LIKE A LORD mayor or someone giving important speeches, that was Twinkle. Elbows on chair arms. Side to side he swivelled the bank chairs. Old days were like this. His fingertips tapped together as he measured out words.

‘Coping power,’ he tapped.

She’s girl-young, I said.

She thanked me for it. She said she was thirty.

Thirty’s girl, said Twinkle, when you’re our age.

‘We’ll need proof,’ said bank girl. ‘Points, we say. Of identification.’

‘Have that, son?’

You dealt from your wallet. This card for driving. Money ones. Health.

‘And we’ll need his signature for our system.’

I watched close, but I was not my me. I watched close but was distant. As on our balcony watching ocean, it going on and me feeling breeze I could not interrupt. Such a small me against that bloody oaf-ocean. I could not point a finger and say ‘Stop.’ I knew finger-useless. I knew embarrassed. I wouldn’t point and make a fool of me yelling Stop too often from our balcony in case neighbours watched and said, ‘Her again.’

I would not be a fool to a bank girl. ‘I understand.’ I smiled and let Twinkle complete business.

I said, ‘This seems in order’ and signed my name where my hand went. I knew my name still. My hand knew my name and its shape for signing. I knew to put my glasses on my nose end. I knew to sign slowly so the girl saw my heart-shape. I knew to shake my heart-shape to make chain say it’s gold. I shook till she looked down and noticed. She had her own gold but too thin to have mattered. Her one ring had a little diamond. Hardly worth wearing, a silly diamond that small.

‘That concludes our meeting,’ said Twinkle.

He put his hand on your shoulder, so pleased with his dealings.

You did not like it. His hand you liked, but the business—what if I smile today at your signing rights but tomorrow I’m different? I might flare up and purse-bang.

I was already turning. We stood in the street. I opened my purse. I closed it and opened. I wished to offend you. Giving signing rights. If we’d been in private I’d have banged and banged. I didn’t need banging to get my temper up. I had not lost clever, not all, oh no. I knew how insults worked. I knew I didn’t trust. If I had to trust, I did not want to trust cheerfully. I never did so in business. I kept an eye out and an ear.

‘We’re going to shops.’

‘What shops, love?’

‘Thing shops. A book of my own. For him. For his signings.’

‘That’s not needed.’

‘I don’t care. A book for him so I can check.’

Twinkle sighed. ‘Goodness.’

You shrugged that you don’t mind, that you’re happy to if I want this. If it saves us arguments, transactions in black-and-white. You treat insults strangely. No annoyance or fight. You’ve your own me-balcony. It was useless pointing a finger, saying ‘stop’ to me.

Worse than a spy when they’re in the family. Opening our mail and having the right to. Bills-mail when we got home—electricity. Your first cheque to sign while we put our feet up.

‘In the book?’

Yes, you said, it has gone in the book.

I checked.

You did not believe Twinkle would end. He will manage magic. He will scheme his way out of shadow. He will live past this year and the next and next. Me, I was sure of it, that this phase was hooey.

You might as well leave, drive to your horses. We don’t need interfering. Interfering brings on my emptying-outs. I can’t catch them before it happens. I’m interfered with, you signing our bills. I’ll bite my tongue on bills, but know this—yes to bills, no to bringing in help. Of course I will keep my gapes closed. I’m not stupid. Is that what you think of me? Fool enough to go outside gaping? The sooner you leave the better.

Twinkle says we’re fortunate to have you. I shrug you’re better than nothing. One day you’ll be in our shoes. You’re fortunate to have us. You cannot ring home like you ring us. There is no one there but horses. Horses won’t answer. I feel sorry for you. Say something to me better than obedience and nods. Heaven help if a woman does take you. Twinkle says stop, there’s no need for such talk.

I’m finished, I said, no words left in my gullet.

You sat to the task of keeping company. The Bold and the Beautiful. Twinkle awake and asleep with a heave-moan.

