Grounded Page 12

  Lara sniffs. ‘You spoil her. She doesn’t look scared to me. See the whites of her eye? That’s a sign of a mean horse.’

  ‘The only mean horse round here is yours,’ I say. ‘Who kicked the farrier? Who chased Spirit away from the drinker in the field?’

  ‘It’s just pathetic to see you wasting so much time and money on something that’s never going to amount to anything.’

  ‘She’ll amount to more than that bad-tempered brute.’

  Lara laughs. ‘You won’t be saying that when you’re on the phone begging McCluskey to take her to the catfood factory.’ She hauls Willow round and trots off to the school.

  I run my hand over Folly’s thin white shoulder, scratching at the last dregs of an old scab. She wouldn’t have let me do that a few days ago. ‘You’re never going to McCluskey,’ I whisper. ‘I promise.’ As soon as Lara’s gone Folly lets me lift her hoof and pick out the dirt, but just as she puts it down there’s more hoofbeats outside. I sigh. At Rosevale there was never anybody about but Doris and she was always too busy to get in your way. Sometimes I worry that Cam’s is going to be too noisy for Folly, even though Cam complains that things are dead this summer. And Folly looks much worse here, where everything else is fat and shining.

  But when I see it’s only Sally, leading Nudge, her brown cob, I relax, and even Folly doesn’t look as outraged as she normally does when someone walks past.

  Nudge stops when Sally does and nuzzles into her shoulder. She’s the nosiest horse in the world and now she sticks her head over the half-door. ‘Be nice,’ Sally warns. But Folly touches noses with her and they sniff a bit without any squealing or trouble, before Folly loses interest and goes back to her hay net. I worry about overfeeding her, but she’s so much condition to put on and she gets stressed standing in her stable.

  Sally looks in and smiles her slow quiet smile. ‘How are you getting on?’ she asks.

  I run the softest body brush over Folly’s white shoulder. ‘I just wish she wasn’t so nervous. Sometimes I think she hates people.’

  ‘Well, she’d have good reason to. Poor baby,’ she says directly to Folly who’s now so intent on her hay net that she ignores us, even though I’m grooming her, which normally makes her twitchy. ‘Lucky, though, being found by you. Quite a story, isn’t it?’

  ‘Depends if she turns out OK.’ I can’t tell even Sally the ridiculous over-the-top dreams I have for Folly. I know it’s not fair, putting so much on a horse. But what else is left?

  ‘Ah, she will.’ Sally speaks like there’s no doubt. ‘She just needs time.’

  ‘That’s what Doris says. And Cam. Lara says she’s vicious and will end up on McCluskey’s lorry. After I’ve wasted a fortune on her.’

  ‘Her!’ Sally rolls her eyes. ‘She told me I should get Nudge put down and get myself something useful.’

  ‘Bitch.’ We both look at Nudge who’s still standing perfectly at ease beside Sally, resting a leg. She nudges Sally in the side and we both laugh.

  ‘Have you decided about putting her in foal?’ I ask.

  ‘Not going to. I love the idea of it, but I have to think, could I manage another horse, have I time for a foal, and what’s going to happen it in the long run? I know I’m not up to training a young horse properly. And there’s so many unwanted horses now.’ She nods at Folly who’s relaxed into an acceptance of being groomed, as long as she can keep eating at the same time. ‘Did you hear about those wee ponies down in Dublin? They were sold for a Euro, fifty cents even. Ending up being beaten round housing estates and living in backyards.’

  I imagine Folly in our garden, blinking under the streetlights, eating leftover chips from Fat Frankie’s. Kids like Cian asking me for rides on her. Or just taking her. I shiver. ‘You should have seen the wee foal that was in with her,’ I tell Sally. Even now, with Folly standing beside me, warm and alive, I don’t like thinking about Flame.

  ‘Well, this one’s a survivor. Wait till the end of the summer. A few weeks of grass. You won’t recognise her.’

  Sally always cheers me up. If I could tell anyone at the yard about the baby, it would be her. But I couldn’t tell her before Cam.

  * * *

  Even though Mairéad and Gary are out I can never relax in Seaneen’s living room. The twins are asleep upstairs but the carpet and sofa are littered with the pink plastic tat that seems to breed around them. I flick through a hundred channels of crap.

