Dora at Follyfoot Read online

  ‘Just a temporary misunderstanding, my dear.’ Ron held out his hand as if to shake Dora’s hand, then quickly grabbed her arm and kissed her.

  Dora hated being kissed. Or did she? She was never quite sure. But she knew she hated being kissed by Ron Stryker. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and Ron picked up the bucket and went into the feed shed and began to measure out oats and horse nuts, just as if he had never been away.

  Dora went to tell Slugger. ‘How are we going to get rid of him?’

  ‘Why try?’ Slugger had lost many battles with this cocky, tricky boy. ‘If we’ve got to have another stable hand, you know what they say: Better the devil you know… Find out where he’s been working, and we’ll send for references.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you.’ Ron leaned on a pitchfork, and slid his eyes sideways in the way Dora knew so well when he was thinking up a good fable. ‘I been working for these blokes, name of Nicholson, see? Lovely people. Very classy. Head groom, I was.’

  ‘Come off it, Ron.’

  ‘Well, I mean, until we had the spot of trouble.’

  ‘Get the sack again?’

  ‘No, dear, I resigned. We parted like gentlemen, Mr Nicholson and me.’

  ‘Then he won’t mind if Steve or I write for a reference?’

  ‘Well, of course he won’t mind.’ Ron’s eyes slid off in the other direction. ‘But why bother? The Colonel knows me. Why waste a stamp?’

  When Slugger came out and saw the shaggy red head appear over a stable door, he said, ‘I thought it couldn’t be worse than Phyllis Weatherby, but it is.’

  ‘Kind of you to say so.’ Ron grinned with his chin on the door like a puppet.

  ‘Steve phoned,’ Slugger told Dora. ‘The truck packed up in Middlebrough, and he’s leaving it at a garage there. He never got to Town. I told him our troubles was over now that Superman was back on the job, so he said for Ron to go and fetch him home on the back of the bike.’

  ‘There, you see.’ Ron came out of the stable, wiping his hands on his tight jeans. ‘You do need me. How do, General?’ He shook hands with Slugger, and Slugger yelled and pulled his hand away from the trick crusher handshake.

  Chapter 8

  DORA WROTE TO the Colonel, and he wrote back with a sigh in his handwriting:

  ‘All right. Keep Ron Stryker if you can stand him. At least he knows the job. Anna says lock away the silver. P.S. What happened to the girl Bernard Fox found?’

  ‘Better answer that bit right away,’ Steve said, ‘before be hears from Bernie.’

  ‘You answer.’

  ‘You’ll make it sound better.’

  Steve hated writing letters. His childhood had been a strange one, with no love and not much schooling. So Dora banged out a story on the typewriter in the study.

  It began: ‘There was this little tiny pony, you see…’ and ended up: ‘I know it was bad luck on poor old Phyllis, but we laughed till we fell down and you would have too.’

  Steve offered to fetch Ron’s trunk, his guitar, his stereo set, his transistor, his cowboy boots and his collection of comic papers from the Nicholsons’ where he had lived.

  ‘The truck won’t be ready till next week, but we can take the horse box. More room for all the loot you’ve probably knocked off. Come on, Ron.’

  ‘I haven’t the time to come with you.’ Ron picked up a broom and started to sweep.

  ‘Parted like gentlemen.’ Dora laughed. ‘Are you scared Mr Nicholson will shoot you on sight?’

  ‘Lovely people.’ Ron did not answer awkward questions. ‘Salt of the earth.’

  Dora went with Steve in the front of the horse box, following the directions Ron had written:

  Left at the boozer, fork right past that crummy place where they make pies out of dead cats, over the crossroads where the bus crashed and they had to cut the people out with a blow torch, straight through that town where the bloke murdered his wife, right at the boozer, left at the next boozer, and down Suicide Hill, you can’t miss it.

  The ‘lovely people’ turned out to be horse dealers. It was a huge stable with about fifty horses in loose boxes, stalls and fenced yards, the sort of come-and-go place where horseflesh is just that – flesh, not soul – and represents only money.

  Mrs Nicholson was in the large tack room, bullying two girls who were cleaning bridles. She was a beefy woman with muscles like a man and cropped grey hair round a shiny red face.

