‘My name isn’t Masson, try again,’ she said, instantly reminding herself:You’re here on a mission. Don’t make yourself stand out by arguing.
‘Testing you,’ said the moustache owner. ‘Never employ a man who doesn’t correct his surname.’
‘And what’s yours?’ asked Stevie.
‘Martin.’
‘No, your surname.’
‘Thatismy surname. Francis Martin.’
‘Your surname is Francis-Martin? What’s your first name?’
‘Young lady …’ Then he saw she was joking and smiled. ‘Miss Mason, I’m here to look after you. I don’t know if you saw but we got a smashing in the papers because we said we had lots of disabled people and they all turned out to be retired judges with one hearing aid. So along you come, bit of manna from heaven, if you know the phrase? Our chance to showwe are open, in the vernacular, whatever they call it, diversity thingummy, not just sportsmen and horsey types. What’s your disability anyway?’
The words landed with Stevie as just a noise, just a stream of POSH POSH POSH POSH POSH, but Mr Martin suddenly blushed.
‘I’m terribly sorry. I shouldn’t ask. You turned your head and I saw.’
‘Oh,’ said Stevie, ‘the acid burn that took half my sight is nothing. The problem is mainly spinal. What they call orthopaedic.’
‘I love the way you Scotch say words like “orthopaedic”. Like “murder”.’
Stevie peered at him. ‘I didn’t think my accent was that obvious.’
‘So your disability is hidden?’ he said eagerly. ‘One of my daughters gets back pain.’
‘It wouldn’t be hidden if I took my clothes off. Scoliosis curve in the spine, but really a twist, like rope coiled, and mine’s too bad to operate on.’
‘We’ll get you a lopsided horse,’ he said with a guffaw, his distinctly un-PC remarks apparently running rogue now. Outside there was neighing and shouting. Hooves stamping on gravel. He opened the door and the nearest horse bucked under its rider. Martin whispered, ‘If you’ve never ridden before, now’s the time to tell me. We don’t take prisoners.’
Now was the time to tell him the truth. She opened her mouth and heard the words: ‘I’ve ridden since I was two. I’ve done nothing but ride. I had my own horse for ten years, Eager. We jumped. He died. But we were fast together.’
Francis Martin clapped his hands and puffed his chest out. The riders, at least twenty of them, turned towards him and Stevie. ‘Our newest member – well, actually a visitor, Stevie Mason!’ The hunters were too busy with their bridles to clap, so they cheered. ‘She said she wants a big one!’ The second cheerwas almost deafening. A long man with no chin threw his hat in the air. She looked for female riders and saw no more than two. Stevie forced a smile.
If there was ever a vacancy for dictator, and she got the job, this lot would be the first to face the firing squad.
As the horses settled, a stable boy led one to her.
He was a gorgeous creature, and clearly not the largest, but with a pad under the saddle, leather bit and reins, and stirrups that shone as if they had been polished all night. She sensed the riders turning to face her, all the horses being repositioned.
Francis Martin was still at her shoulder, and spoke quietly. ‘Hold the halter here and say hello.’
‘Hello,’ said Stevie, the horse’s head seemingly miles above her own.
‘To the horse, not this lot. Softer.’
‘Hello, my gorgeous,’ she whispered, heart racing.
‘Don’t be afraid to pull the head towards you, he won’t buck. Name is Chestnut.’
‘Chestnut, Chestnut,’ she whispered, conscious that the stirrups were level with her shoulders and the horse’s nostrils looked big enough to envelop the whole of her head.
Something in Francis’s movement, something indefinable, a closeness, suggested he was giving her more help than he would a person who had done all the riding she claimed to have. As she kicked her left foot into the stirrup, he asked, ‘Do you mind if I hold your arse?’
He pushed up as she pulled on the bridle. It was not dignified but it was enough. The other riders were looking at her inquisitively. Could they see the truth, that she had never before felt the sinewed power of an adult horse beneath her? For a moment she quailed, high off the ground with a very long way to fall.
But then she saw him through the forest of horses and riders: the one person who was wearing a black tunic not a red one; the single riding helmet with a flash of colour, a large blue featheradorning the left side of the hunt leader’s grey hat. So this was RCC, the owner of the flat the biker lived in, the man she had been sent to find. She straightened her back and grasped the reins. By God, she’d see this through.
