The Horse Dancer by Jojo Moyes

Author:Jojo Moyes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: London (England), Grandparent and Child, Women Lawyers, Fiction, General, Horsemanship
ISBN: 9780340961605
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

‘For what a horse does under constraint . . . he does without understanding. Under such treatment horse and man alike will do much more that is ugly than graceful.’

Xenophon, On Horsemanship

Sarah lay in her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. The goosedown duvet rested lightly on her curled form, creating a soft nest, a cocoon she pretended she need never leave. The Egyptian cotton sheets still held the delicious linen-spray smell that the cleaner used when ironing; it contained lavender and rosemary. The curtains, a heavy grey silk lined with voile, let in a soft light that buffered her from too abrupt an awakening. But as the room, with its antique chest of drawers and huge Venetian mirror, its little glass chandelier, lightened, she felt herself grow darker.

She stared at the wall, concentrating on her breathing. If you didn’t think about it, your breath just travelled in and out of your body regardless. Didn’t matter what you did, running, riding, sleeping, it just went in and out, doing its job, keeping you alive. As soon as you thought too hard about it, it became a passive thing. Waiting for you to fill your lungs. Stalling when you thought bad thoughts, when you felt your stomach tighten with fear.

There was no avoiding him now. He would be there on Friday; he always was. He would be there at the weekend. He would not be fobbed off with what she had scraped together so far. She closed her eyes, forcing the thoughts away, breathing in and breathing out again.

Papa would probably be awake now; he had always been an early riser. Was he staring at the wall? Waiting until daylight revealed the images of the horse, the granddaughter he loved? Was he picturing himself on lost horses he had known, locked in silent concentration as they danced their way across some vast arena? Or was he drugged into a half-sleep, dribbling, being sponged brusquely by agency nurses who talked to him as if he was not only too old to understand but stupid? Sarah hugged her knees tighter, a shudder escaping her.

The previous evening, Papa had held her hand in his trembling fingers. His skin had felt papery, his old scent now replaced by something sharp and disinfectant. He was no longer himself. Every time she saw him, no matter what they said about recovery, he was a little more distant, a little more despairing, as if the bits of him that made him Papa, the Captain, Nana’s adored husband, were being expelled with each breath. Sometimes it seemed she knew exactly how he felt.

Two miles away, Natasha woke to the sound of her neighbour’s bath running and mused sleepily on the selfishness of people who thought it acceptable to turn their television up to full volume even at a quarter past six in the morning. Why did anyone need to listen to the television while they were in the bath? Was there nowhere they could simply sit in silence?

A news break.

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