"But you think otherwise, don't you?" I said.
"Something strange is going on. That's all I know. Now let me get on with my job, while I still have it."
He strode away purposefully, leaving me alone outside Pharmacist's stall. I opened the top half of the door and took another look at the horse. As yesterday on the television, he looked all right to me.
But, then, I was no vet.
The atmosphere back in the house was frosty, to put it mildly. Positively subzero, and it had nothing to do with Pharmacist or any of the other horses. It had to do with money.
"Josephine, we simply can't afford it."
I could hear my stepfather almost shouting. He and my mother were in the little office off the hallway, while I was sitting very quietly out of sight in the kitchen, eavesdropping. They must have been far too involved in their discussion to have heard me come in from the yard, so I had simply sat down and listened.
Some might have accused me of being somewhat underhanded in secretly listening to their conversation. They would have been right.
"We must be able to afford it," wailed my mother. "I've had the best year ever with the horses."
"Yes, you have, but we've also had other things to contend with, not least the ongoing fallout from your disastrous little scheme." My stepfather's voice was full of incrimination and displeasure.
"Please don't start all that again." Her tone was suddenly more conciliatory and apologetic.
"But it's true," my stepfather went on mercilessly. "Without that, we would've easily been able to buy you a new BMW. As it is… well, let's just hope our old Ford doesn't need too much work done on it. Things are tight at present."
I wondered what disastrous little scheme could have resulted in things being so tight financially that one of the top trainers in the country was unable to upgrade her old Ford to a new BMW. But she had never before seemed to care about what sort of car she drove.
I would have loved to listen to them for a while longer. However, I really didn't want to get caught snooping, so I carefully stood up and silently swiveled back and forth on my good foot from the kitchen table to the back door. It was a technique I had developed to get around my hospital bed at night once I had removed my prosthesis. I was getting quite good at heel-andtoeing, as the physiotherapists had called it.
I could still hear my mother at high volume. "For God's sake, Derek, there must be something we can do."
"What do you suggest?" my stepfather shouted back at her. "We don't even know who it is."
I opened the back door a few inches, then closed it with a bang.
Their conversation stopped.
I walked through from the kitchen to the hall, my right foot making its familiar clink whenever I put it down. My mother came out of the open office door.
"Hello," I said, as genially as I could.
"Hello, darling," she replied, again placing too much emphasis on the "dar." She took a step towards me, and I thought for a fleeting second she was going to give me a kiss, but she didn't. "Tell me," she said, "how much longer are you planning to stay?"
"I've only just arrived," I said, smiling. "I hadn't thought about leaving just yet."
Oh yes, I had.
"It's just that one has to make plans," my mother said. "It's not that I want you to go, of course, it's just I would like to have some idea of when."
"I haven't even worked out where I would go," I said.
"But you would go back to the army." It was a statement, not a question.
"It's not as simple as that. They want to give me time to get over the injuries. And even then, they're not sure they actually want me anymore. They'll decide when I go back after my leave."
"What?" She sounded genuinely shocked. "But they have to have you. You were injured while working for them, so surely they must have an obligation to go on employing you."
"Mum, it's not like any other job," I said. "I would have to be fit and able to fight. That's what soldiers do."
"But there must be something else you could do," she argued. "They must need people to organize things, people to do the paperwork. Surely those don't have to be fit enough to run round and fight?"
My stepfather came to the office door and leaned on the frame.
"Josephine, my dear. I don't think Tom here would be prepared to be in the army simply to push paper round a desk." He looked me in the eyes and, for the first time in twenty-four years, I thought there might be some flicker of understanding between us.
"Derek is so right," I said.
"So for how long have the army sent you home on leave?" my mother asked. "How long before they decide if they want you back or not?"
"Six months."
"Six months! But you can't possibly stay here six months."
That was clearly true. I had arrived only eighteen hours previously, and I had already been there too long for her liking.
"I'll look for somewhere else to go this week," I said.
"Oh, darling, it's not that I want to throw you out, you understand," she said, "but I think it might be for the best."
Best for her, I thought ungenerously. But perhaps it would be the best for us all. A full-scale shouting match couldn't be very far away.
"I could pay you rent," I said, purposely fishing for a reaction.
"Don't be a silly boy," my mother said. "This is your home. You don't pay rent here."
My home, but I can't stay in it. My mother clearly didn't appreciate the irony of her words.
"A contribution towards your food might be welcome," my stepfather interjected.
Things must have been tight. Very tight, indeed.
I lay on my bed for a while, in the middle of the morning, staring at the molded ceiling and wondering what to do.
Life in the hospital had been so structured: time to wake up, have a cup of tea, read the paper, eat breakfast, have a morning physiotherapy session in the rehab center, return to the ward for lunch in the dayroom, have an afternoon physiotherapy session, return to the ward, watch the evening news, read a book or watch more television, have an evening hot drink, lights out, sleep. Every day the same, except there was no physio on Saturday afternoons or all day Sunday. A strict routine, regular as clockwork, with no decisions having to be made by me.
At first I had hated to have such a straitjacket to my existence, but I'd become used to it. I suppose one gets used to anything.
Abruptly, here in Lambourn, I was on my own, free to make my own choice of activity without a hospital regime to do it for me. And all of a sudden I was lost, unable to make up my mind, mostly because I was at a loss to know what to do.
It was a new and alien sensation. Even in the boring times between contacts in Afghanistan I'd had things to do: clean my weapon, fix my kit, train my men, make plans, even write a note home. I had always had something to do. In fact, most of the time I had far too much to do, and not enough time.
Yet try as I might, I couldn't think of a single thing I had to do now.
Maybe I could have written a note of thanks to the staff at the rehab clinic, but both they and I would know I didn't mean it.
I had hated feeling that I was being treated like a child, and I hadn't been slow to say so.
Looking back, even after just one day away from it, I could see that my frustration, and my anger, hadn't helped anyone, least of all myself. But it had been the only way I'd known to express my fury at the hand that fate had dealt me. There had been times when, if I'd still had my sidearm with me, I am sure I would have used it to blow my brains out, such had been the depth of my depression.
Even in recent weeks, I had often thought about suicide. But I could have walked out and thrown myself under the wheels of the London bus right outside the hospital if I'd really wanted to, and I hadn't, so at least I must be on the way up from the nadir.