Toadman (noun): Someone who has bargained with the devil for the ability to control horses 
 
Aged five

His first memory of it is this: a mass of hair hanging in a closet, shrouded by his father’s clothes. This memory is tucked away inside a drawer, right there, in amongst the twist and flex of his insides, along with these: trying on a pair of school shoes, the assistant pinching his toe; standing on a beach muffled in a cagoule, rain falling sideways; his first day at nursery, licking the chocolate biscuit his dad packed in his lunchbox.  

Each time he opens this memory, its fabric thins until the threads break apart and he can see straight through.  
 

Aged sixteen 
 
Pip has shot up over the summer, and the elastic braces on his half of the horse, the Back, need to be lengthened. This afternoon, his dad will let out the hem on his school trousers, and what a thought that is. One more term of school ‘til he can finally join his dad full-time. They are close, in the middle of the living room, so close that Pip can smell toast and jam on his dad’s breath, his morning cigarette. Pip breathes through one whistling nostril to conceal the bite of alcohol on his exhale, barely covered by toothpaste and swigs of mouthwash. His dad’s half of the costume, the Front, is on the old wicker armchair as always, like an elderly relative; legs splayed proprietarily, the head on a wonk, huge teeth in a static grin. His reflection stretches and contracts in the horse’s great glass eyes. 

“Keep still,” says his dad, and Pip does. 

He first tried it on when he was ten years old. You take the Back, his father had said. It’s tradition, the child always takes the Back of the horse. The pull of the elastic, then, had already felt familiar, as if the knowledge of the weight of it, the heat of it, had always been with him. How many times, he thinks, must this elastic have been taken in, and let out again over generations? How many more? 

“Big’un next week,” says his dad. 

“I know. Thropton fair.” 

“It’s a responsibility, y’know. All this.”  

“Yes, dad.” 

In the kitchen, the fridge judders, then quiets. Outside, the postman approaches their house and the letterbox clacks, post landing on the doormat with a thwack. 

“They’ll be watching,” his dad says, flicks his head at the stairs. 

The wall that lines the stairs is crowded with pictures of his ancestors. Pip had brought one of the photos into school once, two long-dead figures peering into the present, the costume between them. This is me, Pip said, but the other children didn’t understand the thread of tradition that has pulled at him since he was old enough to listen. He tried again with that boy he liked, the one he danced with on May Day as Pip played the part of a girl, his hands damp in Pip’s own, the one whose ruler he broke to get his attention, the one who slipped through the bars of the school fence, rushed across the road to knock at the door of the witch’s house, and then back again, her eyes on his back while the children all squealed. The photo of his forefathers didn’t move him. Back in the classroom, Pip had stuck his finger into a pencil sharpener and twisted. He doesn’t know why he did it, can’t even remember the aftermath now, but there in the living room he flicks at the scar on his finger with his thumb. 

“It’s not for taking lightly, this” says his dad. 

“No.” 

“We’ve a reputation,” he says. This Pip knows all too well. His father is exacting, and the consequences for missing the mark? Well, when Pip was twelve, he had demonstrated this for him, holding a lighter up to Pip’s face, pushing his nose into a can of petrol. I would rather see it all burn, than have you fuck it up, he had said. Pip still catches a whiff of gasoline if he unstoppers this memory, the fear embedded as deep and as sure as he knows this: that his dad over-sugars his tea, that he smokes one cigarette each day before breakfast, that he checks on the tea roses that line the walls of the house every afternoon, that he takes an evening paper only. 

“Don’t think I didn’t notice what you did.” 

The living room shrinks to his dad, eyeball to eyeball with him now, hazy round the edges of his large and sturdy frame, pocks and pores looming. Pip’s stomach roils, a prickle working its way up his back.  

Last night he had decanted some bottles from his dad’s drinks cabinet into an old White Lightning bottle and topped up the remainder with water. The resulting concoction was viscous and brutal and last night he had passed it around in the garden of a friend, one of whom took long and greedy gulps. Pip followed her lead, and this morning he had slunk home, head whirling, legs trembling as he cushioned the click of the back door. 

“You’re not to fuck it up, hear?” his dad says, and Pip is twelve again, the scent of petrol making his head spin. He manages a nod. 

“Y’see this?” his father says, holding up a finger, bulging at the joint like a gnarled root pushing its way to the surface. “I got this for acting the fool. Don’t think you won’t get the same.” 

“Ok, dad.” 

“Ok?” 

“I mean yes, dad. I’ll be better,” he says. He’s not twelve anymore, he’s almost a man now, after all, and this is his destiny. Him and dad, together forever, as it was at the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen. 

