Blind Beauty Read online

  She could not bear the atmosphere in the house, the vapid, ugly spaces inhabited by people who were all miserable, stranded miles away from jolly Tescos and Marks and Spencers and McDonalds, from people who laughed and loved each other in their tacky semi-detacheds. This grand place was characterless and grim, like a prison. It was a prison.

  She went out the back way and walked across the lawn and stood staring out over the valley. There was a deep stone ha-ha which stopped the cows coming in, and standing on the edge of it she had a view of grassland sweeping away below her to the chalk stream that swirled rapidly down the bottom. Large tracts of woodland covered the far side, interspersed with fields of corn that were beginning to yellow for summer. It was a tourist’s vista, like out of an AA book.

  She sat on the ha-ha, swinging her legs. If she ran away, where would she run to? Oh Declan! But even if she found him, he might not want her any more. He had never chased after her when she left, after all. She was too young to rent a flat, even if she had the money, and if she lived on the street she was bound to be picked up as under age. She passed for sixteen in the dark, but wouldn’t in the cold light of day. If she really annoyed Maurice, he would hand her over to the social services as being out of control, and she would end up in care. Her past history would not stand her in good stead. She couldn’t see any alternative – she would stay and get gloomy like Myra, and pretend she didn’t want for anything. A nice house, good food…

  “Oh Christ! I can’t!” she screamed out loud.

  She launched herself off the ha-ha and fell in a heap in the grass ditch, nearly breaking her ankles. Pity it wasn’t her neck! She lay and sobbed where no one could see her. Or hear her. She didn’t care. She hadn’t cried since she was little, but now it didn’t matter. There was no one.

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  Startled, Tessa turned her head and saw a horse’s legs and the underneath of a bay horse’s belly. It was just like when she was little in the fields at home, looking up at the broodmare, Shiner. It shook her into silence.

  She scowled.

  “No!”

  She scrambled up to prove it and stood back to the wall.

  The bay thoroughbred was carrying a young man. The horse was spooky and nervous, but the man sat with the quiet authority of a very good rider.

  “Just making sure. No offence,” he said, and the horse moved away. The young man didn’t look back. Thank heaven for that! Tessa thought. His lack of curiosity was brilliant.

  Having given in to tears, been discovered, and thought of nothing constructive for her future, Tessa went back to the house in a bad temper.

  At supper she cheeked Maurice and was banished to her room. She watched television until two o’clock in the morning.

  The next morning Maurice stormed in, ordered her to get up – because she was starting a job.

  “What job?”

  Maurice didn’t reply.

  She went down to breakfast and said again, “What job?’

  Greevy jeered and said, “Dad’s thought of a great idea. You work for these people and however bad you are and however much they loathe you they can’t give you the sack because Dad owns their place and all their land. They fall out with him and they’ve had it.”

  This was actually not true but Tessa was not to know it. He might own their place but tenants’ rights were powerful.

  “Bit like you at Raleigh’s then,” she retorted. “If Raleigh falls out over you he’ll lose your dad’s horses.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to a proper place. You’re going to a dung-heap.”

  Maurice said, “Go and get in the car. George will run you there. I’ve made the arrangements. Nine till six, six days a week.”

  “Where? Where’s this job?”

  “A farm down the valley. It’s called Sparrows Wyck.”

  “What have I got to do?”

  “Whatever they tell you. They’ve got horses, cows… God knows. Just behave yourself, keep out of my hair, till the Education lot find another place for you in September.”

  “What hair ?” Tessa retorted.

  “Hop it. Get your jacket. George is waiting.” Maurice’s colourless eyes glittered.

  Tessa was furious. If she had found a job for herself she might have been quite pleased, but to have been tossed into one like this, at Maurice’s command, outraged her. If he thought she was going to toe the line he could think again.

  She fetched her dirty anorak and slouched out to the car.

  Sparrows Wyck was two miles away down the valley she had been staring at the day before. Two miles across the fields but four miles round by the road. Today it was raining slightly and a soft mist lay over the bottom of the valley.

  “People been there all their lives,” George said. “Very close family. They don’t take kindly to strangers.”

  He turned the shining white car into a narrow, pot-holed lane.

  “Hope I’m not going to do this drive every day.”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t. I’m not staying.”

  “No. Can’t think what they’ll find for you to do in a set-up like theirs. The old man must’ve bribed them to take you. The woman runs the house – worse than Mrs Tims, she is. Mouth like a rat-trap. And the outside work – it’s not for a shrimp of a girl like you. The boys do that.”

  “What boys?” Tessa showed slightly more interest.

  “Boys to me, love. Old men to you – gone twenty, thirty, for sure. The sons of the house.”

  “Huh!”

  Tessa shrugged down into her seat, watching the wind-screen wipers clearing a vision of high hedges and fields of thick grass. The buildings when they came to them were like Declan’s in Ireland – a yard of decrepit stables with patched roofs and chewed half-doors, a row on either side. A gate shut the yard off from the lane. At the top were hay sheds, now nearly empty.

  “I’ll put you down here then,” George said, obviously not keen to meet anyone. “Your father said you’re to walk home.”

