Chapter Thirty-Two
Five years later, it mattered to rather a lot of people.
Barnaby reversed the shuttle minibus into the car park.
The wing mirror clipped a wheelie bin, and he pretended it hadn’t happened.
This wasn’t a driving test after all. He’d already passed that, after three tries, and a few awkward allusions as to who his father was.
It was the one and only time in his life that he’d allowed himself to fall back on The Duke card.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the centre ran riding sessions for disabled children.
On Wednesdays, it was veterans — men and women who’d come back from places that had broken something inside them and found that the steady, patient rhythm of a horse could reach them in ways that talk therapy couldn’t.
On the other days, Barnaby mucked out stalls, schooled the horses, repaired fencing, argued with the feed supplier, and drove the shuttle minibus between the nearest rail station and the yard as a measure of last resort when absolutely no one else was available to make the run.
He could have just stuck to his patron lane.
Kept his involvement limited to having his name prominently displayed on the letterhead, and a photograph in the yard once a year in clean jodhpurs and a waxed jacket.
That was how most people in his position did it.
But Barnaby didn’t want just his name stamped over the whole enterprise; he wanted his hands in it.
This morning’s session was a group of four children aged between six and nine.
Sophie, who had cerebral palsy and rode with a side-walker on each flank.
Amir, who was autistic and spoke mostly to the horses.
Daisy, who had Down’s syndrome and screamed with delight every time her pony broke into a trot.
And a new boy: seven-year-old Oliver, who had spina bifida, and was there for his first lesson.
Oliver’s mother stood at the fence rail with her arms folded tight across her chest in the universal posture of a parent who was trying very hard to be brave about watching her child do something that terrified her. Her husband was beside her, hands in his jacket pockets, his jaw set.
Barnaby led Treacle out of the stable block. Treacle was a fourteen-hand bay cob they’d rescued from a dealer’s yard in Wales three years ago, underweight and head-shy, who had since become the most reliable therapy horse in the programme.
Oliver was in a wheelchair at the mounting block. He was small for seven, with round glasses that kept sliding down his nose and a Team GB hoodie that swallowed his arms. He was staring at Treacle with an expression that sat precisely on the border between fascination and panic.
Barnaby crouched beside the wheelchair. His knees pressed into the rubber matting. Oliver’s parents watched from the fence. Gill, his senior instructor, stood at Treacle’s head with the reins gathered in one hand.
“Oliver.” He kept his voice low and even. “This is Treacle. She’s been doing this for a long time, and she’s very good at her job. Better than me at most things, if I’m being fair to her.”
Oliver’s hands were clamped on the armrests of his wheelchair. His knuckles were white.
“You don’t have to get on today,” Barnaby said. “You can just meet her. She’d like that.”
He held out his hand, palm up, and waited. Oliver’s right hand released the armrest by fractions, finger by finger, and settled into Barnaby’s palm. His grip was fierce and damp.
Barnaby stood, drawing Oliver’s hand with him, and guided it to Treacle’s neck. The cob stood perfectly still, her ears pricked forward, her dark eyes soft. Oliver’s fingers made contact with the warm, coarse hair, and his whole arm went rigid.
“She likes it here.” Barnaby placed his own hand over Oliver’s and stroked downward, slow and firm, showing him the pressure, the direction for movement. “Do long strokes. Like you’re smoothing a blanket.”
Oliver stroked Treacle. His hand trembled beneath Barnaby’s, and his lower lip was caught between his teeth. Treacle dropped her head a fraction and let out a long breath through her nostrils, warm and grassy. The gust of it ruffled the front of Oliver’s hoodie.
Oliver laughed. A single, startled sound, bright as a bell, and his hand pressed flatter against Treacle’s neck.
“There you go,” Barnaby said.
He stayed crouched beside the wheelchair, his hand resting lightly on Oliver’s shoulder, and let the boy stroke the horse’s neck in long, uneven passes while Treacle stood like a statue. Behind him, Gill was preparing the mounting hoist.
The last time Barnaby had been here was with Lex, for the King’s Trust feature. The BBC crew had set up in the indoor school, and Lex had arrived in a brand-new pair of jodhpurs that Barnaby suspected he’d bought specifically for the cameras.
