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GRACE BUNDLED ALL FOUR children into the Range Rover, her shoulders tight with determination. Absent and short with her instructions, she watched as the children climbed into their seats with an unusual lack of fuss. It failed to register. The awkward stand-off with Hettie was holding her attention. She was missing her friend, a lot. The short, uninformative texts Hettie had sent in reply to Grace’s countless messages were polite but frustrating; they gave nothing away. She had no better idea after reading them how Hettie was feeling now, or how Hardacre was shaping up and, only that morning, she overheard two jodhpured and booted women talking about it in the village shop. ‘The Greaves place’, they called it, standing by the door, baskets on their arms. Grace tried to make herself inconspicuous, scanning the shelves while keeping attuned to what they were saying: ‘Opening soon...’, ‘Quite smart, I heard...’, and ‘Can’t be worse than...’.
Fred demanded sweets at exactly that moment, and by the time Grace appeased him, the women were talking in whispers. They nodded and smiled when she moved closer, but they also stopped talking. Grace hadn’t returned their smiles.
She’d seen flyers for the open day – Jodie had put some in the dugout at Draymere – but Hettie hadn’t told her anything about it.
The exclusion was starting to rankle.
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HETTIE WAS ON THE YARD, brandishing a broom, when she pulled up. Doris and Pig scampered towards the Range Rover. Beneath her blaze of hair, Hettie looked drawn and lean to the point of skinniness. Her stoic frailty bought a lump to Grace’s throat.
She climbed out of the car and released her offspring, who scarpered from the vehicle like rabbits from a trap. She followed more slowly, fighting the unexpected swell of emotion that tightened her throat. ‘I’ve bought the mountain to Mohammed!’
‘Oh Grace, it is so good to see you.’ Grace could barely hear her. She enveloped Hettie in a long, silent hug, squashing Sophie between them and even pulling in the broom still in Hettie’s hand.
‘She’s a lazy little mare.’ Grace planted a kiss on her plump-cheeked baby’s face as they broke from their clinch, stealthily wiping a tear from her eye as she did so. ‘Still flatly refusing to even think about crawling.’ Her gaze moved from Sophie to take in the yard, which Georgia and the boys were exploring.
‘What do you think?’ Hettie asked.
‘It’s amazing! I’m stunned. Have you done all this yourself?’
‘Dave, Bill’s handyman, helped with the technical bits. And Bert has been doing what he can. But yes, mostly, I did this myself.’
They surveyed the yard, a frisson of awkward tension in their shoulders that were angled away from each other.
The hardstanding had been cleared of weeds and swept immaculately, and the three-sided stable block now sported smart black stable doors. The roof had been repaired and the guttering rehung. Pallet-patched post-and-rail fences encircled the lush meadows and offered a glimpse of bright show jumps in the paddock. The arena fence had been stained dark brown, even though the surface of the arena was still unfit for use. The only thing missing was actual horses.
Hettie’s voice was edged with forced jollity. ‘I can even make you a coffee in the lean-to.’ She pointed Grace towards the rickety glazed shed on the end of the bungalow.
‘Lovely. Georgia, boys, stay in sight!’ Grace’s words dropped into empty space. The children had already disappeared behind the stables.
Hettie pressed the button on the shiny red kettle, and the clatter of mugs was a welcome distraction for both of them in the awkwardness that had fallen.
Grace looked around the eclectic lean-to – a weathered blue table in the middle of the room, mismatched stools and garden chairs. Beneath the window a long wooden shelf, once intended for plants, now supported Hettie’s laptop and piles of flyers and receipts. The kettle steamed from a filing cabinet with wonky shelves above it holding mugs and tea and coffee.
‘So! I don’t need to ask what you’ve been up to—’ Mortified, Grace’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh God, no! I can’t believe I said that. I meant all of this – you’ve made it so cosy in here!’ Her gaze fell on the ashtray and the packet of tobacco on the window shelf. ‘You’re smoking again?’