  ‘Ah, isn’t this great?’ Seaneen puts down her pregnancy magazine – how can there be a whole magazine about something so boring? – leans back against the sofa cushions and reaches for my hand. ‘Declan?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry. Just tired.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You’re at that yard all hours. Why are you always so late?’

  ‘Told you. I have to look after Folly. It takes time.’ And staying late with Folly gives me a great excuse not to spend too much time at home, where Seaneen wants to talk about names and Mum’s taken up knitting.

  ‘But I haven’t seen you all week, and all you want to do is yawn and watch TV.’

  ‘You were the one had to stay in and babysit.’

  Oh God. Is this going to be me and Seaneen in ten years, sitting in a Belfast council house with our brats asleep upstairs – one of them nearly ten? And where’ll Folly be then? She’ll be about sixteen – just past her prime as a showjumper. Maybe she’ll have a foal. I’d put her to a really good stallion. Her foal won’t end up abandoned in a barn.

  ‘Declan?’ Seaneen jiggles my arm and I drop the remote.

  ‘Sorry. Look, you should come and see Folly. You were the one encouraged me to get her.’

  She sighs. ‘I thought she’d just go in a field. I didn’t think you’d spend all your time with her.’

  Seaneen’s not sick these days and she doesn’t look as pasty. Her hair’s bouncy again and even curlier. But she’s starting to look pregnant, with this growing bulge that I try not to look at. I like it when she wears baggy T-shirts but the magazine she’s just put down has a picture of some pregnant singer letting it all hang out with a big sticky-out belly button that’s the grossest thing I ever saw. If Seaneen starts going for that look I’ll be mortified.

  ‘I told them at work,’ she says.

  ‘Told them what?’

  She sighs. ‘About the baby. I want to keep working as long as I can. Because I haven’t been there long enough to get maternity leave.’

  I try to sound intelligent. ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘I’ll have to resign.’ She shrugs and then lays her arm across her belly. ‘I would’ve anyway. I’m not leaving our baby in a nursery when it’s no age, not like some of them.’

  I hate it when she talks about the baby like it’s a real thing. If I’ve ever thought about it I suppose I assumed she’d take it to work with her; maybe they’d let her dump it there for free or at least cheap, like me having Folly at the yard.

  ‘I’ll go back part-time when he or she’s older. The twins’ll be at school and Mum says she’ll mind the child.’ Seaneen never says it.

  ‘So – you’ll still be living here?’

  Seaneen picks up a purple feathery dressing-up shoe and strokes it. ‘I don’t know, Dec. Will I?’ Her eyes look big.

  ‘How should I –’

  ‘It’s your baby too.’

  ‘I never said it wasn’t. Look, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. I never for one second said I wasn’t going to stay with you.’

  ‘You never said it.’

  ‘I never thought it; whatever. Same thing.’

  ‘It’s not the same thing.’ She moves to the other end of the sofa, and flicks over to some medical drama on Sky. I could get up and go home, but I don’t. Only I don’t move any closer to her, either.

  * * *

  Seaneen looks round the yard, nose twitching. She’s got this thing about smells now. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Cam’s gone to a big show on the north coast. She
’s brought some of the liveries. It’s Jim’s day off.’ I don’t tell her I picked this day on purpose so we wouldn’t meet anybody.

  We stroll down through the paddocks. It’s August and there’s a breath of autumn that makes me zip my hoody. Cam put Folly in the field beside the school last week, with the Welshies for company, and after the usual squealing and hoof stamping and dashing round the field with their tails up, they settled down OK.

  Seaneen leans on the gate and squints into the field. The wind catches her curls and blows them round her face. She spits hair out of her mouth. ‘I can’t see her,’ she complains. ‘She must’ve escaped.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. There she is, under the tree. Folly!’ I raise my voice, crossing my fingers that she’ll respond. Sometimes she does; sometimes she doesn’t. She lifts her head, ears pricked. She looks round and takes ages making up her mind. Then she trots up to the gate, long grey mane flying in the breeze, hooves skimming the ground, a world away from the ghost horse who cowered in the barn.

