‘A rabbit would be nice.’ Mr McKeown tried to persuade her, holding out the template of a round, fat bunny.
‘I’d like to try a horse, sir!’
‘Katie, what about a duck, or a train engine?’
He picked up each template and showed it to her.
‘Don’t you have a horse?’
He shook his head.
‘I could draw one onto the wood myself.’
‘Well, if you want to try it, but it’s a difficult shape. Most people usually like the rabbit.’
She was about to say: I’m not most people, when he laughed and said, ‘Just don’t say it.’
She got two or three sheets of white paper from the back of the class.
‘How’s it going?’ Brona asked her. Every Monday when Brona arrived back at school people had to be prepared for the unexpected. At the moment she had all her hair in tiny tight little plaits with multicoloured ribbons on each of them. Katie smiled and stopped at her workbench.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Do you like the hair?’
Katie couldn’t help herself smiling.
‘Yeah, nothing in the rules against plaits!’ and she began to laugh.
Katie looked down at what Brona was working on. She was cutting out very small pieces of wood into triangles and circles and rectangles.
‘Your jewellery?’
Brona held up a leather thong and a triangular piece of wood with a Celtic design in black etched into it.
‘Great, aren’t they! My brother will sell them on his stall in the market on Saturdays. This kind of stuff will go a bomb, won’t it? Susan’s making a few too.’ Katie smiled at the bespectacled girl sitting quietly on the opposite side of the desk.
‘What are you at?’
‘I want to draw out and then make a horse.’
‘Yeah, that would be right. You people are mad about horses aren’t you?’
Katie tried to explain. ‘This isn’t an ordinary horse, but …’ She trailed off.
Drawing the horse was another matter. She had thought it would be easy. All her years had been spent with horses in some way or another. Now for the life of her she could hardly get the shape of one to come out properly at all. Drawing and painting had never been a priority growing up in the overcrowded trailer.
At last! She drew one that managed to look different from a big dog or a donkey. She was pleased with herself and longed to cut it out.
* * *
Disappointment swept over her. It wasn’t right at all, it was too ordinary, too rigid. It was a horse so unlike the one she imagined and longed to create. Crestfallen, she stared at it.
‘Katie!’ It was Mr McKeown. ‘Is there a problem?’
She looked at the simple silly horse shape. This was a stiff, heavy horse that would plod around a field pulling a cart, not the horse of her dreams, the one that came night after night unbeckoned, a horse that had travelled the length and breadth of the country and witnessed hail and rain and storm and heatwaves and snow. Silent through generations, it had watched over her family. This was a simple wooden shape, nothing more, nothing less.
‘Well done!’ He picked it up and turned it over.
She studied it.
‘It’s not right. It’s not what I imagined at all,’ she shrugged.
He stared at her.
‘This is very good work, Katie, don’t take that away from yourself! What is it for?’
He wouldn’t understand. ‘It was meant to be for my Mam, for our family.’
‘Well, I’m sure they’ll love it.’ He passed it back to her.
‘I think I’ll give it to my little brother Davey, he likes horses. He can play with it.’
‘That’s nice.’ He was about to turn away from her. ‘But I want to make another horse, sir, this time more rounded, more shaped, a proper horse not like a cardboard cut-out one. Better than this.’
‘Almost carved,’ he murmured.
‘That’s right! Can I try again?’
‘It’s a lot of work.’
‘I want to make it, sir, it’s real important.’
‘What kind of horse are we talking about, Katie?’ He stared at her quizzically.
‘A blue horse, sir.’
‘Is there such a creature?’
‘There was,’ she said, then corrected herself, ‘there is, sir.’
‘Not a real horse then, Katie, but an imaginary one.’
‘It’s the horse of my dreams.’ She hoped he wouldn’t laugh at her.
‘Well … every girl is entitled to her dream. How about we make a start next week?’
It was a funny thing, but finally she could sleep at night. The walls no longer came in on her, the blue horse, if it did appear, was no longer crazed. It still enjoyed a run in the wind, but it also liked to stand in the shade and gaze at the vast meadow and chew the grass. It would swish its tail at the flies. It just enjoyed being.
* * *
Christmas came and went. They put a small pine tree in the corner of the living room. Hannah and Paddy made all kinds of decorations at school and hung them from it. There was a new doll for Hannah, a small blond mirror-image of herself, which had been christened Alice. Davey loved the simple wooden horse Katie had made. Paddy and Brian got a set of racing cars and a game. Katie got a book token from Mam and Da. They would never be able to pick out a book for her – this way she had hours of choice ahead.
Being under a good dry roof while the wind and rain howled around outside was a great feeling. And when snow fell in January, the small council house seemed suddenly huge and warm and safe.
Katie smiled to herself. Even a few months ago she would never have thought of this place as home. Now it was a safe haven at the end of the day. The memory of last summer, and the campsite and Francis and his goats seemed almost a century away.
Brona had invited her to a party in two weeks’ time. She was so excited, but also worried about it. None of the rest of them in school knew it was her first time ever being invited to a party. She fretted about what she was going to wear and what Brona would like as a present – you had to bring a gift and she wanted it to be right – but despite these fears nothing would stop her going.
* * *
‘Stop!’
She got such a fright she nearly dropped it.
‘Don’t do one more thing with it or you’ll ruin it.’ Mr McKeown was striding over to her.
‘One thing you’ve got to learn, girl, is never overwork something. Take it a step too far and often you just destroy it.’
Reluctantly Katie put down the chisel. Maybe one of the legs was still a bit too wide? Maybe she should narrow it more? The tail a fraction too long?
The teacher seemed to read her mind.
‘It’s perfect, not one thing more.’
‘But …’ she began.
‘Katie, trust me. You’ve had four attempts. This is the perfect one!’ he insisted.
‘It’s beautiful, Katie.’ Rory stopped his work and gazed at it too.
The horse stood on the worktable in front of her. It was perfect. She knew every inch of it. Time after time she had closed her eyes and run her fingers over it till it felt right.
‘Tomorrow I’ll paint it,’ she decided.
‘Do you have to, Katie? The wood is so lovely. You’ll ruin it putting a coat of paint on it.’ The teacher tried hard to persuade her to change her mind.
But she was adamant – blue.
Often she wondered how her great-grandfather had originally begun to paint a blue horse on the wagons and carts he made. Perhaps he had dreamt of one too. A horse that came in the night and yet was the colour of the morning sky.
The others in the class gathered around. It was usual to view and comment on each other’s work. She felt embarrassed and longed to be out of the room, and yet a part of her was proud of this piece of wood. Her first real carving.
‘Phew, it’s just –’ Katie could feel her mouth go dry – ‘it’s brilliant.’
‘Well done!’
‘Not bad.’
‘You’re so talented, Katie,’ Brona winked at her. ‘It’s better than any tinker horses I’ve ever seen.’
‘You’re so lucky to be so good.’
She stood there, her heart beating. She rubbed her hands quietly together. The skin on her fingers was rough.
‘Thank you,’ was about all she could manage to say to a classful of smiling faces.