“I suppose not,” I said. But it was unsatisfactory all the same, not to have any kind of acknowledgment.
“Follow me, Miss Vincent.” Miss Trubshawe now took charge of the coiled-up lungeing rein. Instantly, Pedro opened his eyes. He walked across the yard, shoulder-to-shoulder with Miss Trubshawe like an old friend. He was not in the least bit worried by the hideous whip with its swinging thong. He looked a different animal, cheerful, energetic, altogether too jaunty. In retrospect I liked him a lot better when he was asleep.
Now that the time had almost come to mount, I was frightened. My heart had started to bump against my ribs in an uncomfortable way, and my palms felt damp. Unwillingly I walked behind Pedro and Miss Trubshawe as they crossed the yard and passed under an archway set into the multi-storey stable block. On the other side of the archway was a fenced lungeing circle which looked rather like a circus ring. The surface was soft and springy underfoot. One could have been walking in a pine forest where centuries of falling needles had made the ground resilient.
“Bark,” Miss Trubshawe informed me.
In my anxiety I looked at her, startled, not understanding. “Sorry?”
“Bark,” she explained. “The surface is made of bark chippings. It makes for a soft landing.”
I hoped this was intended as a joke. Uneasily, I watched as Miss Trubshawe tightened the girth straps under the saddle flaps. Pedro flipped his ears back and swished his tail, not enjoying it.
Unusually for a village child, I had never had any contact with ponies. To me the equine species were merely useful props in the Western and period films I watched at the cinema and on the television. Marcia Cunningham had ridden, certainly. I could remember seeing her ride along the village street, proud and top-heavy on a fat bay pony. Richard, I recalled with a pang, had also owned ponies at one time. A ribby chestnut with a high head carriage and a rolling eye sprang to mind, and a grey with red bandages on its front legs. Clearly I remembered the red bandages. And Richard, sitting easily, elegantly in the saddle, effortlessly in control. Damn Richard, I thought.
Riding lessons had been suggested for me, naturally. Riding lessons, swimming, tennis, bell-ringing, pottery classes, all had been dangled in front of me at some time in vain effort to persuade me out of the cinema, to prise me away from the television set, to lift my nose out of books on the theatre, out of screen-plays, but all to no avail. Some things I had accepted. Elocution lessons I had attended, ballet dancing, and tap, all three with an eye to their future use, but there had been no room in my life for riding, no use for it at all. Now I wished there had been.
Now, as Miss Evelyn Trubshawe beckoned me and I walked reluctantly across the bark chippings which made for a soft landing towards Pedro and his vacant saddle, I wished with all my heart I had said yes to riding lessons.
Miss Trubshawe took me firmly by the elbow and placed me next to Pedro’s shoulder.
“I won’t be able to mount,” I told her, “not possibly. Not without reins and stirrups.”
“Rubbish.” Miss Trubshawe took my left hand and slapped it on to the front of the saddle. “Bend your left leg from the knee.” Rather reluctantly I raised my left leg and to my alarm felt my ankle taken in a grip of iron. “On the command of three, spring upwards and throw your right leg over the saddle.”
“I can’t,” I protested, “I won’t be able…” But on the command of three I found myself being hoisted upwards and somehow my leg went over and I found myself sitting on the saddle. It felt very hard and slippery. I did not like it. Pedro, so fat and solid looking from the ground, looked strangely insubstantial from the saddle. There did not seem to be enough of him to ensure my security. All I could see in front of me was a narrow length of neck topped with ungraspable stubble, ending in two sharp ears. Added to this there was the further inconvenience of having nothing to put my feet in and nothing to hold on to.
“I shan’t be able to learn to ride without reins and stirrups,” I said decisively. “It will be impossible.”
Miss Trubshawe ignored me. Instead she commanded Pedro to ‘Walk on!” and Pedro began to circle the enclosure with his jaunty steps, whilst I gripped the front of the saddle, trying desperately not to fall off.
