Horse

by Geraldine Brooks

Jarret hadn’t come into his full height, but he was set to grow into a good-size man. Harry hadn’t had that chance. He was only five, small for his age and slight boned, when they threw him up on his first thoroughbred. Every time he fell off he earned a beating, so he soon learned to stay on. If he gained weight, they cut his meager rations to a single turnip for dinner and a pint of milk for lunch. If those starvation portions didn’t keep enough weight off, they set him to walk a ten-mile circuit at the end of his chores, and if that didn’t work, they sweated him. Buried up to his chin in piles of steaming manure on the hottest days of summer, he felt his scant flesh melting. He spent his youth with an ache in his gut and a lightness in his head. When you’ve been famished like that, you don’t forget the hurt of it, even if the hunger fattened the pile of money that later bought your freedom.