Barn Blind Page 20

  This was what they would say about him: “He’s done wonders with that horse, really. One of Kate’s most impossible mounts, you know. Comparisons are odious, but he’s almost as good, if not . . . Well, for his age . . . and there’s nearly two years’ difference.” “Excellent equestrian.” “Why not Team material? I really think . . .” The imagined dialogues made his stomach churn, made him perspire. It was not comfortable, really, to think about them, but as he worked around Teddy, forking up manure, then laying new bedding, he could hardly help himself. The worst, he knew, was that he half believed them. When pairs of spectators or other riders that he knew went by, he found himself trying to catch words, then he found himself, yes, disappointed that they were talking of their own concerns.

  Besides, the dressage scores weren’t even posted yet. His had compared favorably with Peter’s, but the division was large. Any idiot really could simply appear. Any two or three idiots. He and Peter weren’t charmed by any means. Or were they? Teddy grunted and sank his snout deep into the water bucket. A moment later he dripped a long thread of water and saliva across the front of John’s shirt, but John paid only cursory attention. He was thinking, “Amazing how those two are always so closely matched, more than brothers, really almost as if they were . . .”

  The hypothetical twin appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Jensen from Omaha took it, but not by much. I was second, you were third.”

  “She’s not going to get that mare over the water to save her life. Who was fourth?”

  “Some new guy. Mother’s never seen the horse, either. That sort of Morgany-looking brown with the white spots on his chest.”

  “I didn’t think he was so good.”

  Peter shrugged. It was remarkable how neat he looked, same breeches, same boots, same tie, no stains or even wrinkles. John had had to go back to his summer clothes, so spotted and rumpled was his formal winter costume. He turned away. The subject of his brother was suddenly too complex and too compelling to admit of new matter. How had he managed, for fifteen years, simply to get along? To talk with this enigma, to work with him, but especially to fight with him? For a long time, before father had converted the upstairs porch, they had shared a room. There had been fights over space, over cleaning up, over mislaid and broken possessions. To think that there was a person he himself had been who was able to yell at and even punch Peter. He wanted to ask, “Am I as weird to you as you are to me?” but he couldn’t, and besides, the inevitable reply would be “I don’t know,” Peter’s most characteristic utterance, perhaps the linchpin of his mysteriousness. Peter’s mysteriousness. How laughable that idea would have been six months before. “Go away,” said John. “I’ve got secret stuff to do.”

  “I’ll bet. Like cleaning his feet again; he’s standing right in it.”

  The gray mare went over the water jump after two refusals, and the Morgany brown balked at, of all things, a little picket fence. Teddy galloped around the cross-country at terrific speed, and seemed rather surprised at the end, throwing his head around and flicking his ears as if his plans had gone awry. There were jumps John knew Teddy had wanted to pause for and think about, but there had been no time to pause. John whipped and Teddy galloped headfirst over everything. Their time was jolting: forty-five seconds faster than Peter’s and well ahead of everyone else. He dismounted to a few raised eyebrows and remarks by Lambert Smith about discretion being the better part of sportsmanship, but he interpreted their disapproval as perverse praise. What a time! How could they not be impressed?

  “I think he’s actually a bit more daring, bolder, you might say, than the older one,” went the dialogue in his mind, “perhaps even better material for an international career. I won’t say anything about style, there is two years’ difference, after all. . . .” Best to be careful about the legs, he thought, recalling mother’s saying, “Wreckless riders ruin tendons,” but Teddy was in excellent condition and a little blowout had probably done him a world of good. Still, he got out the liniment and slapped it on, all the way up and all the way down. They walked and walked. Teddy, for the moment, was almost too tired to eat, but it would be hours till the arena jumping.