‘Of course.’ Hettie placed a chipped mug in front of Grace, and Grace pushed it out of Sophie’s reach. She propped herself on a stool. ‘I don’t really know what to say to you, Grace. Should I apologise? I don’t know what to say to anyone. I wish I hadn’t done it, but I did, and I can’t change that. I wish Alexander hadn’t found out. I wish I’d told him before he did, and now I wish he’d at least give me a chance to explain...’ She lifted her chin. ‘Oh shit. If wishes were horses, hey?’ Her determination not to give in to self-pity tightened her face, but the tremor in her voice gave her away. ‘How is he, Alexander?’
Grace leant forwards and placed her hand over Hettie’s. ‘Hettie, you’re my friend, and I love you dearly, but I bloody well wish you hadn’t done the dirty on my brother-in-law. I’ll be honest. Alexander is rotten. You know how he is with bad news. He’s in grizzly-bear mode. He won’t talk to anyone, and frankly we’re all too scared to talk to him. With the exception of James, of course, who considers conversation to be meddling. Of all the people—’
‘I know, Grace, I know. Of all the people to do the dirty on, I did it to Alexander. Forgiveness not an option. If it’s any consolation, I’m hurting too.’
‘Oh Hettie, I don’t want either of you to be hurting! That’s why this is so awful. Such a god-damned—’
‘Fuck-up. Oh, sorry, Sophie.’
‘I was going to say mess. Of course you don’t need to apologise to me, but have you tried saying sorry to him?’
‘Grace, this is Alexander we’re talking about. I’ve texted him, and he hasn’t answered. He hasn’t spoken a word to me since he kicked me out of the Gatehouse, and I’m not expecting him to.’
Grace picked Hettie’s hand up and squeezed it. ‘He’s changed his phone number.’
‘There won’t be any coming back from this, will there? I didn’t even, well, you know, sleep with the other bloke. It was just a stupid, drunken moment of pash...’
‘Have you told him that?’
‘No, I haven’t been given the chance to tell him anything, and I doubt I will be now. I should have told him at the bloody airport. It couldn’t have been worse than this. I was planning to, but then he was so happy to see me and it was so bloody good to see him...’
‘Oh Lord, what an awful muddle.’ They stared at their coffee mugs. ‘So the long and the short of it is, you’re not going to be my sister-in-law after all.’
‘Ha, it’s not looking that way. Anyway! Enough of this. Let me give you the official tour of Redfern Livery Stables. And we probably ought to track your mob down.’
Grace jumped up. ‘Oh, gosh! I’d forgotten them!’
Artie, Fred and Georgia were safe in Hardacre paddock, poking sticks down a rabbit hole. Doris and Pig stood nearby with their heads tilted and their tongues hanging out. As they walked through the empty stables, Hettie told Grace she had Bill’s two horses coming in, when the student he was employing went back to university, but other than that no firm bookings. The riding-club jumping clinic was in the diary for September, and she had made vouchers offering free taster lessons to hand out at her open day.
‘Will you come to the open day, Grace?’
‘Try and keep me away! Now you’re finally talking again, you’ll struggle to get rid of me.’
‘I don’t want to make things difficult for you, with Alexander.’
‘I fear things with Alexander will be difficult anyway, regardless of what any of us do. You bloody stupid girl.’
Hettie nodded with sorry agreement as she opened the door to the bungalow. Grace shuddered as she went in. It looked like a squat, albeit a clean one. The walls radiated chill, despite the warmth of the day. A sad single mattress topped with a sleeping bag lay on the bedroom floor. ‘Oh yes, it could be lovely... when you’ve made it a bit more homely...’ The sentence petered out.
They herded the children back to the Range Rover and parted with the easy embrace of good friends, their earlier awkwardness gone. Hettie went back to the lean-to as the Range Rover crunched down the drive. She lit a much-needed cigarette and stared at the ashtray, rolling the cigarette between her fingers. She stubbed it out half smoked and headed back out to the yard.
