Tipper could tell he was having trouble spitting it out, whatever it was. He waited silently.
‘The thing is,’ Mr Power went on, ‘I’ve had a phone call from your uncle who went up to Dublin with your aunt this morning. They went to the hospital, and the thing is, she’s died, Tipper. I’m sorry.’
Tipper didn’t take this in. He was confused. None of it was making sense.
‘Who’s died? My aunt? I don’t get it.’
‘No, not your aunt. Your mother. Your mother’s died, son. She never got over the operation. She was beyond help, apparently.’
Slowly, like water seeping into a sinking boat, Tipper grasped what Mr Power was saying. His Ma was dead. His Ma. He would never see her alive again.
Tipper didn’t speak or move, but stared at Mr Power transfixed. Then after a few moments he found the ability to walk, and brushed past the stud manager. He opened the front door and quietly closed it behind him. He hoped Mr Power wouldn’t come after him. He hurled himself down the steps and started running, pelting down the drive that stretched to the road. He pounded across the tarmac, leapt a stone wall and plunged into the small wood on the other side. It was hard fighting his way through the undergrowth, but he didn’t think about it. At last he found a small clearing and his flight ended. He needed to be by himself. He didn’t even want to see Sam. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He didn’t want to see anyone.
In his misery he sat on a fallen bough and propped his elbows on his knees. His emotions were randomly churning around inside him. It was incomprehensible that he’d never see his mother again. Ever. He hadn’t said good-bye to her. He’d just walked out of the door without a care in the world. What had she thought about that? Why hadn’t he taken more notice? Why hadn’t he seen that she was ill? What could he have done? He would never again see Ma. Never pinch another bouquet of flowers from the cemetery to give her. Never eat her rashers and beans, or watch the English soaps with her. These things seemed enormously important. They were a part of his life that had all of a sudden been detonated and blown away.
His eyes were hot and throbbing. He stared at the ground; it was covered with decayed leaves and rabbit droppings. Now his mind was empty of thought. He totally lost track of time. He had no idea how long he’d been there when he realized that he was freezing cold and it was nearly dark. He thought about Sam. He’d have to talk to him about Ma; it was the last thing he’d want to do. He couldn’t bear the thought of talking to anyone about her. Tears started streaming down his cheeks again. Then he got up, wiped his cheeks and brushed his backside. He’d never forget Ma, that wouldn’t change. But everything else had. He just had no idea how he was going to cope. No idea what was going to happen to him.
The next month of Tipper’s life was shrouded in a dark cloud of misery. He couldn’t get his mother out of his mind. Why had he been denied the chance to say good-bye to her? Maybe if he had it wouldn’t have felt so bad. He surprised himself by wanting to talk to Sam incessantly about her. Sam was brilliant. He wasn’t embarrassed like Tipper thought he’d be. He asked Tipper all about her and Tipper told him. He loved telling him and he was so grateful to Sam for listening. His uncle and aunt just clammed up and carried on as if nothing had happened. But when Tipper was on his own a black cloud descended on him.
Tipper threw himself into the work on the stud. He had nothing else. He listened to Uncle Pat who taught him that the thoroughbred horse is a manmade creature, the result of three centuries of carefully selected breeding. With a set of rules worked out in the eighteenth century and never varied since. The racecourse rule demanded that all horses are proven racers, or at least the offspring of proven racers. The intercourse rule ensures that every mating is a true one, witnessed, recorded and verifiable. Artificial insemination is abominated in this world, unlike in cattle breeding. The thoroughbred stud is an establishment dedicated to natural procreation as nature intended.
Tipper loved working with the foals, which at this time of year meant getting them to walk properly on a leading rein. He chatted away to them about his Ma as he walked them up and down the sandy lanes and somehow felt his soul was restored in the process.
‘Just watch their front legs, son,’ Uncle Pat told him. ‘A foal’s not like a grown horse, who kicks behind. It’s the front legs that are most dangerous in a foal.’
Tipper looked at the youngster he was leading, as if to say, you wouldn’t want to hurt me, now would you? And it seemed he didn’t. Tipper was confident, comfortable in his handling of the foals, and they responded. Uncle Pat was impressed by his nephew’s natural instinct.
‘He’s got a gift with these foals,’ he informed Mr Power. ‘But he just doesn’t know it yet. He’ll be grand.’
Tipper’s favourite foal was a high-strung little filly with an unusual dark reddish, almost mahogany coloured coat. When he had time on his hands and no-one was about Tipper would take her into one of the barns, sliding shut the big door before turning her loose. Usually a foal at this stage of its development is nervous of anyone that doesn’t smell of its mother, and flighty to catch. Red had always been especially neurotic and Tipper set himself the task of making her biddable. He got down on his hands and knees, reckoning that foals were no different from children—intimidated by anyone that loomed over them. Little by little Red came nearer, smelling his hand, chewing his coat, and in that way the two of them got to know each other. Next he took a long rope and attached it to a halter loosely hanging round her nose and neck. If she wanted to back off, he let her, but he would then tease her in again, like an angler playing a fish, rubbing her neck before loosening the line once more. Gradually Tipper was mastering Red, but without ever imposing on her or making demands. Her education proceeded only as fast as she herself wanted.
Red remained fearful when out in the open, and that was almost her undoing one afternoon, when Tipper and Sam were left on their own in charge of the paddocks.
‘Lads, be sure to get the foals in if the rain comes,’ Uncle Pat had told them.
The storm came in suddenly on a southerly wind. The sun was still shining but the sky in the south was black. The wind stiffened, tossing straw and sacking around the yard. At the first almighty clap of thunder the boys rushed out carrying ropes to bring in the foals. As soon as they opened the gate and began calling, the herd walked obediently towards them. All of them, that is, except Red, who hung back. They decided to bring in the others and come back for Red. But as they unhooked the gate a second time, another thunderclap split the air and immediately the frightened foal took off, careering away from them towards the far end of the paddock, where she collided with a railing post. She staggered back and hopped unnaturally on three legs. The fourth was streaming blood.
‘Jesus, Sam, will you look at that?’ shouted Tipper. ‘There’s blood pouring out of her.’ The rain was now hosing down and they were getting soaked.
Sam yanked the gate shut behind him and the boys ran over to investigate. Red shied and tried to hop away as they approached. Tipper held Sam back.
‘Stop,’ he said. ‘She’s dead scared. She might hurt herself more.’
Sam looked terrified himself. He was wiping the rain off his face. The consequences if anything should happen to this valuable filly would be dire.
‘Christ on a bike, we’re in the shite!’ he said. ‘Is the leg broken or what?’
‘Hang on. Let me go to her myself.’
Tipper stepped quietly up to Red, praying that she wouldn’t jink away from him. The injury was
