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‘Oh Dad, I never thought I’d avoid it for so long.’
‘If you don’t feel ready then you don’t feel ready.’ The sympathy was there in her dad’s voice, the way it always had been. ‘If you rush back and don’t take time to deal with what happened, it might well do more harm than good.’
‘Were you a counsellor in another life?’ She swished away a fly that had come in to join her.
‘I’m not sure I’d have the patience, only got it with you kids because you’re mine and I love you.’
‘I’m working on getting back, Dad.’ And she honestly was. ‘James knows someone with experience who could come and work here for a while.’ Her information was met with a silence. ‘Dad, you still there?’
‘Of course. It’s something to think about, I suppose. How does Arnold feel about it?’
‘I haven’t mentioned it.’
‘You’re in this business together,’ said Thomas. ‘I’m happy to guide you both but at the same time, you don’t have to make decisions because I approve. And I’m sure James has your best interests at heart, but he doesn’t know the riding business the way you and your brother do. What you both need right now, you and Arnold, is to have one another’s backs in whatever way you both see fit. That’s what business partners do.’
‘I know, Dad. I’ll talk to him.’ Before James dropped a clanger and caught her off-guard. ‘I’m still staying on top of all the finances, and that part Arnold is happy about. It does make it easier having one of us placing orders, staying on top of supplies and inventory.’
‘Always worked that way with me and your mother too,’ Thomas replied. ‘But if the driver of income is the lessons for young riders…’
‘I know. I need to get back to it properly. Arnold suggested I have a timeline so rather than saying I’ll do it sometime soon, have a date, a goal.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘Maybe.’ Perhaps having a date would give her a focus, help her to process her feelings and her fears and get back to teaching.
Before the confrontation that had rocked Hazel to her core, she’d never shied away from teaching anyone at all. In fact, she’d revelled in it; it was one of her favourite parts of stable ownership. There was once a time when she would’ve leapt at the chance to teach young kids, when she would’ve taken someone like Abigail under her wing the moment she heard the young girl sometimes lacked confidence or that she was keen to learn jumping. But as it was, Abigail reminded her a lot of herself – there and present and enthused one minute, and the next? She retreated into melancholy and didn’t know how to handle a situation. Hazel had noticed it the day Denby arrived, when those kids in the lesson asked Abigail questions. She’d gone from confident and excited to unsure and tentative, her voice quietening. And she hadn’t missed Gus’s stance, as though he might go over there at any second and have a word with them but was trying his best not to. At first, it made her think back to the scene she’d witnessed after the art class and she wondered suddenly if Gus's anger that day had had anything to do with Abigail. Perhaps he had been trying to protect her.
Arnold made her jump when he poked his head around the door and when he saw she was on the phone, he came over to the desk and the filing cabinet to look for something.
‘Hang on, Dad. I need to find something for Arnold.’ The last thing Hazel wanted was Arnold rifling through the paperwork. He didn’t know where half of the invoices and records were kept for a start, and she had an order to things. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I ordered a new saddle for Peony, wondered when it was coming. Hey, Dad,’ he called out, slightly frustrated that his sister was putting a stop to what he was trying to do.
‘I’ll find it, you talk to Dad. It’s quicker this way,’ she assured her brother.
While Hazel opened cabinets and files to locate the correct piece of paper, Arnold talked to Thomas. They discussed her dad’s latest hack in the West Country and Arnold assured Thomas that one day he’d make it down there and they could ride together. He probably wanted to add he’d do it when his sister pulled herself together a bit, but he was too nice a brother to say it out loud.
Hazel found the paperwork. ‘I’ll call them once I’ve finished with Dad.’ She took the call back once Arnold said goodbye.
‘Sounds as though you two really do have a system,’ Thomas encouraged.
‘He’d have spent ages looking for it, it was better I do it.’ And there was another reason. She and her dad had kept something from Arnold and Sally, something she didn’t want Arnold to stumble upon now, after all this time. It pained Hazel that for accounting purposes she had to hold on to everything for years. She was always living in fear of the tax office doing a random inspection and having them find that a handful of invoices weren’t exactly authentic, after Thomas had fabricated them to cover up money he’d used along the way.
Thomas had made a mistake. That was what it had been, and he’d moved on from it, promising never again. When Thomas had an accident while he and Sally were still in the handover phase for the business, passing on as much of their knowledge to their kids as they could before they went to the West Country for good and let Arnold and Hazel run Heritage View Stables, Hazel had taken on a lot of the accountancy work and she’d had to confront her dad about some invoicing and payments that didn’t make any sense. He was forced to admit that he’d been gambling with eye-watering amounts. He’d begged Hazel not to tell Sally or Arnold. He’d promised he wasn’t doing it any more, that he never would again. And she’d never told a soul.
Hazel told their dad all about the latest arrival at the stables. ‘He’s a beautiful horse and we’ll be using him in the riding school, which is handy. His name is Denby—’
‘Like the plates. It’s the name of your mother’s latest addition to the kitchen – new kitchen meant she wanted to upgrade the crockery, so she’s been collecting a shade of green which has a fancy name and has bought everything from pasta bowls, coffee cups and plates to a sugar bowl and teapot.’ He sounded amused. ‘You wait until I tell your mum this new horse has the same name as her crockery.’
‘You sound happy, Dad. You don’t miss Heritage View?’
‘Always. But it was time to pass it to you and Arnold.’
Thomas’s accident had made him realise he wanted to retire while he still had the energy to do other things like travel – they’d been to Europe a few times already and to Africa on safari – and renovate an old cottage from scratch. And while he still loved horses and they rode at least once a week, Hazel could tell that without the business to deal with, he’d found a contentment he hadn’t realised he’d been looking for.
After she hung up, Hazel chased the saddle order and went to find Arnold, who had just finished cleaning up the indoor riding school, ready for the next session. A half-filled wheelbarrow at his feet, he leaned the pitchfork against the wall and grumbled that there was no bread left in the kitchen, that he was so hungry he’d pass out in a minute.
‘Go get something from the bakery,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll dump that on the compost pile if you like.’ Beyond the stables, office, and hay barn, they had another small partitioned half-open shed that had sections for the composting process and daily they’d dump manure and waste onto the pile. Compost management was a time commitment, but it also saved money in the long run.
