She caught Skylark. When the horse tried to pull away she jerked her head back roughly. She saddled her up.
Every Tuesday, Karl shod the horses at the Valley View Stables, where Imogen had learned to ride. It lay five miles away, across the A40 and out towards Whitton.
She thwacked Skylark with the crop. The mare, surprised, jerked forward. They set off at a trot. Her mother ran out of the house but they had gone.
The clouds were torn open; rods of sunlight poured out of the gap. The countryside was bathed in molten light. Imogen thought: nothing is beautiful any more, it’s all ruined. She kicked Skylark’s swollen flanks; how fat her horse was becoming, what a slug! Skylark broke into a canter. The track was stony; Skylark stumbled but Imogen kicked her on. She thought: I will never be happy, ever again.
It was four-thirty when she arrived at the riding school. It was the Easter holidays and the place was full of kids. Karl’s van was parked in the yard. A little girl led Crackerjack, a skewbald gelding, out of his loose-box; her face wore that look that small girls have when they are anywhere near a pony – bossy, proprietorial, as if they were responsible not just for an animal but for the whole country. Imogen had been like that once; how funny. She dismounted. This place had once been her heaven on earth; now she gazed at it with detached pity.
Jackie, the owner, emerged from the tack-room.
‘I was just passing by,’ said Imogen. ‘I’ve got a message for the blacksmith.’ She felt like a hologram, a ghostly presence floating over this place.
She tied up Skylark next to the watering-trough and loosened the girths. Karl was working in the next yard; she heard the rat-a-tat-tat of metal against metal. She felt her past slipping away. She walked in a trance, towards the hammering of her own heart.
‘First it’s my grandad, then it’s my own fucking father,’ she said.
They were sitting on a bale of straw. With his knuckle, Karl wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘You poor bugger.’
Despite her misery she felt proud to be sitting next to him. The blacksmith, with his curly black hair – it had grown. How jealous the girls must be! Sure, Imogen was crying, but no doubt they thought it was a lovers’ tiff, something way beyond their feeble little lives.
‘I just had to tell you,’ she said.
He picked white hairs off her jodhpurs. The insides of her thighs were stuck with them; her legs felt sweaty from riding.
‘I must look horrible,’ she said.
‘You’ve got a great tan.’
She smiled weakly. She urged him to respond in the way she wanted. If he disappointed her she would be utterly alone. Despite her passion for him she hardly knew him at all; she saved their moments of intimacy for when she was alone. In real life she saw him once a week, on Thursdays, when he came to the village pub to play chess with his mates Spider and Baz; she sat next to him like his girlfriend and afterwards he chastely kissed her goodnight. The rest of the time she daydreamed about him so intensely that when she saw him again she blushed.
He said: ‘When I’ve finished up I’ll drive you home.’
Her heart thumped. ‘Really?’
‘Get them to stable your pony. There’s no way you’re riding back. It’ll be dark in a while and we don’t want anything to happen to you, do we?’
He touched her cheek. She felt very close to him just then. He had seen her cry; he had comforted her. They had negotiated a hurdle together, far higher than the hurdles she had jumped with Skylark.
‘She’s not a pony, by the way,’ said Imogen. ‘She’s a horse.’
In the van, she said: ‘I don’t want to go home, ever.’
He said: Come and live with me.
He didn’t. He said: ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’
They stopped at a pub. She phoned home. Her mother answered.
‘It was getting dark so I’ve left Skylark at the stables,’ she said. ‘I’ll be home later.’
‘How are you getting back?’ asked her mother.
‘Sandra’s here. Her parents’ll give me a lift.’
She put down the phone. Emboldened by her lie, she gulped down the rum and coke that Karl put in front of her. ‘I want to do something exciting,’ she said.
‘No you don’t.’
‘What do you think I am, a sissy?’
‘Sissy!’ He laughed. ‘Oh sooper-dooper.’
‘Stop making fun of me. You’re always making fun of me.’
He ruffled her hair. ‘You’re a sweet girl.’
