A Rural Affair (31 page)

I went home, thoughtful. Stirred, but not shaken by her remark. No, I wouldn’t pay any attention. Yvonne wasn’t to know I
hadn’t had a man in my life for many years; wasn’t to know that in fact, rather than it being too soon, I’d left it rather
late.

Archie was sound asleep in his pushchair now, eyelashes a pair of perfect crescents, mouth open, wet thumb dropped on his
chest. Once inside I lifted him out carefully and carried him upstairs to his cot, then went down and gazed out of the front
window, arms folded across my chest.

A grey mist had descended like an aged duvet, the once crisp and golden leaves dank and soggy now underfoot. Of
course, it was that time of year again, wasn’t it? The hunting season. Other country sports too. A time when shots were fired
in the air, horns were blown, bonfires crackled. The long run-up to Christmas, when people in towns hunkered down, and those
in the country revved up. Polished their spurs, filled their hip flasks, had their horses clipped for action. Hunting. An
ancient tradition, which, it seemed to me, still sorted the men from the boys, at least in this village. Mounted: Chad and
Hope Armitage, Angie Asher, Mary Granger, Angus and Sylvia in their younger days but represented these days by their grandson
Hugo, fresh out of Harrow, and, no doubt, Sam Hetherington. Foot followers: people like me, Jennie, Yvonne, Bob, Frank – oh,
and Pete, who shod all the horses around here but didn’t actually own one.

And Hope had automatically put me in that foot-soldier category, hadn’t she? Wouldn’t have given it a second thought. And
she was right. I’d followed before, stood around at meets. The whole village would turn out for this one, the first of the
season, unless you really didn’t agree, which was unusual in the country. Yes, everyone would be there: the great and the
good aloft and on high on their stamping, snorting beasts, bits jangling, and oozing … what was it, sex? Money? Status? Then
down below, people like me and Jennie and Frankie, who’d help the publican pass up the port in little plastic tumblers, looking
on in awe and wonder. Later, the whole ensemble, horns blowing, hounds alert, would trot smartly off up the lane. As Sam would
trot too, flanked perhaps, on either side, by Angie and Hope, sexy in their tight breeches, hairnets, lipstick, nipped-in
jackets. I was pretty sure I had one of those jackets somewhere …

I gazed at the mist. An idea began to form. Consolidate
and thicken, like the grey haze outside. Suddenly, on an impulse, I plucked my phone from my pocket and perched sharply on
the arm of the sofa. It rang a moment, then answered.

‘Hi, Dad, it’s me.’

‘Darling. How lovely. How are you?’

‘Really well,’ I assured him. I hadn’t been, as recently as a couple of days ago, but was determined to be now. Not to go
backwards. Fall in any holes. I rushed on. ‘Um, Dad, a favour.’

‘Of course, my love. Fire away.’

‘Can I borrow a horse?’

‘A horse?’

‘Yes, there’s a meet here the day after tomorrow. The opening meet, actually. I thought I might go out.’

There was a long pause. Finally, when he spoke, incredulity and delight filled his voice. ‘But you haven’t ridden for years,
Poppy!’

‘I know, but I
can
ride, can’t I? One doesn’t forget?’

‘Oh, sure, it’s like riding a bike, but –’

‘But what?’

‘Well, hunting is a slightly different kettle of fish, love.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, everything goes up a gear. Fences, ditches – the horse itself. More adrenalin. Much more speed.’

I thought of Sam, galloping along on some gleaming steed, spurred and confident, the Grangers behind him.

‘I can go up a gear.’

‘Of course you can!’

My dad had a terrific can-do attitude. All he’d felt honour-bound to do was voice some caution, which he’d surely done. Now,
however, the brakes would come smartly off.

‘Come over tomorrow,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ll see what I can
fit you up with. Tosca, perhaps. Or even Badger? Quite a challenge. A mount for my girl! Yes, pop by tomorrow and we’ll sort
you out. Day after tomorrow, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you can take it back in my lorry. Leave your car here.’

‘Except … where would I put it?’ I glanced wildly around my very small sitting room.

‘Hasn’t your friend Angie got stables? You can pop it in with hers for the night, can’t you?’

‘She has got stables …’ I stood up from the sofa and caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror above the mantle: quite flushed
for me. Some unfamiliar bright eyes looked back too. I licked my lips. ‘Except, I quite wanted to keep it a secret. Just –
you know. Turn up. Surprise everyone.’

My father barely missed a beat. If there was one thing he liked more than a challenge, it was a surprise. ‘Oh yes,
much
better! That’ll show them. Anyone who’d written you off as a wilting widow.’

‘Well, quite,’ I said quickly. He’d got the gist. I walked to the window, arm still clenched round my stomach. ‘But … where
would
I put it, Dad? Would it be all right in the field with the sheep at the back, if I cleared it with the farmer?’

‘Farmers can be awfully antsy about that sort of thing. Haven’t you got some sort of outbuilding at the bottom of your garden?’

‘It’s called a garden shed, Dad. With a lawnmower and spades inside it.’

‘Well, you can move the lawnmower, love. Don’t get bogged down by the minutiae.’

I sensed my father warming to this. He’d been known to employ some pretty eccentric dwellings for animals in the past and
we’d once had a miniature Shetland pony that
wandered into the kitchen when it rained, to lie down by the stove. And of course the fish in the bath. I could sense him
powering on regardless.

‘Saw the door in half,’ he said firmly. ‘I can’t visualize that shed offhand but I’m sure it’s big enough. Anyway, don’t you
worry – we’ll sort something out. I’m just so thrilled you’re up for it Poppy! Atta-girl! Good for you.’

It occurred to me as I put the phone down, that for all his relaxed attitude, Dad might have been more worried about me than
he’d let on. He was clearly thrilled to bits. I should have taken more time previously, to reassure him. Oh well, he was certainly
reassured now.

As I bounded up the stairs to Archie, who I could hear crying – clearly not as sleepy as I’d thought – I realized I was humming.
‘Raindrops on Roses’, Mum’s favourite. And cheesy though it was,
The Sound of Music
always came to me in moments of elation. Elation, I thought in some surprise, as I lifted my son from his cot. I twirled
him round the room in my arms and he gurgled in astonished delight. I planted a resounding kiss on his flushed cheek. No,
I would not be written off. Not yet, anyway. I would not sit quietly in partial shade. I would have a stab at the sunlight.
I would trot up the road alongside Sam Hetherington, cheeks pink, lipstick gleaming, I would not be sweet Poppy Shilling who
was slowly finding her feet; I’d be up and running. Galloping, even. I sailed out of the room with Archie in my arms. Even
if I broke my bloody neck in the process.

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.