The feed hatch has been left open.
I run into the house and scream at my mother to call the vet. Indigo comes running back out with me to the stable. Dobson soon comes by, but by the time he does Midnight’s gone. I hold Indigo in my arms, we’re both in tears. Clifford the pony sniffs at Midnight’s body, then lets out a distressed bray. After examining him, Dobson puts his hand on my shoulder. — It looks like extreme colic; he’s eaten himself to death.
A car pulls up and my father gets out and comes across to the stable. He puts on an expression of contrived shock and I can’t look at him. — I’m sorry, hen, he says.
— Keep the fuck away from me, I snap, pushing him in the chest. — You did this! You wanted Midnight dead! I’ll never ride another fucking horse as long as I live!
— But, princess…
He’s giving me Indy’s title now, he hasn’t called me that in years, probably since I had a period. — Do fuck off! I storm away and head to my car.
— Go then, my dad shouts, — go away and greet like a daft wee lassie tae that dippit boyfriend! If you’d let me pit him in La Rue’s stables where he could have been looked after this would never have happened!
As I head to the car I can hear Indigo bursting into tears and my father comforting her. — It’s okay, hen, it was an accident. There, there. He’s at peace now.
I drive off and I’m crying and laughing at the same time. I think about Jason; how if he’d been there he would have noticed that my dad or somebody had left the feed hatch open. After a while I just seem to find myself in the B&Q garden centre, looking at shears, thinking about the damage you could inflict on somebody with them.
I have a coffee at the new Starbucks as darkness falls. I get into the car and I drive into Cowdenbeath. I’m thinking of my dad, a man who loves himself, but who’s a parochial failure, never leaving this place, never really testing what he’s got inside; just content to lord it over the people he works and drinks with. Or the uptight Dr Grant with his practice on the hill, like his father, the one who sent all the silicosis-ridden miners back down the pit to dig up more coal as they coughed up their lungs. Then there’s snotty Fiona La Rue: all those so-called successful people in this town; as beaten and insignificant as the supposed plebs they despise.
I feel a burning rage against everything and everyone in this world, and somebody’s going to pay. I realise that I’m carrying the shears with me. And there he is, right by the leisure centre, still barely compos mentis. That disgusting, foul old tramp.
I’m breathing heavily with the horror of what I just had to do, when I get to Jason’s house, right behind the railway station. I ring the bell and his father comes to the door. That terrible mark on the side of his face: I can’t help but stare for a second. — Aye?
— I’m Jenni, I gasp. — I’m a friend of Jason’s. I was here before.
— Aye, ah mind.
— He said I was to come and take some clothes into the hospital for him. They said he can wear his own clothes.
He looks doubtfully at me for a second, — You his official fashion consultant? Cause yir no daein much ay a job.
— No, I start, — I’m only trying to help.
Mr King graces me a sympathetic nod. — Okay, hen, ye’d better come in. Ah’ve no long done a washin.
I follow him inside and through to the kitchen, where he starts laying out some clothes: jeans, T-shirt, jumper, socks, underpants. — Right, thanks, I say, as he puts them into a plastic Co-op bag.
— Ah think ehs shoes are still in the hospital, but thir’s trainers here onywey, he says. — Tell him I’ll be in the morn tae see him.
— Righto, thank you, Mr King.
Jason’s father is very chatty, but he’s quite eccentric and has some strange ideas. He tells me that he has ‘irrefutable evidence’ that the council had got a team of trained cats to rip open bin liners so that they could introduce wheelie bins to the area. Apparently a contractor who manufactures them is a business partner with a prominent local councillor. — It’s aw profit n personal gain. Ah’m gonnae write tae Gordon Broon, ya hoor. If wi still hud the likes ay Willie Gallagher in Parliament n Auld Bob Selkirk up the toon hall…
Midnight’s gone.
Midnight was all that was keeping me here. I can see that with him around I would never leave. My father… he did me a fucking favour! He set me free!
… so if ah wis any young person, n ah keep sayin that tae oor Jason, ah’d git right oot ay here. It’s no a place fir the young. No now. As 50 Cent said: Git rich or die tryin. What huv they goat tae keep thum occupied here but mischief?
— Yes. I think you’re right, Mr King, I struggle to break him off, making my apologies.
I get into the car and drive back out to Dunfermline and the hospital. Back on the ward, the visiting period is just about over as I hand the bag to Jason.
— What took ye? he snaps.
I look tearfully at him. — It’s Midnight, he’s dead. Somebody left the feed hatch open. It should never have happened. We all knew he was prone to gluttony with feed…
— Aw naw… ah’m sorry… he says.
— If one of us had been there we could have saved him. It takes a long time for a horse to die of colic. I should have checked on him! I as good as killed him!
— Naw, Jenni, it wis probably jist an accident…
— My father said that he should have been in La Rue’s stables where they would have regularly monitored him! He was right. I fight against a sob. — I’m just a selfish, spoiled brat; insisting I had my own horse at home! I fucked up. I failed to look after him like I’ve failed at everything else!
— Naw, Jenni…
— It was my father that did it; I know it was! He killed Midders to replace him with a stronger horse so that I could compete with Lara. I now let the tears come. — I used to have a silly dream, Jason… I hear myself ranting, — I dreamt about riding Midnight out of Cowdenbeath for good… right away from this place…
— Aye… riding fantasies… Jason says, his mouth hanging open. — I’m sorry, he goes, and he looks so distraught. — Ah blame masel, ah mean, if ah hudnae been in here he’d huv been looked eftir.
— No, it was him, that bastard. Indigo’s pony was fine!
Jason gets out of bed and moves over to me in his striped pyjamas. He puts an arm round my shoulder, then steps closer and he hugs me for a bit. It feels good. He smells nice. I could stay like this forever. Then he pulls apart and looks around and whispers urgently, — We’d better nash, visitin time’s up.
He tells me to keep a lookout, as he gets dressed. I comply, but I have a strange and strong urge, which I resist, to turn round and watch him changing.
Oh, Midnight. This fucking place! I’m getting out of here! For good.
— C’mon, he whispers, and we creep along the hospital corridors. As we go outside an orderly approaches and at first I think he’s going to stop us, but he merely asks for a light. Jason hastily obliges and we head out and across the car park into the motor.
We drive back into Cowdenbeath and through the town and back out to the bend in the Perth Road. I pull the car into a gravelly lay-by beside the turn and climb out. I get the torch I keep in the breakdown kit in the car boot. We vault the crash barrier, Jason with a wince as he put the weight on his bad arm, and I shine the light into the nettle bush. There’s nothing visible for yards and yards besides these big plants, some of them shoulder-high to us both. As we start to push through them, I realise too late that their foliage has concealed the fact that they’re on a slope and I feel myself being propelled forward and I grab out at Jason. Then I scream as I think that we’re both going to fall, but he steadies us. — Fuck! he snaps. — Muh fuckin airm!