‘Stop patronising me!’ she shouted. The couple sitting next to them turned to stare. She didn’t care; for once, she didn’t care about anything. ‘It’s not my fault – my school, my stupid bloody family, any of it! You think I’m just a little squit. Well, fuck you!’ She stood up.
He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down in her seat. ‘I’m sorry. Have a crisp.’
‘A crisp. Oh, that’ll make everything all right.’
He grinned. Her insides turned to liquid. They had quarrelled! He bought some more drinks. She took one of his cigarettes. He lit it for her; she inhaled deeply and blew the smoke through her nostrils without choking. Ruddles, said the beer mat. What a ludicrous word!
‘Who mates for life anyway?’ she asked. ‘Certainly not badgers.’
‘Hey, I never saw your photos.’
‘Elephants do.’ Her head swam. ‘But who’d want to be an elephant?’
‘You’re a funny girl. Know that?’
‘Funny, ha-ha? Or funny she should be locked up?’ She drained her glass and held it out. ‘Go on, get us another.’
When they got up, she staggered; he took her hand. The pub seemed to be suddenly full of people. As she pushed her way through them, holding his hand, she felt as proprietorial as the girls with their ponies. She felt the solemnity of the drunkard. I’m his woman, she thought.
In the van, Karl kissed her. She buried her face in his jacket and smelled the horse-sweat. Wedged against the gear-stick, she pressed her body against his. He stroked her breast, kneading it through her sweater. The van smelled of burned hooves – an acrid, singed smell, the smell of her hair shrivelling when she and Jamie had played with matches. She kissed Karl more deeply, burying her fingers in his hair. I love you, she told him silently. The world is burning, all those bones burning, the hair shrivelling, bugger the lot of them.
He disentangled himself and started the engine. ‘I’m taking you home,’ he said.
‘No! I’m not going home, ever.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Take me somewhere exciting.’
He pulled out of the car-park. ‘Okay,’ he said.
He drove through the dark. How long had they been in the pub? Hours? He drove for some time in silence. She kept close to him, shifting sideways when he changed gear. Some time later he pulled off the road; ahead of them, a gate was illuminated in the headlights.
They got out of the van. He climbed over the gate and held out his hand. She grabbed it and jumped down. He led her up a rutted track. She thought: this darkness, we’re always stumbling through it together. She thought: how sweet we were when we went to watch the badgers. She giggled.
It was a moonless night, she couldn’t see much. When they reached the top of the hill, however, she could discern the orange glow of London. The immensity of it! She thought how pitiful her parents were, their little lives.
He said: ‘Feel this.’ He took her hand and laid it on a stone wall. ‘It’s a church. St Cuthbert’s.’
‘Cuthbert,’ she giggled. ‘You can’t have a saint called Cuthbert.’
They stepped over some rubble. The place was open to the sky; she could sense this, by the air. The holiness had evaporated; it was just a husk.
‘Know when this was built?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know, don’t care.’ She took his hand and closed it with hers. Her heart was bumping; could he sense it? ‘Let us pray,’ she chortled. ‘Let us pray that my father rots in hell.’
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She thought: I’ve left my horse behind; I’ve left it all behind. I’m spinning in space, up above the carcass of this church, up into the corrupt sodium sky.
She knelt, pulling Karl with her. He practically fell. She pulled him close, his knees pressed against hers.
‘Our father,’ she said.
‘Forgive us our traspisses – trespers –’
‘Trespasses,’ she corrected. ‘As we forgive them that trespass against us . . .’
‘For thine is the kingdom –’
‘Blah blah,’ she said.
‘Amen.’
He kissed her. Toppling over, he gripped her shoulders to steady himself. She realised, with gratification, that he was even more drunk than she was. They lowered themselves to the ground. She extracted a piece of metal, it felt like a bedspring, from under her hip and flung it away. She squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered herself to oblivion. It was chilly; she thrust her hands inside his jacket, feeling his flesh through his shirt. Karl’s tongue explored her mouth; his breathing quickened. Awkwardly, hoisting himself on one elbow, he tried to unclip the side fastening of her jodhpurs. She did it for him. His hand slid inside her knickers. She gasped. It was so strange to have another finger there, where only her own had been. She parted her legs, as much as her position would allow. His finger slid inside her.