Then you shopped for the list we’d made. Meals for the freezer. Pads for my leaks.

You soaked our whites in bleach buckets. His Y-front bloodiness. My urine knickers. I pretend they are not being done. I forget by the time they are. You hang them to dry on the balcony. The balcony is a long way up. Twinkle worries I’ll lean. He hides the key to the flyscreen in the safe. The safe, the safe, with all its hopeless back-and-forward.

Goodbye, hugs Twinkle. Let’s phone every night—us to you, you to us. It’s been good you were here. My dressing gown’s not gaping. I don’t have to doll myself up every morning, but I will watch those gapes. Nice to see you come, says Twinkle. Nice you see you go, I say to me.

The first thing you do when you get home is breathe-sigh, free of us for now. Wind grit in your teeth. Brown wind of mud gone to dust. Haze light from sun low behind stone. All the horses well and whinnying your walk. They canter up. You check legs. No cuts, though their feet need doing. Boy, good Boy, needs new shoes. Paddocks dung-dirty that tomorrow you’ll wheelbarrow clean.

In the dusk you bring in Boy. You cannot wait till morning. You must breathe from his height and be sleeve to his shape. A horse dubbed Dumb by his last owner who would fight to get a bridle or saddle on. You bent an arm over to feign saddle weight. In one hour you rode him. He’s yours, the owner said.

You dig with the hoof pick, scrape out his hooves. Pinch off yellow bot-fly flecks on fetlock and tendon. Remove his cotton rug, stiff-caked hay where he’s rolled in himself. Hang it on the gate and brush it. Brush him, head first, dirt-sleep in his eye corners. Eyes so clear you see into your face—a brusher in blue shirt. The dust spray itches your eyes. His black mane parts, half one side, half the other. No matter how you train with spray or water the part flops back untidy. His coat is no coat but a hair-skin of smooth. What is bay? It is not shore and sea to you but the colour of roots soaked in rain, the flesh of Boy. Faint flowers of dapples golden along his hind even in the coming night. His flanks each a feather of upward hair. Withers is where the spine mounts itself. Even you must stand on toes to see over.

Green saddlecloth patted on. Sheepskin pad. Saddle—it lifts on your wrist to his back like a mini-horse, no neck or legs. Girth belt tightened to his his-holes, the ones with creases. His ears lay back as you do it. This, his one failing—he bites a stick from the top rail. You pull the stick out and say ‘bow’ for the bridle. Your thumb in his mouth edge till the bit’s swallowed in. He crunches his back teeth. The reins stiff with old sweat. Noseband stitched fancy, clover leafing. Your right boot hooks the bottom rail for springing. Your left steps into the stirrup. Up you go. He stays bowed until squeezed to march on, on to your fingers.

The dance begins. There is no music. Bird noise, galahs from the sky towns, that’s all. Then hoof thud on thick sand you’d carted for a manège. Wind takes the top off but the base keeps hold. Boy trots deep in it. One front leg lifts, then his besidethat leg. Back legs follow in bendy scissor. Halt is a walk that stops with his feet square even. The main dance is canter where slow is better than fast, but perfect is better. Perfect is power from rump to chess-piece nose. Pushing under you, compressing speed. Horse breath timed to each stride on landing. Your calves rest not gripping beside the girth. Outside leg slides back to say canter. Your inside nudges for Boy’s nearfore to lead off. You are truly a pair of one feet. You steer with your eyes. Your eyes weigh more than your hands. To look left weighs enough to turn left. You have moved nothing but your eyes. Perfection. You are a form of greatness to the creature, a god it need not adore or be in awe of. You are merely its moment at this moment, its time. Your hands a soft fist for black reins. Your thumbs pinch them, thumb-knuckles hinges. Your elbows rub your ribs. The animal rhythm of Run. Calm bold. Bouncing mane. Your eyes have more strength than a horse. The art of Ride is to have such weighty eyes.