A Rural Affair

20

I found my father in front of an old Elvis DVD, slumped on the exploding beige sofa, the one where you had to know where to sit to avoid the springs. A couple of bantam hens seemed to be watching too, from the top of the piano, where they roosted occasionally amongst elderly copies of the Racing Times. The two dogs lay across his lap. Dad was playing an acoustic air guitar, winsomely plucking at imaginary strings, crooning softly. As I came in the room he turned and I saw his florid cheeks were damp with tears.

‘It’s the bit where she tells him she can’t marry him because she’s dying of that dreadful disease and he sings “This is My Heaven”. The hula-hula girls are about to come on.’

‘Ah.’

I sank down beside him with a smile, shoving Mitch up a bit. I was still in my coat, but then coats were a necessity in Dad’s house; he was still in his. I’d seen this movie a million times, had grown up on it, along with all the other black and whites in Dad’s collection, but it still held a certain allure, and before long my eyes were filling too. We even swayed a bit and waved our hands along with the hula-hula girls at the end. As more tears rolled along with the credits, I wondered if they were for Elvis and his lost love or the way this house always made me feel: its cosy shambolic familiarity, the peeling paint, the clutter of tack and books and bottles, the terrible carpet and the terrible aching feeling I got whenever I came. The temptation to stick my thumb in my mouth and stay for ever, curled up with Dad watching old movies, Mum’s photo on the crowded sideboard smiling down at us. Safe. Surely most children feel like that when they’re little but then can’t wait to get away, achieve some distance. Most would surely hurtle from a place like this; so why, then, did I still feel some incredibly visceral, gravitational pull?

‘Right. Party’s over.’ Dad’s familiar way of drawing a veil over all things emotional. He got to his feet with an almighty sniff, pulling a red and white spotty hanky from his pocket and blowing his nose hard. ‘Important to get it all out, though, every now and again,’ he observed gruffly.

Important to have a good sob, was what he meant. About Mum. Which I knew we’d both been doing, the weepy movie giving us an excuse. At least I’d never have to do that to get over my more recent bereavement, I thought. In fact if I did get out a movie, it might well be Put Out the Flags.

‘Where are the kids?’ Dad asked, stuffing the hanky back in his pocket and helping himself to a tumbler of Famous Grouse to steady the nerves. Not the first of the day, I’d hazard, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

‘With Jennie.’ I leaned my head back on the sofa and looked up at him. ‘I couldn’t take them back in the lorry, Dad. No belts.’

‘Oh.’ His face fell like a child’s, as I knew it would. He was disappointed. Couldn’t understand why, since I’d rattled around in that lorry unfettered, my children couldn’t. No matter how often I told him about laws and fines, not to mention terrible injuries, he still didn’t get it.

‘But you were perfectly OK,’ he’d say. ‘And I drive safely …’

‘I know, Dad,’ I’d say sheepishly, scratching my neck, and never pointing out how irresponsible or uncaring he’d been, for Dad was neither. Although in the eyes of others he might be.

‘But I thought you could take them to the meet?’ I said to him now. ‘Maybe follow for a bit? They’d love that.’

‘And I’d love it too. Good idea. I’ll do that.’ He rubbed his hands together, pleased. ‘Now. Come on, let’s go and see what I’ve got for you.’ Cheered immeasurably by a bloody good cry, the whisky and the prospect of a day out with his grandchildren, he made for the back door and his boots.

I got to my feet hurriedly. ‘You mean, you’ve definitely got me one?’

‘Of course I’ve got you one. I’ve got two. You’re spoiled for choice. Come on, they’re in the yard.’

I felt a flutter of excitement as I followed him outside. Dolls, ponies, boys – these apparently mark the three stages of girlhood: the definitive rites of passage. And although I would never regress to Tiny Tears (having said that, on occasion I have found myself on Clemmie’s bedroom floor, brushing Barbie’s hair with a gormless, faraway expression on my face), in moments of crisis, or general barrenness on the man front, I can quite easily resort to horse flesh to make my heart beat faster. Like my father before me, I find the equine world not only more reliable and dependable, but infinitely more sensitive. It was with a quickening pulse, therefore, that I swapped my shoes for one of the many pairs of boots by the back door and scurried after Dad to the yard.

