He turned from Perkin to me and with a swift change of subject said. ‘How well do you ride?’
‘Er...’ I said. ‘I haven’t ridden a racehorse.’
‘What then?’
‘Hacks, dude ranch horses, pony trekking, arab horses in the desert.’
‘Hm.’ He pondered. ‘Care to ride my hack with the string in the morning? Let’s see what you can do.’
‘OK.’ I must have sounded half-hearted, because he pounced on it.
‘Don’t you want to?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, please.’
‘Right, then,’ he nodded. ‘Mackie, tell Bob to have Touchy saddled up for John, if you’re out in the yard before me.’
‘Right.’
‘Touchy won the Cheltenham Gold Cup,’ Gareth told me.
‘Oh, did he?’ Some hack.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mackie said, smiling, ‘he’s fifteen now and almost a gentleman.’
‘Dumps people regularly on Fridays,’ Gareth said.
With apprehension, I went out into the yard on the following morning, Friday, in jodhpurs, boots, ski-jacket and gloves. I hadn’t sat on a horse of any sort for almost two years and, whatever Mackie might say, my idea of a nice quiet return to the saddle wasn’t a star steeplechaser, pensioned or not.
Touchy was big with bulging muscles; he would have to be, I supposed, to carry Tremayne’s weight. Bob Watson gave me a grin, a helmet and a leg-up, and it seemed a fair way down to the ground.
Oh well, I thought. Enjoy it. I’d said I could ride: time to try and prove it. Tremayne, watching me appraisingly with his head on one side, told me to take my place behind Mackie who would be leading the string. He himself would be driving the tractor. I could take Touchy up the all-weather gallop at a fast canter when everyone else had worked.
‘All right,’ I said.
He smiled faintly and walked away and I collected the reins and a few thoughts and tried not to make a fool of myself.
Bob Watson appeared again at my elbow.
‘Get him anchored when you set off up the gallop,’ he said, ‘or he’ll pull your arms out.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, but he had already moved on.
‘All out,’ he was saying, and out they all came from the boxes, circling in the lights, breathing plumes, moving in circles as Bob threw the lads up, all as before, only now I was part of it, now on the canvas in the picture, as if alive in a Munnings painting, extraordinary.
I followed Mackie out of the yard and across the road and on to the downland track, and found that Touchy knew what to do from long experience but would respond better to pressure with the calf rather than to strong pulls on his tough old mouth.
Mackie looked back a few times as if to make sure I hadn’t evaporated and watched while I circled with the others as it grew light and we waited for Tremayne to reach the top of the hill.
Drifting alongside, she asked, ‘Where did you learn to ride?’
‘Mexico,’ I said.
‘You were taught by a Spaniard!’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘And he had you riding with your arms folded?’
‘Yes, how do you know?’
‘I thought so. Well, tuck your elbows in on old Touchy.’
‘Thanks.’
She smiled and went off to arrange the order in which the string should exercise up the gallop.
Snow still lay thinly over everything and it was another clear morning, stingingly, beautifully cold. January dawn on the Downs; once felt, never forgotten.
Bit by bit the string set off up the wood-chippings track until only Mackie and I were left.
‘I’ll go with you on your right,’ she said, coming up behind me. ‘Then Tremayne can see how you ride.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I said ironically.
‘You’ll do fine.’
She swayed suddenly in the saddle and I put out a hand to steady her.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked anxiously. ‘You should have rested more after that bang on the head.’ She was pale. Huge-eyed. Alarming.
‘No... I...’ She took an unsteady breath. ‘I just felt... oh... oh...’
She swayed again and looked near to fainting. I leaned across and put my right arm round her waist, holding her tight to prevent her falling. Her weight sagged against me limply until I was supporting her entirely, and since she had an arm through her reins her horse was held close to mine, their heads almost touching.
I took hold of her reins in my left hand and simply held her tight with my right, and her horse moved his rump sideways away from me until she slid off out of her saddle altogether and finished half lying across my knee and Touchy’s withers, held only by my grasp.
I couldn’t let her fall and I couldn’t dismount without dropping her, so with both hands I pulled and heaved her up onto Touchy until she was half sitting and half lying across the front of my saddle, held in my arms. Touchy didn’t much like it and Mackie’s horse had backed away sharply to the length of his reins and was on the edge of bolting, and I began to wonder if I should just let him go free in spite of the icy dangers everywhere lurking. I might then manage to walk Touchy back to the stable with his double cargo and we might yet not have a worse disaster than Mackie’s unconsciousness. The urgency of getting help for her made more things possible than I could have thought.
