On Saturday morning, over two weeks since I spoke with my father, I scramble down the slope to the creek and jump from rock to rock to reach the other side. By the time the farmhouse appears, the clouds have thinned and the sun is warm on my back. I push my hat lower and stretch out my fingers, cosy in gloves, before closing the gate and securing the chain. The late winter grass has shades of sage and cornsilk, with occasional patches of shamrock. I kick at a spiky thistle with my boot, loosening the soil and plucking it out of the ground. When I reach the orchard, I throw the weed into a bin.
The possums and cockatoos have eaten most of the oranges, but I pick the ripest, still tinged with green, to eat with my sandwich at lunchtime. The horses look up as I pass, and Lollopy nickers. Prima is in her usual place under the grey gum and the others are gathered at the gate.
‘Won’t be long,’ I call out.
Within an hour, the farmhouse will be bustling, but for now I’m the only one here. I stand on my toes as I take Gran’s keyring out of my pocket and jiggle the key back and forth in the lock. When I open the door, the sun shoots in behind me. A daddy-long-legs spider has stayed overnight. Swinging from a thread, he hovers above a crate of riding hats and boots.
I unfasten the window latch in the room where I make my flowers. Pushing both hands firmly against the window frame, I jiggle to loosen the sash. When I pull the bottom pane upwards, the window opens wide. Banksia roses and vines of honeysuckle and jasmine climb up the verandah posts and creep towards the house. Three old azalea bushes, white, apricot and crimson, are almost as tall as the gutters. At this time of year the buds come out. Soon the azaleas will be irresistibly pretty, but for the rest of the year they don’t look much at all. I’ve thought about digging them up and replacing them with native plants, but something has always pulled me back. Dorothy, Catherine and Lucille Andrews were sisters, and two of them were teachers. They bought the farmhouse when they came from England to work at the school, and planted shrubs and trees that reminded them of home.
‘I won’t let you down,’ I promise the sisters.
I prepare the ponies first, grooming Lollopy and Freckle and checking their feet. As I lead him to the yard, Lollopy shoves his nose against my back and pushes. I laugh as I spring forward. ‘Breakfast won’t be long.’
In his younger years, Freckle’s coat was speckled grey. Now, besides darker markings around his flanks, he’s faded almost to white. He’s older than Lollopy and, at fourteen hands, quite a lot taller, but he stands back respectfully when I bring biscuits of hay from the shed.
‘You’re both fully booked today, so you’d better eat up.’
On Saturdays, the ponies do a morning and afternoon shift of equine therapy, mostly with younger children like Barney’s brother Archie. Corey, the psychologist who runs the program, also treats older children, teenagers who’ve been in trouble, many of whom have spent time in juvenile detention. The council agreed to fund the specialists, but Corey needed horses and a venue. I’d already been given permission to use the farmhouse as a temporary youth centre, so it wasn’t difficult to extend its use to equine activities.
By nine o’clock, Mary and Amy are threading ribbons through Lollopy’s mane and Freckle’s tail, Sonnet is saddled and tied to a railing and Strider is in the small fenced yard being groomed by volunteers. By the time I carry an armful of hay to Prima, she’s the only horse left in the paddock.
‘Don’t look so concerned. No one can get to you here.’
I don’t manage to get a hold of her halter until I’ve followed her around the grey gum three times. I clip on a lead rope and run a hand over her back.
‘I won’t hurt you. When are you going to trust me on that?’
Prima skitters when Joel, a sixteen-year-old local, climbs over the gate. When I lift a hand to wave, he looks away, pulling his hood over his head before leaning against a post. Prima still has one eye on Joel and one on her hay as I unclip the lead rope.
‘See you tonight, girl.’
Joel looks like he doesn’t want me to think that he’s waiting for me, even though he undoubtedly is. He’s tall but very thin, with straight brown hair that hangs into his eyes.
‘Your appointment with Corey is at ten, right? You’re early today.’
‘Corey’s a waste of time,’ he mutters. ‘I only said I’d come to get out of juvie.’
‘He wouldn’t have taken you on if he didn’t think he could help.’
‘Leading horses around bores the shit out of me. I’m not even allowed to ride.’
‘You’ve only been here a few times.’ I tip back my hat. ‘Maybe the program will grow on you?’
‘I did graffiti at the station and nicked a couple of cars. What’s any of that got to do with anger management?’
I pretend an interest in the gate fittings. ‘The horses sense feelings—anxiety, fear and anger—from the way we move and speak. They also tap into our responses when things go wrong. Interacting with the horses helps develop emotional awareness.’
‘You sound like Corey.’
‘I’m learning from him too.’
‘Sonnet!’ Archie shouts out. ‘Sonnet! Hey! Sonnet!’
Archie runs up and down the fence line. Sonnet is toey, but stands relatively still after a handler walks him away from the fence. Barney chases Archie, who’s still shouting, and cuts him off, grabbing his arm and swinging him around.
‘Shut up, Arch! You’re scaring him.’
‘It’s okay, Barney,’ Corey says, ‘leave this to me.’ He holds out his hand. ‘Come over here, Archie. Let’s have a chat before we go to Sonnet.’
I turn back to Joel. ‘See what I mean? Archie will learn that when he expresses feelings like excitement and impatience in a certain way, it will have an impact on the horses. It’ll give him an idea of how others might react.’
‘Archie should shut up, like Barney said.’
‘When he understands that behaving as he did will spook Sonnet, that both of them could get hurt and Sonnet might avoid him in the future, he’s more likely to modify his behaviour.’
‘Why can’t he learn that stuff at school?’
‘Horses sense feelings, like I said.’ I put my boot on the bottom rung of the railing and stretch out my calf muscle. ‘They don’t take things too personally like other children might, or hold grudges. Usually they give second chances.’
‘I already know about horses.’
‘Your grandfather was a trainer, wasn’t he?’
‘He took me to the stables and to the tracks. We went to the races all the time.’
Joel’s grandfather died a couple of years ago, leaving his dad to care for him on his own. But his father has a gambling problem, and Joel spent most of the previous year in and out of foster care.
‘Is that why you’re interested in Prima? Because she was a racehorse?’
‘Granddad trained a mare like her. His favourite horse he reckoned.’
‘She’s been mistreated, but I’m not sure how. She won’t let men anywhere near her.’
‘She’s scared of you, too.’
‘If I wasn’t handfeeding her, I’m not sure I could catch her at all.’
He puts a foot on the gate rung where mine was before. ‘Reckon I could help out,’ he mutters.
‘You’ve been watching out for her, haven’t you?’
‘Might’ve.’
‘You have a program with Corey already.’
‘That’s only an hour.’
‘Getting accustomed to having you around will be stressful for Prima. I wouldn’t put her through that without the possibility of a positive long-term experience.’
‘You want me to hang around, is that what you’re saying?’
‘To commit. Yes.’
‘Gramps taught me how to be patient.’
‘Would you be able to come early every Saturday? Will you do what I tell you to do? Do you get a lift to the farmhouse?’
‘Or the minibus. Corey sorts that out.’
‘You don’t think it’d be too boring for you, sitting in a paddock for hours on end? It might take weeks before you can handle her. Assuming we get to that point.’
He sits on the ground and leans against the fence. ‘There’s nothing else to do anyway. I can wait till Prima’s ready, you’ll see.’
‘All right.’ I bend down and offer him my hand. ‘You’ve got yourself a training position.’
He holds back a smile as we shake.