The Horse Whisperer

Early in the new year the truck driver had written them a letter, saying he was sorry. Robert and A

In the distance now, he could see the sun glinting coldly on the towering glass of his office building.

A lost limb, he'd read recently in some learned legal journal, could nowadays be worth three million dollars in damages. He pictured his daughter's pale face, looking out of the coffee shop window. What fine experts they must be, he thought, to quantify the cost.

The school lobby was busier than usual. Grace did a quick scan of the faces, hoping she wouldn't see any of her classmates. Becky's mom was there, talking to Mrs Shaw, but neither of them looked her way and there was no sign of Becky. She was probably already in the library, on one of the computers. In the old days that's where Grace would have headed too. They would fool around, leaving fu

Now that Grace couldn't manage the stairs, they would all feel obliged to come with her in the elevator, a slow and ancient thing. To spare them the embarrassment, Grace now went straight up to the classroom on her own so that she could be sitting at her desk when they arrived.

She made her way over to the elevator and pressed the call button, keeping her eyes on it so that if any of her friends came by they'd have the chance to avoid her.

Everyone had been so nice to her since her return to school. That was the problem. She just wanted them to be normal. And other things had changed. While she'd been away, her friends seemed to have subtly regrouped. Becky and Cathy, her two best friends, had gotten closer. The three of them used to be inseparable. They would gossip and tease and moan about each other and console each other on the phone every evening. It had been a perfectly balanced threesome. But now, although they did their best to include her, it wasn't the same. But how could it be?

The elevator arrived and Grace went in, thankful that she was still the only one waiting and would have it to herself. But just as the doors were closing two younger girls came hurtling in, laughing and gabbling away to each other. As soon as they saw Grace they both went quiet.

Grace smiled and said, 'Hi.'

'Hi.' They said it together but said nothing more and the three of them stood awkwardly while the elevator made its laborious, cranking ascent. Grace noticed how the eyes of both girls examined the blank walls and ceiling, looking everywhere except at the one thing she knew they wanted to look at, her leg. It was always the same.

She'd mentioned it to the'trauma psychologist', yet another expert her parents made her visit every week. The woman meant well and was probably very good at her job, but Grace found the sessions a complete waste of time. How could this stranger - how could anyone - know what it was like?

Tell them it's okay to look,' the woman had said. 'Tell them it's okay to talk about it.'

But that wasn't the point. Grace didn't want them to look, she didn't want them to talk about it. Talk. These shrink people seemed to think that talk solved everything and it just wasn't true.

Yesterday the woman had tried to get her to talk about Judith and that was the last thing on earth Grace wanted to do.

'How do you feel about Judith?'

Grace had felt like screaming. Instead, she said coldly, 'She's dead, how do you think I feel?' Eventually the woman got the message and the subject was dropped.

It had been the same a few weeks ago when she'd tried to get Grace to talk about Pilgrim. He was maimed and useless, just like Grace, and every time she thought of him all she could see were those terrible eyes cowering in the corner of that stinking stall at Mrs Dyer's. How on earth could it help to think or talk about that?

The elevator stopped at the floor below Grace's and the two younger girls got out. She heard them immediately start talking again as they went off down the corridor.

When she got to her own classroom it was as she'd hoped, nobody else had yet come up. She got her books out of her bag, carefully concealed her cane on the floor under the desk, then lowered herself slowly onto the hard wooden seat. In fact it was so hard that by the end of the morning her stump would be throbbing with pain. But she could handle it. That kind of pain was easy.

It was three days before A

A

'For one week only,' he wagged a finger at her.

Two,' A

He looked at Liz and gave a forlorn grin.

'She a friend of yours? Okay, two then. Absolute max. While you find somewhere else.'

'Harry, you're a sweetheart,' said Liz. He put up his hands.

'I'm an idiot. This horse. He bites me, he kicks me, he drags me through a freezing river and what do I do? I take him in as a house-guest.'

'Thanks Harry,' A

The three of them went up to the stables the next morning. The boys weren't about and only once did A

The day after Tom Booker's visit, A

'He's having his supper right now,' she said.

A

'Mrs Graves, this is Tom Booker.'

'Mr Booker. I wanted to apologize for what happened at the stables.' There was silence at the other end so she went on. 'I should have known what was going on up there but I suppose I just closed my eyes to it.'

'I can understand that.' She expected him to go on but he didn't.

'Anyway. We've moved him to another place, a better place, and I wondered if you could…' She realized how futile, how stupid this was even before she said it. 'If you would consider coming back and seeing him.'