Horse of fire, p.9
Horse of Fire, page 9
‘Behave yourself you idiot,’ Jinny muttered, fighting her horse, trying furiously to turn Shantih back.
‘I couldn’t …’ began Jinny.
‘Tonight is the ceremony of the Christ Child,’ said Sara in a low, clear voice. ‘You are called to be there. Ride your red horse.’
Before Jinny could reply, Shantih had dragged the reins through her hands and was galloping after Bramble.
‘What did she say?’ asked Ken.
‘Don’t know,’ said Jinny not wanting to discuss it, and she banished all thoughts of the tinkers from her head. Thinking only of the nativity play, she closed her legs on Shantih’s sides and sent her on to Glenbost.
Ken caught up with her and they trotted side by side, only twice dropping into single file – once when a car passed them going to Finmory and the second time when it passed them again with Petra sitting in the passenger seat.
‘I’ll bet she’s not wearing her rotten shawl,’ Jinny thought, ignoring her sister.
Glenbost came into sight and nearly all the houses had lighted windows. The church and church hall were ablaze with spotlights. Nothing was left in Jinny’s head except the play: that it should be the very best.
As they reached the path that led up to the church, a van came speeding towards them, making Shantih rear forward and Bramble plunge up the banking at the side of the path.
The tadpole geologist was at the wheel. He swung the huge van round in a vicious U-turn and roared back towards the village.
‘That is the last we will be seeing of them,’ said a woman clutching an angel by the hand, who like Bramble, had taken refuge on the banking. ‘Heathen it is to be leaving a place on Christmas Eve.’
Trotting up the path to the church hall, Jinny paid no attention to the woman. The next time she rode Shantih through the glare of the spotlights she would be the Golden King riding her horse of fire.
She had totally forgotten the photograph crushed in her pocket.
11
Miss Tuke’s car and trailer were parked by the side of the field and Guizer’s thunderous whinnyings and crashing hooves followed Ken and Jinny as they rode up to the church hall.
‘Better go and find Tukey before he smashes up the trailer,’ said Jinny, jumping down from Shantih and giving her reins to Ken.
Miss Tuke was in the small kitchen off the hall, elbow deep in sheeted angels and shepherds in dressing gowns. Miss Broughton was handing out lambs and crooks while Mary sat by the cooker, her face as white as her head dress whispering the words of the carols to herself.
‘We’re here,’ announced Jinny. ‘And Guizer’s kicking up your trailer.’
‘Probably pleased to hear you,’ said Miss Tuke, trying on wings, and Mr Redding gave Jinny a pile of carol sheets, asking her to put one on every chair in the hall.
‘But Shantih …’began Jinny.
‘Stop fussing. Ken’s with her,’ said Miss Tuke and punted Jinny into the hall.
Already a few mothers who had brought their children were seated in the front rows, surrounded by handbags and shopping, reserving places for their friends. In front of them was the space for the angel choir and then the battered, wooden manger watched over by the donkey on wheels and the loblolly dog leaking its stuffing. Above the manger, hanging from the roof of the hall was a great star that Jinny hadn’t seen before. It glittered with sequins and crystals, breathing rainbows as it swung round gently.
Beyond the manger stood the double doors that would open to let in the kings.
As she laid out the carol sheets Jinny stared round the bare hall, hearing stray scraps of conversation about the weather, operations, food and families.
In the kitchen the costumed children were twittering with high excitement.
‘Now you’ve not a thing to worry about,’ Miss Broughton assured them. ‘I’ll be sitting at the end of the front row ready to prompt you. Not that anyone is going to forget, are you?’
The children giggled apprehensively, anxious to get the whole thing over, yet afraid to start.
‘Remember, Mary and Joseph, Jesus is in the manger. When you reach him fold back the blanket so that the shepherds and kings can see him.’
‘Into our glad rags then,’ said Miss Tuke and she went out with Jinny to where Ken was talking to Amanda Bowen who was dressed as an Arab.
‘Jolly well done,’ enthused Miss Tuke, regarding Amanda’s draperies with an approving eye.
