Annan Water Read Free

else was coming. A woman in a wheelchair, pushed by a man. The woman’s lap was laden with more supermarket bags.
    ‘That’s my mother,’ said the girl.
    Michael was trying to think of something to say when the mare, terrified by the sight of the wheelchair, spun round and tried to take off along the river bank. He held on to her, but had to drop the gelding’s reins to avoid being torn between the two of them. The mare dragged him along for a few metres before she fetched up against a wooden fence and had to stop. She turned and stared at the wheelchair as if she expected it to pounce on her.
    ‘Fat-head,’ he called her. ‘Idiot.’
    He saw the man begin to step away from the wheelchair and then hesitate. He was watching the girl, who was quietly approaching Bandit. His reins were trailing on the ground, but the concept of freedom was beyond him. He stood where he was until the girl reached him. She took hold of the reins, and a smile of pride and relief briefly lit her features.
    He led the mare back, skittering and jittering across the grass.
    ‘A young man and a grey mare,’ said the girl’s mother. ‘Come to woo our Annie, perhaps?’
    The boy blushed, not only because of the woman’s suggestion, but because, privately, he had assumed that being in a wheelchair and having a personality were mutually exclusive.
    ‘Look at your Annie,’ said the man softly.
    The girl was stroking Bandit’s nose. The placid cob dropped his head. His eyelids drooped. Annie’s confidence was swelling visibly.
    ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ she said.
    ‘He’s quiet, anyway,’ said her mother. ‘I’ll say that much for him.’
    The boy’s dealer instincts surfaced. ‘He’s for sale,’ he said. ‘A grand cob. Jump over a Land-Rover, that lad.’
    Michael thought it sounded good, but the girl’s face clouded over and she glared out at him. The man walked all around Bandit with a very interested sort of look.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Michael Duggan.’
    ‘I don’t know any Duggans. From where?’
    Michael pointed vaguely in the direction from which he had come. ‘We’re new. My mother was born around here. Her name’s McLean.’
    ‘Ah.’ The man smiled. ‘Now I have you. You came down the old road, then.’
    ‘A green track.’
    ‘You must have opened up the gate?’
    ‘We came over it.’
    ‘Hmm.’ The man looked more closely at the cob. ‘What’s he worth?’
    ‘You’re not buying him,’ said Annie. Her voice was taut and angry. ‘You’re not buying him for me.’
    ‘No, he isn’t,’ said her mother.
    ‘I won’t be told what I can and can’t buy,’ said the man. But the mood had changed. A tension had arisen. The woman began to wheel herself towards the boat, and the mare started panicking again. Michael jerked on her bridle, and went to reclaim Bandit and get him out of the way.
    Annie released the reins reluctantly, and turned away. But the brief glimpse he had taken into her eyes had been enough to inform him that no matter how hard she had battled with that wire, she had not escaped. She was not free. Unaccountably, Michael felt that he had let her down. All the way home, along the green road, he was troubled by a strong sense of guilt.

4
    H E HAD BEEN OUT for more than three hours, but no one had even noticed. His mother had gone to get poultices and his father was still where he had been when Michael last saw him: building looseboxes inside the long hay shed.
    ‘Good lad,’ he said. ‘That pony’s looking well. Get Horrocks ready, will you? There’s someone coming to see him.’
    ‘I found—’ Michael stopped, ambushed by a sudden possessiveness about his track. He didn’t want his parents riding along there with him. It was his own.
    ‘What did you find?’
    ‘A river. What river would it be?’
    ‘You’d have to ask your mother. But at a guess I’d say it was the Annan Water. That’s the nearest river to here.’
    Annan Water. The name sent a cold flush through