LITMIR.BIZ

       The Silver Brumby

      If I told you where I was brought up you’d laugh your fucking heads off. The village has such a fucking twee name that as soon as I tell anyone they dissolve into crazy laughter.

      The place was full of people who were middle class. We were never middle class. My Mum and my Dad both worked hard at vocational jobs though, so we did have enough money for me to fulfil my Mum’s childhood dream of having a pony.

      We kept my pony at an old farm. The farmer who owned the farm was the father of the man who my Mum would eventually leave me, my Dad and my brother and our home for. But not yet.

      Mum was, and maybe still is, a care worker. That’s one of those people who go round to old people’s houses and tuck them in at night and chat to them a bit and wipe them down when they shit themselves. One of the people that she cared for was the old farmer that owned the farm that we kept the pony at.

      I didn’t like the old farmer. After school and on weekends when I was down at the stables I could see him sitting in his chair by the window in his front room looking out at me and my Mum. I’d always ignore him, but Mum would wave, and sometimes, before we’d go home, she’d make us both go in to his house to ‘check he was doing okay.’

      When I wasn’t reading Enid Blyton, I was reading stories about ponies. Silver Brumby was one that I read over and over and I’d keep in the car as an excuse not to go into that old bastard’s house. Sometimes I’d sit in the car for an hour after I’d finished riding, reading Silver Brumby and waiting for Mum to come out of the house.

      One day, after we’d finished cleaning up the horse’s shit and piss and fed her and tucked her in for the night, Mum told me that she was going to check on the Old Man. I went to the car and tried the door but it was locked. Mum told me that I had to go with her this time, he’d been asking why I hadn’t been in to see him in so long.

      She took the spare key from under the pot in the back porch and we let ourselves in. His house always smelt the same: of tobacco and fried eggs and dust. We walked through to the kitchen, across the hallway and into the living room, where he was sat on his big leather armchair in front of the window, as usual.

      He drank a lot. Sometimes my Mum would have to dash to the shop for him to buy him more booze when he ran out. It was always Bell’s whisky, about a bottle each day. By his chair there was a bottle with a couple of inches left in it, and in his hand was a glass. He turned to greet us and put his glass down on the table at his side.

      ‘You haven’t been to see me for quite some time, young lady,’ he said to me.

      ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

      The room was fucking filthy. Fag ends and empty bottles everywhere and mud ground into the carpet. There was a single bed in his living room because in the winter he couldn’t make it up the stairs to his bedroom and so slept there.

      He turned to my Mum.

      ‘Hello, my darling,’ he said.

      ‘Hello, ___,’ said my Mum. ‘She wanted to stay in the car and read again, she’s always reading, but it’s about time she came to say hello, isn’t it?’

      She turned round and smiled at me. Told me to sit down. Where? I wondered. Everything was covered in shit. I remained standing.

      ‘Come here, ___’ the Old Man said to my Mum.

      She walked over and sat on his lap.

      ‘Did you know that your Mum is my girlfriend?’ he asked me. ‘The other girls from Social Services won’t come and see me but I can always rely on my ___.’

      Mum was giggling like a schoolgirl. His hand reached up and started to fondle her breasts.

      ‘You’re a good girl, ___,’ he said. ‘You always look after old ___.’

      Mum sat, still giggling on his lap. Letting him touch her, letting this vile old cunt touch her fucking tits. I felt sick.

      After what felt like forever of standing and watching, Mum got up.

      ‘Go and give ___ a kiss,’ she said.

      No. I didn’t move.

      ‘___, go and give him a kiss.’

      I looked at my Mum. She was smiling at me.

      ‘She’s shy,’ she said to the Old Man. He smiled.

      ‘Come here, ___, come and say hello to me.’

      I walked over to him, slowly. As soon as I was in arms’ reach he grabbed me and plonked me on his knee.

      ‘See? It’s not so bad, is it?’ he said.

      I sat very still. I was fucking rigid. I hated this old man. I hated him so much.

      His hands that had been clasped around me, resting on my lap, released and he put one hand on my thigh and squeezed, as the other hand moved up and began to stroke my stomach.

      I jumped up and ran as fast as I could out of the house and back to the car. The fucking door was fucking locked. I ran to the barn where we kept the straw for the stables and hid.

      I don’t know how long passed, but eventually my Mum came looking for me. As soon as she opened the door to the barn she saw me and called my name. I can’t have been hiding as well as I thought I was.

      ‘Is he with you?’ I asked, not moving.

      ‘Of course not, silly. Why would he come out here? He’s gone to bed. Come on, time to go home.’

      I came out. We got in the car. I was shaking and frightened.

      Mum said ‘He’s a very lonely old man, ___, it’s very sad to be out here in the countryside with no one to talk to, and my friends at work, they won’t come out to him. It’s not very nice, is it?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘So that’s why we have to go and see him sometimes. You know, cheer him up. He’s a sweet man, really.’

      I didn’t say anything. Mum drove us home and when I got home I went straight to bed and never told anyone about what had happened.

      About five years later, when my Mum had left me and my brother and Dad for the farmer, she rang me to tell me that the Old Man had died. I said I was glad, and she called me an evil bitch and hung up. Another couple of years after that, at my Mum’s house, the farmer started talking about his Dad. I told him that his Dad was an evil cunt, and I got thrown out of the house. The farmer doesn’t speak to me any more. Neither does my Mum.

      You’re not allowed to speak ill of the dead, you see.