  “He’s not my father,” Tessa snapped.

  “Lordy, you’ve both got the same temper,” George said mildly.

  Tessa wanted to say sorry, but the word was impossible for her. She screwed herself out of the car and slammed the door. George backed away and disappeared round a bend in the lane.

  There was no one around. Most of the stables were empty. Four were occupied by thoroughbred-looking horses contentedly eating hay. The only sound was of their quiet munching and the running of the rain in the gutters.

  “What a dump!” thought Tessa.

  She wandered up and found a door at the back of the haybarn that opened into another yard. More stables, tractor sheds and a house. The house was old and forlorn, humped against the rain, a curl of old-fashioned smoke blowing from its chimney. After Goldlands this was another world. Tessa, although she liked old places, was angry at being dumped in this scene of dereliction. She thought of Greevy smarming it in the pristine yards at Mr Raleigh’s, where it was all polished shoes and uniform sweatshirts. The contrast made her prickle with rage. She would get herself the sack as soon as possible.

  Gritting her teeth, she crossed over to the house and knocked on the back door. She could not escape the fact that she was nervous, even frightened. But the feeling was all too familiar. There was a porch full of dirty gumboots and dirtier jackets and a cardboard box that looked as if a dog slept in it. As no one answered she went in and knocked on the inner door. Through the glass panel she could see several people sitting round a table eating breakfast.

  Her throat felt dry. A man turned round and shouted something. She opened the door and went in. They all stopped eating and stared at her. Tessa had never felt so small in her life.

  There were three men and two women. No one said anything. They just stared. It was quite plain they didn’t want her here. />
  “I –” But Tessa found she could not speak. All the spunk was knocked out of her.

  They started eating again and resumed the conversation she had interrupted. As if she wasn’t there. One of the women, who looked fiftyish, answered George’s description with a “mouth like a rat-trap”. (And eyes like flint, Tessa would have added, the way they appraised her.) The younger woman, a hunky, black-haired twenty-something, gave her a dubious look and dropped her eyes again to her bacon and eggs, as did one of the younger men. The oldest man carried on eating without even looking at her, but the other man gave her a wink and made the faintest gesture with his head to an empty chair that was half pulled up to the table. A brindle-coloured lurcher lay under the table at his feet.

  He was the man she had seen on the horse the day before.

  Tessa thought, Damn them all, and marched firmly to the chair and sat down. She could play the same game too. Ask no questions. They all ignored her and continued eating and talking. The talk was of milking parlours, getting rid of rats, and schooling horses. The appetites were large and copious mugs of tea were being emptied. The man on the horse fetched another mug from the dresser and poured tea which he pushed in Tessa’s direction. The others glared at him. Tessa was beginning to enjoy herself, seeing a situation here worthy of her talents. She wasn’t going to stay, whatever happened, not with this load of country cretins. She could give them worse treatment than they could give her. She was better practised.

  When they had finished they all got up save the older woman and went out, shrugging into anoraks and boots. The door slammed, the rain dripped outside the window from a broken gutter, a cock crowed from somewhere. Tessa went on sitting.

  The woman said sharply, “What’s your name?”

  “Tessa.”

  “Your father said—”

  “He’s not my father. I’m Tessa Blackthorn. Not Morrison.”

  The woman shrugged.

  “Clear these pots away and get outside. They’ll give you a job.”

  “Good,” said Tessa.

  She went out, ignoring the pots. There was a milking parlour behind the house and the cows were filing out into the fields. The smell was of home, a long time ago. But she wasn’t going to fall for that kind of sentiment. They hated her, she could see, and that suited her.

  She went back to the stable yard where the woman was wheeling a barrow towards the occupied stables. Tessa stood watching her, offering nothing.

  The woman opened one of the doors and went in to the horse. She tied it up and started mucking out.

  Tessa leaned against the door.

  After a few forkfuls the woman said, “What’s your name?”

  “Tessa.”

  “Did your father run you down here? It’s quite a walk.”

  “He’s not my father. He’s my stepfather.”

  “Hmm.” A few more deft flicks with the fork and she said, “My name’s Gilly, by the way. I work here. I’m not family.”

  Was she perhaps saying that she, unlike the others, had no personal interest in Tessa’s employment? If she was, Tessa chose to ignore it. She wasn’t impressed with Gilly’s looks, but did recognize the expertise with which she handled her work. Gilly ordered her to empty the barrow on the muck heap which was a muddy walk away behind the stables. But when she had done it, Gilly came with her the second time and said, “You’ve got to learn. Even a muck heap. There’s a proper way. Square, straight sides, no sliding down like a pyramid. You build up the sides. Like this.”

  Tessa glowered. She learned how to make a muck heap. She learned how to muck out, how to tie a quick-release knot, how to sweep a yard. How to wash grooming brushes. She asked no questions, did sulkily what she was ordered to, no more. She knew how to make people hate her. Maurice wanted her in this job, and she would do her best to get the sack. Gilly’s early overtures soon changed to cross commands.

  “I’m stuck with you because the others don’t want you here, you know that, don’t you? So don’t make my life a misery. You should be at school anyway. You’re no use in this yard.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Gilly rolled her eyes and said nothing.