‘Thought as a royal horse holder I should be kind of Arabian. Piers was at a fancy dress do as the Red Shadow, so actually that’s what I am,’ and Amanda surveyed her robes with smooth self-satisfaction.
‘Smug,’ thought Jinny, but when Amanda took Shantih and Bramble with competent ease, Jinny accepted her.
In the kitchen Ken, Miss Tuke and Jinny put on their tunics and cloaks. Miss Broughton secured their crowns for them with hair clips.
‘Magnificent,’ said Mr Redding. ‘A transformation. I trust you will be donating the costumes for all future kings?’
Jinny started to explain that he could have everything except her mother’s cloak but the hall was almost full. They were about to begin.
Through the kitchen door Mr Redding signalled to Miss Osborne at the piano, who lifted her outspread hands over the keyboard and crashed them down in the first notes of her Christmas medley. The audience shuffled, coughed and hushed each other expectantly. The angels, lined up two by two, waited for the parachute jump into the hall.
‘Remember everyone, speak UP. Sing UP.’
The piano music stopped. Mr Redding’s opening words were few.
‘Now,’ breathed Miss Broughton and the first angels walked into the hall which darkened as they advanced, until only the lights above the manger were left on.
‘Need to look smartish,’ said Miss Tuke and she went stomping down to the field to take Guizer out of his trailer.
Jinny tightened her girths and mounted. Shantih humped her back in token bucks, springing stiff-legged as a racehorse as Jinny calmed her, whispering reassurance, clapping her neck.
Ken sat easily on Bramble, the austere silver crown seeming to grow from his head as if it were part of him. The stuff of Granny Mander’s ball gown hung from his shoulders like dusty shadows and his kingfisher tunic glinted through the black branches of Jinny’s painted tree.
Miss Tuke rode Guizer up from the field to where Ken and Jinny waited for her by the church gate, just beyond the glare of the spotlights. Guizer was a heavy, fifteen hand, dun Highland with an eel stripe and black haystack mane and tail. Miss Tuke’s green wellies were thrust into her stirrups, her stubby legs in their red cords were slabbed against the saddle and the ruffles of her cloak were draped over Guizer’s solid quarters.
‘He’s wondering what new madness we’re up to now,’ confided Miss Tuke, her short-fingered hand buried in Guizer’s hearth rug shoulder.
‘It’s now,’ thought Jinny. ‘Now it’s happening.’
Amanda Bowen, who was watching through a small window at the side of the doors, came running down the path in a swirl of Red Shadow robes to tell them that the shepherds had set off for Bethlehem.
‘One of them spotted his mother and ran straight to her and another left his lamb behind and had to dash back for it,’ she told them, giggling.
Icy water trickled down Jinny’s spine, for how could she think it funny? How could she laugh at it?
The singing of “The First Nowell” came from the hall and Amanda, wishing them good luck, swirled her way back to the window and stood looking in.
Jinny waited, her eyes fixed on the wooden doors for the first vibration of their opening. They must be wide open before she galloped up to them. Not walk, the way Miss Tuke wanted, but gallop, the way the kings would have galloped at the end of their long searching.
There was a sudden sough of winter wind that blew down from the moor, from the red deer, from the white stag. Jinny saw the wind lift Ken’s cloak and she remembered a moment from a film she had seen where men on horseback had ridden along the skyline, their cloaks billowing about them.
Amanda raised her hand, and turning, waved to them. Holding her breath Jinny stared at the doors, felt the crack between them tremble, saw a slit of light and then the manger, Joseph and Mary, the kneeling shepherds and the winged angels ranked on either side. Easing her fingers a fraction on the reins she let Shantih prance forward so that all the kings could be seen from the hall, then she waited.
‘Get on girl!’ ordered Miss Tuke but Jinny held Shantih between her hands and seat. Her legs niggled on, her hands held her back, so that she could feel Shantih’s energy, desperate as a caged bird to gallop to the manger, a horse of Gold.
‘We three kings of orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse so far.
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star.’
Audience and angels craned forward at the sight of the kings, their gasps of amazement loud into the night.