  Here came Peter. John dropped his eyes modestly, and pretended to be peering into Teddy’s ears. There were no congratulations, however, not even any sound except the crunch of Peter’s boots on the gravel, approaching, retreating. Always in a daze, the boy! But when John looked up, Peter’s glance, just turning away, caught his for the briefest second. Still no word, not even the most minimally polite, not the least word of a stranger unfamiliar with the struggles and disappointments of the summer. “Hey!” said John, but Peter walked away. When he was very far away, John screamed, “I beat you! I beat you and you can’t even admit it! Some good sport you are, your mother’s son if you ask me! Hey! Hey!” but Peter didn’t turn around, didn’t pause, didn’t even repeat the trivial eye contact he had made before. “Come on!” said John to Teddy, who had dropped his nose to snuffle the gravel drive, and they marched in a small circle, cooling out.

  Kate said, “I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous and infuriating.” He should not have expected praise. He kept his head down and worked assiduously around Teddy in his stall, picking up minuscule traces of manure and single wet straws. “Why do you persist in this perversity? Why do you want to lame or kill one of my horses, and break your own neck to boot? That would be a great inconvenience, let me tell you! You could not have gotten poor Teddy around the course in that kind of time without beating him unmercifully from start to finish!” John’s head popped up, his mouth open. “Don’t speak to me! I don’t want to hear it, do you understand? I expect, after thirteen years on horseback, that you will show some kind of judgment, that you will show that you know more than these bloody hamhanded farmboys who learn how to win ribbons and wreck good horseflesh all in the space of a year! I’ve got principles! A hard enough thing to hold on to in this business without someone like you, someone of my own flesh and my own raising . . .” Her voice cracked, then she paused, and went on more quietly. “Listen to me! All over this country horses are a big business. Racing, horseshowing, foxhunting, all of it. And everybody, everybody except the fortunate wealthy few, has to do it on a shoestring. Do you know what I’ve seen? Don’t speak. Now it’s your turn to listen for once. I’ve seen Tennessee Walkers leaning, leaning against walls because they were blistered under their boots and couldn’t stand up. These same animals a half an hour later in the show ring are lifting their poor feet as high as they can and rolling their eyes at the whip. I’ve seen jumpers forced to pick up their legs over a fence by trainers who whap them with nailed jump poles and naked electric wires. People stud the inside surfaces of training reins with sharp tacks because they’re too impatient to teach their cattle horses to neck rein the right way. All over this country there are three- and four-year-old Thoroughbreds that are broken down already from running too often on racetracks that are too hard, five-year-olds with all the nerves in their legs cut so they can’t feel the pain when they run. Babies! Babies! I can’t bear it! Listen to me! I can’t bear it and I’ve taught you differently! Don’t you dare speak to me. Am I to sit by and watch the growth of cruelty in my own son? Going too fast, faster than you know you should, than you know your horse is capable of, is just as bad as all that. Yes, you’re shocked! I’m still shocked when I think of all the blood, the blood of horses, shed in the attempt just to win. We don’t do that here, and if you must do it by some horrible inner compulsion, then you can just leave and welcome.”

  “I . . .”

  “No. I don’t want any apologies. If that horse is sound by my standards, you may participate in the arena jumping. If I ever see you or hear of you doing what you did today, or anything like it, I will pull you off my horses forever, got that? Oh, my God. Oh, God!”

  It was frightening. She seemed to John red and constricted, as if only a larger body could contain her anger. He looked at her in utter silence, afraid that something awful
would happen, more awful than a simple blow aimed at him, more awful than continued fury, something like death, perhaps. He expected her to tell him at last that she hated him and always had, but she did not. She merely said, “Oh, God,” again in a much more subdued tone, then, “Bring the horse to me when you’re saddled up.” She turned carefully and walked carefully away. Once she coughed. He would have said it, he thought, if he hadn’t been such a coward. He would have said that for now and always he hated her to the very center of his being, to the very center of hers.

