"Perhaps they'll even let me keep you," she said to the horse, so that his ears pricked forward. "One more horse wouldn't make any difference, would it?"
But it wasn't just a selfish thing. If she was here, she could help her grandmother with Grandfather. She was always too busy doing other things, and they could save money if they let Lynda go. Plus, Mrs. H might have to spend more time with Annie, if she needed counseling, so they would need someone to make lunch. As long as Mrs. H still made the bread, Sabine thought she could probably cope with that.
And in the meantime, she could ride every day. And help cheer everyone up a bit. And keep an eye on Christopher and Julia. And perhaps keep seeing Bobby. She definitely wanted him as a friend, even if she wasn't sure about the other thing.
She was just rounding the corner behind the Church of Blessed Peter, when the gray stopped, his head lifting abruptly, his ears pricking forward. His nostrils widened, as if scenting something, and he let out a long, low snicker of greeting. Bertie, moving up in front of him, looked up, too.
Sabine, jolted from her reverie, glanced around to see if there was another donkey in the hedge. But, following the animals' line of vision, she spied in the distance the big horse from the yard, making his way slowly along the hedge by the forty-acre field. He was facing her, so at first, from that distance, she thought she could just about make out Thom astride him, and Sabine wondered whether to shout a greeting. Then the horse turned slightly to his left, and Sabine realized that there were actually two people on the horse. One was Thom. The other, behind him, was her mother. She could make out the red of her hair, glowing against the plowed dull brown of the field. She had her arms around his waist, and was resting her head on the back of his shoulder.
Sabine blinked hard, at first unable to believe what she was seeing, and then, when it was confirmed, frozen by its ramifications.
Her mother was terrified of horses. There would be only one possible reason why she would be up there.
She thought, suddenly, of what Liam had said.
She waited until they had passed, ignoring the restless stomping of the gray, her own gaze gradually becoming as cold as her stilled limbs. And then, only when she was sure she was out of view, she let her horse walk on toward home.
Kate lay in the bath, the bubbles up to her chin, and her toes emerging from the steaming water at the other end, little pink sausages, lined up underneath the lime-scaled taps. Her body was already beginning to ache--she had known it would--but it was filled with such a pleasant sensation of ease and release that she no longer cared. Thom loved her. He really loved her. Everything else was detail.
Closing her eyes, she thought of how he had felt, his breath upon hers, his arms around her, how he had felt on the horse, the quietly erotic sensation of his body pressed tight against her, their silence against the muffled lift and fall of the horse's hooves below. She thought of how, after they had talked on the old tree stump, he had, at her urging, peeled off his jumper and opened his shirt, to reveal to her the mechanics of his arm. He had been a bit uncomfortable at first, she could tell, and then, perhaps to hide this, almost defiantly relaxed about showing her and talking about it, his eyes flashing up to test her reactions at each revelation. But it wasn't that it would have made any difference, she had wanted to tell him. She just needed to know. It was a part of him she couldn't imagine, and now that they had seemingly crossed a barrier, she needed to know it all.
The hand, he explained, was silicone. It had a slight gripping facility, but not much. (He could have had a claw arrangement, which would have given him a greater ability to grip, "but it made me feel like Captain Hook. I couldn't ever forget about it, seeing it sticking out like that.") It extended into a plastic-covered wrist, and then became a brief arrangement of metal cables and near-cylindrical tubing before welding itself, in a tight web of harness, around his shoulders. "Couldn't you have gotten one of those fancy electronic ones?" said Kate, running her finger along it. "The ones that respond to your nerves, or whatever? Don't they look more realistic?"
"Not if I wanted to keep doing this job," he said. "This old thing doesn't mind the wet, or the dust from the hay. It doesn't have too many bits to jam. And besides, I can get by fine with my right hand most of the time."
A lot of people who lost arms, he said, didn't even bother. Too much hassle, and they could be uncomfortable at first. He had persevered because he didn't like being stared at. And people did stare; they couldn't help themselves.
