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Race Girl Page 30
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Tully veered around the trailer and ducked into the barn, her step purposeful and assured like she belonged there. The rider glanced up, narrowed his brows, but nodded. She nodded back, quickened her step and lifted her eyes briefly to take in the stable. Two horses were being led out the end, tacked up and ready for gallops. Stalls to her right were being mucked and re-bedded by bright young girls chatting and singing along to the stream of country tunes filling the corridor.
Tully searched the stalls, two glossy bays looking up at the sound of her footsteps. She flinched at a stern male voice at the end of the barn and hopped to the other side of the aisle, her eyes darting into the stalls on the left hand side of the stable. She heard the pawing first and her heart leapt – Dahlia.
Tully broke into a run, crossing the aisle in a few steps and turning her shoulders away from two more girls, who stumbled, giggling, from an office in the middle of the barn. She kept her pace, not daring to look back, the image of Pearce’s sneering face in the forefront of her mind – of how his expression would morph into anger, aggression, if he spotted her in his barn. Near his horses.
Dahlia’s stall door was closed. She was in a padded stall at the very end – Tully had never even seen a padded stall in a racing stable before. The crash of her body connecting with the thinly padded metal sent a tingle though Tully’s skin. She searched the stalls, frantic for a way in.
‘Anyone seen Miena?’ A man called from behind her. ‘Richard—get her in to settle Dahlia, will ya? We can’t have that bloody horse hurting herself!’
Weston, Tully would recognise that clipped, arrogant voice anywhere. She thought of Brandon, of how his voice was so much deeper, his words so much softer when they had caressed her skin.
‘Dahlia!’ Tully whispered, dropping low and slipping the neighbouring stall door open, shutting it silently behind her. The mare froze, then pawed hard at the wall, the thud of her hooves and a frantic, shrill whinny could be heard through the stable. ‘Shh, shhh!’ Tully hissed, moving briskly to the far back corner of the stall where a band of daylight shone through from the padded stall next door. She dropped into the shavings, turned her head to peer in through a narrow gap. Dahlia’s shining coat was wet with sweat everywhere that wasn’t covered by a thin Weston Racing sheet. Her eyes wild, her mane flying as she paced along the stall, trying to reach Tully.
Tully whistled softly and pulled a slice of apple from her pocket, feeding it in through the slit. The mare sniffed along the base of the stall, dropping nearly to her knees to wrap her lips around the apple. Her deep brown eyes met Tully’s and she nearly cried out from the pain and the longing to fling her arms around her horse’s neck and ride her far from here. Back to home.
‘It’s okay, Dahlia,’ Tully spoke softly, soothingly, from some calm, strong place within herself. ‘You’re going to be okay, alright, Dahls? Calm down, please, girl. Calm . . .’ Dahlia sniffed at the slit, smelling for Tully, munching the last of her apple. Then she pulled back, dropped her head to see right into Tully’s eyes, listening.
‘I need you to behave yourself okay, please?’ Tully continued, reaching a finger in to feel the velvety softness of Dahlia’s nose. She stroked her gently, hot tears racing down her cheeks. ‘I need you to be a good girl, Dahlia. You need to put up with these people, you need to run this cup, and you need to do it without me, okay?’ She peered in again, locking eyes with her mare. ‘You can do it, Dahls.’
The mare tossed her head, pawed at the matting. Then she dropped her nose to Tully, nodding, like she was trying to fit through to snuggle her. ‘Be good, Dahls. I’ll be with you, even if you can’t see me.’ She fed her mare the last piece of apple just as Miena’s voice, nasal and fake, rang out from the end of the barn. The clop, clop of a horse’s hooves followed her words, ‘Just have to put Terminator away! He hates being beside that friggin’ psycho, Richard, can’t we move him along?’
‘Be good,’ Tully said one last time, looking up at her mare and smiling. ‘You can do this without me.’ She bit her lip to keep from crying out, then reached desperately for one last brush of Dahlia’s whiskers, before crawling across the stall to the door.
Dahlia called out and the sound of her pleading splintered Tully’s heart. She sobbed silently, wiping her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her jumper. Miena had paused at the office, Terminator bashing his face impatiently against her back. Tully grimaced at another crash against the wall of Dahlia’s stall, slid the door open and ducked out into the hall, her eyes fixed on the light of day beyond the guard.
