“I don’t suppose you did any riding on Wednesday, what with that almighty downpour we had?”
It’s a perfectly logical question. Shame I don’t have a perfectly logical answer.
Across the room, Rosie’s face says she’s reconsidering any previous assessments of his mental abilities that she may have carried out.
“How well do you actually know my sister, Dan?”
Mum says, “She came home in Gill’s clothes. So there’s your answer.”
“It wasn’t raining when we set out. We just got caught, that’s all. It’s only water.”
Danny’s not sure whether this is amusing or concerning. I’m only giving him cause to doubt my mental capacity. He’ll be telling me I’ll ‘catch cold’, or whatever the saying is.
Will he ask who ‘we’ are? I told the family that Nathan’s home and that he came out with me and that he shouldn’t have done so, but Danny isn’t aware of this yet.
He doesn’t ask.
I turn to Mum. “Are Gill’s clothes dry?”
“They’re folded up in the spare room with the other washing from yesterday.”
This movie starts at two-thirty. So if we leave now…
“Dan, if it’s okay with you can we go now? I’d like to drop her clothes off on the way. I’ve even got underwear of hers.”
He blinks a couple of times.
“Well, all right. If you’re ready?”
I am. It’s important to me to get Gill’s clothing back to her but I also have another motive. He wasn’t around when I was there yesterday.
*
Gill is in the ménage, lungeing Bravo.
And there he is, sitting outside the railings, near the gate, on one of the plastic chairs the grooms keep in their kitchen.
“Danny, look. Nathan’s back from hospital.”
“Right?” says Danny. “Oh yes. I recognise him. He was that… Oh well, good that he’s okay.”
It’s very good. It’s exactly what I wanted to see. He’s looking much better than he did when I left on Wednesday. His right leg is stretched out before him but he’s upright against the chair back and is animated in his shouted conversation with Gill.
“I never cease to wonder at the way that horse moves. And his attitude is so much better. You’ve worked on him a lot in my absence?”
“Me, and Justice,” Gill shouts back, keeping her face towards him as she turns away, then snapping it back round in the opposite direction as she comes back to face him again, like a ballet dancer. I’d probably fall over if I tried that. “He takes a fair bit of the credit… Oh! Hi, Tessa!”
“Be quick, my sweet,” Danny whispers. “We can’t hang about.”
He’s learning, isn’t he, that once I’m here at the stables I’m likely to be hard to shift. I start to walk towards the chair.
“You haven’t been misbehaving and riding any horses, have you, Mr Owen?”
Squinting against the sun, he looks up at me.
“That’s rich coming from you, since you were the one who busted me out.”
Gill has brought the horse to a halt and is standing at his head. She calls out, “Hi, Danny! Nice to see you again.”
Nathan leans back so he can see past me to Danny. I flash him a smile that he doesn’t return. I don’t think he saw it.
“Gill, I’ve left your clothes with Amai. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. They’re all washed. We’re going to the cinema so we can’t stay.”
She gives me a thumbs-up and sends Bravo off back onto the circle, laughing. Nathan tucks his leg under the chair after giving the thigh a quick rub and Danny whispers in my ear, “Done? Shall we go, Sweets?”
Yes. We should. I shout goodbye and Gill yells, “See ya!” then, “Canter!”
All I get from Nathan is that slight incline of the head.
Back in Danny’s car, the words that I can’t quite arrange into anything coherent come out as, “I wanted to make sure he was okay yesterday because I’ve never seen him so unwell, ever. He was in a lot of pain but he wouldn’t admit it. Gill was out teaching so I couldn’t ask her, and I did peek into the house before I left but it was all quiet. I thought he might be asleep and I didn’t want to disturb him.”
“Hmm, what?” says Danny.
“Nothing.”
Nathan doesn’t need me to worry about him. Let it be.