Sheltering Rain, Page 29

  "He's a miserable so-and-so if he doesn't get things how he likes them. I always say he was born two drinks behind, you know what I mean? No coincidence he ended up working for the tax . . ."

  Kate's smile was becoming fixed.

  "Well, I won't keep you," said Geraldine, eyeing Thom. "Sure you've got lots to catch up on. You make sure you come over, now. It's fifteen Black Common Drive. You can find me in the phone book. We'll have a grand time."

  "Thanks," said Kate, as she left. "That's very kind."

  She took a long draft of her drink, trying not to look around to check that Geraldine Leach had definitely returned to her spot behind the bar.

  "I could leave now," said Thom, grinning.

  She raised her eyes to his.

  "Don't you dare."

  They both laughed.

  "Where were we?"

  Kate looked down at her glass.

  "I think we were talking about Sabine."

  "So, let's talk about you."

  Kate looked up. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel transparent. "I don't think I want to. I'm not very interesting at the moment."

  Thom said nothing.

  "Whenever I tell people anything about my life, I feel like I'm just repeating the same old chain of disasters. I bore myself, just talking about it."

  "Are you happy?"

  "Happy?" It sounded like an extraordinary thing to ask. She thought for a minute. "Sometimes, I suppose. When Sabine's happy. When I feel like . . . oh, I don't know. When does anyone feel happy? Are you happy?"

  Thom paused.

  "Happier than I was. I guess I'm content."

  "Even being back here?"

  "Especially being back here." He smiled at her again; she could tell by the white of his teeth. "Believe it or not, Kate, this place was the saving of me."

  "My mother, the guardian angel." Kate laughed, bitterly.

  "Your mother's all right. You two just see the world through different eyes, that's all."

  "Easy for you to say," she said.

  "Sabine managed it. And she and your mam were at each other's throats to begin with."

  There was so much she didn't know about her own daughter's life, sometimes it felt overwhelming. Kate mourned her little girl, who would rush from school into her arms, stumbling over her words in her frantic attempt to tell what she'd done, who she'd seen. She could still feel the weight of her, snuggled under her arm as they sat on the sofa, watching children's programs, exclaiming over the day's events.

  "Can we not talk about my family? I thought you were taking me out to cheer me up." Don't let them spoil this, she thought. Don't let them intrude on every part of my life. She wanted, she realized, to have him entirely to herself.

  He held up his glass, as if considering whether he could make it last until she had finished her Guinness. "Okay. We can't talk about you. We can't talk about your family. How about religion? That's always one to get the blood going. Or, what's changed in Ballymalnaugh since you left? That should be good for--well, some minutes."

  She laughed, grateful for his neutralizing of her darkening mood. There was something about Thom that invariably made things seem better.

  "Kate?"

  She turned on her stool, to where a middle-aged man was leaning heavily toward her, clutching a pint.

  "Stephen Spillane. I don't know if you'd remember me. I used to work at the big house. Y'all right there, Thom?"

  "Fine, Stevie."

  Kate squinted, trying to distinguish the features in this huge, ruddy face.

  "I saw you from over there, on the other side of the bar, and I says to myself, 'That looks like Joy Ballantyne's girl.' Well, I didn't know if I was right or not till I got up close--it's been, what is it? Ten years?"

  "Nearly seventeen," interjected Thom.

  "Nearly seventeen years. Well, now, and here you are again. And are you here for long?"

  "No, I--"

  "Is that young Kate Ballantyne?" Another man, one Sabine didn't recognize, had arrived at her shoulder. "I thought I knew that face. Well, if that isn't a turn up. A long time since we've seen you here."

  "Now, Kate. You remember the priest, Father Andrew."

  Kate smiled and dipped her head, as if she did.

  "Not that you were a great one for the Sunday service, now."

  "The young people have other things to think about these days, Father."

  "And not just the young people, Stevie, eh?"

  "Did you move to London?" Stephen Spillane had now pulled up a chair next to her. He smelled of rolling tobacco and, peculiarly, bleach. "Are you anywhere near Finsbury Park? You remember my boy Dylan? He's living in Finsbury Park. I should give you his number."