‘G’day,’ she said casually, the guard nodding in greeting before turning to continue his rounds around the barn.
Fear of being discovered kept Tully walking as long as she could, but once she was past the second barn, around the side of the swimming pool and one of the walkers, her legs gave out, and she slumped to the ground. A clap of thunder shook the sky and she glanced up at the angry black clouds, before curling into a ball, pushing her body into a corner created between a green-clad stable wall and a walker, her forehead on her knees. She punched out at the side of the building until her knuckles ached and dripped with blood.
Why does it have to end like this? she thought desperately. Why does Pearce have to ruin my life, Dahlia’s life, Brandon’s . . . Tully shut her eyes; couldn’t bear to think of him at that moment. The fear that she’d never feel his arms around again her swamped all her other emotions, despite her concern for her horse.
Dahlia’s not okay, Focus on Dahlia! Tully told herself, sending a final, crushing punch at the wall. Pearce Weston had little tolerance for horses that didn’t toe the line, even ones capable of winning the Melbourne Cup. Dahlia’s in danger, and I don’t know how to help!
Rain was pattering against the tin roof of Barn Fifteen by the time Tully stumbled in, down to the tack room. She found her phone at the bottom of her bag, sat down heavily on the wooden bench, pulling her knees up to her chest. She was about to scroll for Brandon’s number, to call and apologise and beg him to come and help her free her horse, when an incoming call from an ‘03’ Victorian number lit up the screen.
She swiped a finger to answer, hoping like hell it was Brandon from the airport or someone with positive news about her horse. ‘Um, hello?’
‘Miss Athens?’ A man said, then cleared his throat.
‘Yes, this is Tully . . .’
‘Miss Athens, my name is Sergeant Kayhill, I’m from the Flemington Police Station. We’ve just received a call from our officers up at Albury/Wodonga. I’m sorry to have to notify you, Miss Athens, but we visited your listed address here in Melbourne, and were unable to locate you in person . . .’
‘What?’ Tully said. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your father is Gerald Athens?’
‘Gerald is my dad’s name, yes.’
‘Your father was killed this morning in a light plane crash, Miss Athens. I’m so sorry for your loss. The plane he was in went down just east of Albury. And according to the flight logs, he was headed down to Melbourne.’
37
Battle till the End
Tully heard her phone crash against the floor, felt the cold metal of the locker behind her connect with her face as she fell to the side.
Darkness.
Arms were around her, Fia speaking softly, asking her what was wrong. Did I pass out? Tully was mumbling, ‘Dahlia . . . Mum, Dad . . . Dahlia?’ But she couldn’t fight forward, restrained by the darkness. She opened her eyes, but the world was spinning, her heart bursting, her head pounding with splitting pain. Her hands were hot and stained red from blood, her face throbbed; it felt warm and sticky. Is it cut? Is this a nightmare?!
Her phone revved from the floor, skidding along the dirty concrete from the force of the vibration. She reached out to answer it . . . I need to talk to Brandon, she suddenly thought, the reality of what was happening beginning to sink in. Dahlia is in danger . . . and then it hit her.
Tully was an orphan now. Alone. She never thought she
’d be so alone. She’d fought with her father, never even made amends. And now he was dead; her father was dead. Gone forever like her mum. The regret, the despair that ravaged through Tully as the full weight of this new reality struck her was paralyzing.
‘Dahlia!’
Tully sat bolt upright, but the room spun and she fell back into Fia’s arms. ‘My mobile, I need . . .’ she gasped.
Fia held her tight, ran a warm hand over her forehead, then handed her the phone. ‘Please, Tully—tell me what’s happened?’
Tully blinked down at the screen of her mobile, holding it in both hands, willing her eyes to cut through the dizziness, her hands to stop shaking. Her stomach heaved and she spun to the side, the sick acid burn coursing up her throat until she power-spewed at the locker next to her.
‘Oh, lord,’ Fia cried, holding back her hair. ‘Tulls, what’s happened?!’