Lex could sit a horse well by then. Barnaby had taught him himself.
He’d spent many mornings in the schooling ring at Chatham, Clover’s ears flicking back while Lex gripped with his knees and did exactly the opposite of what Barnaby shouted at him to do.
By the end of those sessions, his rising trot was passable, his hands were soft, and he could canter a twenty-metre circle without grabbing the mane.
None of this had made it into the feature.
Lex had bounced in the saddle, grabbed the pommel, pulled faces at the children, and generally performed the role of a man whose physical genius stopped at the edge of a boxing ring.
The kids had loved it. The parents had loved it.
Sophie had called him a silly sausage, which Lex had accepted with the gravity of someone receiving a knighthood.
Barnaby had watched from the mounting block, his arms folded, and hadn’t said a word, because Lex had instinctively understood something Barnaby had taken years to learn: that the children didn’t need another competent adult. They needed someone willing to look a fool.
Later that night, when they were alone in the bedroom, Lex had asked Barnaby if he’d like a taste of his silly sausage, and Barnaby had said yes as he lay back…
Barnaby’s hand tightened on Oliver’s shoulder without meaning to. “Shall we see if she’ll let you sit on her?” he asked.
Oliver looked up at him. His glasses had slid to the tip of his nose again. “Will you stay?”
“I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”
Oliver nodded. His hand was still on Treacle’s neck.
Gill operated the hoist. Oliver’s body rose from the wheelchair in the sling, his legs dangling, his hands gripping the support straps so tightly that the tendons stood out on his thin wrists.
His face had gone very still, concentrating too hard to be frightened.
Barnaby walked alongside Treacle. His hand stayed on Oliver’s back, a steady point of contact through the canvas of the sling.
He talked the whole way across, letting out a low stream of continuous narration.
He talked about Treacle’s favourite treats and the time that Treacle had eaten an entire packet of Polo mints off a shelf when no one was looking, wrapper and all.
Oliver’s legs swung over the saddle. His weight settled, and the transfer was clean, Gill guiding his feet into the adapted stirrups while Barnaby held the neckstrap from the off side.
Oliver’s hands found the pommel. His knuckles went white again, and his breathing was shallow and fast through his nose.
Treacle didn’t move. She stood with her weight distributed evenly across all four hooves and her head low, ears flicked back to listen.
Oliver looked down at Barnaby from the saddle. The height difference had reversed. Barnaby was looking up at him now, and the boy’s round glasses caught the strip-light from the indoor school and flashed white. He grinned down at Barnaby.
“I’m tall,” Oliver said.
“You are.”
Oliver’s grip on the pommel loosened and his spine straightened. Barnaby let his hand drop from the neckstrap, and Gill began to lead Treacle forward in a slow walk around the school, one step at a time, with Barnaby at Oliver’s knee and a side-walker on the other flank.
At the fence, Oliver’s mother had her hands pressed over her mouth. His father put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side.
? ? ?
The break room at Brookridge had been carved out of the original tack room and still smelled faintly of leather beneath the instant coffee and the biscuit tin that someone refilled from the Tesco Metro in Leatherhead every Friday.
The kettle was a temperamental Russell Hobbs that Barnaby had been meaning to replace for two years and hadn’t, because it worked, mostly, and because there was always something more urgent to spend the budget on.
He filled it from the tap and switched it on.
The element rattled and then settled into its familiar rumble.
As he waited, Barnaby leaned against the counter.
Oliver had completed three full circuits of the school at walk.
On the second circuit, he’d let go of the pommel with one hand.
On the third, he’d reached forward and touched Treacle’s mane, and the sound he’d made, a small, fierce gasp of triumph, had been worth every hour Barnaby had spent setting up for that day’s sessions.
His joints ached. His knees were stiff from crouching beside the wheelchair and walking the school floor for the better part of an hour.
The base of his spine had developed the familiar low throb that came from standing in one position too long.
His body had no business feeling this way after a morning of solid work.
He blamed the two days in bed at Chester Square, which had done the structural damage of a fortnight without riding.
