?"

  Oh, God, thought Sabine suddenly. Her eyes have gone all watery.

  "I thought you knew," she said again.

  "No, I didn't. It's quite possible he wrote to me at home, but I wouldn't have gotten it, being here."

  There was a lengthy silence. Outside, someone dropped a water bucket, sending a distant crash reverberating through the yard and a male voice yelled at a horse to stand still. Kate didn't even jump; she stood up, like someone sleepwalking, and made her way slowly to the door.

  "Well. I'll do some soup then," she said, rubbing her hair from her face. "And some bread."

  Sabine sat on the floor, feeling like she might cry.

  "I'm sorry, Mum," she said.

  Kate smiled at her, a slow, sad smile.

  "Not your fault, darling," she said. "Not your fault."

  They had eaten lunch in near silence; Sabine, unusually, trying to make conversation, consumed with guilt over her unwitting bombshell. Kate had nodded, and smiled, grateful for her daughter's rare attempts to spare her feelings, but both had been relieved when it was finally over and they could go somewhere where their recent conversation didn't loom over them, like a rain cloud threatening further showers. In Sabine's case, this meant riding the gray over to Manor Farm, where they had said she was free to use the cross-country course on their land to practice her jumping skills. In Kate's, it meant spending the first proper time since she had arrived at Kilcarrion sitting with her father.

  She had sat for best part of an hour in the chair next to his bed, while Lynda periodically appeared to check monitors, bedpans, and offer cups of tea. Although every attempt had been made to make his room cheerful, sitting in the near silence, staring at the once animated face, the father who had once swung her in his arms, and reduced her to putty by tickling, Kate had felt consumed by the gloom, saddened by the fact that she had been unable to live up to what he wanted of her, and the fact that he was going to die without them being able to bridge the abyss between them. I do try to get it right, she told him. I do try to make things work, to put other people first. But you and Mum are a hard double act to live up to; I wish you'd understand that. I wish you'd tell Sabine that.

  He didn't respond; she didn't expect him to. She just sat there, willing her silent thoughts across to him, and thumbing unseeing through the books that Sabine had placed on his bedside table.

  It was nearly dark when she sought Thom out, and asked him to meet her in the summerhouse. He had looked carefully at her expression, noted her inability to look him in the eye, and said nothing.

  When he arrived, whistling his way through the overgrown gardens, he didn't kiss her, just leaned against the door frame in an overly casual manner, and smiled.

  She was sitting on the crates where he had placed the blanket, her arms placed protectively around her knees like a child, her hair half covering her face.

  "It has to stop. Here."

  Thom ducked his head in order to try and catch her eye. His tone was light, humorous.

  "Till you change your mind again?" He paused. "Shall I give you half an hour?"

  Kate looked up. Her eyes, behind her glasses, were red-rimmed, sore.

  "No. I'm not going to change my mind. I'm going home."

  "I don't understand."

  "I don't expect you to."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "What I say. I'm going home. To London."

  "What?"

  It was the first time he had sounded angry. Kate glanced up at him, and saw the hurt and incomprehension on his face.

  "Look, Kate, I know you. I know you change your mind like the wind changes direction. But what the hell is this all about?"

  Kate looked away from him, not wanting to see.

  "I'm doing this for all of us," she said, quietly.

  "What is this?"

  "Like I said, it's best for everybody."

  "Bullshit."

  "You--you don't understand."

  "So tell me."

  Kate pressed her eyes tightly shut, wishing she could be anywhere but here. "It was just something I heard, today. Something Sabine told me. And it made me realize that whatever I might think about you, however we might feel right now, that I'm just back on track to make the same mistakes I always have."

  She paused, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve.

  "I didn't give this enough thought, Thom. I didn't think about whether it had a chance of going anywhere. I didn't think about the people it would hurt if it all fell apart. And it will fall apart, you see? You and I have absolutely nothing in common. We live in different countries. We don't know anything about each other apart from the fact that we still find each other physically attractive.

  "So, it's a pretty sure thing that I'll manage to screw this up somehow. And the thing is, every time I screw something up, I lose another little bit of my daughter's respect. Worse, I lose a bit of my own."

  She sat, trying not to sniff, her face now buried in her crossed arms, so that her voice emerged muffled.

  "Anyway. I thought about all this today, and I decided it's best for everyone if I just go back home. I'm going to get the ferry tomorrow. Daddy won't miss me--he hasn't even realized I'm here. And my mother has done her best to ignore me since I arrived. Sabine . . ." Here, she let out a long, shuddering sigh. "Sabine, I've decided should stay here. She's much happier over here than she ever was in London. Even you noticed it, and you've only known her a couple of months. She can come home if and when she feels like it. Or to start university. I'm not going to force her to do anything. But I just thought I should let you know."