“There,” his dad says. “Finished. Try it out.” Pip hefts his feet, takes three deft steps forward and two quick ones back, just as they have practiced, and his dad’s smile sweeps over him like a woolen jumper made by your grandma, a spoonful of glistening apple crumble, a cat that climbs onto your lap and kneads at your chest.  
 
 
Aged Twenty-Nine   
 
The horsebox sways over the bumps of the A12. Pip and his dad sit on the floor, braced against the walls in amongst the remnants of hay and the lingering stench of beast and manure. He is caught up in one of his dad’s mad schemes again; they will show up in a horsebox, a grand reveal when they arrive at the fête. It was a palaver to sort it and his dad is on the phone now to the vicar. 

“We’re on the drag,” he says, “but making good time now.”  

His dad is always on the lookout for new material, each moment building on the last, drilling Pip until his legs ache, until his head is fuddled with stage directions. He doesn’t complain because their work has set them at the pinnacle of their career, higher than any of their predecessors. At fayres up and down the county, Pip and his father dance, and the crowds erupt like a storm, but it doesn’t soothe the ache in his chest. At home, on the wall by the bottom step of the stairs, forefathers watching on, his dad has added a picture of them both; Pip in the shaggy trousers, tail hanging down behind, thumbs tucked into braces. An expression that he had hoped would look both thankful and poised. His dad like a soldier at St James’ Palace, straight as a poker, legs together and arms clamped to his sides, face obscured by the horse’s great sneering head. He stops and stares at the picture each time he goes to climb the stairs, imagines snatching it off the wall and shattering it over the banister. 

“Be there soon,” his dad says, words distorted by the clatter of the trailer, the gentle drone of the piano tethered to the floor with tow straps; an additional errand to make their driver’s trip worthwhile.  

“Can’t wait,” says Pip. This is the response that his dad expects, and Pip presses his lips together to prevent anything else he might say from slithering out. He has lots to keep to himself these days, has mastered the art of the self edit. 

The countryside passes in flashes of blue and gold through the horse’s eye-level grill, stuttering as they rattle past a tree, the occasional A-road-side home, a combine harvester. Pip will miss it when he leaves; this vast flatness and skies huge enough to swallow him whole.  

“The Mayor’ll be about today,” says his dad. 

“Ok,” says Pip, then, as his dad’s eyes narrow, “Great. We’ll be able to show off our new routine.” His dad nods and smiles.

They are closer now than they’ve ever been, their years together marked by success; they are the talk of the town, the stars down the local, the special guests at every fayre and fête going. Down the pub, they drink their twin pints, racing suds to the bottom of the glass. His dad deals out cards and crows when Pip bluffs. Through town, they match the pace of their steps, his dad clapping a hand on Pip’s shoulder. 

They’re on the B-road now; he can tell by the potholes. The driver hits a big old one and Pip jolts. The piano clanks, merrily discordant. 

His dad is happy, yes. Proud, certainly. But Pip? Well, his knees are giving him jip again. And these days he can never quite straighten out his back, can’t escape the permanent headrush of the bend. He has caught himself wondering, more and more often over the years, if this is all that there is, playing the part of a good son, a trusted colleague, his head pressed against his own dad’s arse. It’s small, this life, and his teenaged enthusiasm has worn off. Now, he can’t reconcile the pattern of pleasing his dad with the vastness of what could be; a career maybe, university, friends who have no concept of his past. It turns his stomach though, to think of the betrayal he has been plotting. His friend has a bedroom waiting for him, a car to come and pick him up when Pip gives the word. 

“Y’know,” his dad says “when I was ‘round ‘bout your age, me and dad would’ve dreamed of this.”  

“Shame he’s not about to see it.” Pip doesn’t offer anything else. To do that would risk talking too much, rambling on one sentence after the other until he blurts it all out. I hate this, I hate you. How dare you think I would ever be like you. An oft-rehearsed melodramatic speech, delivered in querulous voice, accompanied by a teenage flouncing act.  

The sun has found the delicate spot on Pip’s inner elbow, and his skin prickles.  

They brace against the side of the horsebox as the driver slows and then turns, the thunder of tyre on concrete replaced by the muffled rustle of grass, the hum of a crowd, the crackle of something indecipherable delivered via PA system. His dad closes his eyes, a faint curve at the corner of his mouth.  

“This is it, Pip, lad,” he says. 

Pip has drafted a text to his friend; yes, please, come tonight. His dad is bedecked in full costume now, horse grinning and nodding at him, human hand proffering the length of fabric that will shroud Pip. His thumb is poised over his message. Pip takes the cloth in his free hand and waits for his dad to turn away. Presses send. 
 
 
Aged Thirty-Five 

Pip still has the house key, and his dad hasn’t changed the locks. Perhaps he had hoped that Pip would come back. Or – more likely – too much of a coward to face him again.  

