‘The pair of you!’ I yell uselessly, my words snatched by the wind as the brake lights disappear. ‘Bloody bastards!’
The day’s exhilaration is gurgling away like so much cold bath water. When I stepped aboard the sleek white jet this morning, saw the Levi font painted along its flank, and then Dickson jumped down from the cockpit like something out of Top Gun, I could barely contain myself.
My mood went lukewarm when Gustav wasn’t at Agno airport to meet me. When Dickson changed from Tom Cruise to The Sweeney and guided the silver Lexus along the valley floor below the purple mountains, circled the calm cold lake with its colourful buildings crowding round the shore, then purred up this mysterious-looking road with the overhanging boulders and rocks, I assumed that any minute we’d get to a fairy tale castle with grey pointed turrets and Gustav would be bounding over the drawbridge to greet me.
Tepid is the word for how I’m feeling now, as the bracing air with its tang of glacier slaps at my cheeks.
Oh my God. My bags are in the car. Even my handbag. All I have with me is my camera. Dickson has to come back. This is just a tease. The test he was talking about. Surely he’s not that mean, even if Gustav is.
A church bell echoes round the valley, reminding me that civilisation isn’t so far away. Even the herd of goats just visible further up in the wood must have someone tending them.
I wander back through the arch and take some pictures of it from the forest angle, the ivy clinging to the brickwork for dear life. The black pine trees lean into the wall, dark green branches poking and grabbing, as if determined to break it down and take it over. But as I zoom in on a fragile-looking wild rose, I notice that the brick isn’t as old as it looks. It’s been recently re-pointed.
Dickson isn’t coming back. Ten minutes have passed. There is only the occasional flap of wide wings breaking the silence, a woody crack as something heavy lands on a bending branch, and the whistle of the wind, but even the elements don’t seem able to penetrate this dense forest. There’s only the pervading cold and the metallic light glinting off the lake below as the afternoon draws in.
If this is some kind of sick joke then I am having a sense of humour failure. I have to find shelter. I push open the door of the little building and the dim light turns out to be an oil lamp burning in the corner. Someone has recently put a match to it. No. On closer inspection I see that it’s electric. From the sharp clean smell I can tell that someone has recently polished all the tack arranged on racks around the room, bridles, saddles and martingales, gleaming bits and buckles.
In the darkest corner is an American Western-style saddle strapped to its own frame, broad as an armchair. It gleams with saddle soap and polish. I glance around. Nothing and no-one here. Just me and the wind howling round the building. And presumably somewhere up in the forest, Gustav prowling around with his telescope.
My elegant riding boots ring out in the empty tack room. The dim light outside is laced now with approaching mist. Any minute now it will lower itself over the landscape and smother us all.
I pack my camera away. The only place to sit is that comfortable-looking saddle. I climb up and sit astride it for a moment, taking care not to thump down on my bottom which is still sore from last night’s punishment. I hold myself just above the saddle, my legs spread on either side of the wide seat. I start to rock.
The owners of the stables along the cliffs must have suspected something was wrong at home when I started hanging around for longer and longer. They might not have noticed the odd bruise, but they can’t have missed the fact that I seemed happier talking to horses than to people.
I just told them that my family was busy, that they wanted me out of the house, and after a while the stable owners liked having me around, said I was a great help, paid me to groom and exercise the horses. I spent every weekend and all the holidays galloping across the cliffs or down on the beach, sometimes roaming as far as the moors, especially in the winter when the tourists had gone back to the city.
Sometimes they allowed me to sleep in the straw loft, listening to the horses and ponies stamp and snuffle all night. Was anybody missing me back at home? Who knows? Who cares?
Only once did I go home and ask for a horse of my own. It’s there, in the diary. Yet another ugly fight.
You think we’re made of money? You can do what you like when we’re rid of you, but you’re not bringing a dirty animal back here. Now go and wash all the stinking mud and fur off those clothes.
Looking back on that row, I wonder why they didn’t just lock me up for the whole weekend as was usual when I’d displeased them. Why didn’t they refuse to let me go to the stables again? They must have known how much that would hurt. How much I loved going there. But we struck such poisonous sparks off each other that they would rather have me out of sight, out of mind, than have me imprisoned in my bedroom, filling the house with my unhappiness.
My body wakes up with the rocking motion as I pretend to be riding. I lower myself gingerly, lean slightly sideways to take the weight off my sorest buttock. The leather feels warm beneath me, as if it has only just been lifted off a sweating mount. It creaks as if it’s speaking.
Damn Dickson for abandoning me here. Damn Gustav for ordering him to do so. If he’d just hung around another few minutes, had the courtesy to wait until Gustav pitched up.
Outside, the wind wuthers round the corner of the building like a damned soul, rattling the stable doors and knocking over a bucket. My heart jolts in my chest. I’m certain there is no-one else here. No way of knowing how long Gustav will keep me waiting. I could die in here. I have no idea how big his estate is. Does he own the whole mountain? The whole forest?
I’m not threatened by any ghosts, but what if the real thing is here? What if Margot knows we’re coming and is lying in wait up at the castle?
I wriggle down into the saddle and concentrate on the creaking sound it makes, just as if a muscular steed is trotting smartly along beneath me. I grasp the high rounded pommel at the front with one hand and the back panel of the saddle with the other and slide myself back and forth until the leather heats up with the friction and I start to vibrate with the heat. The smooth fabric of my jodhpurs slides easily across the leather, quickly growing damp with exertion and secret excitement. The smell of the leather grows stronger, mingled with my own sweet aroma.
I close my eyes, raising myself off the seat as far as the long stirrups will allow me so that the chilly air can get to me. Then I bang myself down onto the seat again, rubbing up and down the saddle, tilting myself so as to feel the heat more acutely, spreading my legs wider so as to press down on the leather surface and rub some more.
I start to quiver with excitement, driven on by the whistling of the scary wind outside. I am holding onto the saddle to support myself, fingering the high, rounded, phallic pommel. The shape of it is perfect for my private game, and before long the pleasure is growing as I gyrate against it.
‘Did you know,’ comes a deep voice into the dusty silence, ‘that pommel means “little apple”?’
I half-groan, half-laugh at the interruption. ‘So you’ve finally made an appearance.’
‘The journey hasn’t tired you out, I see.’
I can’t look at him. I grasp the pommel, hunching over it as reluctantly I abandon my game.
‘Would have been more polite for you to travel with me instead of running off in the middle of the night.’
‘We’re not joined at the hip, are we, Serena?’
‘I thought that was what the silver chain was all about?’
‘Yes. When I choose to attach it. Oh, I have it here, don’t worry. But you’re a big girl now. And Dickson delivered you safely.’ Gustav strides past me. He reaches for a bridle. Despite his rough tone I can see the edge of his cheekbone rising with amusement. ‘Right. When you’ve finished scratching