Tully wiped her mouth, sat up shakily, holding her phone close to her face. She had messages, she realised, could they be from Brandon—about Dahlia?!
Fia helped her dial Messagebank, held the phone to Tully’s cheek. ‘You have two new messages,’ the automated woman’s voice said. ‘And no saved messages.’
Tully’s breath came in short gasps, her whole body trembling.
Her father’s voice met her ears and she found herself falling in towards her phone. ‘Daddy?’ she said, staring straight ahead as images of their happier times flashed before her eyes – of her father laughing with her mother in their stable, of the glowing admiration in his eyes when he watched her mother ride, of the love when he’d brought Bear home for his girls that Christmas when she was five. ‘Daddy?!’
‘Hi there, Tully—’ It was her father’s voice, but she couldn’t touch him now. ‘Sorry I missed you, and for not calling sooner. I should have told you about Dahlia, love, I should have talked to you first. I was wrong, and I’m sorry for that.’ Tully’s hand shook so much she dropped the phone, Fia fetching it and holding it back up to her ear. ‘I’m coming down to Melbourne,’ her father was saying. ‘Hopefully to bury the hatchet with Pearce and sort this all out. It wasn’t fair of me to steal your chance to ride the Cup, to put the mare through this. I was against the wall, and I was scared, Tull. It’s the longest, most gruelling race in the country; heck, one of the toughest in the world, and my little girl was riding in it. My little girl.
‘I let your mother mount up that day—I wouldn’t let you, Tulls. I couldn’t lose another one of my girls, the only love I have left. It was selfish, I know. I know it now . . . I found a note for you, from Mum. I was going through her things; felt it was time to, finally. Oh—sorry, I guess I probably shouldn’t be saying all this in a message, eh? Is this thing going to cut me off?’
‘No!’ Tully cried, pressing the phone hard against her cheek. ‘Don’t stop, Dad!’
‘Well, hopefully it won’t. We’ve gone far too long with all this left unsaid – I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I dug out your mother’s silks and our colours for you. You deserve to wear them, Tully. She would be so proud, I’m proud. See you soon, sweetheart. Kisses from your old dad.’
The beep indicating the end of the message pierced Tully’s brain like a needle into her skin and she crumpled into Fia’s arms, the sound of her father’s voice and his words asking for forgiveness, acceptance and love – and giving back the same. Words she’d been yearning to hear since the death of her mother – replayed over and over in her mind. Her father’s forgiveness from beyond the grave.
Goosebumps raced over Tully’s flesh and she re-played the message a second time, holding the phone out so Fia could hear, then whispering to Fia the news of the plane crash.
Fia reminded her to press ‘6’ to save when it was done.
He was bringing Mum’s silks, Tully thought, blinking through the tears. The Athens silks, the Avalon colours, the very ones my grandmother wore. He was bringing them for me, coming to see me ride, to help get Dahlia back from the Westons.
My father was finally coming for me.
Tully set her phone down gently on the bench beside them, before sobbing hard into Fia’s warm arms. The grief from her mother’s death, and then her father’s, was compounded by her hunger to feel Brandon’s love and her fear that she would lose him. The joy at hearing her father’s words conflicted with the fear she’d experienced from pushing herself to earn those words, to become the woman she knew her mother had been. And overriding it all was her fear that everything in her life was spinning out of control . . . The whole storm of emotion poured from Tully like a long awaited summer rain.
Every event in her life had boiled down to this moment, Tully realised, opening her eyes wide and focusing on the light peeking in from the barn aisle, beams of silver light painted with flecks of dust. Through the cyclone of grief, one clear, concise thought formed in her mind: this was one of those single, defining moments in life. One of those moments where she had the power to choose, to fight, to live, to make a decision that would determine her fate.
She found herself sitting up, wiping her eyes and her nose and her mouth. Moments like these when we’re given the choice to fight or crumble. To live or die. Well, friggin’ bloody flippin’ hell, Tully thought. I choose to live.
Tully trundled across the yard of Fia’s barn into the pouring, drenching storm, too consumed by her own thoughts and feelings to feel the cold, propelled by a blast of adrenaline.
Fia trailed behind her calling out questions, but Tully didn’t hear her aunt’s worried voice. She had made her decision.
