Falling splayed to the floor, lying ricked on the flags, hazy-headed with pain as the galloping cynical vanishing tread on the cobblestoned yard of the killer-hoofed thoroughbred innocent murderer's steps clanked away to a fade whisper-thin in the night until nothing was heard until silence declared that He Was Alone. Alone with the barking dogs and the pitiless moon rising in the still-blue sky.
He scudded along the valley road. The purr of the motor echoed back from the beech copses to the side. He adjusted his hat, pushed it back onto his head. His seat-belt had loosened. He thrust himself back and tightened it, wincing slightly at the pain.
Alone, his back a band of cold fire. His eyes in full betrayal. He had to… He tried to… When he came to… Crawling drawn-out through some ooze of dementia. Trying to reach the stabled safety Languishing in anguished crossing to the badly remembered shadows.
The slope began to take its strain. Each rivet, every bolt in the body assembly started to vibrate. It was as if the landscape were extracting a toll for the audacity that had instigated the climb of such a severe hill in such a flimsy and ill-fitted vehicle. He gritted his teeth, almost as if he were propelling the thing himself, and, gradually, almost as if it were indeed fuelled by his determination, the machine shuddered to the crossroads and turned left.
Stable door pushed behind. Odour of dank oak. Odour of stale hay, numbing the responses, blacking the consciousness.
There was no respite. The turning revealed - not unexpectedly - an incline as steep as that which had preceded it. The machine groaned as before. Something suggested to him that all would be well, however. Things were all right, even though it was his first time. The vehicle was custom-built and reliable. He was lucky to have such friends. And the money, of course. And the money.
In the morning. Morning as ever revealing the damage. Damaged hinges - kicked and splintered - creaking inwards. Inwardly, the organs spitting blood. Blood masking his sight as helpers with solicitous voices knelt whispering whilst his ears were hissing at their sibilant curses as massive straining muscles were starting to strap him to the stretcher.
The metalling gave out on the road. He struggled to open the gate that five-barred his way: his hands couldn't cope; the walking stick was too cumbersome. Eventually, he reached behind him to retrieve the riding whip from the back compartment and managed to unhook the gate before purring through the gap and replacing the loop of coarse blue plastic rope before proceeding on his way. Tidiness in everything. Now, at least. Now. New terrain. The smaller front wheels both bucked at the sudden encounter with loose pebbles and ricocheted from the solid boulders. He slowed down and kept his eyes peeled to avoid the worst of them. He was forced to engage the power gear to provide the braking power when the track descended and then to accelerate as it rose again through open rolling moorland, where spikes of gorse protruded through the dust-dead heather. The wheels hit a patch of slush and slithered. He did not mind. Here, there was that incomparable sense of openness, of being on top of the world. He engaged the cruise gear and glided slowly through the lumpy terrain of the rolling sweeps of moorland.
In the white room
Waking like a snake unfurling
In the white room
Blinking at the dark light
Blurring the outlines of objects glimpsed
Furring the fuzzy chunks of memory
in the confounding unkempt darkness
In the surrounding cling of the white sheets
No feeling in the sagging limbs
Cast adrift and cast free from bodily sensation
In a sea of clanging clamour:
Shrill efficient voices
Rattling unglimpsed trolleys
Tending unfelt hands
All colluding in such vicious kindnesses!
He paused, and from his vantage point, gazed at the flat meadows, shrunken settlements, pastoral hills; he glanced at the bounded ocean with its mottled sores of rocky islands. He felt the mix of chemicals swill within his brain and then clear, with the dark shadows again temporarily driven away. Far below, in a rutted trackway half-avenue that led down to the village, people moved; families out for a stroll, lovers joined at the hand.
A disarray of swaggering voices pressing their suit: -You must sit up, sir. -Any feelings in the legs today? -Take this, please. -Doctor will see you now.