‘O star of wonder, star of night
Star of royal beauty bright.’
They sang the chorus while Amanda waved desperately, and Jinny, staring at the dazzling of the star above the manger held Miss Tuke and Ken penned behind her. Not to show off, not only to make Shantih look wild and heraldic but because this was the way it had to be.
It was not until the last two lines of the chorus –
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light.’
that Jinny sent Shantih galloping forward. In a frenzy of flying mane and plunging hooves the Arab went blazing through the spotlights. At the last possible second Jinny pulled her to a rearing halt. With both hands on the pommel of her saddle Jinny sprang upwards, twisting in mid air so that her cloak billowed about her as she dropped to the ground at Shantih’s shoulder.
As if they had practised it a million times Amanda had given the golden gift to Jinny and had Shantih controlled by her bit ring.
Slowly, holding the box in both hands, Jinny walked to the manger, acknowledged Mary and Joseph, set down her gift and knelt to the Child.
‘Is it that Manders lassie from Finmory?’ asked a voice from the darkened hall.
‘Aye, it is and that terrible wild horse she has.’
Jinny stood up, stepped back and took Shantih from Amanda, leading her to the side of the doorway so that Miss Tuke could ride Bramble to the centre.
Despite her mother’s cloak it was not the Golden King they had seen, only the lass from Finmory. Disillusionment washed like a cold flood over Jinny’s heart. They would not remember the play as the best ever nativity play, only as the play in which the Finmory lass had ridden up to the manger on her wild horse.
They sang the next chorus while Miss Tuke prepared to dismount. She kicked her feet free from the stirrups, took her reins in her left hand. Amanda stood ready with her gift. As Miss Tuke scrambled her leg over the saddle, Bramble snapped his teeth at Guizer’s rump and the pony leapt sideways. Miss Tuke’s welly caught in the cantle of saddle, pitching her forward over Guizer’s shoulder. Somehow her cloak held her there and for a long moment she hung down with her arms stretched towards the ground, her crown askew and her green wellies pointing skywards, then there was the sound of tearing material and Miss Tuke was gently deposited onto the ground.
The singing had almost stopped as the audience watched Miss Tuke’s slow descent but once they saw her safely on her feet again, their relief spread into grins, laughter bubbled up and was swallowed down, while Miss Broughton quelled her giggling schoolchildren with a threatening forefinger.
‘Frankincense to offer have I,’ sang Mr Redding, his voice rallying the audience who were wandering lost in the chorus.
With torn cloak, crown slipping from the back of her head, Miss Tuke nodded in the direction of the manger, dumped down the silver box and hastily backed off, taking Guizer from Amanda.
‘I hold you directly responsible for this whole thing, my girl,’ she stated as she led Guizer across towards Shantih. ‘Letting that horse behave like a lunatic.’
But Jinny was too lost in misery for Miss Tuke’s words to reach her. The nativity play had been ruined. From far away Jinny thought she heard the roar of a stag but it was too distant for her to be certain. Maybe it was only her own misery that summoned it from the silent moors.
Ken dismounted, gave Bramble’s reins to Amanda and stood, a straight, silent figure commanding the hall’s attention, before he strode to the manger and going down on one knee set his black gift beside the others. He waited, his arms spread out, the shadow of the future crucifixion, and when he stood up again the audience had forgotten Miss Tuke’s comedy turn.
They sang ‘What shall I give him,’ while children too young to be in the play came up to the manger and gave toys, books and games and suddenly it was over. Everyone was standing singing ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. Jinny listened to the carol, too miserable join in. Mr Redding thanked everyone for coming and directed them into the church for the watchnight service. Children ran to their parents. A little girl reclaimed her donkey. Miss Broughton gathered in costumes. Mr Redding hoped Miss Tuke hadn’t hurt herself.
‘Enjoyed it so much,’ congratulated Mrs Manders. ‘You looked really stunning Jinny, though I did think for one horrible moment that you were going to come charging into the hall.’
‘I didn’t expect you to think anything else,’ said Jinny, desolate, but already her mother was commiserating with Miss Tuke and saying how sweet the little ones looked.
