The whole atmosphere of the place was back to where I’d known it first, to the slow chill months of gestation. Ginnie, snuggling inside her padded jacket, gave carrots from her pocket to some of the mares in the first yard and walked me without stopping through the empty places, the second yard, the foaling yard, and past the breeding shed.
We came finally as always to the stallion yard where the curiosity of the residents brought their heads out the moment they heard our footsteps. Ginnie distributed carrots and pats with the aplomb of her father, and Sandcastle graciously allowed her to stroke his nose.
‘He’s quiet now,’ she said. ‘He’s on a much lower diet at this time of year.’
I listened to the bulk of knowledge behind the calm words and I said, ‘What are you going to do when you leave school?’
‘This, of course.’ She patted Sandcastle’s neck. ‘Help Dad. Be his assistant.’
‘Nothing else?’
She shook her head. ‘I love the foals. Seeing them born and watching them grow. I don’t want to do anything else, ever.’
We left the stallions and walked between the paddocks with their foals and dams, along the path to the Watcherleys’, Squibs trotting on ahead and marking his fence posts. The neighbouring place, whose ramshackle state I’d only glimpsed on my pursuit of the loose five million, proved now to be almost as neat as the parent spread, with much fresh paint in evidence and weeds markedly absent.
‘Dad can’t bear mess,’ Ginnie said when I remarked on the spit-and-polish. ‘The Watcherleys are pretty lucky, really, with Dad paying them rent and doing up their place and employing them to look after the animals in this yard. Bob may still gripe a bit at not being on his own, but Maggie was telling me just last week that she would be everlastingly thankful that Calder Jackson stole their business.’
‘He hardly stole it,’ I said mildly.
‘Well, you know what I mean. Did better at it, if you want to be pedantic’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, Maggie’s bought some new clothes at last, and I’m glad for her.’
We opened and went into a few of the boxes where she handed out the last of the carrots and fondled the inmates, both mares and growing foals, talking to them, and all of them responded amiably to her touch, nuzzling her gently. She looked at peace and where she belonged, all growing pains suspended.
The Third Year
April
Alec had bought a bunch of yellow tulips when he went out for What’s Going On, and they stood on his desk in a beer mug, catching a shaft of spring sunshine and standing straight like guardsmen.
Gordon was making notes in a handwriting growing even smaller, and the two older colleagues were counting the weeks to their retirement. Office life: an ordinary day.
My telephone rang, and with eyes still bent on a letter from a tomato grower asking for more time to repay his original loan because of needing a new greenhouse (half an acre) right this minute, I slowly picked up the receiver.
‘Oliver Knowles,’ the voice said. ‘Is that you, Tim?’
‘Hello,’ I replied warmly. ‘Everything going well?’
‘No.’ The word was sickeningly abrupt, and both mentally and physically I sat up straighter.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Can you come down here?’ he asked, not directly answering. ‘I’m rather worried. I want to talk to you.’
‘Well... I could come on Sunday,’ I said.
‘Could you come today? Or tomorrow?’
I reviewed my work load and a few appointments. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, if you like,’ I said. ‘If it’s bank business.’
‘Yes, it is.’ The anxiety in his voice was quite plain, and communicated itself with much ease to me.
‘Can’t you tell me what’s the trouble?’ I asked. ‘Is Sandcastle all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you when you come.’
‘But Oliver...’
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Sandcastle is in good health and he hasn’t escaped again or anything like that. It’s too difficult to explain on the telephone. I want your advice, that’s all.’
He wouldn’t say any more and left me with the dead receiver in my hand and some horrid suspenseful question marks in my mind.
‘Sandcastle?’ Gordon asked.
‘Oliver says he’s in good health.’
‘That horse is insured against everything — those enormous premiums — so don’t worry too much,’ Gordon said. ‘It’s probably something minor.’
It hadn’t sounded like anything minor, and when I reached the stud farm the next day I found that it certainly wasn’t. Oliver came out to meet me as I braked to a standstill by his front door, and there were new deep lines on his face that hadn’t been there before.
‘Come in,’ he said, clasping my hand. ‘I’m seriously worried. I don’t know what to do.’
He led the way through the house to the office-sitting room and gestured me to a chair. ‘Sit down and read this,’ he said, and gave me a letter.
There had been no time for ‘nice day’ or ‘how is Ginnie?’ introductory noises, just this stark command. I sat down, and I read, as directed.
The letter dated April 21st, said:
Dear Oliver,
I’m not complaining, because of course one pays one’s fee and takes one’s chances, but I’m sorry to tell you that the Sandcastle foal out of my mare Spiral Binding has been born with a half of one ear missing. It’s a filly, by the way, and I dare say it won’t affect her speed, but her looks are ruined.
So sad.
I expect I’ll see you one day at the sales.
Yours,
‘Is that very bad?’ I asked, frowning.
In reply he wordlessly handed me another letter. This one said:
Dear Mr Knowles,
You asked me to let you know how my mare Girandette, whom you liked so much, fared on foaling. She gave birth safely to a nice colt foal, but unfortunately he died at six days. We had a post mortem, and it was found that he had malformed heart-valves, like hole-in-heart-babies.
This is a great blow to me, financially as well as all else, but that’s life I suppose.
Yours sincerely,
‘And now this,’ Oliver said, and handed me a third.
The heading was that of a highly regarded and well-known stud farm, the letter briefly impersonal.
Dear Sir,
Filly foal born March 31st to Poppingcorn.
Sire: Sandcastle.
Deformed foot, near fore.
Put down.
I gave him back the letters and with growing misgiving asked, ‘How common are these malformations?’
Oliver said intensely, ‘They happen. They happen occasionally. But those letters aren’t all. I’ve had two telephone calls — one last night. Two other foals have died of holes in the heart. Two more! That’s five with something wrong with them.’ He stared at me, his eyes like dark pits. ‘That’s far too many.’ He swallowed. ‘And what about the others, the other thirty-five? Suppose... suppose there are more...’
‘If you haven’t heard, they’re surely all right.’
He shook his head hopelessly. ‘The mares are scattered all over the place, dropping Sandcastle’s foals where they are due to be bred next. There’s no automatic reason for those stud managers to tell me when a foal’s born, or what it’s like. I mean, some do it out of courtesy but they just don’t usually bother, and nor do I. I tell the owner of the mare, not the manager of the stallion.’
‘Yes, I see.’