‘Oh, there’s no mystery,’ said Roz, sensing danger again, and she added, ‘Adam knew my grandfather—he was a horse trainer, you see, and—well, it all came about over horses, Nimmitabel particularly, but her background is much more interesting than mine. It’s like a fairy tale, and anyway, I guess it is my background too.’
‘Oh good, I love a fairy story!’
So Roz embarked with relief on the story of how Nimmitabel’s dam, a champion race mare, had contracted a mystery virus and eventually been judged infertile as a result of it and finally sold at a dispersal sale as a hack when her owner had died. That was when Roz’s grandfather had been possessed of a quixotic impulse and bought her out of sentiment, remembering his wins on her, no doubt. He always remembered his wins but rarely his losses. And he’d brought her home to their Beenleigh property which was already overflowing with horses, most of them broken down, that he was trying to patch up to get to the races.
‘Oh my,’ he had said to Roz with tears in his eyes, ‘she was a bonny sight streaming past the winning post. It’s a terrible shame she can’t be bred from. But that’s life.’
Roz had enquired what they would do with her.
‘We’re going to treat her like the lady, the grand lady she is,’ he had replied, and so they had. ‘She was beautiful too,’ said Roz with a sigh. ‘Very gentle, but every inch an aristocrat.’
‘But if Amanda Belle—even I’ve heard of her racing deeds——was infertile how on earth did she have Nimmitabel?’
‘Well, there’s no doubt they tried desperately to get her in foal for about seven seasons in a row and possibly might have kept on trying if her owner hadn’t died and his estate been all sold. But seven years is a long time to persevere with a mare, and it must have looked hopeless, and we could only assume that time had finally healed the problem. But it came quite out of the blue to us. We didn’t even suspect she was in season when the drama occurred.’
‘So you didn’t send her to Kosciusko?’
‘No! We could never have afforded it even if we’d known she could conceive. What happened was that he was being floated to a new stud when the transport broke down virtually right outside our gates. And they had to take him off because he was kicking the truck to pieces and dreadfully stirred up, but that proved to be a mistake, because they just couldn’t handle him.’
Nicky said, ‘Ah! I begin to see.’
‘Yes,’ Roz agreed wryly. ‘He broke his headstall, somehow got rid of the rearing bit and took off up our drive, which, as you can imagine, caused a major panic, because he’s worth a fortune.’
‘And you saw all this?’
‘Oh yes! One of the handlers had come up to the house to use the phone before Kosciusko broke loose. In fact there was quite a band of spectators. Michael—he was the boy next door—and his father and, fortunately as it turned out, the local policeman, although he’d come to see Grandad about a cow we had that had strayed. But to cut a long story short, Kosciusko found Amanda Belle in her paddock, broke through the fence to get to her, and when we all arrived, faint but pursuing, he was covering her.’
‘My God, how wonderfully romantic!’ exclaimed Nicky, her dark eyes glowing.
‘Well, it was and it wasn’t,’ said Roz. ‘Everyone was furious—at least his handlers were—and petrified he’d hurt himself and I suppose had visions of losing their jobs. And Grandad was livid about his precious Amanda Belle being treated so cavalierly …’ She broke off to smile. ‘He kept saying—my God, is that any way to treat a lady! If he’s hurt her!’
‘Had he?’
‘No, but the biggest miracle was he hadn’t hurt himself apart from some cuts and scratches. And after it was all over he allowed himself to be caught like a lamb. That was when everyone repaired to the house for a stiff drink.’ Roz paused. ‘And that was when Grandad surprised the life out of us all,’ she said reminiscently.
‘Go on,’ said Nicky after a time.
‘Well,’ Roz shrugged, ‘he insisted that the incident had to be recorded and reported. Not, he said to the handlers, because he wanted to lose them their jobs, in fact he’d go out of his way to corroborate that it had all been an unavoidable accident, but he said it had to be recorded that Kosciusko had served Amanda Belle in front of quite a few witnesses. Naturally they all recognised her name and were doubly upset when they remembered she was incapable of being got in foal. But he just kept saying, you never know, you never know … And the policeman agreed with him, so they didn’t have much choice.