A horse for Sarah

         They stood at the edge of the paddock, the soles of their shoes already mired with a thin, mucosal layer of god only knew what. Neither Phillip nor Sebastian cared to give it much thought.

         “I remember why I never came out here much.”

         “You and me both.”

         For twins they’d never shared any of those special bonds that seemed to form the stable of TV documentaries; but their tastes were similar enough so that they at least agreed on most things. And their views on the family farm hadn’t changed much since they’d both left for university on the same day almost fifteen years earlier.

         Sebastian took in the bleak rolling hillsides that pared away to a sparsely broken horizon.

         “How did the old man cope out here for so long?”

         Phillip turned and took in the same bare panorama.

         “Because he had Sarah. Somehow he managed to trick her into sacrificing everything for this place.”

         “Including her life in the end.”

         The brothers let that final comment about their sister hang between them for an uncomfortable moment before continuing their trudge towards the last barn on the estate inventory.

         The inside of the wooden structure was as dark and dank as all the others, but at least it felt a little warmer. Judging by how bad the old man’s mobility was when the two attendants from the nursing home scooped him up that morning it was unlikely that anyone but Sarah had been out to this part of the property in years.

         Phillip stopped abruptly once his eyes accustomed to the gloom and his brother promptly walked into the back him almost dropping the Blackberry he hadn’t put down during the whole exercise.

         “Jesus. Watch it. I almost lost my phone.”

         “Shush.” Philip moved forward, slower, with exaggerated caution. “What the hell’s that?”

         Sebastian peered over his brother’s shoulder.

         “Well I know we’ve been off the land for a fair few years. But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that was a horse.”

         “I can see that. What the hell’s it doing out here? It’s not on the list.”

         Sebastian gave a cursory run through of the sheaf of papers that catalogued all their father’s worldly possessions.

         “No. No horses. Guess it must have belonged to Sarah.” Sebastian placed a tentative hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You don’t think it’s the one she was riding when…?”

         Philip slipped away from the hand, even though between his woollen coat and Sebastian’s leather gloves it hardly constituted physical contact. Still. Their’s wasn’t a family given to shows of intimacy, no matter how removed.

         The horse reared slightly and backed away from his approach, flaring nostrils and scraping a hoof through a fine patina of chaff and dust.

         It was a beautiful beast though. Chestnut brown, like a deep polished mahogany, reminiscent of the hobby horse Sarah had loved as a little girl. Philip smiled. If Sarah had owned a horse then this would have been the one she’d have bought. No doubt about that.

         Sebastian barely registered the brush off by his brother and was at his side again by the time Philip had reached the gate penning the animal in. The Blackberry had finally been relegated to his pocket.

         “What do you think she called it?”

         “I don’t know.” Philip struggled to remember the name of Sarah’s hobby horse, a fact which saddened him more than anything else they’d done that day.

         “What a lonely existence.”

         “You mean for the horse?”

         “No.” Sebastian pursed his lips in thought. “Not for the horse.”

         “I could take it back with me.”

         “To the City?” Sebastian’s voice cracked with the incredulity of the notion. “Don’t be bloody ridiculous.”

         “Miranda could find some way of letting the kids make use of it.”

         Philip let his idea trail off, already recognising the falseness of the suggestion even before his lips and tongue had given credence to it.

         Sebastian let out a half stifled chuckle.

         “What is it?”

         “Just strange that we both bundled the old man off to a nursing home within the first five minutes of being back here. But we’re standing here debating about what to do with a bloody horse.”

         Philip smiled. “But it was Sarah’s horse.”

         The smile passed from Philip to his brother and settled on Sebastian’s lips as though a mirror had been propped between them.

         “So what would Sarah have wanted?”

         Philip moved cautiously towards the latch on the gate and then paused, checking Sebastian’s face for any signs of dissent.

         Sebastian hesitated for a second, then stepped aside, nodding with heavy purpose as he did so.

         The latch was a little stiff, but eventually gave with some persistent rattling. The iron hinges creaked as they rotated inwards, taking the wooden struts and cross beams of the gate with them.

         Philip and Sebastian held their breath once the gate was fully open, both men half expecting some great explosion of equine movement.

         Instead the great shining beast they'd uncovered took slow, deliberate steps forward, its impressive shoulders briefly eclipsing the brothers from one another, until it had joined them in the main space of the barn like some itinerant worker waiting for the next task to be doled out.

         "Now what?" Sebastian whispered, slightly ducking to try and gauge Philip's thoughts from beneath the horse.

         Philip stretched out a hand, but before he could land a single digit on the animal it galloped from the barn in a flurry of clapping hooves and whinnying brays.

         The brothers watched the horse tear across the paddock and through the open gate at the far side that they'd neglected to close behind them.

         "Where do you think it's off to?" Sebastian finally managed to ask.

         Philip kept his eyes on the far distance. "I don't know. But wherever it goes at least it will be its own choice."

         And with that the brothers closed up the barn and started the slow walk back to the house.