At this time of year most of his horses were rugged up and grazing in the fields, having been in all night, but sure enough, in the otherwise empty row of loose boxes, occupying the nearest one was a good-looking bay, his head over the door. He watched as we approached. He had a kind, intelligent face and his ears were pricked. My ribcage hosted another little dance.

‘Ooh … handsome brute.’

‘Isn’t he just?’ Dad said softly. ‘Dutch Warmblood. Bags of breeding.’

We stopped at his stall and I stroked his velvety nose as he blew into my hand. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Well, his full title is Thundering Pennyford, but he answers to Thumper.’

‘Thumper,’ I echoed. God, he was gorgeous. Sleek, dark and delicious. Quite big too, I thought nervously as I looked down his arched neck to his shapely quarters. Another head appeared next door.

‘And this one?’ I moved on to the adjoining stable where a smaller, scruffier piebald, with a wall eye and a back so broad you could lay it with knives and forks, had come to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Agnes. The safer bet.’

‘Ah.’ I gave her nose a stroke too. ‘Thumper isn’t safe?’

‘Oh, he’s safe, but he’s fast. He’s a thoroughbred, Poppy. Got more temperament.’

Temperament. On my first hunt. Did I need that? Or did I need Agnes? Safe and solid? Thumper was rather splendid, though. And I’d look so much better up there in skintight jodhpurs and shiny leather boots. Which was surely the point. Agnes was sweet, but nevertheless had a touch of ‘Where’s the cart?’ about her.

Dad was already putting a bridle on Thumper. ‘Want to try him?’ he asked casually, leading him out.

‘Sure. Why not.’ Equally casually.

Dad swiftly added a saddle.

‘Just take him for a spin in the paddock over there, then, and see how you get on.’ In one deft movement he’d done up the girth and was holding the stirrup leather to steady the saddle.

I jumped on, pleased I could still do that without a leg up, and, as I say, Thumper wasn’t small. Then I found my other stirrup and trotted off smartly. Should have walked first, obviously, and Thumper got a bit of a start at being asked to trot out of the yard from a standstill, but, apart from a slight jolt, he mastered his surprise beautifully. Terrific manners, I thought, as we glided on and he succumbed to the bit, which I was pleased to see I could still ask him to take, arching his neck accordingly. Fantastic suspension, excellent brakes, no rushing. But then Dad had only the best in his yard. In the paddock I let the throttle out and asked for a canter, which was never going to descend into a gallop, I decided, then changed the rein and did it all the other way round. I came back to the gate flushed and elated. Puffing like billy-o too, and sweating profusely.

‘Not as fit as you used to be,’ my father observed with a grin, leaning on the gate.

‘Nothing like! Since when did sitting on a horse take it out of you?’

‘That’s what they all say. But you won’t need to be fit on Agnes. You really will just sit there. This one’s more of a ride.’

‘But he is heavenly, Dad.’ I leaned forward and stroked his neck.

‘Oh, he is,’ he agreed cheerfully.

Once again he’d done his bit: exercised the note of caution by proffering the Datsun, but secretly hoping I’d go for the Ferrari, which, naturally, I did.

‘You don’t want to try her, then?’

‘Not sure I’ve got the energy.’

‘You’ll need a bit more puff for a few hours’ hunting.’

‘I know,’ I said breezily, ‘but the adrenalin will kick in.’

‘And I have to be honest, Poppy, I don’t know if he’s hunted. I bought him as an eventer. Thought he might do for the Wilkinson girl. No idea if he hunts.’

‘Don’t worry; if he events, he’ll hunt. It’s all hedges and ditches, isn’t it? It’ll be meat and drink to him.’