  "I'll bet there's a lot changed around here since you last came home, eh Kate?"

  "I'm sure Dylan would be glad to take you out. He's a great one for the pretty girls. Are you married now?"

  "Oh, look, here's Jackie. Jackie--do you remember Kate Ballantyne? Edward Ballantyne's girl. Over from England. Jackie--get us a drink there, will you?"

  Whether it was being frequently interrupted, or unable to properly make out the faces of those she was talking to (or, perhaps, the fact that she really wanted to be alone with Thom), Kate found maintaining what passed for polite conversation exhausting. No, she said, she was not here for long. Yes, it was lovely to come back again. Yes, she would pass on his good wishes for her father's speedy recovery. Yes, she was sure the old hunt hadn't been the same since he'd stopped as Master. And, worst, yes, it would be lovely to say hello to some of those people she hadn't seen for sixteen years, who remembered her as a teenager. Oh, so there they were, on the other side of the bar. Of course it would be great if they came over to the table. What else could she say?

  "Except we've got to get back, Kate," said Thom, suddenly. "Remember, your mam wanted you home early this evening, to help out."

  Kate frowned at him.

  "You did promise her we'd be back by eight-thirty."

  Belatedly, she caught on.

  "Oh. Yes. I'd forgotten." She stared around her at the well-meaning, indistinct faces. "I'm sorry. Perhaps we could catch up the next time I come in? That would be lovely," she said, smiling broadly. Scenting escape, she could afford to be gracious.

  "Ahh, that's a terrible shame. And us only just gotten started."

  "She looks grand, though. Doesn't she? Big city living suits you, girl."

  "But Thom has obviously got other things on his mind, eh? We wouldn't want to get in the way of Thom's plans." Kate was not so blind that she couldn't make out Stephen Spillane's exaggerated wink.

  "So, what do we do now?" she said, under her breath, after their various good-byes, as Thom steered her toward the door.

  "You wait outside," said Thom. "I'll be two secs."

  He emerged, moments later, with a couple cans of Guinness and two of orange juice tucked under his false arm. (Even she could tell his limbs apart; it was a mild night, and with his jumper pushed up, the plastic forearm shone under the light of the pub windows.)

  "It just so happens I know a great watering hole, not far from here," he said. "And you don't get bothered by the locals."

  The electric light in the summerhouse could not be seen from any room in the big house. Unusually, the little building's two windows, although generous, faced away from the greater one, casting their dim glow over a patch of wilderness on one side, and the overgrown remains of a patio garden on the other. Growing up, Kate had often wondered who had built it, and whether they had designed it specifically so that there would be no curious, intruding voices from the house. Now, she wondered whether the bare lightbulb cast harsh shadows on her face, and whether the benefits of moving back out of it were outweighed by the fact that if she did she would hardly be able to see.

  "Not exactly the Ritz, I'm afraid," said Thom, cracking open a can and handing it to her.

  "But then I've always found the Ritz somewhat lack
ing in old cans of varnish," she said, seating herself on the horse blanket that he had laid over the old crates.

  "Not forgetting animal life." He reached up, catching a spider's web with his hand, and clearing it from above her head. Wiping his hand on his trousers, he sat down on another crate, some feet away from her, and opened his own can of orange juice.

  She found she noticed the distance. They had linked arms when they half-ran from the pub, and she had giggled manically, like a schoolgirl, filled with a delicious feeling of escape. She could still feel the peculiar sensation of his unyielding arm next to hers.

  "We could have stayed in the pub," he said apologetically. "But you know what they're all like--they wouldn't have left you alone for the rest of the night."

  "I was struggling."

  "I thought it would be easier to talk somewhere else."

  "We could have just gone back to yours," she said, unthinking.

  "And if I'd suggested it, you would have gone home."

  Kate caught his smile, and found her own drifting slowly from her face. He was right. She would have thought it too intimate, too risky. And yet what could be more intimate than this? The two of them hiding out, in their old haunt, redolent with memories, its very timbers suffused with the bittersweet scent of years past?