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FIONA HARDING WASN’T speaking to her father. Daddy had leased the yard to that cow, Hettie Redfern, of all people. Pleased as she was that the slut’s fling with Alexander was over, her grudge towards Hettie remained. In fact, it was growing, because Daddy couldn’t sing the silly bitch’s praises high enough. ‘You want to see what she’s done with that place!’ and ‘What a girl!’ Even, incredibly, audaciously, ‘You could do worse than take a leaf out of Hettie’s book yourself, Fiona.’ That. From Daddy!
Fiona had tried to console herself with the thought that even sun-shines-out-her-arse Redfern hadn’t been enough to keep Alexander’s interest. But she was too deep in her pit of injustice to find any consolation. She had thought about getting back in touch with Alexander herself, playing Redfern at her own game... But things hadn’t been going so well lately, what with all the fuss Daddy was making about her getting a job. She couldn’t be bothered and, if she was honest, she knew she wasn’t looking her best. She hadn’t been to the gym in months, and it was beginning to show. She was staging a sit-in, a protest against Daddy’s endless nagging. And if she wasn’t going out, there was really no reason to look her best.
She could have run a stables, hadn’t anyone thought of that? Or she could have got Daddy to convert the building into a beauty salon or a restaurant or something...
Fiona opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a packet of biscuits. Picking up her mobile phone and dropping it into the pocket of her baggy sweatshirt, she retired to the sofa. Jeremy Kyle was on in a minute.
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EWAN STOOD LOOKING out of the window, his hands in his pockets. The sun was still just a hazy disc low on the horizon, the fields and woodlands shrouded in morning mist. It would be dark when they started the partners’ meeting this time next month. The practice seemed eerily quiet in this lull before the day got going. The phones were still switched to divert, and the waiting room smelt caustic with the tang of disinfectant undiluted by hot breath and thick-coated animals.
Here was Alexander now, pounding along the footpath, body angled with tight determination. The man even ran angrily. Ewan sighed and turned away from the window.
He hadn’t gone into this venture blind. He’d known working with Alexander would mean hard work and pressure. But the man got things done. He’d been relentless in pushing the practice forwards. He was driven, and harder on himself than on anyone else. But that had become a problem. His driving of himself was unforgiving now, and he was dragging them all along by default with the expectation of crippling hours to match his own work rate.
He had barely been keeping up before the black dog had reappeared on his friend’s shoulder. He’d seen Alexander like this before. It was hard to watch, and painful to be around, and now, even in his own life, cracks were beginning to form: Clare was tired and tetchy, exhausted by the demands of a particularly challenging toddler. Too many of their days ended on a row, and he blamed himself for that. But it troubled him almost as much that Alexander’s ruthless efforts had become misdirected. The practice had become a crusade for him, rather than a haven where they cared for sick animals.
He should offer coffee, try to speak to Alexander before the meeting, give him some sort of heads-up. But he hung back, daunted by Alexander’s body language as he strode through reception without acknowledging him. Not so much as a nod. He squared his shoulders. Tom was right, something had to be said. Alexander’s mood was affecting them all.
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IN THE MEETING ROOM Ewan shuffled his papers and spoke with a forced conviviality that Alexander disregarded. Tom leant back in his chair and folded his arms. Alexander, head bent over the paperwork on the table in front of him, was all business. ‘Can we get on?’
They quickly despatched the agenda points. Alexander signified his approval with a brusque nod, discussion and questions were abrupt, and unwanted suggestions shut down with a terse rebuttal. Tom looked at him and shook his head.
He met Tom’s gaze. ‘Right, that’s the agenda covered. Tom, would you mind leaving us now?’
Alexander looked up, his eyes on Tom as he left the room and then on Ewan.
‘We think you should take some time off.’
‘Ah.’ Alexander straightened his papers and aligned his silver pen on the table beside them.
‘For your sake, not for the practice. Go and see someone Al, a doctor or—’
Alexander stood up, the legs of his chair scraped on the floor as he shoved it away.
Ewan leant forwards. ‘—or talk to me.’
