Star Dancer (10 page)

‘I’m your friend, Ger,’ Suzanne said simply.

But Ger had other friends, and they were jealous. Now that he was spending the long summer days out at the stables in the country, they acted like he was a traitor.

‘Think you’re too good for us now, don’t you?’ Rags sneered at him one morning when they accidentally met in front of the flat.

‘I don’t think I’m too good for you,’ Ger argued. ‘I just have a job, that’s all.’

‘Job? Putting on airs is what I call it. But you’ll be sorry, you’ll see. You’ll be sorry!’

JUNE BECAME JULY AND JULY BECAME AUGUST
, and the summer was almost over. It had been a wonderful summer. Ger Casey had learned to ride and several times Suzanne had let him take short rides on Star Dancer.

‘But you have to be really careful,’ she always warned. ‘Do exactly what I tell you and don’t try anything else, we don’t want to teach him any wrong signals. He has to do everything right for the junior event.’

‘Can I ride him more when that’s over?’ Ger asked eagerly.

Once again Suzanne felt a twinge of jealousy. She really didn’t like to see anyone else on Star Dancer. But Ger got such pleasure out of riding him that she couldn’t refuse. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Yes. Of course you can,’ she added more generously, smiling.

Several young riders from the stables were planning to enter the one-day event too. Anne had built a training course for them in one of the pastures, with natural obstacles such as logs and walls and stiles, and a slippery slope that led down to a stream the horses must jump. Suzanne and Dancer would practise jumping the various obstacles in different combinations and from different directions, so the horse didn’t get used to doing it the same way every time.

One day Anne told Suzanne, ‘I don’t want you to let Ger get on Dancer any more until after the event. It has to be just the two of you now, you and your horse, learning to really know and trust one another.’

Ger was disappointed but he didn’t want to show it. ‘That’s okay, Suzanne. I’ve plenty of horses to ride, more than I have time for.’

But he watched Star Dancer more than ever. He could hardly take his eyes off the horse, and whenever he looked at him he saw himself sitting in the saddle instead of Suzanne. Ger Casey on Star Dancer. Ger Casey riding in big horse shows, with flags flying and people cheering and that beautiful horse dancing under him.

No one would remember then that Ger’s father was in prison. It wouldn’t matter. All that mattered would be what he and Dancer could do together, cantering and circling and gliding sideways, making people gasp with admiration.

That wasn’t the only reason Ger wanted to ride Star Dancer, however. Part of it was because he knew how the horse would feel under him. Watching, he could see the grace and longed to share it.

Suzanne had once told him, ‘When you ride a good dressage horse it’s like every one of his muscles is attached to your own nerve endings. You become one creature. The two of you are so much together that it’s like you think with the same brain.’

Magic, thought Ger. He ached to share in the magic.

As the day of the event drew closer, Suzanne and the other young riders who were entered began working to increase their horses’ stamina by taking long rides out along the country roads.

Suzanne loved riding out. Dancer had become quite calm about unfamiliar sights. He didn’t even shy at noisy farm machinery. Only sudden, unexpected movements startled him. Once he gave a little buck when a barking dog ran out at him from behind a farmhouse wall. Star Dancer leaped sideways, landing hard on the
tarmac of the road. But Suzanne didn’t fall off. She had Ger’s red stone in her pocket.

That afternoon they practised showjumping, using the coloured rail fences Anne set up for them in the outdoor arena at the stables. At the end of the day Dancer seemed to walk more carefully than usual, setting down each front foot as if he trod on eggs. Anne had already gone into the yard and didn’t notice, but Suzanne dismounted and picked up his hooves to check them for stones.

She found none. When she led Dancer forward again, he walked normally, so she forgot about it.

As usual, Ger was waiting for them when they entered the stableyard.

‘How’d he do, Suzanne O?’

‘He was lovely,’ Suzanne said. ‘He never refused or tried to run out, he did everything I asked him. He’s the best horse there ever was, Ger.’

‘D’you think he’ll do well at the event?’

Suzanne nodded. ‘I’m sure of it. And you’ll be there to see, won’t you?’

‘You couldn’t keep me away,’ Ger assured her.

When there was only one more week to go, Anne Fitzpatrick announced a final, complete practice of all three phases they would face on the day, including the dressage test and also the two different types of jumping. Neither of the jumping phases would be as long or as hard as for a three-day, but they would be a good test.