A bay mare rolled past him, seemingly only inches away. It supported a heavily sweating young woman. The horse rolled its eyes and snorted, with an apparent contempt. He turned off the machine. He sat there and shook. The muffled clomps of hoofs on the slightly frost-hardened soil eased into each other, and eventually blanked out and solidified to a silence. He still did not move. His head was in his hands. Sobs snuffled out from between the lattice-work of his fingers. They stopped. "Ah, God," he gasped, "why me?" His mouth moved greedily, but made no further sound. He lapsed into silence. The silence was broken. "Why me?" "It's not bloody fair!" he screamed. The browning leaves above him rustled, then subsided to a silence that seemed to echo his sense of resignation. But the silence held only for a second. More hoofbeats. Steadily approaching. The hairs on the back of his neck felt as if they had been flayed erect. He looked away and down, although he didn't really need to. An immense grey stallion. A stocky rider. A weirdly complex muscled progression, as if horse and rider were not co-ordinated, but were proceeding through the resolution of an argument of combined strength rather than teamwork. He slotted the gearstick into the power setting, and turned rapidly through the nearest bolthole between the trees onto the parallel track. He sat there, hidden by sparse clumps of beech. The wind blew in his face. The stallion grew ever more immense in the jerks of its approaching gallop. The heavy-jowled, muscular figure in the red riding jacket astride its back was unmistakable. As he lay in wait, the possibilities trickled through his brain: he could recklessly drive his wheelchair at the horse and make it rear; he could sound his horn while he remained hidden and frighten the creature. A stray bough on the ground that he could reach with a bit of stretching caught his eye: he could pick it up and throw it before its hoofs. The horse grunted past and rapidly disappeared over the brow, as indifferent as the cars had been. He waited a few seconds, then engaged the power gear again and continued on his way: the distance between the horse and him lengthened. But in his ears still, the slap of the whip, the rumble of hoofs and the snort from the horse's nostrils.
A door opening. A voice speaking. Caressing the air. A body. Only visible as a distanced twist of smoke. "I'm glad you've regained your sight. You're doing well."
"Doing well." He snarled the words as he pushed the machine forward, his useless knees acting as a figurehead and pointing the way.
When doors close, they open. "I suppose you're surprised to see me. "I hear there's glad tidings, but - hmm - still a bit of a concern as well. "Yes. Seems like an eternity since. I mean, you've been in here quite a while now. Haha - you weren't aware of it for most of the time, of course. Still, things are on the mend now. How are you feeling?" "Not speaking, eh? "Sorry to hear that, or rather not hear that, hmm. "Damn it man; the fall didn't make you dumb as well! "I'm sorry; that was uncalled for. "Oh, damn it, all right then; let's end this hypocritical charade. I know you can hear me so you can damn well lie there and listen to what I've got to say which isn't pleasant but is at least practical. You were a bloody fool attempting a trick like that and now you'll have to accept the consequences, one of which is that you'll no longer have a need for that damned fine piece of horseflesh that is now being cared for - temporarily - at my expense. "Don't get me wrong: you won him fair and square, according to the rules. According to the so-called ancient decrees. He was considered to be wild when you mounted him. You got him home. You made a brave attempt. You fell and failed in action. Now you have to face the consequences. "And of course, it was all in vain. While you were lying on your back in here, she was high-tailing it to Australia. As threatened. But you know that: I didn't come here to mock you. That's by the by. I came here to talk business. "So I'll tell you what I propose to do: I'm going to buy it off you. You need to make a new life. You need money to do it. You know how much I've coveted the beast. I can tame him; I know it. "What's more, I'll pay you five times what you'd get elsewhere for it. But, just in case there might be any unfortunate repercussions from this little gamble of ours, I think the best thing is that I give you a down payment followed by monthly instalments. It will all be properly and legally administered. Think about it. Think about the decades stretching ahead. Swallow your pride. "I can state categorically that I didn't come hear to mock you, but that's my offer. Take it or leave it. But I strongly suggest you take it. I'll call tomorrow for the answer." Doors open and close. Doors close and open.