  Seaneen turns to me. ‘No way is that her! Where’s her scabs?’

  ‘Healed up.’ I can’t prevent a huge grin as I take Seaneen’s hand. ‘Now you see why I’ve been so busy?’ Actually, Folly looking so good has got more to do with her stuffing her face with Cam’s good grass than with the hours I’ve spent with her in the stable. But Seaneen won’t know that.

  ‘Come on.’ I undo the gate. ‘Come in and see her properly.’

  But Seaneen hangs back. Her cheeks are pink in the wind.

  ‘You came into the field at Doris’s. She’s a million times quieter now.’

  Seaneen flips her hand at the three Welsh ponies, who are way down at the bottom of the field and have no notion of moving.

  ‘They won’t come near you. They’re happy, eating.’

  ‘It’s just’ – she places her arm protectively across her stomach – ‘with the baby …’

  ‘I don’t know anybody who’s ever been kicked in the stomach by a horse. But if you don’t want to …’

  Seaneen hesitates. ‘I’ll talk to her over the fence,’ she says.

  But Folly’s given up on us. She sees we haven’t got anything for her and trots back to her tree.

  We go for the bus. It feels like a stupid waste of an afternoon. All the way home, Seaneen says, ‘You know, I can’t see what takes up the time. If she’s just eating grass in the field all day …’

  ‘I’m training her,’ I explain. ‘Getting her ready to ride. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘Oh,’ Seaneen says. ‘So that’ll take up even more time?’

  It’s the first time I’ve looked at Seaneen and seen Mairéad. And I have a horrible feeling it won’t be the last.

  8.

  My heart slumps at the sight of Mairéad coming down the aisle of the off-licence towards me.

  She looks at the can in my hand. One can of Harp. One wee can to quench the dust and sand that have scratched at my throat the whole way home.

  ‘Drinking on your own?’ she says like she’s just caught me with a litre of Buckfast in an alleyway. She nods in a knowing way. She looks me up and down and her nose twitches. I know I’m sweaty, and sand from the school clings to the mud on my boots. It’s the smell of hard work. Isn’t that the kind of thing girls’ mums are meant to love?

  I look at the three-bottles-of-wine-for-a-tenner in her own basket. ‘Mairéad – did you want something?’

  She hoicks her basket up her arm. ‘I don’t want us to fall out, Declan. You’re the father of my grandchild.’ God, I wish she wouldn’t put it like that.

  ‘But?’ I prompt her.

  ‘Me and Gary have been talking. Youse need to start sorting things out.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Somewhere to live?’

  A fat man pushes past us on his way to the whiskey.

  I don’t keep my voice down. ‘Why? Are you throwing Seaneen out?’

  A red flush creeps up Mairéad’s neck. ‘Don’t be stupid. I just meant – I thought you were sticking by her. Because she’s got rights, you know.’

  ‘I am sticking by her.’ I am fed up having this conversation.

  ‘Well, you’re not very involved.’

  ‘I came to the scan!’

  ‘That was one hour! Where are you all day long? Where have you been the night? Our Seaneen’s waiting on you.’

  ‘Mairéad, I have a job.’

  ‘Seven days a week? Night, noon and morning?’

  ‘I have to look after Folly.’

  ‘Folly!’ She snorts.

  I turn away and walk to the checkout but Granzilla catches me up. ‘Don’t think you can just walk away from that child.’

  I don’t know if that child means Seaneen or the baby. All I know is when I get out of the off-licence and start wheeling my bike home, which is footery when you’re trying to drink a can of beer at the same time, her heels tap along beside me. ‘I mean it, Declan. Our Seaneen lets you away with murder, but I won’t. And Gary won’t.’

  I wonder if Seaneen would let me away with murder – with murdering her ma. The wine bottles clink in her carrier bag.

