Free Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes Page B

gradually found her becoming nauseous with nerves, morbidly—and usually correctly—convinced that this was the week that she would have to ride one of the “evil” riding school horses, the ones that bolted, and bucked, and chased the others with slicked-back ears and bared teeth, and that this was the week where she would be carried off, out of control, her legs flapping unbalanced against the saddle, her arms hauling back in vain against the reins. It wasn’t a challenge, like the other girls seemed to find it. It wasn’t even fun. And Kate hadn’t even seemed to fight her, when Sabine said she didn’t want to do it anymore, as if she had made her daughter do it only out of some uncertain sense of family tradition.
    â€œI don’t want to ride,” she confided to Thom, as he led one of the tethered horses back into its stable.
    â€œYou’ll be fine. That little lad’s a real gent.”
    Sabine glanced over at the distant gray.
    â€œI don’t care what he is. I don’t want to ride. Do you think she’ll make me?”
    â€œHe’s grand. Get on him a couple of times and you’ll be fine.”
    â€œYou’re not bloody taking me seriously,” she half shouted, so that John John in the next stable stuck his head around the door. “I don’t want to ride the horse. I don’t want to ride any horse. I don’t like it.”
    Thom calmly unhooked the lead rein from the horse, and gave it an appreciative slap on its rump with his good hand. He walked over to her, closing and bolting the door behind him.
    â€œYou’re frightened, huh?”
    â€œI just don’t like it.”
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with losing your nerve. Most of us have done it at some point.”
    â€œCan’t you hear me? God , you people . I just don’t like riding.”
    Thom placed his fake hand on her shoulder. It rested there, stiff and unyielding, curiously at odds with the sentiment it was trying to convey.
    â€œYou know, she won’t be satisfied until you’ve at least had a go. It’ll make things heaps better. Why don’t you come out with me tomorrow morning? I’ll make sure you’re okay.”
    Sabine felt like weeping.
    â€œI really don’t want to. Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m stuck here. My life is just a bloody mess.”
    â€œTomorrow morning. Just you and me. Look, it’s better you ride out with me for the first time than with her, isn’t it?”
    She looked up at him. He grinned.
    â€œYou know she’ll eat you for breakfast. Most fearless seat in the whole of southern Ireland, that woman. Still rode to hounds until the Duke went lame.”
    â€œI’ll break my neck. And then you’ll all be sorry.”
    â€œI certainly will. I can’t carry a body all the way back with only one arm.”
    B ut the following morning she managed to put Thom off again. This time, however, she had a valid excuse.
    â€œNow. I’ve got to go out for most of the day, and Mrs. H is going to be very busy, so I’d like you to take care of your grandfather.”
    Her grandmother had gotten dressed in her “town” clothes. At least Sabine assumed they were her town clothes; it was the first time she had seen her in anything but old tweedy trousers and Wellington boots. She was wearing a dark-blue woolen skirt of uncertain but certainly aged origin, a dark-green cardigan over a round-necked jumper, and her ever-present quilted green jacket over the top. She had placed a string of pearls around her neck, and had brushed her hair back so that it sat, still, in the way old people’s hair always seemed to, in waves, rather than its usual electric frizz.
    Sabine fought back an urge to ask her if she was going out on the town. Somehow she knew her grandmother wouldn’t find it funny.
    â€œWhere are you going?” she said, incuriously.
    â€œEnniscorthy. To see