I vaulted out of the saddle. Who was this woman? Assuring her reckless dad, a man who lived by the seat of his pants and on the smell of an oily rag, that he was fussing unnecessarily? That life, in fact, was a breeze? Leaping on and off strange thoroughbreds when she hadn’t ridden for ten years? Abandoning her children to her neighbour yet again, in order to do so? A woman who’d had a sniff of another life, that’s who. An intoxicating whiff, from beyond the village green, of a life where women wore grey cashmere a lot, hunted weekly, shopped in Fortnum’s and, more importantly, snared attractive men. Hope, Emma … I gritted my teeth. A woman who, after that phone call with Sam the other day – me in my cold little cottage, if you recall, him on his hunter in his wet shirt – had gone to bed every night since imagining galloping behind fawn and black hounds at the front of the field, tucked in behind the pink coats. Sam and I leaping a hedge side by side, grinning delightedly at one another as we landed, him admiring my seat, and then, perhaps at the next fence, Sam looking at me so admiringly he bogged it, misjudged the take-off, came off. Away I sped to catch his loose horse. Led it back to where he was staggering, muddy and abashed, to his feet. Held it, prancing, while he clambered on, a gash to his head, a breathless ‘Thanks, Poppy!’ before we cantered off to join the field again: me, glancing over my shoulder to check he was OK; him, slightly dazed – could have been my beauty, could have been the bump to his head – but desperate not to let me out of his sight, not to let me get away.

I’d turned into a woman with a mission. But that, I told myself, was all I wanted. An admiring look, a sniff of another life, then I’d drop it. Because, frankly, I could take it or leave it. Could go back to my other life, my cottage, my children, their head lice, happy in the knowledge that I’d drawn admiring gasps from Sam and the rest of the village. Oh yes, naturally they’d all be watching, standing at that particular hedge as if it were Beecher’s Brook. Happy they’d all seen me in a different light, in a ‘Wow, who’s that girl?’ light. That was all I needed. Honest.

We’ll see.

My father and I shared a quick lunch, courtesy of our old friend Mr Heinz – Dad doling it out with a spoon that had more than a sporting chance of having just doled out the cat food – and then, when I’d admired the new canary singing his little heart out in the bathroom, I made a move. Together we loaded Thumper into the lorry – obviously he went in like a dream, no digging in of heels in a Thelwell-like manner for him – then mentally ticked off a list of everything I needed.

‘Tack, rugs, hay nets – it’s all in the cab. OK, love?’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘And I’ve put a couple of feeds in, one for tonight and one for tomorrow.’

‘Brilliant.’

‘And you reckon your shed will be fine?’

‘No, I had a look and it’s tiny, and too full of rubbish, so I rang the farmer with the sheep at the back and he says I can put him in the barn he’s got there, just for the night.’

‘Oh, ideal!’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed, declining to add that the farmer was in fact Odd Bob and that he’d practically taken it as a marriage proposal when I’d popped round to Dog-Howling Farm to place my request. He’d beamed stupidly from ear to ear and agreed that mum was indeed the word when I’d told him it was a secret, rather as if we’d just plotted to flee to Gretna Green together, winking and tapping the side of his nose annoyingly. He’d even tried to kiss me on the cheek as I left. Bob was still behaving very strangely indeed.

‘And you’ll be sure to come to the meet and give me a hand?’ I asked my father anxiously. Whilst I’d rejected all Bob’s offers of help, I’d be very glad of his.

‘Of course I will. Although it occurs to me that if I’m coming to the meet I could take Thumper straight there for you …’ He furrowed his brow and we looked thoughtfully at the horse, all ready and waiting within. ‘But on the other hand you’ll want to get to know him, won’t you? Maybe have another ride? Probably best he’s with you.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed tentatively. We regarded each other uncertainly.

‘Tell you what,’ he declared suddenly, ‘once my lot are fed and watered, which I’ll do early, I’ll come straight across to your place to get you tacked up and loaded.’

‘Oh, would you, Dad?’

‘Course.’ He beamed. ‘I say, what fun. Good for you, Poppy. I do think you’re brave.’

Did he? I thought nervously, trundling home in the lorry ten minutes later with half a ton of horse flesh in the back. If my Dad thought I was brave, that was worrying. As was driving this lorry. Of course I’d driven it loads of times in my youth, but I’d forgotten how wide it was and how, obviously, one couldn’t see out of the back and had to rely on wing mirrors. Surely one should have a special licence? Have passed some sort of HGV test? Dad hadn’t mentioned it, but then, he wouldn’t.