  Mairéad changes to a creamy kind of voice. ‘Och, Declan, you’ve never had a father, have you? So you don’t know what you missed out on. But I’m not having that child growing up like that.’ She changes her carrier bag to the other hand. ‘She’s eighteen weeks now. You can’t keep letting on it’s not happening.’ She heads off down her own street, her arse wiggling exactly the same way Seaneen’s does, only hers is wider. She half-turns to call back at me, ‘You have to start being adult about it,’ so she doesn’t see some kid in a hoody dash past, head down, shoving her into the road and nearly making her drop her bag. I grin, until I realise the kid’s heading straight for me and if I don’t grab him he’s going to mow me down. He hurtles into me but I block him. The kid keels over and nearly falls, his breath huffing in slobbery wheezes.

  ‘Steady on.’ I grab him by the wrists to hold him up. It’s Cian. His face under his hood is white, his eyes wild. For a second he blinks at me without recognition. Down the street a car revs.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ I ask.

  I look down at his wrists, caught in my hands. His sleeves have ridden up, exposing deep red scratches on his arms. He pulls away and hugs himself. He shakes his head. ‘Nothing,’ he mutters.

  ‘Is somebody after you? Where are you going?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  A Honda Civic roars past us, and Cian flinches like it’s going to mow him down. His breath is ragged and juddery.

  ‘That your ma’s fella?’

  ‘Ex,’ he says. ‘He just dumped her.’

  I remember Stacey’s whiney voice, ‘If he wrecks this for me …’ I look at Cian’s arms and he pulls his sleeves down quickly. ‘Did he give you those marks?’

  Cian shakes his head. ‘Think I’d let that bastard near me?’ He’s all swagger again but the effect’s spoiled by the snot and tears. And actually the marks don’t look like something a man would make, more like he’s been fighting with his wee sisters. If only Seaneen was here. She’d know what to say. She’s the one always going round feeling sorry for him.

  But even I can’t leave him here, crying in the street.

  Cian sniffs and rubs his hand across his eyes. ‘Is your ma out?’ he asks and I suppose he’s remembering the time I made him the toast.

  ‘No.’ And if Stacey’s had a row with her fella I’d give her five minutes to land round at our house, whingeing, probably with the two brats in tow. Cian doesn’t have to tell me he doesn’t want to go home. And I know how he feels. Which is probably why I say, ‘D’you want to come for a walk?’

  ‘A walk?’ Even covered in tears and snot, he manages to pour a bucketload of scorn over the word. ‘You gay or something?’

  ‘Suit yourself; I don’t need company.’

  ‘Nah, might as well.’

  So we walk out of the estate and up the main road away
from town. I chain my bike to a lamppost and hope it’ll still be there when I get back. After two minutes Cian’s puffing. ‘Where are we going?’ he pants. ‘Can we get a few cans?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘There’s a wee shop further up.’

  He struggles to keep up but he doesn’t turn back. ‘Where are we going?’ he whinges again. ‘Sure there’s nothing up here.’

  ‘This is the way I go to work every day,’ I tell him, ‘on my bike.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Rather you than me.’ He stops and bends over, resting his hands on his knees. ‘You must be fit.’

  ‘You don’t have to come. I’m only walking because …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well … d’you never need to just walk? Just get away from people?’ After all, he was running fast enough when I met him.

  ‘Nah,’ he says. Then he goes on, surprising me, ‘I don’t walk. I hide.’

  ‘Hide?’

  ‘Yeah. When people piss me off. Round our old way I’d loads of places nobody knew about. This empty house. It was boarded up but I found a way in. Had a lilo in there and everything.’

  ‘And you think I’m weird?’

  He’s keeping up easier now, even though we’re still going uphill. He witters on about the old house and hiding stuff in it for a favour for somebody in return for free drugs. He’s boasting – I don’t believe him, but I’m only half listening.

  ‘So where do you hide round our way?’

  His eyes darken and his face closes down. ‘Think I’d tell you?’

  It’s getting dark, but restlessness fizzes through me. I could walk for miles. I stop at the wee shop and buy us each a can of Coke and I think Cian will get fed up and go home then, but he tags on.

  ‘Have you no mates?’ I ask him.

  ‘Have you no mates?’ he flashes straight back at me. Not round here, I think, not any more. And I wonder why that didn’t bother me so much before.

  I pull the tab on my can and take a slug.

  ‘Do you know Emmet McCann?’ he asks suddenly.

  ‘I … yeah. I wouldn’t get mixed up with him if I were you.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’