Suzanne was excited, but for the first time in weeks, she was also nervous. She and Dancer were entered at the lowest, easiest level, but it was her first experience of eventing. The night before
her last practice she was too tense to eat her dinner and went to bed early.

Then she couldn’t fall asleep. She got out of bed several times and went to stare out the window at the moonflooded landscape beyond the garden. There were two strange cars in the car park beside the house. Mrs O’Gorman’s B&B had two couples as guests that night, and Suzanne could hear their voices in the hallway outside her room. They were going to the sittingroom to watch television.

She almost put her clothes on and went to join them. It would have been easier to sit watching telly with strangers than to lie on her back in bed, imagining everything that might go wrong for herself and Dancer.

The next day was bright and sunny, however, and Dancer was in good form. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Suzanne assured him. ‘I have Ger’s magic stone all ready, see?’

She rode the precise figures of the dressage test from memory, making no mistakes, while Anne kept a score sheet and marked down suggestions for improvement. Then Suzanne put on her safety helmet and rode Dancer out to the cross-country course.

Somehow the obstacles looked larger than they ever had before, though Anne had said she had not raised them any more.

‘Don’t think about it, Suzanne,’ she warned herself under her breath. ‘You’re just scaring yourself.’

Star Dancer felt a change in his rider. She did not sit as easy on his back as she had been doing. But he was a forgiving horse, and he had learned what he had to do. He took all the obstacles at a measured canter, jumping the logs, scrambling down the slide, splashing through the stream just as they had practised.

When they cleared the final fence and galloped for the finish, Suzanne was so relieved that it had gone all right that she didn’t notice Dancer’s stride was not quite as long as it should have been.

Neither, unfortunately, did Anne Fitzpatrick, whose attention had been on Suzanne instead. ‘You were a little stiff in the shoulders over that last fence, Suzanne,’ she criticised. ‘Are you tired?’

‘No. I feel fine.’ She did, now. She had been foolish to worry, she told herself. Putting fear behind her, she began looking forward eagerly to the excitement of riding in her first eventing competition.

Ger was excited too. He went over every detail of the tack they must take with them. There was so much to remember. Grooming tools, cooling sheet, buckets, sponges, liniment, hay nets, towels, polish for Suzanne’s boots … the list seemed endless. Ger wrote everything down in an old school notebook and checked off each item as he packed it in the tack box that would accompany Dancer to the event.

Ger was in the tackroom, rubbing saddle soap into Suzanne’s saddle, when Kevin Keogh, who owned the piebald mare, came in. He was waving a folded newspaper. ‘Did you see this? There’s an article about the event tomorrow with the names of the stables that are competing and everything. It even names a few of the horses.’

‘Is Star Dancer in there?’

Kevin unfolded the paper and the two boys scanned it together. ‘There,’ said Ger, pointing. ‘There he is. “Winner at a number of local shows this year” it says!’

He was thrilled to see Dancer’s name in the paper again. His mind wandered off in a daydream. He saw himself riding Dancer
in a huge arena, with flags flying and national anthems playing and crowds cheering as he saluted the judges …

‘Ger!’ said Brendan sharply. ‘Finish with that saddle and come and help me get the big truck ready for tomorrow. We have to take all the rubber mats out of the horse box and hose them down so they aren’t slippery. Can’t have one of the horses falling down while we’re on the road.’

Ger left the newspaper forgotten in the tackroom and ran to join Brendan.

But someone else saw a copy of that same newspaper. It was used to wrap the fish and chips Anto bought for his lunch that day. When he unwrapped the paper, a photo of horses caught his eye and he read the article. A broad grin spread over his face as an idea occurred to him.

The next day dawned hot and still. There had been no rain for a week, but at least the event would not have to be held in the mud. Ger was whistling to himself as he approached the stables. It was much too early for buses, so he’d had to hitch rides. But he didn’t mind. That only made it more exciting.

When he stopped whistling for a moment, he realised he could hear birds singing. Lots of birds. He wondered why he had never noticed birds singing before. There must have been birds in the city, even if they didn’t have hedgerows to nest in, but he had never heard them.

There were a lot of people gathered at the stables already, he saw. The children who were entered in the event were standing in a slightly nervous knot, chatting away to one another. Some of their parents were with them. Mr O’Gorman was trying to be helpful although he really didn’t know a lot about horses. He was
holding a lead line attached to Dancer’s headcollar while Suzanne wrapped travelling bandages around her horse’s legs under Anne Fitzpatrick’s watchful eye. Once Dancer sneezed, and Mr O’Gorman jumped back to avoid being splattered.