“Relax, Miss Vincent,” trumpeted Miss Trubshawe from the middle of the circle, where she had positioned herself with the lunge rein in one hand and the horrible whip in the other. “Relax your body completely, and allow your natural balance to assert itself!”
I glowered at her. I felt she should already know that relaxation in such new and alarming circumstances was impossible; that telling me to relax was as unrealistic as an air hostess telling passengers not to worry after informing them that one of the engines had caught fire. I had not taken to Miss Trubshawe on sight, and now I liked her even less. I thought her fat and mean and hideous in her silly black outfit, and I was sure she had deprived me of reins and stirrups out of spite, because she disapproved of me and wanted to make riding appear more difficult than it actually was.
But I only had this single lesson in which to learn to ride, and I had to make the best of it. And so I worked at relaxation, remembering how I had been taught at drama school, starting with my jaw, my neck muscles, my shoulders, working downwards through my knee joints, to my ankles, even to my toes. And after a few more circuits I found I was becoming accustomed to the movement of the horse, that there was a rhythm to it, that Pedro’s hooves were set down with a soft thud, in a regular sequence, one, two, three, four. And I was able to relax. And because I was able to relax, the movement was absorbed and followed by my own body. I liked it. I was even able to obey Miss Trubshawe’s commands to allow my legs to hang loose and long, and to bring up my chin and look forward between Pedro’s sharp little ears, instead of down at the bark chippings.
“Right, Miss Vincent,” Miss Trubshawe boomed, “let go of the saddle and fold your arms.”
I stared at her. Relaxing was one thing, but letting go of the saddle was quite another.
“Fold your arms, Miss Vincent! You will be quite safe. It will give you confidence to find that you can still balance perfectly well. There is absolutely no necessity to grip the pommel like a drowning man.”
I did not believe it. Cautiously, I let go of the saddle with one hand. I found to my surprise that it was true, I didn’t feel less secure. I loosened my grip with the other hand. Still there was no appreciable lessening of security in the saddle. Finally, I was able to let go of the pommel altogether and I folded my arms.
“Good!” Miss Trubshawe bellowed. “Now we seem to be getting somewhere!”
I was not sure if this was meant to be a compliment or not but within the next ten minutes my confidence had increased sufficiently to enable me to perform a variety of exercises which included rotating my arms like windmills and touching my toes without altering the position of my legs. Once I had got used to being on a moving animal, I found the exercises easy because I had done similar things at warm-up every morning at the Rose Jefferson Academy and mercifully I was still supple.
After a while Miss Trubshawe turned Pedro round the circle in the opposite direction and the exercise was repeated. Now I had mastered the exercises and the balance I felt it was time to enquire again about the possibility of having reins and stirrups.
Miss Trubshawe brought Pedro to a halt so swiftly that I almost fell forward on to his neck with my nose in the stubble. “Miss Vincent, we have been through all this before, and I imagined I had made it clear that you will not be provided with reins or stirrups in this lesson, in the next lesson, or even the one after that.”
It was clear that I would have to explain my situation.
“But there won’t be a one after that,” I said, “or a next lesson. This is the only lesson I can afford, and I need to learn to trot and canter, at least!”
“You mean you were expecting to learn to trot and canter today?” Miss Trubshawe’s untidily sprouting eyebrows almost vanished into her hairnet. “In your first
lesson?”
“It isn’t just a case of expecting,” I said, “I have to do it.”
“Have to do it?” Miss Trubshawe repeated as if she suspected her ears were deceiving her. “Have to do it?”
“I have to do it,” I explained, “because I’m an actress and I’ve been given a part in a television serial and I’m supposed to be able to ride.”
“But you will never learn to ride in one lesson, Miss Vincent,” Miss Trubshawe said in a scandalized voice. “You aren’t even at the stage when you are ready to trot, heaven only knows when you will be ready for the canter!”
This was exasperating, especially as in my own estimation I had been doing very well. “I might have been,” I said crossly, “if I had been given reins and stirrups.”