  Kate gazed around her at the neglected old summerhouse and felt suddenly awkward, as if caught somewhere she shouldn't have been. She thought, unexpectedly, of Justin. And then Geoff. What am I doing, sitting here, with this man? she thought. This is ridiculous. Virtual Maggie loomed before her, her mouth pursed in mock disapproval, wagging a virtual finger.

  "You know what? I should go," she said, weakly. She was suddenly grateful that she couldn't see his face properly.

  He put his drink down, before standing up. It made it somehow harder for her to move.

  "I should really go."

  "What are you frightened of?"

  There was a brief silence. She looked up, trying to find his face. But he had stepped out of the light, and she could see nothing except the harsh glare of the light on an upturned paint tin. Squinting vainly, she heard him, his feet depressing the boards. She was aware of him as an almost monochrome shadow, looming toward her. Then she caught the subtle scents of him: soap, mixed with the faint, earthy smell of horse, overlaid with the more recent layers of smoke and beer.

  Immobilized, she took a sharp breath as she felt his hand gently dip into her pocket. Slowly, he removed her glasses, gently opening them and placing them carefully on her face. The plastic of his false hand was briefly cold against her cheek.

  He squatted down, so that their faces were level. "What are you frightened of?" he said again, softly.

  She paused. She could make out every eyelash.

  "You."

  "No."

  She looked at him, seeing clearly for the first time the way his eyes curled up in the corners, the way his lips closed when he breathed out. The small, pale scar under his eyebrow. I don't want to see you this clearly, she thought. You were easier blurry.

  "No." He looked serious. "You've no reason to be frightened of me. I'd never do you harm."

  She kept staring at him.

  "Then I'm frightened of me."

  He reached forward and took ahold of her hand. His felt dry, weathered. But gentle. She wondered, absently, what the other one felt like.

  "I ruin everything, Thom. I get everything wrong. I'll do it with you, too."

  "No," he said, again.

  His eyes stayed on hers. She felt liquefied, had to remind herself to keep breathing. Tears had sprung, unaccountably, to her eyes.

  "I can't let this happen. You don't know me anymore, Thom. You don't know what I'm like. I can't trust what I feel, you see? I'm not reliable like that. I think I'm in love with people and then a few months down the line I find out I wasn't after all. And then everyone gets hurt. I get hurt. Sabine gets hurt."

  She was acutely conscious of the pressure of his hand. She wanted to rip her own from his grasp. She wanted to move it, to be swallowed up into it, to press her mouth into it, feel it against her skin.

  Thom's eyes kept burning into her. She looked away, out of the window, talking into the air.

  "Can't you see? This is happening at all only because I'm here, and alone, and needy, because I've just broken up with someone. I know exactly what's happening. I'm not self-sufficient, you see. I'm not like you, and Sabine, good with your own company. I need closeness, and attention. And because I can't get it from them, I'm looking for it from you."

  She was speaking too fast now, her voice lifting.

  "Look, if I were a horse, you'd have me down as having bad form. That's what I have. Bad form. For God's sake, Thom. Don't you remember? Don't you remember what I did to you sixteen years ago? Don't you care how much I hurt you?"

  He looked down, studying her hand. And then lifted his eyes to hers.

  "If you were a horse," he said. "I'd say you had been in the wrong hands."

  Kate stared at him. He was now so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.

  "It would be a disaster," she said, beginning to cry, great salty tears sliding their way down her skin. "It would be a bloody disaster." And then, as Thom gently took her wet face in his two mismatched hands, she leaned forward and placed her mouth against his.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Duke stood facing into the corner of his stable, his head low, and his tail tucked tightly into his rump, as if awaiting a blow. His hipbones jutted upward, like pieces of planed furniture, and his coat, which once shone with the prismatic gloss of rude health, was dull and roughened, the texture of an old piece of cheap carpet. Above his eyes sat two sunken hollows, while his lids sat halfway down, like a curtain preparing to drop.

  The vet, a tall, thin man with an academic air, ran a hand down his neck, patted him, and then moved through the thick bed of straw toward Joy, who was waiting by the door.

  "I'm afraid he's not a well lad, Mrs. Ballantyne."

