Not Bad for a Bad Lad (4 page)

“That’s because of the music, on the wireless,” I told him. “I like music. I like drumming. I play the drums – I used to anyway.”

“Well, there’s a thing. I’m a bit of a drummer
myself
,” Mr Alfie said. “Tell you the truth, there’s only one thing I like more than my music, and that’s my horses. Suffolk Punch horses they are and they take a lot of looking after. You don’t mind hard work do you?”

“’Course not,” I told him.

So that’s how, the very next day after breakfast, I found myself helping out in the stables, along with a couple of other lads, giving Mr Alfie a hand with his horses. He’d fixed it up with Mr Roley, just as he’d
said he would. From now on, for most of every day, I’d be working with those great big beautiful horses, alongside Mr Alfie. I loved it, loved the horses, loved listening to the music, loved every moment of it all. Mind you, having to leave the horses and go back
behind
the walls afterwards was always hard, really hard.

I think maybe I should tell you something about Mr Alfie and his horses, because without them none of the rest of this story would have turned out the way it did. I soon found out that Mr Alfie knew more about Suffolk horses than any man alive. He’d even written a book about them. He knew them and he loved them. And these Suffolk horses aren’t your
ordinary
horses. They are gigantic, I mean massive. They stand higher than your head, however tall you are. And they’re strong. You cannot believe how strong they are. Mr Alfie had grown up with them on
the farm when he was a kid and he’d worked with horses of one kind or another, practically all his life, ploughing the fields, mowing the hay. He’d left the farm for a while, to go and fight in the First World War. He’d been there with horses too, mostly with cavalry horses he told me. But for Mr Alfie, his
Suffolk
horses were always the best. “My gentle giants,” he used to call them.

Every time we went down to the stables we’d be mucking them out, shaking out the straw for their bedding, putting up the hay for them or filling their water buckets. And did they eat a lot, those horses! Did they drink a lot! And did they make a mess! I’d never been kept so busy in all my life and I’d never enjoyed myself so much either, specially when Mr Alfie had his music on. But he kept us at it. We’d be cleaning the tack, polishing the brasses, doing
whatever
 
needed doing, and there was always something.

After a while, a couple of weeks it must have been, Mr Alfie began to let me do some of the
grooming
, and soon enough I was out with the other lads, who’d been stable lads longer than me, exercising the horses, even riding them out sometimes. All the time, he was teaching us how to behave around horses. “You have to treat them the same way you have to treat people,” he told me once. “First you have to try to understand what’s going on in their heads, what they’re feeling. Then you have to respect those
feelings
. Do that with anyone, and you’ll get on fine. Do it with any horse and you’ll get on fine. It’s as simple as that.” Of course it wasn’t at all simple, because
what he didn’t tell me was that it takes a lifetime to get to know how horses feel. I know now that it takes a lifetime to get to know how people feel too. So Mr Alfie was right, twice over.

I reckon I must have been working with the horses for a couple of months or so, and was getting the hang of things quite well. I arrived at the stables one morning and got to work right away, grooming Bella out in the yard – she was the biggest of the mares we had in the stables: eighteen hands high, and that’s big, too big to argue with that’s for sure. Anyway I looked up and there was Mr Alfie coming towards me. He stood and watched me for a while, not saying
anything
. He did that quite a bit, so I wasn’t bothered. The wireless was playing as usual, a Louis Armstrong number: ‘Jeepers Creepers’.

I remember that very well because the next
moment
what Mr Alfie said to me next has stayed in my mind ever since. “You know what I think son?” he said. “I think you’re not bad for a bad lad, not a bad lad at all.” Those few words meant more to me then than I can ever say. They still do. “When you’ve
finished
with Bella,” he went on, “I’ve got a bit of a job for you.” A few minutes later he was walking me to
the end stable.

“In here,” he said, opening the door. “He came in last night. Five-year-old, he is. Dombey, he’s called. He’s not a Suffolk, but he’s as good as. Not quite as big maybe, but the same type. Brown and white. ‘Skewbald’, we call that. Handsome looking fellow isn’t he? But he’s a bit upset.” I could see that. Unlike all the other horses, who were always looking out over their stable doors, all bright-eyed and happy, this one was standing with his head down, in the darkest corner of the stable.

“Where he’s come from they couldn’t manage him,” Mr Alfie told me. “He’s a bit of a handful it seems. Dombey’s had a hard time. Someone’s taken a stick to him, that’s what I think. But he’s strong as
you like, kind eye, big heart. He’s a good sort. I know a good sort when I see one. That’s why I’ve taken him on. That’s why I took you on. But Dombey’s frit, and he’s miserable. He’s off his food too. All he needs is someone he can trust, someone who can
understand
him and gentle him. So I thought, why not you? I want you just to spend time with him, son, talk to him, give him a pat, tell him he’s a good lad, make him feel he’s wanted. He’s got to feel like someone loves him. But watch him, mind. They say he’s got a mighty powerful kick on him.”

Only the next morning I was to find that out for myself. I thought I was doing everything just right. I went into the stable nice and slow, talking to him all the while. His tail swished a bit, so I knew he was a bit nervy. I stood by his head for a long time, just whispering to him, smoothing his neck, stroking his ears gently.

He liked that, everything was fine. He looked happy enough to have me there. After a bit I thought that was probably enough for a first meeting. I was
feeling
quite pleased with myself. I gave him a goodbye pat and walked out slowly the way I’d come in,
behind
him. Big mistake. I didn’t even see him kick me, but I felt it all right. The next thing I knew I was lying there on my back in the straw, feeling like a right nitwit.

Mr Alfie was leaning over the stable door. “He kicked you then?” he said, smiling down at me. “Did it hurt?”

“What d’you think?” I told him, rubbing at my leg to ease away the pain.

“Well son, whatever you did, you won’t do it 
again then, will you?” Mr Alfie said. “It’ll take time. It always takes time to learn to trust someone.” He wasn’t showing me much sympathy. “Anyway,” he went on, looking up at Dombey, who was chomping away at his hay, “Dombey seems to be eating well enough now. So he’s happy about something. You must have done something right then.” That was the thing about Mr Alfie, he always said something to buck you up and make you feel better about yourself.