“Reins and stirrups have nothing to do with it,” Miss Trubshawe snapped. “When you are in full control of your body without them, when you have achieved a deep and secure seat, and can apply each hand and leg independently, then is the time for reins and stirrups and not before!”
Impasse. We glared at each other across the bark chippings. I now decided that I hated Miss Trubshawe. She had not even tried to understand my situation and she was not prepared to move an inch as far as the lesson was concerned.
Unexpectedly she said, “If they wanted someone who could ride for this television serial, why didn’t they say so?”
“They did say so,” I said.
The unforgiving eyes narrowed. “So you lied to them?”
There was no point in denial. “Yes,” I said.
“I see,” said Miss Evelyn Trubshawe in a crisp voice.
She did not see at all. All she saw proved that I was no better than she had first suspected when I had appeared in my pink leg-warmers and stiletto heels. “My agent gave me enough money for one lesson,” I said. “He said one lesson was enough for anybody. He told me that riding was a piece of cake; that I should just think of the horse as a furry bicycle.”
Miss Trubshawe digested this in silence. I thought her lips twitched, but then again, I could have been mistaken.
“Miss Trubshawe, I can’t come back for any more lessons,” I said, “I have no money.”
“I suppose not,” Miss Trubshawe said. “I suppose like most young people who opt for ludicrously insecure professions, you spend most of your time living on Social Security, quite forgetting that you are being supported by taxes taken from people who have settled for sensible jobs.”
Sensible jobs. Proper jobs. I had heard quite enough of this recently. And somehow it was easier to take from my mother who, for all her disapproval, had only my personal interest at heart; it was even easier to take from Richard who, for all his arrogance, could no more be blamed for his comfortable background than Pedro could be blamed for not being as beautiful as the mahogany horse. But I was not going to take any lectures from Miss Evelyn Trubshawe, a complete stranger, who had no right to disapprove of me and what I chose to do with my life because it was none of her business.
“I am paying you ten pounds for this lesson,” I told her furiously, “and I am not paying you to lecture me about my career! I am paying you to teach me to ride, and when I say I want to learn to trot and canter, I mean it!”
Miss Trubshawe took this rather well. “All right,” she said in an amenable tone, “if you feel you must, I suppose we had better get on with it.” Lifting the end of the whip so that it pointed at Pedro’s tail, she commanded, “Pedro, T-r-o-t!”
Pedro did trot. Pedro jumped into a trot so quickly that I almost fell off backwards over his rump. Suddenly I found myself banging up and down in the saddle, lurching uncontrollably from side to side, bumping and shaking in the most uncomfortable and alarming manner, and despite Miss Trubshawe’s bellowed commands to relax my legs and keep them hanging loose and long, I felt them stiffening and creeping inexorably up the saddle flaps, and despite the fact that I was clinging to the pommel for all I was worth, I felt my whole body slipping dangerously to one side, and the next minute was sprawled on the bark chippings that made for a soft landing, with all the breath knocked out of my body.
Pedro, who had continued to trot on his accustomed circle, came to an abrupt halt in front of me. He looked at me with interest tinged with alarm, as if uncertain as to how I came to be there. He pointed his ears towards my recumbent form, and snorted a little through his nostrils.
“If you would care to remount, Miss Vincent, we will try canter next,” Miss Trubshawe said in a level tone.
I managed to get to my feet. I felt thoroughly shaken and shockingly near to tears. It took Herculean self-control to make nothing out of it. “You did that on purpose,” I said.
Miss Trubshawe neither admitted nor denied it.
“I could have been injured,” I said. “I could have broken an arm or a leg! Even a broken finger would have lost me the part!”
Miss Trubshawe sighed. “Miss Vincent, I fear you will probably break some part of your anatomy if you are not properly taught.”
I brushed bark chippings off my pink and beige jersey. I took some very deep breaths but still I was shaking so much I was forced to lean against Pedro’s shoulder for support. “Miss Trubshawe,” I gasped in despair, “how many lessons do I need? How long does it take to learn to ride?”