The chair made its steadfast but by no means confident way down the sun-melted ooze of the slope towards a pack of wild ponies. He slipped it down from cruise to power, and progressed as slowly as possible towards them. The purring of the chair was barely audible and the horses remained indifferent to it; they betrayed neither curiosity nor hostility and he threaded between their ranks calmly and steadily. It was only some yards after he had passed them that he became aware that - again - he was shaking uncontrollably. He pulled to a halt. He glanced upwards. As if refusing to resort to the crassness of either irony or sympathetic background, the sky remained resolutely neutral: neither azure nor stormily overcast. For the first time that day, his unconscious evicted the repressed swirl of past events, and the voices and the remembered thoughts and events stood out clear. Three rode along the ridgeway, all alone, a discordant triangle. The herd prowled below, the same evershifting ones but now with an interloper, white as the dirty cob on the cottage walls, bigger than the rest. The one female of the three reined her horse in. Gazed down at the stallion. "Look at that brute! God, what I'd give to ride him!" "Catch him is the problem." "Well, he can be rounded up with the others the month after next. No problem there." "Huh. Says you. That's no wild pony. Look at the size of him. He must have escaped some time ago. He's lost all his shoes." "He looks a rogue, that one." As if sensing the mundane human talk, the beast looked up, snorted, then reared away. "Magnificent!" she breathed. "Still, It is asking too much to hope that either of you could catch anything but a cold. Or worse, in the case of one of you." "Charmed, I'm sure." "Still, I don't care. It won't affect me much longer." "What do you mean?" "I'm leaving." "What?" "I've got news for the pair of you: I'm going away. I'm fed up being stuck in a one-horse town in a dead-end job with no one but an arrogant braggart and a spineless coward for company. Horizons new for me, Sonny Jims. Before Christmas. All arranged some time ago. So there's no sense in arguing. Is that clear?" "Ringingly so." Shaken from his daze, he looked around at the same meadows, the identical wood-brows, the subtly changing but over-familiar sea. He felt his hand close around the ivory-handled whip, cold as the memory of a lover's hand. And again, in that quiet aftermath of his panic, the voices trickled back to his mind, as through a crystal, undistorted, unamplified, with a cold clarity, and he remembered the occasion: the spring meeting of the commoners. "Right then. I think I'll take a crack at the brute. You're first, of course, theoretically. Highly theoretically. But I'm second. Since I'm sure you haven't got the guts to ride the big boy, I'll have a go." "We'll see about that." "Don't be ridiculous. You haven't got the horsemanship to ride that brute." "We shall see." "You're cracked if you think a futile gesture like this is going to win milady's heart. She's off to the sunny Antipodes and there's nothing you or I can do about it." "Really? So why are you so all fired up to try and tame our large grey friend then?" "Not for those reasons, I can assure you. I just fancy the challenge. It's been wild for ages but it's obviously escaped originally because someone couldn't handle it. Well, we'll see if someone else can do better." Yes we will. But it's not going to be you." "Suit yourself. You have traditional first rights, of course, but you'll be sorry. Very sorry indeed. I mean it." "We shall see." Like the glimpse of a forgotten reflection in a long-abandoned pool, he saw himself, in some way unrecognisable yet alarmingly the same, advancing towards the creature, whip, rope-bridle and blanket-saddle in hand. And something broke. In a lather, in a lathering frenzy, he started whipping the sides of the wheelchair, feeling the muscles of his arms pumping up. "Then go, you bastard, go," he yelled, flicking the gearstick into position, grabbing at the throttle, lurching down the lumpy slope in a crazy unhinged amalgam of metal and skin, almost-headfirst-plummeting, braking only just in time to stop himself from leaping from the vehicle in the only way he could accomplish now. The safety belt jolted him back into his seat. He winced again, and continued, ricocheting through, it seemed, rather than down the slope, with the slush sloughing up behind him. -This is dumb, he thought; -this thing wasn't made for this. -Steadily now. -Steady, boy. Whispering into the perspiring ear, calming the throbbing pulse on the side of the creature's head. Threading down the streamside, taking agonies of care, trying to avoid being bogged down, warily-edgily-wisely, purring, prowling almost like the blind man he once was, led by the bubbling trickle of the stream, down the careworn path that at intervals was not a path, scouring out a new track of two thin lines that ground the previous hoof prints to an erased mush.