With uncharacteristic foresight I’d radioed ahead for reinforcements, so that, as I rounded the bend into the village, it was a happy sight that greeted me. Sitting on the grass in Jennie’s front garden were all the children, aka the welcoming committee. Archie was on Jamie’s lap and Hannah and Clemmie were kneeling shoulder to shoulder, intent on squeezing rose petals into water-filled jam jars to make scent, something which would have transported my daughter to big-girl heaven. At the sight of the lorry, however, they abandoned the perfumery, jumped up and poured out of the white picket gate. Simultaneously the front door flew open and Jennie hurried down the path in their wake, wiping her hands on her long white apron.

‘You’ve got him,’ she breathed, gazing up at me in disbelief through the open cab window. The children were jumping up and down excitedly beside her.

‘Of course I have.’ I hopped smartly down from the cab. ‘Now all we’ve got to do is unload him and take him round the back to the field.’ I gave her a huge grin as I marched to the back of the lorry, feeling like the pied piper with the children on my heels.

‘Out of the way, everyone!’ I called. ‘Stand back, folks, this comes down pretty smartly!’

They shrank back as I reached for the rope to pull down the ramp. It did indeed come down with a mighty bang in the road, all springs long gone. Jennie jumped and the children shrieked some more. I laughed indulgently at them, realizing I was getting a bit of a thrill out of being in control here. So much of my life was spent following bigger, bossier personalities. I must remember this. Something was definitely kicking in.

Thumper turned his head and gave me an old-fashioned look as I went inside to get him. He was slightly sweaty, I noticed, but it was warm in the box, probably nothing to worry about. As I untied his head-collar rope and made to lead him down the ramp, however, he surged ahead of me, out into the road. I hung on tight to the end of the rope. What was that about control?

‘Oh my God, he’s huge!’ gasped Jennie, grabbing Archie, who was in danger of being trampled. ‘I thought you’d be on more of a pony!’

‘No, no. Definitely didn’t want a pony.’

But she was right. He was huge. Even bigger, it seemed to me, prancing in the road outside my cottage, than at Dad’s. He was snorting a lot and pawing the ground, his neck white with sweat.

‘You’ll need a ladder just to get on him, won’t you? Oh, Poppy, I do think you’re brave.’

Worrying again. Jennie generally thought I was a wimp.

‘Why is he stamping?’ asked Hannah.

‘Alarmed at being in a strange place, perhaps,’ I hazarded.

And without my father’s soothing hand of course, and – oh Lord, he was rearing up now, pulling back on the rope. A curtain twitched opposite.

‘Open the gate, for heaven’s sake Jennie,’ I hissed. ‘Come on, let’s at least get him out of centre ville.’

One or two people had come into their front gardens to see what was going on, to see what on earth Poppy Shilling was up to now, and it occurred to me that the surprise element of this plan was rapidly disappearing down the plug hole. I’d hoped to unload him quietly and then sneak him round the back out of sight, but of course you couldn’t so much as fart in this place. And Thumper was doing much more than that, lifting his tail and having a nervous evacuation, letting loose a stream of green slime. The children squealed in a mixture of glee and disgust as it bounced off the tarmac and near their shoes, their shrill voices frightening the horse even more.

‘Just open the bloody gate, Jennie!’ I yelled, as she finally flew to do just that, not the one into the garden, but the five-bar affair that led down the side of her house to the field.

My own armpits were a match for Thumper’s now, and Mrs Harper from next door didn’t help, popping out on an urgent errand – to tighten the string around her dahlias – just as Mr Fish from across the street was finding it terribly important to choose that precise moment to realign the milk bottles on his step.

‘You ridin’ that thing tomorrow, Poppy?’ he called, curiosity eventually getting the better of any spurious activity.

‘That’s the plan,’ I told him nervously, hanging on to the end of the rope as Thumper, seeing the open gate and, further on, a green field, sped through.

‘Blimey. Good luck.’

