Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 8.5

The horse and cart came up the road at a slow rattle, pots and pans swinging at its sides. The horse was blinkered. Its neck was lathered with sweat and its ribs stuck out. The cart bulged with rusty tools, and nuts and bolts spilling out of split hessian bags, and broken lanterns, and chair legs. Pot-plants poked out of its mass like tufts of hair. The driver could hardly be seen amongst it all, for his overalls and coat, like the cart and its contents, were covered with road dust. His yellow bottom teeth closed outside his yellow top teeth. His chin was sandpapery with salt-and-pepper stubble. When one of the wheels hit a stone the man and his cargo would jounce up with a great clatter, but somehow it would all stay on there.

There were black thunderclouds piling up overhead as the cart descended the final hill. The air was thick. The trees beside the road seemed to sag in the atmosphere, and insects whirred about in clouds.

A boy stood at the bottom of the hill. The cart came to a clattering halt next to him.

"Whatcha doing out here?" the man said. "Storm's about to break." His eyes were hard and searching. He took in the boy's clean clothes and neat hair and new shoes. "You're a right proper little lad, aren't you? How old're you?"

"Eight."

"Eight years old?"

"No, eight weeks."

"You taking the piss?"

"No."

"Eight. Christ." The man looked ahead to where the road vanished around a bend dark with hoary fir trees. "Folks home?"

The boy nodded.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Holidays."

"I heard they took you out of school."

"I'm back."

"Are you now?" The man uncrossed his arms and adjusted his grip on the reins. The horse shifted and looked around at the boy, its ears flat along its head. "Your mother is a fine woman," he said, looking away down the road again, leaning back and letting the reins hang limply across his knees. He seemed to be waiting for something – perhaps for the boy to tell him she was not.

The horse whickered.

"Your folks want anything?" the man said, nodding over his shoulder.

"I don't know."

"You never know, do you? You never know anything." He rubbed one wrist with the fingers of his other hand. He seemed about to say something else, but just shook his head and flapped the reins across the horse's back. The cart lurched forward.

He looked back. "What's your name, boy?"

"James."

The man laughed. It was a strange kind of laugh."Little Lord Ambrose." Then to the horse: "Gee-up now."

He flapped the reins and the horse and cart rattled away around the bend, vanishing behind the trees.

The boy remained where he was standing, watching the bend in the road where the cart had gone. Suddenly the wind changed direction and turned cold. Fat drops of rain hit the road, kicking up tiny puffs of dust. A belt of thunder pealed across the sky.

There was a shriek of a terrified horse from up ahead. Then another crash – not of thunder this time – and the horse shrieked again. It appeared suddenly around the bend, galloping towards James, ropes and broken pieces of wood slewing along behind it, its eyes huge and white and bloody foam caking its mouth.

James leapt into the culvert that ran beside the road as the horse thundered past. He saw it leave the road and crash off into the trees. He stood there for a moment gaping at the place where the horse had gone. Rivulets of water began to creep under his bare feet. The feel of the cold water broke him out of his stupor; he climbed out of the culvert and took off down the road towards the house.

When he came around the bend he found pots and pans strewn across the road. The cart lay on its side in the culvert. James jumped down and around behind the cart. The man lay beneath it. His face was strained and white, and veins were sticking out in his neck. He was trying vainly to lift the cart off his legs. He saw James and screamed at him. "Help me you bloody fool!"

James bent down and got his hands under the cart and heaved as hard as he could, but it didn't budge. "I'll get help," he said. He turned and dashed off towards the house.

He ran fast, for the wind was behind him, but the same wind carried the man's screams to his ears.