‘Is that nice, sweetheart?’ he muttered. He had never called her sweetheart before. His finger moved inside her; he pressed the fleshy part of his palm against her pubic bone. Heat spread through her. ‘Aah, you’re wet,’ he murmured. His breathing grew hoarser. He pushed his finger in and out. ‘I’ve got nothing with me,’ he gasped in her ear.
‘I’m on the Pill,’ she whispered.
‘Yeah, but still –’
She stopped him. She moved her hand down to the front of his jeans. She rubbed the bulge there. He groaned louder. What power she had! She rubbed harder. He shuddered, trembling.
His hand guided her to the zip; with difficulty she pulled it down. His finger stabbed frenziedly inside her, faster and faster. Then suddenly he pulled it out. She lifted her bottom; he pulled off her jodhpurs and knickers. She helped him.
He laid her down. She felt him shifting as he pulled off his jeans. Then he moved on top of her. He licked her ear and her neck; Boyd, her rabbit, did that to the does when he was preparing to mate. Karl’s breath rasped in her ear. He positioned her, spreading her legs beneath him. He did this in an expert, workmanlike way. His penis nudged her belly as he moved her to one side, where the ground was softer; it bumped against her thigh. He wedged her legs wider apart with his knees; then he took his penis and pushed it into her.
Imogen yelped. She pressed her fingernails into his cold, shockingly bare buttocks as they clenched and unclenched. He thrust inside her, his hips moving as if they were oiled. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Boyd, gripping the furry rump of a female, juddering. Karl was mating with her. His movements quickened; he shoved his hand under her and pulled her rhythmically against him. She tried to move with him; she wanted him to think she had done it before. Then he groaned, loudly, and gripped her in a spasm. She felt him pumping inside her, waves of pumping, a warm flood of it. Then he loosened his grip, exhaling. He lay on her, a dead weight.
So that was it. She had done it. A bird screeched, that eerie cry of their badger night. After a moment his breathing grew more regular. He kissed her forehead and drew back.
‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.
‘It was sooper-dooper,’ she replied. His face was a pale glimmer above hers. She couldn’t see if he smiled.
‘Look at them,’ said Jamie. It was Saturday morning. Tesco was full of mums and dads with their brats. ‘Look at them, the sad fuckers.’
Jamie and Trevor were unloading vegetables. Trevor lifted up a cucumber; he hoisted it to his shoulder, took aim and made a machine-gun noise. The effort exhausted him. He leaned against the shelves, coughing his smoker’s cough.
‘Let’s blow the place up,’ said Jamie. ‘It’s time we did something exciting.’
Trevor emptied a box of carrots into the display trough. One of them fell on the floor. It was a good size. He picked it up and looked at Jamie. ‘Want to take this home for your mum?’ he asked. ‘Think she needs it?’
Jamie laughed. He felt vaguely sick. He had told Trev about his parents splitting up. ‘My Dad’s a bit of a lad too, just like yours.’
‘Heard the one about the little boy and the little girl?’ Jamie flung bags of potatoes into the trough. ‘She asks to see his thing and so he shows her and she says, “Is that all?”’ He told Trevor the rest of the joke. Trev grunted; the nearest he ever got to a laugh. ‘I got it from my dad,’ said Jamie.
Just then, when he looked down the aisle, he saw someone familiar. It took him a moment to identify the person; he looked different out of context. It was the blacksmith. He pushed a trolley. A child sat in it; another child, a little girl, walked alongside, picking her nose. With them was a woman. She looked at a piece of paper in her hand and said something to the blacksmith. He nodded obediently and fetched a bunch of bananas from the shelf. The woman frowned, shaking her head. He went back and fetched another one.
He used to live with somebody, Imogen had said, but it’s all over.
