I offered, ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘A day I’ve looked forward to... and planned... for years.’
‘Then I’m glad it went OK.’
She was lonely, I perceived, surprised, the hard outer lady a gallant way of playing the cards life had dealt her. I knew moreover that I had indeed secured her future business, and was happy I’d had to do the shuttle myself.
Leaving her trudging with reviving voice round the new stables, I drove the nine-box along to the farmyard, pulled up by the pumps and wrote up the log books, both the box’s and my own. I’d spoken to Isobel on the phone several times during the day, hearing at one point that Jericho Rich had actually turned up in her office checking her records. Cheek, I thought. I’d also learned from Harve that all the planned work had been completed without trouble except that one of Jogger’s pair of broodmares had started to foal on the way to Surrey and that Jogger, mechanic, had unwillingly become midwife.
Jogger in his turn had reported the incident to me with shocked indignation because the stud groom at the destination had refused to move the mare from the horsebox until the foaling was complete, delaying Jogger’s return to Pixhill by a couple of hours. Jogger, it appeared, had never seen a foal born before: he had found it both eye-opening and disgusting.
‘Did you know the mare eats all that stuff? Fair turned me up.’
‘Don’t think about it,’ I advised him. ‘Tell me which boxes have sprouted little strangers.’
‘Eh? Oh... Phil’s and the one Dave’s driving, which is Pat’s box usually. But, see, most of the others had gone out by the time I found those. There may be more.’
He sounded cheerful, but then it wasn’t his business at stake. By the time I’d completed the log books, filled the tanks and moved the nine-box to the corner where we customarily cleaned the fleet, he had still not returned.
Under the strong outdoor lights, I hosed down the nine-box and squeegeed the windows, not a big job for once as the weather had been dry all day. In the farmyard, the cleaning water came out like a mist under pressure, driven through a pump with compressed air: more effective and more economical with water than a plain hose.
The interior took me more time, as forty-five horses and a relay of lads had left their mark despite the intermittent sweepings out, and I was dog-tired myself by the time I’d mopped the floors with disinfectant and fastened all the partitions ready for the morrow.
The front cab itself was a mess, littered with screwed-up sandwich wrappers and awash with the ropes, reins and other paraphernalia used and borrowed from the underseat locker.
I opened the locker and replaced all the gear in it. Even inside the locker, the lads had left their meal-remains. I picked out a small paper carrier and replaced it with a couple of re-folded horse rugs. Shutting the lid, I noticed again the stain on the seat from the previous night and wondered how to get rid of it, short of re-covering the whole thing. Certainly none of the lads that had sat on it that day had complained, but then they hadn’t known about Kevin Keith Ogden’s last ride.
Smiling a shade ruefully I swept the rubbish into the sack I’d provided but the lads had resolutely ignored, and stood it beside the small carrier which would have gone into the sack also, except that it proved heavier than empty and contained, I found, a thermos flask and a packet of uneaten sandwiches. Yawning, I thought I would get it back to Marigold’s lads in the morning, whether or not I did the last shuttle myself.
Finally I drove the box along to its usual parking space, locked everything, threw the rubbish sack into our own skip, carried the thermos flask and bag into the offices and typed my day’s records into Isobel’s computer. That done, I sat for a while calling to the screen the requirements for the next day, trying to work out if we would have enough drivers and hoping no one else would be ill by the morning.
I phoned Jogger to find out where he was. Ten minutes from the boozer, he said. The boozer, Jogger’s natural home, was the pub where he drank with his cronies every night. Ten minutes to the boozer meant maybe twelve to the farm.
‘Don’t stop on the way,’ I said.
While I waited for him I ran through the computer notes for the day; everything, that’s to say, that had been entered before Isobel and Rose had left at four o’clock.
The only hiccup, a very minor one, seemed to have been that Michael Watermead’s fillies had set off an hour and a half late to Newmarket.
‘Nigel reported,’ the screen informed me, ‘lads from Newmarket didn’t show until ten-thirty. Tessa’s message yesterday ordered box for nine a.m. Nigel set off with fillies at eleven. Reported arrival Newmarket one-thirty. Reported leaving Newmarket two-thirty.’
Nigel had returned uneventfully, Harve had said, and his box stood clean and shipshape in its accustomed place.
The Tessa in question was Michael’s daughter, so no one’s head would roll over the mistake; mix ups over time were all too common. If that was the worst that had happened it had been a near-perfect work-day.
Isobel’s last snippet of information read, ‘Mr Rich in person called at the office, checking our records on his transfer. I satisfied him on all points.’
Jogger’s lights swooped in through the gates and he rolled along to the pumps. I went out to meet him and found him still shaken by the confrontation with the bloody realities of birth. I myself had seen several foals and other animals delivered but never, I idly reflected, an actual human baby. Would I, I wondered, have found it more traumatic? My only child, a daughter, had been born in my absence to a girl who’d persuaded another man he was the father, and married him quickly. I saw them all sometimes, along with their two subsequent children, but I felt few paternal longings and knew I would never seek to prove the truth.
Jogger filled his tanks, moved to the cleaning area and grumbled his way through the mopping out. In the belief that if I interrupted I would be left with an incomplete job, I waited until he’d finished before I asked him the vital question.
‘Where exactly are these limpet strangers?’
‘You’ll never see them in the dark,’ he said, sniffing.
‘Jogger...’
‘Yeah, well, you can’t hardly see them in broad daylight—’ he wiped his nose on the back of his hand, ‘unless you want to get under on the slider with a torch?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t think so.’
‘Just tell me about them.’
He walked along the row with me, pointing.
‘Phil’s box. I had it over the pit. There’s a tube container stuck on top of the rear fuel tank, in that space above the tank but under the box’s floor. It’s hidden by the side of the horsebox, and you can’t see it either from the front or the back of the box if you’re looking casually under the chassis. Bloody neat job.’
I frowned. ‘What would it hold?’
‘Search me. Half a dozen footballs, maybe. It’s empty now, though. It must have had a screw-on cap. The screw-thread’s there, but the cap is missing.’
Phil’s box was a super-six, as were half of the fleet. A super-six carried six horses in comfort, had an extra-spacious cab, a generous general layout, and could accommodate a seventh horse standing crossways at a pinch. I liked driving them better than the longer nine-boxes. Half a dozen footballs in a tube on the underside sounded macabre as well as downright improbable.
‘Pat’s box,’ Jogger said, pointing, ‘that’s the one Dave drove with broodmares, remember?’ He broke off, recalling his own frightful day. ‘Don’t never ask me to drive no broodmares no more.’