She had lifted the silicone hand then, and kissed it, and Thom had pulled her closer to him, kissing her hair in return. She hadn't really thought about it after that; it had been not knowing what lay under the jumper that had made it compelling. She just thought about what life might be like with Thom; what it would be like to wake up to those iridescent blue eyes, to casually snuggle up against that broad, work-hardened chest. How did you know? She had once asked her mother, back in the days when they could talk about things like love. You just do, she had said, almost matter-of-factly, a response Kate had found deeply unsatisfactory at the time. But perhaps she was right, she thought wonderingly. Perhaps, just perhaps, this was it. It didn't feel like before; the kind of anxious, hiccupy love she thought she had felt for Justin; the grateful, reserved love she had felt for Geoff. This had passion, yes, but it felt simply solid; immovable, like there was nothing she could do to alter it, even if she had tried. Inevitable. Smiling to herself, she bent her knees and submerged her face slowly under the water, allowing its warmth to flood over her.
Because Kate spent so much time alone in her house, she had gradually lost the habit of locking the bathroom door; it was an irrelevance when there was no risk of anybody walking in. So it was something of a shock, as she opened her eyes to find Sabine standing there.
"Sabine?" she spluttered, wiping the bubbles from her face. "Are you all right? What do you want?"
"Couldn't you leave it alone?" Sabine spat, her hands on her hips, her face contorted with fury. "Couldn't you have just managed without a bloke for five minutes?"
Kate fought her way upright, fighting the urge to cover her nakedness under the harsh gaze of her daughter.
"Wha--?"
"You're disgusting! Do you know that? You disgust me! You're like a bloody whore!"
"Now, hold on . . ." Kate fumbled for the towel at the other end of the bath, sending a small tidal wave of water crashing onto the bathroom floor. "Just wait--"
"I even felt sorry for you! D'you know that?" Sabine was shaking her head now. Her hair, which had been flattened by her riding hat, stuck up at unlikely angles. "I felt sorry for you about Geoff! I felt really bad about saying anything. And all the time you--you were just. . . ."--she struggled with the words--"you were just shagging Thom. Throwing yourself at him. God, you make me sick!"
"I haven't slept with Thom," Kate stood up, hanging onto the radiator as she climbed out of the bath. "I haven't slept with anybody."
"I saw you! I saw you riding with him! With my own eyes!"
Kate shook her head, dumbly, crushed by the raw hatred in her daughter's face.
"Sabine, it's not like you think--"
"What, you're telling me you're not involved with him?"
She paused, breathed out.
"No, I'm not saying that."
"Don't lie to me, then. Don't try and cover it up. God, Mum, when I came here, I really felt for you, d'you know that? I really felt for you having to grow up here. I thought they were impossible."
She was now crying, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps, her eyes screwed tight to try and stop the flow of tears.
"And now, now, I just wish--I just wish I could have grown up with them and not you. People who love each other, properly, even if they don't always show it. People who stick by each other. People who don't go off jumping into bed with any old bloody bloke that comes along. Why couldn't you have been more like them, huh? Why do you have to be such a . . . such a slag?" The last word cut through
the steamy air between them like a cold blade.
"I haven't slept with him," said Kate quietly, clutching her towel, tears now running down her own cheeks. But Sabine was already gone.
She had fled the house without any real idea of what she was going to do next, her mind a jumble of conflicting thoughts, like the shards of a mirror, reflecting back upon one another, yet making no sense. She had ended up in the stable yard almost by instinct, sure somehow that the uncomplicated company of horses and dogs was safer than the human variety inside the house. How could she? she thought, her arms locked around the gray's impassive neck, her cheeks wet against his coat. How could her mother throw herself at Thom, of all people? The one person, since she had come here, who she had felt really understood her? Did she have no self-control at all? Why did she have to spoil everything?