  She stare
d through her arms at her feet. They had bits of straw sticking to them, from earlier, when she had walked around the yard, trying to locate her mother.

  "So, that's it, is it?"

  She looked up. Thom was breathing hard, rubbing at the back of his head with his good hand.

  "Bye-bye, Thom, again. Sorry if I led you on, but I've decided what's best for everyone and you're just going to have to lump it."

  Kate stared at him.

  "Well, bullshit, Kate. Bullshit. I'm not going to let you do this again. You don't dictate single-handedly what happens in any relationship, and you don't presume to act on my behalf."

  He turned and began pacing up and down the cramped floorspace, seemingly oblivious to the tins that he kicked as he moved. The air crackled, electrified with his anger.

  "I've sat here for days listening to you tell me what's right and what's wrong with us getting together. And I know you, so I figured the best thing was to sit tight, just let you get it all out of your system. But just because you decide something is wrong, doesn't mean that it is, okay? Just because you've suddenly decided you've dipped your toe too far into the water, doesn't mean you can pull the bloody plug out."

  He shook his head to himself, trying to calm his breathing, and sat down heavily on an upturned bucket.

  "Look. Kate. I've been in love with you a long time. An awful long time. And I've been out with all sorts of girls since--lovely girls, with big smiles and bigger hearts. Girls, believe it or not, even lovelier than you. And the more I went out with, the more I realized that if something's missing at the core of it, if you don't feel that--that--that bloody thing, the thing that is just incontrovertibly right--then there's no point. Right? And then you come back, which I never expected, and I knew straightaway. I knew from the first time I saw you in here, swearing at the walls and crying like a bloody adolescent, and something in here"--he thumped at his chest--"something just went 'Ahh. So there it is.' And I knew."

  She gazed at him, troubled, her bottom lip pushed out. She had never seen him angry before; she had never known him to say so many things at the same time before. She almost flinched as he moved off his bucket, and sat down next to her on the crates.

  "Look, even if you don't know yet, Kate, I do. And I don't care about all the other eejits you've been out with, and I don't care about the fact that we live in different places. Or that we don't even like the same things. Because it's just details, okay? It's just details."

  He took her hand, and held it between his own two. "And I know I'm not perfect. I'm too used to being on my own, and I get crabby about stupid things, and . . . and I've got a bloody arm gone. I know I'm not the man I was."

  She shook her head, not wanting him to mention it, not wanting him to suggest it as a factor.

  He shook his head back at her, his voice suddenly quieting. "But I tell you, Kate, I'll tell you this--if you go now, you're wrong. Really wrong. And it'll be because you're the one who's crippled, not me."

  He paused, then seemingly out of nowhere, lifted her hand and pressed her palm to his mouth. He kept it there, his eyes closed, apparently silenced by his own action. Kate, heedless of the tears now rolling down her cheeks, reached out her other hand and stroked the side of his face.

  "But how do we know, Thom?" she said, tearfully. "How do I know?"

  "Because I know," he said, opening his eyes. "And just for once, you're going to have to trust me on that."

  They walked out of the summerhouse together like wary travelers venturing out after a great storm, for once not thinking about the possibility of being seen. Thom said he had to check on the horses, and Kate said she would accompany him, hoping to locate Sabine. She wanted Sabine not to be anxious, to know that she was fine about Geoff, even if she didn't yet feel ready to tell her why.

  Liam was sitting outside the tack room on a bale of hay, polishing a bridle with a soft cloth, and whistling through his teeth to a tune on the radio. He gave them a knowing look as they approached, but said nothing.

  "Are the horses in from the bottom field?" said Thom, checking the bottom bolts on a stable door.

  "Yup."

  "Is Sabine back?"

  "Just taken the gray into the stable. We've moved him into the far one, as the roof's started leaking on that middle one again."

  Thom swore quietly under his breath, glancing up at the missing tiles. "I'll have to throw another tarpaulin over it. We don't have any of those tiles left just to wedge in, do we?"

  "Used them up months ago," said Liam. "Been anywhere nice?" He looked Kate slowly up and down, so that she was conscious of her flushed cheeks, her tingling skin.

  "Just sorting out a bit of paperwork," said Thom. "I thought you said all the horses were in."

  Liam turned to face him, and then followed his gaze down past the barn to the bottom fields.

  "They are."

  "So who's that?"

  Liam stood, and squinted into the peach-colored evening sunlight, holding a hand up to his brow.

  "Looks like the Duke," he said, frowning. "But he's been lame for months. That horse isn't lame."

  Thom was silent, his face unmoving.

  Liam adjusted his hand, trying to see better. "And who's that on him? Someone's on him."