  When Kate was ashamed of herself, she grew all the more cheerful, had all the more words of encouragement and blessing to bestow on the lesson girls, the Pony Club mothers and fathers. She grew smiling and radiant in direct proportion to her shame, and nothing shamed her, ultimately, more than rage. Already the thought niggled at her that she had said too much, made her point too emphatically. Of course she was right, but when she walked out of the stable she was already beaming, eager to resolve any problems that might have arisen in the last five minutes or so. Only Axel was lingering nearby. She smiled at him, and, in spite of the yelling he had no doubt just heard, he smiled back. He had gotten handsomer of late. Perhaps it was his summer tan, perhaps he had taken off a few pounds. Surely he hadn’t always been this thin, this lithe, this alluringly bow-legged. Well, yes, he had been bow-legged—she had a dim memory of liking that about him in the beginning, when she would sometimes hang back on busy streets so that she could watch him walk so bow-leggedly and energetically through the crowds. She smiled more brightly and paused, sensing for a moment the feel of those first months in New York, dressed in woolens and high heels, always in a hurry, but a glad hurry.

  He’d had two job offers that fall, one in New York and one that had led to the position he now held, to the establishment of the farm, to, in short, everything now irrevocable and fixed in their lives. As she paused, she wanted to ask him if he regretted, not the life, but the job itself, the piece of work that he had done compared to the piece of work that he might have done had she not wanted so desperately to get out into the countryside. She glanced around herself. This they could not have had in Connecticut, not on any realistically imaginable salary.

  It was not that he wouldn’t have answered her. Perhaps, both honestly and tactfully, he would have said that the work was better, the job suited him, the street-level office was more human than a skyscraper cubicle would have been, that he was glad to have molded his work to his own desires (she assumed he had done so—he would have mentioned it if he had not, wouldn’t he?). There would not have been time, in the city, for life (for reading projects and land negotiations and . . . whatever else he did). Surely he would agree. No, it was not fear of his response that made her reach out and touch him, very quickly, as she paused, but then stride on. It was the simple impossibility of asking such a question, of breaking so far out of their common habits. Still, she knew that she had smiled and touched him, and perhaps someday there would be a conversation, an easygoing recapitulation of a number of things, and in the course of it she could say, “Remember when they wanted to hire you . . .” and he would remember and all would be well for the rest of their lives.

  With assiduous last-minute study, John got the course into his head. There didn’t seem to be room for much else. When people spoke to him, he forgot to answer, and he kept finding strap ends he had left out of their keepers, and bits of dirt and dust that he had failed to wipe off Teddy or himself. The more he resolved to remain unmoved by mother’s tirade, the more confused and preoccupied he became. Here was Teddy eating again, for example, foaming his bit green, having his way after all these weeks.

  The course, however, was the most important thing. It was complicated, with a number of tight turns and a couple of imposing jumps, including a final triple in-and-out over chicken coops that was a bit tricky because it was into the sun and four and a half strides after the previous fence, rather than four or five. The woman on the gray mare, who’d walked beside him as they inspected the obstacles, had muttered, “Diabolical,” after they’d paced it out, and John thought of her mare’s long, spindly legs and high center of gravity. “Best to be sure of your lead here,” he’d said heartily, but she didn’t answer. Peter was well ahead of them, walking alone, his head down, his calculations and reactions, as always, unknowable. Then John mounted and warmed up.

  That he was second by only a few points meant less to him now than it had. In spite of his hatred of her, Kate’s sneer at the word “winning” rather cowed him. He was ready, for the moment, to be a little more philosophical about the whole thing, to let the fates take their course. Knowing what to do and doing it were the important things, although obviously he wasn’t going to hold back.

  And it wasn’t that he defied her, although from her position next to the rail she thought he did. He’d intended a deliberate negotiation of the fences, even a little bit slow, and he’d assumed, after their hard cross-country run, that Teddy would like nothing better. He carried his whip and wore his spurs more out of habit than anything else; they might come in handy with Teddy’s career of stubbornness, and John knew he could control them. When his number was called, it was all set in his mind just how doggedly it would go, and exactly how many points he would lose to Peter, and he didn’t really mind. But when he asked Teddy to canter, and turned him in the preliminary circle, he realized that the whip and the spurs were hardly necessary, not necessary at all. He did not intend to go fast, but habit and the tension in his body (there was mother, disapproving on the sidelines) took over. The circle was lumpy. The first fence loomed, and even Teddy seemed a little surprised, a little precipitate. John grew anxious. Inevitably, his hand tensed on the whip, and they went just that much faster.

