back opaquely.
‘The cattle grid was a clue,’ Dad remarked mildly as he went round to unload Thumper and as I tried to scrape it off on the grass. ‘You’re better off in wellies, love, until you get on.’
Beside me the stunning redhead peeled off the tracky bums and Barbour to reveal a pristine equestrian ensemble. She added immaculate boots and hopped smartly on board.
As Dad walked Thumper down the ramp he looked around speculatively at the surrounding country. ‘Oh, OK.’
‘What?’ I said, squeezing myself into my very tiny jacket. ‘I honestly can’t breathe in this, Dad.’ I was standing completely rigid, arms out like a scarecrow, as he brought Thumper round.
‘Never mind, you won’t be breathing much anyway,’ he muttered.
‘What?’
‘Come on, up you get.’ He gave me a leg up, at which point all my jacket buttons popped off.
‘I’ve just realized where we are,’ he said, glancing about. ‘You kick off with about six or seven jumps round these fields followed by quite a hefty ditch. Hold on to the mane and don’t worry if you pull the plaits out. No one notices once you’ve set off.’
‘What? Jumps? So soon? Do I have to? Oh, God – look at my jacket!’ I wailed, but Dad had already smoothly produced a spare stock pin from his pocket and was busy pinning me back together again.
‘Well, no, you don’t have to jump if you don’t want to, you can go with the non-jumpers. There’re always a few. But that’s not really why we’re here, is it, Poppy?’ He gave me a flinty look, which he was capable of occasionally. Fastened the pin with a sharp snap. ‘We’re here to show some metal, aren’t we?’
‘Right,’ I agreed faintly.
I felt a bit better, actually, now I was on board. And although most people looked sleek, effortless and born to hunt – a beautiful blonde, slim as a reed, rode past, nonchalantly rolling a cigarette on her taut thigh – I had seen one or two harassed riders struggling with recalcitrant mounts. Well, one. And she was about eight, on her own, with a shaggy Palomino. Dad popped across to hold the circling pony while she got on and I grinned chummily at the child. Perhaps we could ride together? She trotted off smartly, alone, waving to friends up ahead. Happily, though, with Dad by his side, Thumper seemed to have morphed into My Little Pony again and was once more displaying those pixie-perfect manners. Could Dad run alongside me perhaps? Hold on to the reins?
‘Wish I’d brought a horse myself,’ he remarked as we made our way across the field and through a gate towards the main body of the hunt in the distance: a swarm of sleek horses with riders in black and pink coats, the hounds circling at their feet, expertly controlled by a mustard-coated whipper-in. It was like a scene from a Cecil Aldin print. ‘I could have come out with you,’ he said wistfully.
I gazed down at him, stricken. ‘Why didn’t you?’ I wailed, casting wildly about for a stray horse as we approached. ‘Oh God, that would have been perfect! Why didn’t we think of that? Why didn’t we – No, Dad,
It perhaps wasn’t the entrance I’d envisaged in the safety of my own bedroom: safety-pinned, muddy-booted, clinging pathetically to my father and humming ‘Raindrops on Roses’ manically to myself, as I do in moments of stress. But if my own appearance was disappointing, the setting was everything I’d imagined.
This was a lawn meet and although we weren’t actually invited to trash the ancestral grass, we were bidden to gather on the drive right at the front of the house. Mulverton Hall was Georgian, treacle-coloured, mellow and all one would hope for, I thought, as I gazed up admiringly. Tall sash windows winked back at me in the sunshine from a benign, aristocratic facade, like some old boy in his dotage who knows he’s still got it in him, twinkling away merrily. On closer inspection it was crumbling at the edges, but then old boys often are, and the window ledges were peeling too. It also appeared to have some alarming damp patches, but that didn’t detract from the charm. At the bottom of the flight of stone steps, which culminated in an extravagant sweep on the gravel, the hunt had gathered: chatting and laughing atop their steeds, knocking back the port, horses gleaming, bits jangling, voices carrying fruitily in the crisp morning air. It was a perfect day: bright and blue with just a hint of a breeze to ruffle tails and catch lipgloss.
I spotted Chad and Hope immediately on a pair of placid-looking bays. Naturally they were immaculately turned out, although the crash hats with industrial-sized chin straps slightly detracted from the look, I decided. The old and bold, I noticed, had just rammed velvet caps on their heads and to hell with health and safety.
‘I know them,’ I told Dad excitedly, standing up in my stirrups and waving enthusiastically.
Chad caught my eye, looked surprised then smiled delightedly. He seemed about to ride across but when he alerted Hope, she turned, gazed flatly, then gave me a thin little smile before turning back to the glamorous girl on the grey