Mrs Manders took her cloak, which seemed now no more than a rather old fashioned evening cloak. Miss Broughton took the crowns saying they could let her have the rest of their costumes later. Gradually the hall emptied. Miss Tuke took Guizer back to his trailer and went into church with Mr Manders.
‘What are you two doing?’ Mrs Manders asked Ken and Jinny, giving Jinny her duffle coat and hard hat, which she had collected from the hall.
‘Going home,’ said Jinny bleakly.
‘We’re popping into church,’ said Mrs Manders, deciding it best to pay no attention to Jinny’s mood. ‘Don’t hang around. Too cold.’
The hall doors were closed. A last mother holding her four-year-old son firmly by the hand hurried home. She stopped for a moment beside Shantih.
‘Now I am telling you for the last time, the horse did not have wings. Be seeing for yourself.’
The little boy stared up at Shantih, his eyes wide with tiredness and excitement.
‘I saw them,’ he stated stubbornly. ‘It was the golden wings it had.’
‘You’re right,’ said Ken, speaking directly to the little boy. ‘I saw them too.’
‘Filling his head with such nonsense,’ snapped the woman but the child’s face lit up as he smiled at Ken.
‘You see,’ said Ken as they watched the little boy being dragged away. ‘It is always worthwhile. All his life he’ll remember Shantih’s golden wings. Tell his grandchildren about them.’
A surge of gratitude lifted through Jinny. It had all been worthwhile – the hassle, the striving, the not giving in. For the little boy the nativity play had been as wonderful as Jinny had wanted it to be for everyone.
‘That’s the way it is,’ said Ken. ‘No one to hand out bouquets. Most of the time you don’t know anyone has heard you. But nice when you do. A true gift.’
‘A true gift,’ Jinny repeated to herself and at once remembered the photograph in her pocket. Without giving herself time to think up reasons why she shouldn’t, she took it out, spread it open over Shantih’s withers and forced herself to look at it.
The heap of dead deer piled casually on top of each other, soft sculptures of their living beings. This was how it was – both more and less. More than the routine, unseen, accepted slaughter of the creatures that was so unnecessary, so pathetic. The dead deer deserved Jinny’s engulfing sadness at such destruction. But it was less than the phantasmagoric dance of Jinny’s lurid fear. The nostril dripping blood was no more than that; the glazed eyes did not open “in a lane to the land of the dead”. Defused, accepted, the photograph had lost its power of terror.
Having looked at it Jinny was freed from it.
Slowly Jinny looked away and her glance caught the headline DEER POACHERS STRIKE AGAIN.
“Deer poachers in the north east of Scotland are playing havoc with herds of red deer,” read the article. “They are herded together, shot down and their carcases taken south where hoteliers are willing to pay Christmas prices to add offerings from Santa’s team to their menus. The red deer pictured below were found in a siding off a country road in Banchor. It is thought that the poachers were about to load this little lot when they were disturbed by a police patrol car. The gang, whoever they may be, are no amateurs and so far the police have been unable to track them down. It is estimated that some two hundred deer may have been taken, which means more than pennies in the poachers’ pockets.”
As Jinny’s eyes darted over the print the pieces of the jigsaw, like a film run backwards, clicked into place – the helicopter driving the deer together on the Ardtallon moors, the men with their geologist cover story giving them the unchallenged freedom of the moors, their voices overheard when she had been sheltering in the croft doorway, ‘Christmas Eve. One o’clock for the drop. Over the border by three,’ the geologist driving the huge removal van into which they would load the dead deer.
It was tonight they were planning to take the deer. The drop was the sheer drop from the Ardtallon moors to the road.
Jinny thrust the paper at Ken.
‘The geologists are poachers,’ she cried, her tongue tripping over the words. ‘That’s why all the deer are at Ardtallon. They’ve been collecting them there with that helicopter. I overheard them planning it. Tonight. One o’clock they’re going to kill them. Load them into their van on the Ardtallon road.’
‘We’ve got to get help,’ said Ken, instantly understanding. ‘Can’t stop them ourselves. Phone the police.’