  ‘Ronald Stryker!’ She let out a bellow that set the curb chains jingling. ‘I told that rotten little creep if he didn’t get out of the county, I’d set the police on him.’

  ‘What did he do?’ Dora asked.

  ‘It was what he didn’t do,’ Mrs Nicholson said darkly. ‘Such as work. Keeping his fingers off other people’s property. Following orders. Watching his mouth. Want any more?’

  ‘We just came for his things.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask my husband.’ Mrs Nicholson picked up two heavy saddles together and slung them with ease on to a high rack. ‘I threw the junk out of the staff cottage and he put it somewhere. Out in the rain, I hope.’

  Mr Nicholson was roughly the same shape as his wife, and the same colour, and made the same kind of loud noises.

  ‘Stryker!’ His veined red face grew purple. His bull neck swelled over the collar of his rat-catcher shirt. ‘You friends of his?’

  Dora nodded. Ron was right. Waste of a stamp to write for a reference.

  ‘Bad luck on you. His stuff is in the shed out there with the tractor. If he hadn’t sent for it, I was going to put it on the dustcart tomorrow.’

  They found the tin trunk (heavy as lead, what on earth was in it?) and the guitar and the transistor and stereo and a strange garment like a military greatcoat from the First World War with holes where the buttons and badges used to be. They put it all into one side of the horse box, and were shutting up the ramp when a familiar red minibus pulled up in front of the long stable building.

  Mrs Bunker waved to Steve and Dora, then dropped her hand uncertainly. ‘I do know you, don’t I? Oh yes, of course, Lollipop. How is the darling pony?’

  ‘Eating,’ Dora said. ‘A nice family came to see her yesterday. They may take her.’

  ‘It will break Jim’s heart.’

  ‘No, it won’t, Mum,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh no, of course, because you’ll have your new pet. We’re here to look at a larger pony.’ Mrs Bunker was dressed too smartly, everything matching, not quite right for the country.

  ‘I thought you were giving up horses,’ Dora said.

  ‘We were, but people were quite surprised to hear that Jim didn’t ride any more. I met Mrs Hatch who runs the Pony Club camp, and when she heard that Jim wouldn’t be camping this year, she was quite disappointed. Then Mr Bunker was up to look at the roof at Broadlands. You know, that huge old place where poor Mr Wheeler lives by himself since he lost his wife. My husband does all his work. And the old gentleman asks him, “How’s Lollipop?” He takes such an interest in the young people. When he heard she was too small for Jim, he supposed we’d get something larger. So when Mr Bunker went up to supervise his men who are building the squash court up at the Manor, Sir Arthur told him this would be the best place to look.’

  ‘But you’ve got no stable.’ Dora’s heart sank. A Shetland in that cluttered shed was bad enough. A large pony would be disaster.

  ‘Oh yes. Mr Bunker has put up one of those nice prefabs.’

  Dora’s heart sank lower. They might acquire a large pony and a nice pre-fab stable, but where were they going to get sense?

  ‘Where’s Jim?’ Mr Bunker, who was also dressed rather too smartly, came out of the stables brushing hay off the trousers of his unsuitable suit.

  His wife looked round. ‘He’s wandered off somewhere.’

  ‘Well, you come along, Marion. They have several fine animals here, and the daughter is going to show them. Why don’t you come with us?’ he asked Steve and Dora. ‘You know more
than we do.’

  He looked down and picked another piece of hay off his suit. Mrs Bunker was easy to understand. Foolish. Mr Bunker was more complicated. Hard to tell how shrewd he was, or whether he was laughing at you.

  Steve and Dora put a piece of hay in their mouths and followed him through the stables to a schooling ring on the other side, where a girl the same shape as the Nicholsons, but smaller, was leading out a nervy black pony.

  She had a hard-boiled face and a tough, professional manner. She mounted, adjusted her stirrups, checked the girth, muttered to the restless pony, and looked at her father for instructions.

  ‘Trot him out a bit, Chip.’ He leaned on the rail with his cap over his eyes and his legs crossed. ‘Chip off the old block, she is.’ He watched her trot the black pony smoothly round the track, perfectly flexed, stepping out. ‘Extend the trot!’ Chip obeyed, without appearing to move her legs or hands. ‘It’s all there under you,’ Mr Nicholson said to the Bunkers, who hadn’t a clue what he meant. ‘You can’t fault him. Right, Chip – walk. Then canter him a figure eight.’ All his orders were bellowed, as if Chip were deaf or at the other end of a football field.