Jamie felt a curdled satisfaction in his stomach. The slimy git, he thought. They’re all at it.
‘Want to go out tonight then?’ said Trev.
‘Only if it’s somewhere exciting.’
‘Up to London.’
‘We haven’t got any wheels.’
‘Oh, that can be arranged. No problem.’ This was a long conversation, for Trev.
‘How?’
Trevor told him.
Robert had cancelled his Saturday tennis game and disappeared to London. Maybe to Essex. Louise didn’t know. Her husband now had an official other life; he no longer had to lie. He said he would be away overnight. Maybe he was making arrangements to move in with this woman. A second marriage was being dismantled. Louise felt a brief wave of sympathy for her fellow-cuckold, the husband. Maybe he was suffering as much as she was. Then she stopped. Christ, the man had been living off her! She, Louise, had been bled dry to keep his business alive. Didn’t he and his wife know where the money was coming from? Hadn’t they thought to ask? The lies, the treachery . . . She had shared a house for twenty years with a man who had betrayed her, who had stolen her and her children’s future from them. The panic returned; it felt like a blanket being shaken out in her gut.
She hadn’t told the children about the money. She had told nobody. Her children had enough to deal with as it was. Their reactions, this past week, had been painful to watch. Imogen had been tearful and volatile. ‘I hate you!’ she had shouted at Robert. ‘How could you do this to Mum?’ She had shut herself in her room, or disappeared on long rides. She was deeply upset but at least it showed. What would happen, however, when she learned the whole truth?
Jamie, on the other hand, was more unsettling. He feigned indifference – in fact, feigned it so well that it was convincing. He spoke to his father quite naturally – off-hand, cool. ‘I’ve always wanted to get out of this dump anyway.’
On Saturday night both the children went out. Louise wandered restlessly from room to room. She gazed at the dead fireplace and the read magazines. She couldn’t eat. She felt more alone than she had ever been in her life. For forty-two years she had been accompanied by others, by her parents, sisters and then by children, by her husband. Outside, the wind blew, whistling along the telephone wires. She couldn’t bring herself to break the silence and switch on the TV.
Just then the phone rang. It was Rosemary Giddings, a woman who lived in the village. ‘Can you and Robert come to dinner next Thursday?’
Louise gathered her wits. The news hadn’t leaked out yet; to everybody else, her life with Robert was carrying on as usual. At some point she had to put a stop to this and come out with the truth. Just now,
however, she couldn’t bear to speak it, especially to a woman she disliked.
‘I’m sorry, we can’t.’ She made some excuse – Robert going away, maybe. Later, she couldn’t remember because then Rosemary said: ‘By the way, have you heard the latest gossip? Margot Minchin – you know, at the shop – she’s packed up and gone. She’s left poor old Tim.’
What happened next was something that Louise confessed to nobody as long as she lived. Even when she and her sisters had grown old, when events had lost their sting and been shaped into stories, even then she told nobody what took place on that Saturday night, in that spring when her life was disintegrating.
Soon after the phone call she changed her clothes. She watched herself pull on her red woollen dress, the one that clung to her breasts; she watched herself from a distance. She put on her coat and walked down the lane. It was nine o’clock. In the darkness the hedgerows rustled. The village green was ringed by scattered, lit windows; she felt as if she was out at sea and the land was somewhere she would never reach.
A light shone above the shop. She rang the bell. She waited. Tim appeared in the gloom of the shop. He unlocked the door.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked.
He looked startled. She hadn’t seen him since that night in the lane. She stepped into the shop. He closed the door.
She thought: I’m dreaming this. He has taken photos of me. He’s a sad, creepy man. Robert calls him the Trainspotter.
But Robert was no longer there; he was only an amused voice in her ear. And as for the photographs – just now they seemed no more or less bizarre than anything else that had happened during these past two weeks.
‘I’m just making some tea,’ said Tim. She followed him upstairs. She had never been in the flat before. Cilla Black chattered on the TV; an electric fire was pulled out into the middle of the carpet. The remains of supper was on the table. In the kitchen a kettle whistled.