A Rural Affair

‘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.