A dull stillness clings to the nooks and crannies of his former home; stale, as if his dad had died more than just a week ago.  
Pip used to dream about his death. How it might be easier if his dad died – a quick car accident, maybe, or an aneurysm that lies dormant and then ruptures – rather than having to look him in the eye again, to explain, to justify, to shoulder the weight of his recriminations. He wonders whether he should have tried harder, should have sent a letter rather than a postcard, a visit rather than a phone call. No, he thinks. He is the child. His father should have come to him.  

And yet, when the news came, he had sprung into action, rushing to book a train ticket. On the journey home, he plaited the hunk of mane that he had hacked from the costume years before and ran it through his hands, over and over, until his skin chafed and the hairs caught on wisps of lifted skin. Now, in the house, he takes it out from his pocket and brushes the tip along his lips. 

The solicitor is calling again. 

“Just a few matters of probate to go through,” she says. Pip settles into the old wicker armchair, now free of its grimly avuncular inhabitant. His dad must have put it away, in the cupboard in his room. 

The photo of them both is no longer attached to the wall that runs alongside the stairs. All that remains is a ghostly outline on the flock wallpaper. In the hospital, his dad had been an outline himself, time and ill health rendering him fuzzy. How could this be the man whose broad hips he had clasped, whose raised fist he had flinched from? On his first visit, Pip had patted his dad’s too-warm hand, gently, just below the drip, to wake him. Although he was weak, he still had the wherewithal to send Pip away. Ungh, he had said, attempting to push himself away, eyes widening, fingers scrabbling desperately at the button to call the nurse. 

On Pip’s second and last visit, his dad had pretended to be asleep, eyeballs flickering behind his lids, a hitch in his breath. How funny it is, Pip thought, that their roles should have reversed, that his dad is frightened of him. He had contemplated shaking him, standing over him, scolding him through clenched teeth, but instead Pip let him be, leaving behind tea roses from the garden, a pack of cards, the evening paper. 

All is settled with the solicitor; the house will go to market, so there’s no time like the present to start the work of erasing seventy years of life. He boxes up the pans that were a wedding gift from his grandparents and leaves them on the street with a note tucked in the folds of the box. Free. Please take. After that, he tears through the rooms in a flurry of destruction, panting and grunting like a beast. He rips up and discards birthday cards, swimming certificates, letters from friends. There is a dresser stuffed full of horse memorabilia. Nothing of Pip. In the bin bag it all goes. A cabinet in the hallway holds fan mail, and in the drawer of his dad’s desk are receipts, invoices. It feels right to say sorry dad, before slings it on the kerb, his eyes stinging with sweat or tears, he can’t tell. 
 
 The day arrives, of course, when the kitchen, and the living room, and the hallway, and the bathroom, are cold and cavernous. Only then does Pip make his way upstairs, pulse surging in his throat as he slips his ancestors off their hooks and stacks them in his arms. Up here, it smells of the home that he once knew. His feet are still able to find a path around the boards that would flex and creak beneath his feet. 

Pip’s bedroom is somewhere between a deletion and a shrine. He’s not sure what would have been worse – if it had been preserved in time or converted into something else entirely? His dad has packed away the most personal items – there they are, bubble wrapped and nestled in boxes in the corner – but his bed is made up as if his dad expected him to come home. Christ, he thinks, you could have just picked up the phone, dad.  

It has been years since he’s seen his father’s room. Since he’s smelt the horsehair and seen how the light falls through the window, dappled by the apple tree outside. The cupboard door is ajar, the costume watching him. The Back sags from a coat hanger by its suspenders. He can smell his sweat on the elastic. His dad’s half is more complex; the legs, the head, the length of fabric that covered them both. He reaches his hand into the nose of the horse. Pip pulls out the photo of him and his dad, the postcards he sent. He sets them all on the floor and reaches into the legs. Inside, a book of matches, lighter fluid. Pip grins. He knows what he must do. Like father, like son. 

The Front is rigged up with hangers and ropes and he undoes the knots and holds the weight of it all in his arms. He puts on his dad’s clothes; the trousers, the pinstripe shirt and tie, the woollen jumper. When he slides his legs inside the Front, and slips the horse’s head over his own, it is more restrictive and more liberating than he could have ever imagined. He adds the Back to the pile of his dad, of himself. Pumps lighter fluid on top until his wrists ache. Lights a match and lets it drop. Pip wraps his hands around the Front, around himself, and breathes it all in, imagines a pair of hands warm at his waist. The bedroom is warped through the eye slits, the fire fierce already, the smoke invading his lungs, but when he finds the mirror, his dad is looking back at him.