  "What is it?" said Sabine, who had just approached, carrying her saddle. She glanced at her mother, wondering what she was doing in the yard.

  "I can't see," said Kate. "I can't see anything that far."

  "That's Mrs. Ballan--"

  Liam stopped, as Thom placed a hand on his arm.

  "C'mon," he said, quietly. "We'll leave them to it."

  "What?" said Sabine. "Is that my grandmother riding? Who is she riding?"

  "Bloody hell. She's not ridden in years." Liam shook his head in astonishment.

  "C'mon," said Thom, steering them away toward the house. "Let's go inside."

  He glanced over his shoulder as they walked away, leaving the distant, regal figures of the old woman and the stiff old horse outlined against the setting sun; his once-proud head held high, his ears flicking backward and forward to the sound of her voice, as they wove their way slowly down to the woods.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Joy stayed in her room for two days after the Duke was put down; the first time, said Mrs. H, that she could remember her succumbing to anything, let alone grief. She had risen at dawn, and spent the first two hours of the morning in the old horse's box, grooming him and talking to him, so that when the vet finally arrived, he found not a sorrowful, condemned animal, but an apparently buoyant one, his battered old coat burnished by sheer effort into a pseudohealthy gloss. She had then stood with him unflinching, one hand on his face, his chin resting comfortably on her shoulder, as the vet raised the humane killer. So relaxed was the Duke in this position that when he fell, his weight almost pulled her down underneath him; it was only Thom, waiting behind her, who had managed to drag her away in time. They had all stood for some minutes, unspeaking, looking at the still body on the thickly cushioned floor. And then, with a polite thank-you to the vet, she had walked resolutely out of the stable toward the house, her arms stiffly by her sides, her chin raised. And not looked back.

  She was funny like that, mused Mrs. H. Wanting to send the old horse off proud. Spending all that time on him. Not like her own husband, thought Sabine, knowing it was what everybody was thinking.

  Because it was during the second day that Joy had locked herself in her room, refusing food and asking visitors, somewhat formally, to please leave her alone, that Edward's breathing worsened, and Lynda took it upon herself to call the doctor, out of fear that if she didn't, he might not be around by the time his wife deigned to reemerge.

  Sabine, white-faced and watchful, had sat holding her grandfather's hand as the doctor took his pulse, pressed his stethoscope to his bony old chest, and conferred in hushed whispers with Lynda.

  "It's all right," she said irritably. "You can tell me. I am his granddaughter."

  "W
here's Mrs. Ballantyne?" he said, ignoring her.

  "She's not coming out of her room today. So you'll have to talk to me."

  The doctor and Lynda exchanged looks.

  "Her horse died," said Lynda, with a raised eyebrow. And seemed vaguely disappointed when the doctor nodded, as if he understood.

  "Is Christopher around?"

  "He's away."

  "Is your mother still here?" he said.

  "Yes, but she doesn't have anything to do with my grandfather." Sabine spoke slowly and carefully, as if she were talking to idiots.

  "It's that kind of family," said Lynda. She was becoming rather free with her opinions these days.

  "Look, why don't you just talk to me? I'll tell my grandmother when she comes out."

  The doctor nodded, as if contemplating this response. But then he looked at Sabine, and compressed his mouth into a thin line.

  "I don't think we can wait that long."

  Shortly afterward Kate, flushed with the new confidence of the well-loved, decided to take matters into her own hands. She had marched along the corridor, rapped sharply on her mother's door, and, ignoring Joy's croaking protestations, had walked into the sparsely furnished little room, and told her that the doctor urgently needed to talk to her.

  "I can't come right now," said Joy, not looking at her. She was lying on her single bed, her back turned to the door, her long, thin legs, in their battered corduroy trousers, curled up in a near-fetal position. "Tell him I'll call him later."

  Kate, who had never seen her mother look vulnerable (she wasn't even aware that she had ever assumed a horizontal position in daylight before), tried to keep her voice firm. To sound determined.

  "I'm afraid he wants to speak to you now. Daddy's really not well."

  Joy lay still on the bed. Kate stood there for a long minute, waiting for some kind of response.

  "I'm sorry about the Duke, Mummy. But you are going to have to get up. You are needed downstairs."

  Outside, she could hear Sabine padding softly down the corridor to her own room, sniffing mournfully. When she had finally gauged the seriousness of her grandfather's condition, she had, somewhat out of character, burst into noisy tears; a helpless, childish burst of crying where her fists screwed like balls into her eyes, and rivers of snot and dribble fought for channels down her chin. It had been Kate's shock at this uncharacteristic display of emotion that had fueled her decision to act. At some point, her mother was going to have to talk to her. It was all very well her leaving everything to Sabine, but at times like this she had to remember that her granddaughter was only sixteen years old.