  The showy black pony made impeccable figure-of-eights, cantering very slow and supple, performing a flying change of leads without breaking the rhythm.

  ‘Win anywhere with that one,’ Mr Nicholson said. ‘Always in the money.’

  Chip had stopped in front of them, as if they were judges at a horse show, the black pony standing out well, head up, ears forward. Mrs Bunker’s amber eyes grew dreamy, imagining Jim in that saddle with the red rosette on his bridle.

  Dora read her thoughts. ‘But Jim could never ride that pony,’ she said tactlessly, and realised that the thin pale boy had materialised at her side. Or could you, Jim?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He was a very negative boy, half in the world, half in his own dream world.

  ‘Looks quiet enough to me,’ his father said.

  ‘That’s because that girl knows how to ride it.’

  ‘So will young Jim. He’s taking lessons,’ Mrs Bunker said. ‘Sir Arthur suggested it, and told us the best instructor to go to.’

  ‘But does he really want a show pony?’

  On the other side of Dora, Steve nudged her and muttered, ‘Shut up. It’s their business.’

  ‘That pony’s hotter than it looks. The child will get killed.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Jim said placidly.

  ‘You like the pony, young man?’ Mr Nicholson looked down at him from under his cap.

  Jim shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘He likes it,’ the mother said. ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘What’s his name, Chip?’ The dealer did not know the name of horses who passed through his hands, without looking at his records.

  ‘Dark Song.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a lovely name.’ Mrs Bunker’s eyes shone. ‘I think we should buy it, James.’

  ‘How much?’

  In the etiquette of horse trading, it was much too soon to mention money. Mr Nicholson cleared his throat and recrossed his legs the other way. ‘I’ll make you a price.’

  ‘How much?’ repeated Mr Bunker, forging on like one of his own bulldozers.

  ‘Five hundred to you.’

  ‘Too much.’

  ‘It’s a steal.’ Mr Nicholson looked outraged, trying to embarrass the Bunkers. ‘He’s worth far more than that, but I like to send my customers away happy. Then they come back.’

  ‘Oh, we wouldn’t come back, I don’t think,’ Mrs Bunker said. ‘If we bought that pretty pony, we wouldn’t need another.’

  ‘It’s too much.’ Her husband was coming out of this more strongly than she was. ‘Show us something else.’

  Chip, who had been sitting impassively in the saddle, staring straight ahead, raised one sandy eyebrow and rode out of the ring.

  She came back with a chunky little chestnut, white socks, white blaze, picking up his feet, very showy. She trotted and cantered him, and when her father shouted, ‘Pop him over some fences!’ she and the pony soared over jumps of bloodcurdling height without either of them turning a hair.

  ‘Do you think Jim could learn to ride like that?’ Mrs Bunker’s eyes were again dreaming of her son sailing over fences in an arena where the crowd roared.

  ‘On that pony, he could,’ said Mr Nicholson (child murderer). ‘Quiet as a baby. Anyone could ride him.’

  ‘He was pulling all the way.’ Dora had to say it.

  ‘Mouth like velvet.’ Mr Nicholson shot her a look. ‘You could ride him to church.’ He had all the horse-trading clichés. ‘What do you say, young man?’ He clapped a heavy hand on Jim’s narrow shoulder.

  Jim shifted a sweet to the other side of his mouth. ‘I don’t really care for jumping, thank you,’ he said politely.

  ‘OK, Chip. Get that bay pony out here.’

  A stable boy was standing by the gate of the ring, holding a pony which was probably the one they had planned to sell to the Bunkers. The other two were window dressing. It was a plain but pleasant-looking bright bay. It moved rather lifelessly with Chip, who looked bored, hopped neatly enough over two small jumps, stopped, stood still.

  ‘Perfect picture of a child’s hunter,’ Mr Nicholson said, though it did not look as if it had enough energy to keep up with hounds for long. ‘Tailor-made for you. Willing and wise. Safe as a rock. Look at him stand. Grow barnacles, that one would, before he’d move on without command.’

  ‘You think that’s the one we should buy?’ Mrs Bunker asked naïvely.

