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Gus looked over at Abigail as she led Denby over to check out at the paddock. She had the biggest smile on her face, and it was more than he could have hoped for.
‘Joan, would you like me to show you around the place?’ Hazel asked. ‘You don’t have to rush off, do you?’
‘I’d love that, thank you. And I might just think about that Facebook thingy.’
‘Do,’ Hazel laughed, ‘it’ll be worth it just for the updates. But if not, I’m happy to email a few photos to you now and then.’
Joan and Hazel started toward the outside school, where a private lesson was underway, and Gus went over to Abigail and Denby. He reached out and ran a hand along Denby’s neck and up around his forelock and ears the way he liked it. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘You missed him?’ Abigail grinned.
‘Of course I did. You’re part of the family, aren’t you?’ The horse regarded him with deep brown eyes and what Gus hoped was fondness.
Gus ran back to the car to grab the grooming kit and Abigail set to work grooming Denby while he leaned on the fence by the paddock and watched her. She was like a little professional these days. After the accident, Abigail had spent many a day with Joan and the horses – it was therapy for everything she was going through. She’d eventually taken over much of Denby’s care when he became theirs. Joan had even let Abigail attend the veterinary appointments for her horse. Gus had written a letter to the school to request a day of absence twice, although they hadn’t been happy. The third and fourth times, he hadn’t bothered to ask because he sensed the answer would be no. It pained him that they couldn’t see what a learning experience this was for a kid – it was teaching her to put an animal first, to take responsibility, she was learning about an equine vet’s job, she was talking with other people outside of school and home, all of it potentially giving her confidence and coping skills for the real world. But schools answered to the government, he got it, there were rules. It was just that when it came to Abigail, he knew her better than they did, and so he let her take the day off and made up a mysterious bug for those days instead.
‘His hooves all clean?’ he called over. He’d had his forearms against the wood, the sun on his back, the horse closest to him whinnying and tossing his head happily as though saying hello to Gus before he turned and dipped his neck again to graze.
‘I got a few bits out,’ she called back, which was code for Joan’s work being so good she couldn’t find much, but she liked to give Denby the royal treatment anyway, for which Denby seemed content. His coat was glistening beneath the sunshine, his ears moving as he took in the new sounds around him as well as Abigail’s familiar soothing voice as she moved on to brushing him.
When Denby’s head jerked around to see what the new surrounds were, Gus saw Abigail realise it was getting busier at the stables and he clocked the look of worry flicker on her face. He could see from where he was that another two, no, three cars had pulled up one after the other in the car park and he fought the urge to run to Abigail’s side. He wanted to let his daughter handle this on her own, the way she’d coped with school so far and the visit to the ice-creamery. But as the two young boys making their way over jostled noisily, followed by a harassed mother barking instructions which they appeared to ignore, it was harder for him to stay over here, out of the way.
One of the noisy boys was jumping up to see if he could get a view inside the horse box. ‘Is there one in there?’ he asked his companion.
‘Can’t see,’ said the other boy, doing his best to jump as high. They both looked about Abigail’s age and Gus wondered whether they were at her school.
Three girls were also making their way over towards the yard, having disembarked from the remaining two vehicles. By now, one of the boys had begun to attempt to climb up the back of the horse box and Gus was ready to go over, but the mother yanked her son back.
‘It smells of horse poop,’ the boy declared as he reluctantly gave up.
‘If there’d been a horse in there, you might’ve been kicked in the head or anything,’ the woman explained. ‘Where’s your common sense? You can’t mess around when it comes to horses,’ the necessary lecture went on, ‘I told you that when you asked for lessons.’ She briefly flipped a smile Gus’s way and then, the second she saw Arnold, it was as though she passed him a baton – or more like tossed it through the air – and she was off, leaving her boys in his capable hands.
Arnold told the boys to wait by the gate leading into the outside school and he reiterated they weren’t to move until he gave them the go-ahead.
‘Those two are a handful,’ Arnold told Gus through gritted teeth as he smiled and waved at the mother, who was already clambering into her car.
Gus looked over at the boys, who were irritating each other but not leaving their designated waiting spot. ‘They seem to listen to you.’
‘They know I won’t put up with their messing around.’ He frowned. ‘They’re in the next lesson, not my favourite group, but they’ll get there.’ He nodded to Denby. ‘He’s a fine horse. I look forward to having some time with him later.’ And when the three girls came over, as well as a parent who was lurking and wanting to watch the lesson today, Arnold left Gus to it. The stable hand who apparently worked here on a casual basis doing the menial tasks had led another horse out to join Franklin, who was patiently waiting for his next rider now he was tacked up.
Gus watched his daughter. As those kids had got closer to them, she’d moved to the other side of Denby where she couldn’t be seen. She was brushing him but gone was her look of contentment; instead, the hunch of her shoulders suggested she’d only relax when those kids were in their lesson and she wasn’t in danger of being approached. She hadn’t been that way at all since they’d arrived in the village, but seeing it now, he realised it was a reaction that came and went and likely always would. It was up to him to help her through it, to make enough fuss to show he cared but not so much it freaked her out. He knew he’d done that after the art class by yelling at those kids and afterwards he’d berated himself and his appalling behaviour for possibly setting back the progress his daughter had worked so hard to attain.
When Hazel and Joan had finished their tour and came round to join them, Gus could tell Joan was more than impressed with Heritage View. ‘You like it?’ he asked anyway.
‘Like it? I love it, thank you, Hazel. And I got to meet Arnold,’ she told Gus. ‘I didn’t realise he was so good at jumping, used to compete a lot. Now he seems to have found his calling.’ They all looked over to the riding school, where horses and riders were getting themselves organised.
‘Arnold said he’ll spend some time with Denby later,’ said Gus, thinking Joan might appreciate how much this pair viewed all these horses at their stables as equally important.
Hazel chuckled. ‘Arnold likes to give new arrivals a good once-over and get to know them. He likes to talk to them, man-to-man.’ She said it in a mock-gruff voice that made Abigail giggle and showed Gus her fun side.
At least the kids’ arrival seemed to have been put to the back of his daughter’s mind now they were safely behind the fenced-off school. He wondered how she managed it so well in the classroom, although perhaps she did that because he wasn’t there to look at her with concern, for her to pick up on his worries as well as hers.
‘I’m going to miss him.’ Joan was gazing at Denby affectionately and her thoughts stopped Gus from wallowing in self-pity or shame, whatever it was he was feeling.
‘Visit any time you like,’ Hazel assured her. ‘Honestly, it’s no problem at all.’
Joan nodded her thanks. ‘I’d better get this great big horse box out of your way.’
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Hazel smiled. ‘Now, I’d better go find a hammer and a few nails to fix Denby’s sign on his stable door.’