Grinning, Ger came up and took the lead line from him, to his relief.

Six horses from the stables would compete in the event, travelling in the big truck with the horse box used for major shows. Loading the horses was always an anxious undertaking. The piebald mare laid her ears back and then ran backward when they tried to lead her up the ramp.

‘Get on the other side of her, Ger,’ Brendan instructed, ‘and join hands with me behind her rump. We’ll push her in.’

‘Be careful,’ Suzanne breathed, watching. If the mare tried to run backwards again it could be dangerous.

Ger saw the danger too. But he could not let anyone think he was afraid. He caught Brendan’s hand in a tight grip and together the two of them successfully urged the mare forward and up the ramp.

When Star Dancer’s turn came, he walked up without a problem and Suzanne grinned with pride.

Ger and Suzanne travelled to the farm where the event was being held with Mr O’Gorman, who was going to stay for the entire day and see Suzanne ride. ‘Suzanne’s mum packed a picnic hamper for us,’ he told the children, gesturing towards the back seat of the car. ‘I hope you’re hungry, she put everything in the kitchen into it.’

‘I’m not very hungry,’ Suzanne said in a small voice.

‘I didn’t mean we had to eat it now. It’s for later. You’ll have
an appetite later.’

But Suzanne was beginning to doubt if she would ever have an appetite again. The nearer they got to the site of the event, the less hungry she felt. She began biting her lower lip.

Ger noticed. ‘You okay, Suzanne O?’

She nodded. But she didn’t say anything.

Ger reached into his pocket and took out the little red stone. He pressed it into her hand without drawing Mr O’Gorman’s attention. Suzanne’s fingers closed tightly on the stone and she gave Ger a faint smile. She felt eager and excited and nervous all at the same time. Her feelings were boiling up inside her, keeping her from talking or looking out the window at the countryside. She could only sit and go through the dressage test and over the jumps in her head, again and again and again. She wanted to think about something else – anything else – but she couldn’t.

Ger could. He was chatting away with Suzanne’s father. He had come to like Mr O’Gorman, who talked to him about things like cars and football. Mr O’Gorman came from Cork and knew a lot of stories about a famous hurler called Christy Ring, who had been a hurling hero. As they drove, he was telling Ger about Christy Ring and the two of them were comparing hurling and football.

‘Here we are,’ Suzanne said suddenly.

They found themselves joining a long queue of cars and horse boxes, winding down a narrow road and into a large field. Mr O’Gorman found a parking place and the children jumped out of the car and ran over to where Brendan was just parking the big truck with the horses in it.

Anne Fitzpatrick collected Suzanne and the other young riders. ‘We need to walk your cross-country course now,’ she said, ‘just
to give you a chance to see what it’s like before everyone else arrives. Then we’ll start preparing for the dressage.’

For a while, Ger was kept busy. All of the horses had to be unloaded and groomed. Ger wished he could walk the course with the riders, or go over to the dressage ring and watch the first tests being ridden, but there was no time.

Soon enough, Suzanne came for Dancer. ‘I want to warm him up for about half an hour before his test,’ she said. ‘No more than that, he mustn’t be tired for the jumping.’

She hardly looked like the Suzanne Ger knew. She was wearing very tight, very clean white breeches and a black coat. ‘I changed my clothes in the horse box,’ she told Ger with a nervous giggle. ‘I thought I’d never get my boots pulled on.’ She gestured to the high black boots she was now wearing. ‘Did you bring some polish for these? I’m afraid they got a bit scuffed.’

‘I’ll give them a last wipe after you’re on Dancer,’ Ger assured her. ‘Everything’s going to be perfect, Suzanne.’

Once Suzanne was mounted and rode off to warm up, Ger had time to wander around the grounds. He listened to the conversation of other riders and grooms with interest. One groom was using a bit of hair from a horse’s tail to tie a rider’s spur straps to the stirrup leathers, so the rider wouldn’t lose his stirrups in competition.

Dead clever, that, Ger thought to himself. I should tell Suzanne. But she probably wouldn’t do it. Doesn’t look like it’s legal.

When he asked Brendan about the horsehair trick, Brendan agreed that it was highly illegal. ‘If that rider is caught doing it he’ll be disqualified,’ Brendan said sternly.