Sabine relinquished her hold and sank onto the floor in the corner of the stable, trying to think back to what her mother had actually said. She had claimed that she hadn't actually slept with him. But it was obvious that she was going to; if Sabine shut her eyes she could still make out that image of her, pressed up against Thom's back, as he slowly steered the horse toward home. Even from that distance, Sabine had been able to discern her expression: smug, pleased with herself. Reveling in their intimacy. The same sort of expression she used to wear when she looked at Justin, and thought Sabine wasn't looking. She rubbed at her eyes in the darkening stable, trying to dispel the image of them together. Why did she have to end up with a mother like that? Once, she had felt close to her, had understood that Geoff was difficult, but that her mother was trying to maintain some kind of a family, even if it wasn't the conventional kind. Now she didn't know who she was; since Justin, she just seemed to be a different person. Someone who didn't seem to have any limits. It didn't just make Sabine angry, it made her feel a bit wobbly, as if she were standing on shifting sands.
She stood up, and plunged her hands into the gray's water bucket, placing them, blue-cold and wet, over her face to try and cool her feverish thoughts. The water felt icy, comforting. It was as she stood there, her palms pressed to her face, that she heard him, gently chiding the horse in the next stable, the muffled slap of a hand on a muscular rump. There was a metallic rattle, and then the hollow thump of a horse, clumsily backing into the wall. And for several minutes, Sabine stood very still. As if she were thinking.
Except she wasn't thinking.
Sabine pushed her hair back, wiped her eyes, and loosened the collar of her shirt. As an afterthought, she removed her jumper, wrestling it over her head and laying it carefully over the stable door. Then she walked out of the gray's stable, and quietly into the next one along, closing the door behind her.
Thom, his back pincushioned with straw, was facing the wall. He glanced behind him, his face temporarily illuminated by the yellow light of the lightbulb.
"Hiya," he said, hoisting the hay net high onto the ring, and pulling a knot into it to secure it there. "Come to give me a hand?"
Sabine leaned back against the wall of the stable, her eyes fixed upon him.
"I pulled a stone the size of an egg out of this fella's hoof earlier," he said, still tugging at the hay net. "You'd have had to see it to believe it. No wonder he was trotting up lame yesterday."
Sabine slid along the wall, inching closer to him.
"My own fault for not noticing," he muttered, giving the hay net a final twist. "Wouldn't believe you could make a mistake like that after twenty years, would you? So, where have you been?" He finally turned toward her. And then had to shift round and step back slightly, when she was closer than he had expected.
"I took the gray out," she said, lifting one knee and bending it slightly underneath her. "Nowhere special."
"He's going really well for you now," said Thom, smiling. "You get on well with him."
Sabine looked up at him from under her lashes.
"And you?"
"Oh, he's too small for me. But yes, he's my type. Brave, straightforward little fellow. No side to him."
"I wasn't talking about the horse."
Thom stopped, his head tilting to one side.
"Do we get on? You and me?"
Her voice was low, mellifluous. The stable seemed to grow very quiet, the rude chomping of the horse magnified in the near silence.
"We get on fine." He frowned, staring at her, trying to work out where this was headed.
Sabine stared back at him.
"So you like me?"
"Of course I like you. I liked you the first day I met you."
Sabine took a step toward him. Her heart was beating so hard, she was sure he must be able to hear it.
"I liked you, too," she whispered. "I still like you."
The tip of her tongue ran around her lips, moistening them.
Thom, still frowning slightly, turned away from her, reaching for the broom, which was propped up against the manger in the corner. He stopped. Then he rubbed at the back of his head, as if considering something, and turned around, stooping to pick up the near-empty water bucket as he did so.
It fell to the ground with a clatter that made the horse jump.
Sabine stood, a few feet away from him, her shirt open to the waist.
She was wearing nothing underneath it.
"Sabine . . ." He stepped forward, as if to cover her up, and paused. But she preempted him, moved toward him, placing her right hand gently on his chest, her slim frame laying itself against him, a delicate pressure.