The kettle clicked off. He poured water into two mugs and was reaching for the biscuit tin when the door opened.
Greg Finchley filled the door frame. He was six foot and broad across the chest, built up through endless days of manual labour.
His hair was dark and cut short, already threaded with grey at the temples despite only being thirty-four, and his face was wind-weathered.
He wore the same uniform as he did every other day: a navy Brookridge polo, cargo trousers with hay dust on the knees, and a pair of Blundstones that had seen better decades.
Greg had been the first person Barnaby had hired.
Not because he’d been the best qualified candidate on paper, but because Greg had walked into the empty yard on the first day of interviews, looked at the derelict stables and the waterlogged ménage, and said, “Right. Where do you want to start?” He’d shown no deference to the young Marquess.
He was just a man who saw work that needed doing.
Five years later, Greg was the centre manager, and he was the reason Brookridge ran as well as it did. Barnaby handled the board, the donor relations, and the occasional shuttle run. Greg took care of everything else.
Greg crossed the break room and dropped into the plastic chair opposite Barnaby’s. Barnaby pushed the second mug across to him.
“Saw you with the new lad,” Greg said. “Oliver.”
“He touched Treacle’s mane.”
Greg’s face creased into a slow, broad grin. He’d watched hundreds of children touch horses for the first time and still hadn’t tired of it. “Gill reckons he’ll be trotting by the end of the month.”
“Gill reckons everyone will be trotting by the end of the month. She’s an optimist.”
“She’s usually right, though.”
Barnaby took a mouthful of tea and let it settle. The break room was quiet. Through the partition wall, he could hear one of the yard volunteers filling hay nets, the rustle and thud of it rhythmic and steady.
“This is the sort of thing I dreamed of when we got things started, Greg.” He looked down at his mug. “Five years ago, standing in that empty yard. I couldn’t have told you what it would look like back then. But it was this. Exactly this.”
“Well, I’m glad to see the smile back on your face.” Greg set his mug down and leaned forward. “I’ve got something that’ll make your day even better.”
Barnaby raised an eyebrow to urge him on.
“We’ve had a donation come through. Landed in the account this morning.
I was on the phone with the bank for twenty minutes because I thought there’d been a clerical error.
” Greg paused, and Barnaby’s stomach tightened, because Greg Finchley did not usually do dramatic pauses.
“Someone handed over four million pounds, Barnaby.”
“Four million?”
“Four million, three hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds, to be exact. It was an anonymous donation. The bank confirmed the transfer’s cleared. The donor’s requested no contact.” Greg leaned back in his chair. “Though I’m assuming it’s one of your lot. One of your friends in high places.”
Barnaby set his mug down carefully, because his hand had gone numb around the handle and he didn’t trust himself not to drop it.
Four million, three hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds.
The number was so far outside the scale of anything Brookridge had received before that his brain kept trying to deduct a decimal point, to correct it into something more plausible.
Their largest single donation to date had been forty thousand, from a retired hedge fund manager whose granddaughter rode with them on Tuesdays.
This was a hundred times that.
He pressed his palms flat on the table and stared at the wood grain between his thumbs. The grain blurred slightly, and he blinked until it sharpened.
Four million pounds would transform Brookridge.
Not incrementally, not in the cautious, grant-by-grant way they’d been building for five years, but fundamentally.
They could have a proper indoor school to replace the prefab.
It could be heated, and made even more accessible.
They could add a hydrotherapy pool; he’d been researching equine and rider hydrotherapy for two years, pricing contractors, sketching layouts on the backs of feed invoices during quiet afternoons.
They could take on two more full-time instructors.
Establish bursaries so the families who couldn’t afford the session fees didn’t have to choose between their child’s riding lesson and their electricity bill.
He could extend the veterans’ programme from one day a week to three. He could hire a dedicated occupational therapist. He could resurface the outdoor ménage so it didn’t turn into a lake every November…
“Barnaby.” Greg was watching him, his mouth twitching. “You all right?”
“I’m making plans,” Barnaby said to him. “Don’t interrupt me.”
Greg laughed, reached for the biscuit tin, and began to map out the next two years with Barnaby.