The House at World's End by Monica Dickens

her how.
    ‘Why are you crying, Mrs Fielding?’ The Staff Nurse who never smiled bustled up, her starched apron crackling like bird shot. ‘Look, you’re making your poor little daughter cry too. For shame!’

15
    The next thing was to start riding John.
    The cracks in his feet were growing out, so Carrie walked him three miles to the forge, where a boy called Dick, with long hair and a transistor radio, was learning to be a blacksmith. He was, of course, a friend of Lester’s - Lester knew all the right people - and he had agreed to shoe John for nothing.
    ‘Have us all in the poorhouse.’ The old blacksmith, who did not do much these days except complain about the kind of music that came out of the radio, came out of his cottage next to the forge to see what Dick was doing. Tutting on free shoes for all these dratted kids.’
    ‘’S an interesting case,’ Dick said, bending face down with his long hair hanging over John’s hind foot in the lap of his leather apron. ‘Feet in a bad way. Good experience for me.’
    ‘What say?’ Dick had spoken through a mouthful of nails, and the transistor at full blast.
    ‘Good experience for him,’ Carrie shouted in the old man’s ear. ‘Like barbers learning by giving free haircuts.’
    ‘Stuff! The only experience that long-haired fool needs is a kick in the backside from a Suffolk Punch.’ The old blacksmith hobbled back indoors, bent and lamed from years of that kind of ‘experience’.
    Dick did a good job. When it was done, he gave Carrie a leg up and she rode home, John’s shoes clopping pleasantly on the road, the view over the hedges from this new height like seeing a whole new land. People rushed by her in cars like boxes, staring ahead, too low to see anything, even if they bothered to look. Carrie felt very sorry for them.
    She had no saddle or bridle, so at first she rode John bareback, in a halter with a dog leash clipped to either side for reins.
    He behaved quite well, though it seemed he was more used to being driven, since he answered her voice better than her legs and would rather trot than canter, but his backbone was like riding on top of a fence.
    Carrie tried putting a cushion between her and his back, but it always slipped out.
    ‘If you were gripping properly,’ said Em, who was watching from an upstairs window while Carrie made circles in the one flat corner of the meadow, ‘it wouldn’t fall out’
    ‘You come and try then.’ Carrie got off and led John towards the house, bow-legged because she was sore and stiff.
    ‘Not till you get a saddle.’ Em could ride, but she was one of those who could take it or leave it, impossible for a horse fool like Carrie to understand.
    ‘Saddles cost money.’ It was all they could do to pay for John’s feed.
    ‘You’ve got almost ten pounds saved.’ How did she know? The teddy bear was under a loose board in Carrie’s bedroom.
    That’s for a horse.’
    ‘You’ve got a horse.’
    ‘I mean, the one I’ll buy.’ Ever since she could remember, she had been saving for her dream horse. Her dark grey Arab, her shining black thoroughbred, her bright bay with two white socks… The perfect horse. The horse to end all horses.
    John butted her in the back like a goat. Aren’t I it?
    ‘Of course.’ She stroked his neck, then turned back to look up at Em again. ‘I wish I could make some money.’
    ‘I know a lady who wants a baby sitter,’ Em said. She quite liked small children, and had taken care of some of them in the village and houses round about while the mothers went to town or out to dinner.
    ‘Why don’t you go?’
    ‘I have once, but I’ll let you have the next job, since you need the money more than me.’
    ‘That’s awfully nice of you, Emmie.’ Carrie tried not to sound surprised, but it was surprising when she and Em were unselfish with each other.
    ‘Oh, I’m like that. It’s my nature.’ Em took in her head and shut the window.
    When Carrie clanked Old Red up the