  ‘If you ask my advice, Madam, I’ll give it to you,’ Mr Nicholson said, as if he did not dish out advice all day long whether anyone asked for it or not. ‘You’ll not find a pony of this quality, if you—’

  ‘How much?’ Mr Bunker interrupted.

  The dealer named a price that was less than the black or the chestnut, but far too much for this rather ordinary pony whose quality, if he had any, was not in his looks.

  But Mrs Bunker was prodding her husband with a finger in a white glove and hissing, ‘Let’s!’

  ‘You like it, son?’

  ‘He loves it,’ Jim’s mother said. ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘What’s his name, Chip?’

  The girl shrugged. She got off and led the pony away, as if she were sick of riding it.

  ‘His name is Barney,’ Jim said, more positively than usual.

  ‘Why, dear?’

  ‘Grow barnacles, he said.’ Jim only listened to scraps of conversation. ‘Barnacle Bill.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Mrs Bunker asked Steve and Dora.

  ‘There’s something not quite right about him.’ Mr Nicholson had not moved away, so Dora had to say it in front of him.

  ‘You should get him vetted,’ Steve said. ‘He looks a bit off.’

  ‘The vet’s just seen him,’ Mr Nicholson cut in. ‘Touch of shipping fever. We’ve only had him down from Scotland a few days. They always get a touch of that, didn’t you know?’

  ‘No,’ Steve said, meaning: They don’t always get shipping fever; but Mr Nicholson took it to mean that he didn’t know, and said tartly, ‘You kids don’t know everything.’

  ‘Will he fit in the bus?’ Mrs Bunker asked.

  ‘Hardly, Madam.’ How could he sell a perfectly good pony – any pony – to people who so obviously knew nothing? ‘But I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. I’ll get one of my men to hitch up the trailer and run him over to your place this afternoon, so your boy—’

  ‘How much extra?’

  Mr Nicholson named a figure that was roughly twice the fair price for transporting a horse that distance. Then his thick hands clenched and the cords of his neck stood out as Dora told the Bunkers cheerfully, ‘We’ve got our horse box here, and we have to go right by your place. We’ll bring him.’

  There was something a little funny about the pony. Something about the expression of his eyes – What was it?

  He was very stubbo
rn. When Chip led him up to the horse box, he stopped dead at the foot of the ramp, with his head stuck out and his jaw set against the pull of the halter rope. Mr Nicholson picked up a handful of gravel and threw it. He shouted, he hit the pony with a whip, he tried to pull it in with a long rope round the quarters. He finally hit it with a short plank of wood and called it an obstinate swine. Chip flung the halter rope over the pony’s neck and went away.

  Mrs Bunker began to wring her hands. Jim had wandered away. Steve, who had been standing watching with his hands in his pockets, said, ‘Can I try?’

  ‘He’s all yours.’ Mr Nicholson walked off, so unfortunately he didn’t see Steve speak to the pony and stroke it and get it to relax. Then he held it while Dora lifted a front foot and set it on the ramp. As the pony relaxed more, she was able to put the other foot on. Barnacle Bill stayed like that for a while, with his eyes half closed, then he sighed, and walked quietly into the horse box.

  Chapter 9

  RON STRYKER WAS as lazy and dodgy as ever. He had to be watched since he did not instinctively put the horses before himself, as the others did.

  Steve came in to supper one evening and found him with his face already in a bowl of Slugger’s pea soup that was almost thick enough to eat with a knife and fork.

  ‘I thought you’d done the buckets,’ Steve said. ‘You didn’t give Ranger any water.’

  Ron shrugged. ‘That’s his problem.’

  ‘Get on out there and see to it.’ Slugger threatened him with the carving knife.

  ‘I did.’ Steve sat down with a sigh.

  ‘Don’t worry, Slug,’ Ron said soothingly, through soup. ‘There’s always some mug to do it.’

  But he was an extra pair of hands, and they were getting back to their old routine, and the farm was straightening up.

  ‘Burnished Bernie can come any time he likes.’ Dora looked round the tidy yard, barrows lined up, tools hanging in place, manure heap cleared, and the clatter of Mr Beckett’s mower coming up like evening insects from the hay field. ‘Perhaps we should invite him before something goes wrong.’

  ‘Never invite trouble.’ Slugger shook his head.

  ‘He’s sure to come and check on Ron.’