His right hand she picked up and, looking briefly down, placed, slowly but firmly, on her bare left breast.
"Shhh," she said, her eyes wide, lost in his.
Under his hand, her skin trembled.
Thom stared at her, his own eyes widened, his breath short with shock.
"Sabine . . . ," he said again, shaking his head. But she reached up, and, pulling his head down, lifted her lips to his.
There was a brief, terrible silence. And then Thom broke away, pushing himself backward, stammering and shaking his head.
"Sabine. No. No, I'm sorry--I'm sorry--but . . ." He turned toward the door, holding on to it. Then he picked up the bucket with his silicone hand, his good one wiping at his eyes, at his face, as if to dispel his own vision. A light flickered on in the tack room, its fluorescent strip reflected in the cobbles of the yard. Outside in the yard, Bertie began to bark.
"Sabine. I can't--you're lovely, really, but . . ."
Sabine had begun to shake. She stood before him in the near dark, suddenly pulling her shirt awkwardly around her, her bottom lip trembling. She looked very fragile, and very young.
Thom, his face suddenly filled with concern, took a step back toward her.
"Oh, God, Sabine, come here. . . ."
But she pushed past him, and with a muffled sob, fled into the darkness.
Kate found Joy in the study, a chaotic knot of gray hair visible atop a stiffly upright green quilted back. She was seated at the desk where Kate's father had once sat, sifting through a box of paperwork, some of which she placed in a neat pile before her, but most of which was thrown into the metal wastebasket beside her feet. There was no meditative consideration of each piece, just a brisk glance and then a firm referral, to either front or below. To her left sat the box of photographs that Kate had found Sabine leafing through two days previously, seemingly next in line for systematic and apparently ruthless rationalization.
Kate, who had half-run up the stairs, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door, despite the fact that she was already inside the room.
Joy turned around in her seat. She looked mildly surprised to see her daughter standing there, and glanced behind her, as if expecting someone else.
"Well. You'll be pleased to know you got what you wanted."
Kate walked into the room, running her finger along the shelf, her voice, low and even.
Joy frowned.
"Honestly, Mummy, I knew you disapproved of me, but the fact that it's taken you ju
st--what is it--two and a half months? Well, that was impressive. Even by your standards."
Joy shook her head, turned fully around.
"I'm sorry. I don't quite understand--"
"Sabine. It's taken you a matter of weeks. But she now despises me as much as you do."
Mother and daughter stood, staring at each other in the dusty old room. It was their longest contact since Kate's arrival.
Joy lifted herself from the chair; her movements were slower than Kate remembered, they seemed to cost her more.
"Katherine--whatever has happened between you and Sabine has absolutely nothing to do with me."
She moved around to face her daughter, one hand still clamped on the back of the chair.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got things to see to downstairs."
"Oh, there's a surprise."
Joy's head shot up.
"Well. There's always something to do downstairs, isn't there? Always something to do rather than talk to me, your own daughter."
"You're getting hysterical." Joy refused to look at Kate, who was now standing in her path.
"No, Mummy. I'm not hysterical. I'm perfectly calm. I just think it's about time you and I had a chat. I am tired"-- here she couldn't avoid the lift in her voice-"of having you politely ignore me, like I was some kind of bad smell. I want to talk to you, and I'd like to do it now."
Joy looked at the door, and then around her at the floor, which had been largely cleared of the boxes that had laid there for years. There were dark squares on the old carpets, dusty stencils of where they had stood.
"Well, let's try and make it fairly swift. I don't like to leave your father for too long."
Kate felt the fury rise up in her throat, like bile.
"What have you said to Sabine about me?"
"I beg your pardon."
"What have you said? She was fine, when she left London. Fine. And now she despises everything I do. Everything I am. And do you know what, Mummy? Some of the things she says--well, they could have come straight from your mouth."