  Joy blinked a few times, and looked down, as if digesting something she had nevertheless long expected to hear.

  "What is it?"

  "It's mainly the osteoarthritis. That and the painkillers we've been giving him."

  He paused. "The bute doesn't appear to be working anymore. In fact, I think it's doing him more harm than good. I think he may have developed an ulcer, which is common in horses that have been living off bute for a while, but he's also got diarrhea and weight loss, which is not great in a horse his age. I'll take these blood samples with me, but I'd put money on him having hypoproteinaemia--that's low blood protein." He paused. "He's also tired, his heart is struggling a bit, and I think everything is just winding down, poor old boy."

  Joy's face was very still and very stern, its features rigid. Only the most careful of observers would have noticed the faint tremor, the sole clue to what she was keeping in check.

  "Is the ulcer my fault?" she said. "Have I been giving him too much?"

  "No. It's not remotely your fault. It's a common toxicity reaction in horses who have had to take the drug for some time. It's partly why some places don't really like us using it anymore. But in a horse his age, there was very little else we could do. And he's done very well on it for an awful long time. How old is he now, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?"

  "Can we give him something else? Change the drugs?" Joy held her hands low in front of her, as if in supplication.

  The vet squatted down, placing his instruments back inside his case, and closed it with a determined snap. Outside, the sky was bright and blameless, at odds with the atmosphere of foreboding inside.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Ballantyne. He's had a good innings. But I don't think we can really spin things out for much longer. Not if we want to be fair."

  He said the last sentence with a sideways look at Joy. He knew how much the horse meant to the old lady, but really they had been prolonging the inevitable for months.

  Joy walked u
p to the horse's head and pulled gently at his ears, an affectionate, unthinking gesture. She looked at him, pushed up his forelock, as if examining his face, and then rubbed at his nose. The horse pushed his huge head toward her, and then his eyes half closed, and he rested his chin on her quilted shoulder, so that her knees gave slightly under the weight. The vet stood at the door and waited. He knew his customer well enough not to hurry her.

  "I want you to come tomorrow," she said, eventually, her voice low and firm. "Tomorrow morning, if that's convenient."

  The vet nodded.

  "In the meantime, I want to ask you a favor."

  He looked up.

  "I want you to give him something. Something for the pain. Something that won't upset his stomach." She paused, lifting her head a little imperiously. "I know you must have something."

  The vet raised his eyebrows and shifted his feet.

  "To be honest, Mrs. Ballantyne, there's not much--"

  "Anything," she interrupted. "There must be something."

  The vet took a deep breath, and expelled it slowly, with outblown cheeks. He stared at the straw-strewn floor, thinking.

  "There is something," he said, finally.

  Joy nodded, expectant.

  "It's an experimental drug. It's not something I'd normally prescribe for a horse like yours. I'm certainly not meant to. But, yes, it will kill his pain. To the legs and the stomach."

  "I want you to give it to him."

  "I really shouldn't. It could lose me my license."

  "It's only for a day," said Joy. "I'll pay. Whatever you like."

  "That's really not necessary."

  He rubbed at his head. He looked up at the sky. He let out another long breath. "If I do, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let on. To anyone."

  Joy turned back to her horse and muttered something gentle. Her face had softened, as if anticipating the prospect of her own relief.

  "You'll bring it today," she said, not looking at the vet. She was rubbing the horse's nose again, fussing with him, running her broad old hands over his bones, movements borne of a lengthy familiarity.

  The vet shook his head slightly, and turned toward the door. He was too soft. His partner would be furious if he knew.

  "I've got one more job this morning. Then I'll bring it over." He turned. "How's Mr. Ballantyne, by the way?"

  Joy didn't look up. "Fine, thank you," she said.

  Several miles away, Kate sat in the Land Rover, gazing through the windscreen at the Hook Head lighthouse, a monochrome monolith silhouetted against the shimmering blue of Waterford Harbor. It was the first clear day for weeks, and the huge lighthouse and the little houses surrounding it sat, weathered and bleached by the watery winter sunlight, as the waves churned and foamed restlessly over the ancient limestone.