Harry blinked. “What?”
“Mani. He likes you.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because he looks at you. He doesn’t bother with everyone.”
“Would it bother you if he didn’t like me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The same reason it bothers me that you have as many demons as the rest of us.“Because he’s always right.”
Harry nodded slowly. “That’s not what you wanted to say.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. You want to know why I’m such a freak about food.”
“You think I’d call you a freak?”
Harry looked at me. The whisky we’d necked had reddened his eyes, but the warmth was still there, despite the strain. “Sorry. My words, not yours.”
“It’s a fucked up word. Do you think Emma’s a freak?”
“Do you?”
“Nah.”
“You’re good with her.”
“No, I’m not. I want to shake the shit out of her.” I put my plate on the cluttered coffee table. “I did once, when we were younger.”
“What happened?”
“She hit me with a ladle and stayed in the house anyway.”
A chuckle burst out of Harry. He slapped his hand over his mouth and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m just picturing it.”
“Stop apologising. It’s not you who fractured my cheekbone.”
Harry winced. “Ouch. That hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yup. Nice shiner, though. I think she was secretly proud of it.”
“I doubt that.” Harry’s smile faded. “She seems to feel very guilty about her condition.”
My humour ran for the hills too. “I wish she wouldn’t. She does more for this place than anyone. Without her, we’d have no website or online donations. And the freelance marketing she does from home keeps us fed some months.”
“You all work hard, Joe.”
I sighed. “I know, it’s just never enough.”
“What is? How do you define when you’ve done enough? Because it seems to me that it wouldn’t matter how many horses you had here, there would still be more to keep you up at night.”
He was more right than he probably knew. The RSPCA were monitoring a field of ponies ten miles away. It was only a matter of time before they called on us to take them in, and the prospect of turning them away cut me to the bone. “So, what are you saying? That there’s no point in trying because we’re doomed to fail?”