  After dropping his bicycle on the grass by the house, and making a tour of the refreshment stands (disappointing, but then it was very late, and the last day of the show), Henry sauntered near the rail with his gleanings: a warm cream soda, a Baby Ruth bar, two melting ice cubes wrapped in a napkin, and a package of Sweetarts. He was very hot. The cream soda cloyed in his throat, and the candy offered no relief. He was peeling bits of paper from the ice cubes when John came into the ring. John coming into the ring he had seen countless times, so he paid almost no attention. His tongue, his lips, his throat, yearned for the ice. It melted in his hand as he worked at the paper, leaving white streaks in the grime. At last. It was cool. It was cold. It hurt his hard palate, stung and froze his tongue, but his hands were awfully dirty. He spit it onto the back of his wrist, blew in and out of his aching mouth, took it again, spit it out again. This time, slippery, it got away and raised a little puff as it landed in the dust.

  On the second turn of the course, a ninety-degree angle three strides before a nice-sized brush fence, Teddy slipped, then caught himself. There was a rustle among the spectators, a general intake of breath. Henry looked up. Teddy made the fence, though his arc was flat and effortful. John, unwontedly, was sitting very far forward, his legs tightly into the horse’s sides, his hands way up on the horse’s neck. Mother, Henry thought, would tease him about riding like an Italian.

  He was very thirsty. He could see the people in charge beginning to dump the tubs of melted and melting ice on the ground and he wanted to shout or run over to them. There were only two left. His throat felt stuck together from the hot day and the soft drinks he had guzzled. John, he thought, ought to slow down. Here was the triple-in-and-out next, and the sun glaring right on it. They were pouring out the first of the two tubs. “Hey!” he shouted, surprising even himself, looking at once and automatically toward mother, across the ring, who warned them repeatedly about making noise when someone was on course. But his sound was lost in another sound: the sharp rap of hooves on wood, the sharp soprano gasp of lots of people. He turned his head to see Teddy’s tail rising and rising, his shoulders, carried by momentum over, down, and finally, with a crack of wood, into the next part of the in-and-out, his head turning, instinctively,
out of the way. And there was John himself arcing, John himself flipping over, John himself landing on the ridge of the third coop, the one with the target painted on it. Henry closed his eyes very tightly, and did not open them again until his brother was lost in a melee of first-aid people and Pony Club mothers.

  Everyone thought she would welcome leftovers, and so there were hams and green bean casseroles and bowls of potato salad, a horrifying turkey, sliced and fitted back together, loaves of bread, and substances steeped in tomato paste and crusted with cheese. Even as Kate beamed upon, thanked, and blessed those who told her that only the good die young and that they had always noted John’s special fey quality, she wanted to scream and smash their dreadful flowered dishes. There were so many of these people, and their sympathetic looks, like a swarm of little hands, light but thick, touching even her face, pinned her when she wanted to rise to the occasion.

  The family, still appareled in hot sobriety, drifted around the food, then drifted away. All these priests and mothers bestowed long kindly glances upon them, as well, and Kate wanted to snatch her children out of range, as if they might be contaminated. She wanted even more, however, to be rid of the consolers, to go outside, and to resume, this day, this afternoon (a Wednesday, a perfectly good Wednesday), her ruptured routine. She had always hated these sorts of rituals—the last day of school, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. It was best to be in the midst of a great rhythm of days! How she longed to go outside and set up her chair on the Irish Bank, to call out the measured and thoughtful commands, to save herself with work. Here was the continuation of life: work. “Yes,” she said, “thank you, God bless you, you’re so kind.” Across the room, Axel was doing the same thing: accepting what they put in his hands, nodding, looking suitably forlorn. It was sickening and she turned away.