  Tessa held out. She was used to pitting herself against the opposition. It made life more interesting. If they had liked her and made her welcome she might have succumbed, because the actual work was at least more interesting than staying at home watching television all day. But the more unlikeable she made herself the more she felt she held the upper hand. Maurice wanted her here. She would force them to sack her.

  She got to understand the politics of the place. Sparrows Wyck was a small dairy and arable farm run by the eldest son, Peter, and his mother, Matty Fellowes. They were tenants of Maurice who owned the place. Although Peter ran the farm with the help of a cowman, his main ambition was to train racehorses – not flat racers, but horses over the jumps – the winter game. He hoped this would make them some money, but so far they had had little success. They took in about a dozen horses for training in the winter, but at present most of these were out at grass or back home with their owners for their summer holidays. It was as small a racing stable as they came, in complete contrast to the huge and successful yard where Greevy worked.

  Jimmy, the younger son, was the horseman of the family and schooled the jumpers for Peter and problem horses for anyone who sent them to him. He also took horses to break in. He didn’t interfere much with the racing side. He was his own man, very quiet in his manner, and kept largely to himself, with his lurcher Walter for companion. His brother Peter was excitable and given easily to both rage and laughter. The third man, Arthur, gnarled and elderly, worked in the stables with the racehorses. He was some sort of a relation, said little, and came up from the village. The mother, Matty, was impassive and rock-like and kept to her household duties, not interfering. As well as running the home, she did the paperwork for both the farm and the racing department, and ran a poultry business as well. She only ever left home once a week to go to the supermarket. Tessa found her hard to fathom, not enjoying the scrutiny of her pale green eyes. Her natural expression was stern, but the “mouth like a rat-trap” was not in fact as severe as George’s description implied. Tessa sometimes thought she saw the suggestion of a smile, but so enigmatic it was hard to tell. Tessa hated her the most, because she could not be sure of the effect she was making on her. It was fairly plain that the others found her a pain, although Jimmy quite often, in his quiet way, gave her the chance to make amends by offering a dry comment or a smile. Not that she would take him up on it. But she liked watching him riding in the manège and lurked there quite often, behind the stables, when he was schooling one of his problem horses. He was so quiet and still on a difficult horse, so utterly in command, that she was fascinated. She wished she could ride. It would be a good way to thumb her nose at people on the ground, show them she was something.

  Gilly rode well too, although she was the wrong shape, too beefy for a woman. But she handled horses with total command, even Jimmy’s stroppiest, which Tessa was tartly ordered not to go near.

  “Can’t have the boss’s daughter trampled to death; that would never do. Daddy might be down to complain.”

  “He’s not Daddy. I hate him.”

  “You’re not alone.”

  But even in this Tessa could not bring herself to be an ally.

  “Trouble is, there’s not enough for you to do around here in the summer. Not until the jumpers start coming in at the end of July. By September there’ll a dozen, as well as Jimmy’s. Plenty of work, but you’ll be back at school by then.”

  Will I hell, Tessa thought. Nobody would take her. Myra had tried everywhere.

  She used to time her arrival (she walked across the fields) with the end of breakfast. No one had invited her to breakfast. She knew it was because they disliked her. But one morning when she got there, there had been
an emergency with some cows getting out on to the road, and breakfast was half an hour late. She went in and sat down uninvited. She helped herself to a mug of tea. No one said anything.

  Peter was sounding off about a new owner who was sending him a horse to train. It was now well into July and soon the horses would be coming back. This new one belonged to – according to Peter – a senile coal merchant.

  “He’s never had a horse before. He wants to win the Grand National, like the old guy that owned Red Rum. So he went to the sales and bought one, just like that. He said no one bid for it and he was sorry for it so he bid and got it. I ask you! What are we getting?”

  The others all laughed.

  “As long as he pays –”

  “We don’t want to be a laughing stock, all the same.”

  “It’ll never get on the course if it’s as bad as it sounds. Someone’ll have to let him down gently.”

  “We’ll be fair with him,” Peter said. “But I tell you, he’s barmy. I talked to him on the phone. Nutty as a fruitcake. Sending the horse tomorrow.”

  “What on earth’s Sarah going to say? She’ll be back next week. She’s always trying to get you to say no to dumbos,” Gilly said to Peter.

  “She’ll have to take it. We need the money,” Peter said tartly.

  Jimmy said, “We need a reputation more. You get a reputation and the money comes.”

  Tessa had heard of Sarah before – the head lad apparently, who left in the spring when the horses stopped racing and worked elsewhere for three months. Gilly said she was “a tartar”. Tessa was quite looking forward to meeting her.

  When they were going out, Tessa heard Peter say to Gilly, “Give the damned horse to Tessa to look after. Two no-hopers. They’ll suit each other.”

  Tessa pretended not to hear. She didn’t think of herself as a no-hoper, rather as someone who was doing her own thing regardless. But she could see it wouldn’t suit them to see it that way.

  Gilly said, “Getting a horse might improve you. Nobody gives you work because you’re so snotty about taking orders. Face like a thunderstorm. Easier to ignore you. I suppose that’s what you want.”