I’d gone. Hanging on to Thumper, who was belting down the stretch of no-man’s-land beside Jennie’s house: the patch of scrubby ground where Dan kept his collection of clapped-out cars, some minus their wheels and on bricks, all in varying degrees of decay, his wife’s chickens roosting on their back seats in true Darling Buds of May style. They fluttered about, squawking in alarm as our party hustled past. Another gate. This time Jennie needed no prompting and flew round me in her pinny to open it. The sheep, who’d surged across the field out of interest, now surged back, parting like the Red Sea as I came through. Jennie was busy fastening the gate behind me but happily Frankie had appeared, hotfooting it from her bedroom where she would have had a bird’s-eye view. Sizing up the situation, she was running across to open the door to the barn in the middle of the field. In a trice I’d popped Thumper inside, slipped his head collar off and, before he knew what was happening, shut the door on him, my thoroughbred hunter thus deposited within.

‘He doesn’t look very happy,’ Frankie observed as we peered through the window. Her hair, I noticed, was a rather nice honey shade and not the usual aggressive peroxide.

‘He’s fine,’ I said confidently as Thumper twirled and snorted, pawing the sawdust I’d put down for him, nostrils flaring. What had happened to him? Was he on drugs? Up to his forelock on barbiturates, or something? Or had it been my driving? I had, admittedly, touched the odd kerb along the way. ‘Just settling in, that’s all. It’s all a bit new to him, you see.’

‘Still, he looks a handful,’ Frankie remarked. ‘I wouldn’t want to cling on to that tomorrow. I do think you’re –’

‘DON’T tell me I’m brave!’ I snapped.

I left her looking after me in open-mouthed astonishment as I strode back across the field, off to re-park the lorry somewhere less conspicuous than in the middle of the village, a tiny bit of me wishing I’d never, ever, started this.

That night, however, when Clemmie and Archie were safely in bed – Thumper too, certainly to the extent that I couldn’t hear him stamping and snorting from my bedroom, and last seen, when I’d snuck out to the barn in my dressing gown, quietly munching hay, albeit with a slightly wary expression on his face – yes, that night, as I stood in front of my dressing-table mirror, I felt reassured. I’d poured myself into my kit – pour being the operative word – and now felt something like courage returning. All the riding I’d ever done in my youth had been in jeans and wellies, but Dad had cajoled a neighbouring teenager into lending me some clothes. The skintight jodhpurs and an ancient jacket of mine, which didn’t so much nip in as charge, ensured I looked the part. I could barely breathe, of course, but surely that was the point? All accessories – long black boots, velvet cap, snowy white stock – were borrowed from Dad’s same friend and completed the glamorous, sexy look, I decided, gazing delightedly at my reflection. My cheeks were flushed and my eyes very bright, which helped, but then I had drunk nearly a whole bottle of wine. For Dutch courage. So that when I slapped my whip against my boot and snarled, ‘Knock’em dead, Poppy. You show that snooty lot you were practically born in the saddle,’ even I was pretty sure it was the drink talking. My reflection sniggered in agreement.

Later, when I’d polished off the remains of the bottle in front of the telly – madness not to – I went upstairs to bed. My equine ensemble had by now come adrift, all restraining buttons and zips undone and agape. Whip in hand and still in my boots, I swaggered across the bedroom to draw the curtains. I felt a bit like John Wayne. But before I reached the window I caught sight of my reflection in the dressing-table mirror, and halted. This, I decided, swaying slightly, was what I’d look like post-hunt, after a hard day in the saddle: windblown, unkempt, but exhilarated. All woman. Steadying myself on the back of the dressing-table chair I straddled it backwards, swivelling to see what my bum looked like in the mirror. Not bad. I executed a rising trot to see how it would fare going up and down, away from the meet, as it were. Very passable. Then I hung on to the chair and leaned forward to mimic a gallop, bottom out of the saddle, bobbing slightly, whip flourished. Suddenly I froze, mid-bob. Mr Fish, across the road, was drawing back from his bedroom window in alarm, no doubt hastening to find Mrs Fish and tell her that the young widow opposite was not so much finding her feet as strapping them into black leather, brandishing sex toys, and heading to Sodom, Gomorrah, and beyond.