The hoofs beating out a tattoo on the sun-baked soil, jolting through the horse's body and up through his spine, and then away, and like a blur, like a quaking blur, the outside world, as if spirited by anger, moving past unhinged, the wind hushing past his ears and the whole plantation rustling, and a sick exhilaration clutching him, and a feeling like the final frolic before the plague grips, and him twisting in his makeshift saddle, sick agonies bruising up his spine, shaken but in control, nosing the horse beautifully, pointing through the frail gaps between the overhanging boughs, nursing the beast through like a pilot entering harbour.
Like an almost-capsizing boat, floundering along the rough level, imperceptibly edging through the red-brown-yellow flashes, over the starched leaf-rot outside the badger setts, careless over the twisted roots, slowing as the wheels grazed against oak bark, almost tilting him over. Having to stop. An obstacle. The stream. The stepping stones. A cluster of no-go boulders. Snarling again, thrusting the chair forward, ploughing through the iced water at the side of the stones, soaking himself, dousing the resilient electric motor, teeth dumbly clenched, keeping up the momentum back on the level, engaging the cruise gear and flying…
Flying uncontrollably with the whiff of madness in its foam-flecked nostrils, as if stepping into another gear, as if bleeding into itself for more fuel, flinging him to a four-winds-desperation cling to its coarse mane, tugging him thisaway and thataway, so he was hoarsely invoking his maker, yelling and digging in and cursing, hanging on for fragile expensive life. In a blur, in a blur at the fullest of gallops, nothing sharply visible, only a dizzying awareness of an opening light, an unfurling canopy, a suspicion of the approaching built-up as they burst out of the green-mould-fur of the forest by the edge of the village and he was vainly tugging on the bridle, desperately attempting the imposition of his will on the beast, but to no avail, and it was on the brink of rushing past his open gate but he was clinging on, wrenching on the bridle, and almost-bodily hurling the creature into the paddock, and it surged in and slid and reared and threw him and he was airborned, falling splayed to the floor, lying ricked on the flags, hazy-headed with pain…
Swaying, lost to any constraints of preservation, rattling on, the wheels buckling and the control sticks jerking in his hands, uncaring now, oblivious, and it was only a screaming-gnashing-wailing of brakes that prevented the machine from shooting past the entrance gate. At a giddying speed, he groaned into the paddock, braked again suddenly and felt the world soar up over his face as he fell backwards, his hat falling off, and he was ricked again to the cold flags. To the embarrassing reality. Lying there, pain-drenched again, on his upturned wheelchair like a grounded giant beetle. And yet, no. No. This was not so. And would never be so. He opened his eyes. His mind cleared. High on the knoll, on top of the world, he gazed ruefully at the broken, useless riding whip in his hands. He started to throw it away over his shoulder, then thought better, and wedged it to the side of his seat. Yet again, he changed the gear setting down. Yet again, he eased the throttle slowly into position. Ahead of himself, he could see himself, reaching home, driving the chair into the garage, applying the brakes, grabbing the walking stick from the back compartment, leaning on it, and hobbling through the dividing door to the glow of a warm fire, a half-finished book, a small glass of wine, and the comforting dreams of complex but unrealisable revenges that, it was now finally apparent, were to be his only future sustenance. He let the machine gradually descend towards the trackway, making sure that the families and couples stayed ahead of him. The view of the sea soon disappeared.
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