She needed to let go of what couldn’t be changed and work with what could. She didn’t have to ride, even if she’d always wanted to. The Cup didn’t matter, or the history books – none of that. Dahlia mattered, and Brandon, and Fia, and Avalon. Her family, her home. Her duty now was to keep them safe, to fight for them.
Rain and wind swirled around her, soaking her to the core. Her hair fell in slick tendrils, sticking to her cheeks and neck. She would convince Pearce to let her strap for Dahlia, Tully decided, taking the right turn past O’Grady’s down towards Richard’s barn. She’d ask as nicely as she could to be included in Dahlia’s life, in her racing career. She didn’t have to own Dahlia to keep her safe – if Pearce would just let Tully be at Dahlia’s side, she would be settled enough to stay in his stable. Maybe even to win. Dahlia was a fighter: she loved to win, lived to win. And to please Tully. Tully needed to be there for her mare, and for Brandon.
Fia caught up, took Tully’s arm in hers, walking tall and proud next to her niece through the punishing rain. They strode straight past the guard at the front of Barn One, into the settled shelter of the stable.
Pearce and Richard and a few girls Tully didn’t recognise looked up from the end of the aisle, the men’s thick eyebrows raising in surprise. Richard held an iPad over his chest as if he imagined Fia might pull a gun and shoot him, but Pearce stepped forward, meeting them in front of Dahlia’s stall. His cool blue eyes studied the obviously disheveled and drenched pair in front of him and he glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Give us a minute,’ he said to Richard and the girls. Richard pursed his thin lips in disgust, but they all turned and moved slowly down the barn aisle, leaving Tully, her aunt and Pearce Weston alone with the sounds and the smells of the horses and the hay and the grain.
Dahlia snorted and pawed at the mats of her stall.
‘It’s okay, Dahls,’ Tully said, reaching for the latch. Pearce didn’t stop her as she swung the top of the stall door open, then slid open the rest to let herself in. ‘I’d like to help with Dahlia please, Mr. Weston,’ Tully said from her mare’s side.
Dahlia studied her, neck arched, nostrils flaring in surprise. Her dark eyes met Tully’s and she let out a soft whicker, before trotting forward into Tully’s outstretched arms. ‘Hello, lovely, gorgeous girl,’ Tully said, stroking her muzzle and burying her face in Dahlia’s neck. She glanced up to see Fia and Pearce standing close, watching her and the once-fire-breathing mare that ha
d turned into a pussy-cat under the hands of her girl, her master, her partner.
A ripple of muscle flared along Pearce’s jaw and he looked down at his boots, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark denim jeans.
Tully revelled in this moment with her mare. After this whirlwind of a week, she felt a soft veil of peace settle over her. The storm raged outside with claps of thunder and bolts of lightning, but here with her horse, with her blood kin beside her, Tully couldn’t help but sense that everything was going to be all right.
But as so often was the case, Mother Nature seemed to have other plans. A darkness descended over the barn, as if the eye of the storm had settled over Flemington. A bright crack of lightening lit the sky, followed immediately by a clap of deafening thunder.
Dahlia flinched and pushed her nose into Tully’s hand, turning into her body as if to shield and comfort her.
‘We’ve come here to ask nicely to be involved in Dahlia’s life, please, Mr. Weston,’ Tully said, pulling her eyes from her mare’s fierce, kind gaze into the calculating glare of Pearce Weston. ‘All I ask is to be able to help you with her, that’s all. Please, Mr. Weston. I promise I won’t cause any trouble.’
Fia stiffened, folding her arms across her chest, her eyes narrowed on Pearce.
‘Please,’ Tully said. Dahlia tossed her head, jumping nervously at the sound of another boom of thunder. Rain pelted hard on the tin roof of the barn, the wind howling down the rows of stables, ricocheting out across the epic track to the buildings of the city. ‘Please?’ Tully said again, raising her voice over the thunder and the rain.
‘How could you ever beg this man for anything?’
The sound of a voice she hadn’t heard in what felt like a lifetime shook Tully from her peace, jolting her heart as if one of the lightning flashes had struck her. She turned slowly, her voice rusty from shock and confusion and a new, seeping fear. ‘Bucko?’