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Beach Walker: Chapter 24
A Trick of the Light
SPOILER ALERT: This is the final chapter of Beach Walker.
Sea Gal whinnies and canters across the paddock to greet us. She’s a pretty chestnut mare, long-legged and gracile. Too delicate and fine-boned to make a champion, or the dam of future champions, she had a bleak future until we took her in.
‘How’s she settling?’ I ask my companion.
‘Really well. We’re so pleased with her,’ she smiles. ‘After their little tiff the other day, Barty’s come round. Looks like they’re best buddies now.’
The mare shoves her nose into Shiksha’s jacket, prehensile lips searching for the carrot which she knows is hidden in a pocket. The slight young woman, a South African of Indian descent, laughs as a vigorous nudge rocks her back on her heels:
‘Hey, babe — take it easy!’
I rub Sea Gal’s neck as she crunches on her prize. After two years around them almost daily, I’ve grown comfortable with horses. You still wouldn’t get me on the back of one, though.
We have to choose our new ‘residents’ carefully, based on an assessment of temperament, health and the degree of risk they’re exposed to. We can’t take on a dangerous or antisocial horse, or a sickly one likely to blow our veterinary budget, but still we prioritise animals for which we represent a last chance. We have ten mares and geldings, including Sea Gal, our latest. We’d adopt a hundred if we could, but funds, stabling and grazing limit our intake.
Employing Shiksha has proven a sound decision, one of my best. The manager’s job is not a well-paid one: rent-free living in the house, use of Leonard’s battered old ute, and a modest stipend which barely covers groceries. Still, it’s all the trust can afford, and this isn’t a job you do for money: you do it for love or not at all.
They never found your body, Leonard.
I learned that you evaded the reporters by driving across your neighbour’s paddock, that Easter Sunday afternoon. He saw you go, in your ute with the boat on its trailer bumping along behind. He waved as you closed the gate, but you didn’t wave back. No doubt you were preoccupied. Did you think a dive would clear your head?