But Alexander was already leaving, his eyes averted so he couldn’t catch them. He was halfway up out of his own seat when Alexander flung open the door. The neatly ordered papers on the table fanned across its surface at the violent draught. The door eased closed on its sprung hinges, and Ewan dropped back into his chair.
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ALEXANDER PAUSED IN the car park, heaving in deep breaths of air, fighting to focus through the noise in his head. He had it under control. Couldn’t those fucking idiots see that? He was coping, with work and running... Time off? A void with nothing to fill it. Alone with himself.
He strode away from the practice, from the eyes of the building, fumbling in his pocket for his cigarettes. His hand shook as he drew one out of the packet, and that sign of his own weakness nearly broke him. He closed his eyes. Why the fuck would he want to be alone with himself?
His chest tightened, the fog was leaking out. He thought he’d buried it deep enough, but Ewan was right. He shouldn’t expose anyone else to this. Not his colleagues; not his family, who twisted his heart with their futile attempts to save him; not even the animals that relied on him to heal them. Who the fuck was he kidding? What use was he if he couldn’t even heal himself?
He got the message loud and clear. They needed him gone.
Back at the Gatehouse he hastily packed a bag and threw it into the car. With his dogs on the passenger seat beside him and the wheels of the Aston spraying gravel, he accelerated away from Draymere.
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ALEXANDER DROVE TO Wales and spent the night in a budget hotel on the outskirts of Swansea. The dogs shared the bed with him. It was still dark when he rose the next morning and took to the road again, driving north towards Snowdonia. His hands clenched the steering wheel.
Rusty heather darkened the hills that swept away from the road, slashes of granite crag jutted through the earth. Snatched glimpses of grey ocean drew his focus from the tarmac road, and his hold on the wheel loosened. He wound down the window and rested his elbow, got a rush from controlling a driver’s car. The Aston’s tyres gripped the twisting surface; pressure from his foot was met with an instant, throaty roar of acceleration. Alexander eased his head from side to side, felt the knot that snagged his shoulder begin to unravel. He reached for a CD, randomly picked from the heap in the glove compartment. AC/DC rocked through the car, and he tapped the steering wheel.
The road took him on to the wide open bays of Anglesey, where he stopped at a pub for a ploughman’s lunch and enquired of the landlord if he knew of any holiday cottages available, isolation the only requirement. The landlord knew of just the place, and he telephoned the owner.
When Alexander restarted the car AC/DC picked up with the moody blue chords of ‘Ride On’. His finger hovered over the eject button, but he pulled his hand away and let the song play out, the poignant lyrics echoing his thoughts as he swung back onto the road, passing black hills that plunged down to the sea at the cove of Hell’s Mouth. He continued along the coastal route until he found the turning, an almost-invisible lane. He gripped the steering wheel to negotiate the shifting stony surface of the narrow track. The dogs lifted their heads when he switched the ignition off. Alexander’s hands stayed on the wheel, his body braced as he took a moment to gather himself. His looked out at the wild and windswept scene. At least there wouldn’t be anyone to see him fall apart here.
He left the Aston, pulling his coat around himself against the stiff wind coursing over the cliff, and picked a path through the gorse until he reached the small Welsh cottage overlooking the bay of Porth Wen. A hunt in the woodshed produced the single key, tied to a length of string.
Stark, simple and peaceful. Whitewashed stone walls and square windows that framed a glimpse of a derelict brickworks and the steely Irish Sea. Alexander dropped into the sole easy chair and let the silence in.
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WEAK MEWLING FINALLY led Hettie to venture into the bleak room housing the outside toilet. Renovation as yet un-tackled, there was no light bulb and no window, so it took her eyes a moment to accustom to the gloom. Cobwebs stretched dusty fronds that curled away from the draught of the opened door. A single discarded wellington boot lay on a heap of dirty, moth-holed blankets. And there, behind the grimy toilet pedestal, were three spitting kittens, their reflex to hiss against danger inborn despite the fact their eyes weren’t even open. Tiny, vulnerable balls of fluff, their message was clear.
Hettie backed quietly out. She filled a second saucer with cat food and slipped back in to put it on the cistern for Moggy.