Miss Trubshawe looked at me thoughtfully, pondering the question as if she had never really considered it before. “Six months,” she said eventually, “six years. Sixty years.”
I thought this was ridiculous. “Now wait a minute,” I said. “I only want to master the basics, I don’t want to ride in the Olympics!”
“After twelve lessons you might be able to stay in the saddle,” she said. “After twenty, you might just be able to pass as a rider.”
“Twelve lessons!” I exclaimed. “Twenty!” I thought of Ziggy saying “There’s nothing to it. You got something to put your feet in, you got leather reins to hold on to, and away you go.” Well, now I knew the truth, and the truth was twelve lessons at a total cost of one hundred and twenty pounds, and that just to enable me to stay in the saddle! With hateful and heartbreaking certainty, I saw the television part slip out of my grasp, and knew that with it I would lose my Equity membership and any hope of work before my year of residence was up at Henry Irving House. “There is no way I can afford even twelve lessons,” I said.
There seemed no point in getting back into the saddle. Miss Trubshawe coiled up the lungeing rein and led Pedro back to the yard. I followed a little way behind, watching the steel shoes nailed to each of Pedro’s hooves as they rose and fell, the way his tail swung from side to side as he walked, noticing the way the white hairs turned to yellow towards the end of the tail, like a smoker’s moustache.
In the tackroom I unbuckled the awful hat, pulled off the boots, and sat on the tin trunk to put on my leg-warmers. Miss Trubshawe watched me. Her eyes were not unforgiving any more, they were filled with exasperation.
“You really are going to lose this part, are you, if you can’t ride?” she said.
I thought I had already made that perfectly clear. “It’s as good as lost,” I said. And a fat lot you care, I thought, you and your no reins and stirrups nonsense and sixty years to make a rider. I could not bear the thought of having to go back to the Casting Director to confess that I had lied to him, but I knew I would have to do it. Despite Ziggy’s optimism, I now knew how difficult riding was, and I also knew it would be impossible to bluff my way through it. Not even All About Horses and Horse Riding could help me now.
“And it means a lot to you, this part?”
“Yes.” Keeping my teeth jammed together, I pulled up my leg-warmer and stuck a stiletto on my foot. I could not risk looking up. I did not want Miss Trubshawe to see exactly how much it meant.
“I see.”
I wondered why she persisted in saying “I see,” when it was patently obvious that she did not see at all. In my imagination I saw again the aghast expression on the Casting Director’s face when he had
said, “You must be able to ride, Grace Darling! Jesus Christ Superstar, it was the audition requirement, we did say!” I felt my eyes growing perilously hot.
“At weekends and in the evenings we do get extremely busy here,” Miss Trubshawe said. “If we need extra help, we usually take schoolgirls to help with the menial tasks.”
I pulled on the second leg-warmer, wishing she would go away. The last thing I wanted was to listen to other people’s problems when my own world was about to fall apart.
“It doesn’t require any particular skill, but it’s hard work, and dirty; mucking out the stables, sweeping the yard, cleaning tack.”
I pushed my second foot into its stiletto and stood up. Miss Trubshawe’s bulk was still planted firmly in front of me, blocking my escape.
“But if you clock up six hours work,” Miss Trubshawe continued in a relentless voice, “you do get one hour of tuition free of charge.”
I stared. I wondered if I could have heard correctly. “You mean you don’t take any payment?” I said.
“Free of charge usually means that you don’t take any payment,” she said in a testy voice, “although in this case you would be paying in hard labour.”
I sat down again, somewhat abruptly, on the tin trunk. I looked up at Miss Trubshawe. “Are you saying you might be prepared to take me?”
“Why shouldn’t I take you? Are you averse to hard work, Miss Vincent?”
“No,” I said. “No, of course not. But I thought you disapproved of me; you told me I was living off taxes paid by people who had sensible jobs.”
“So you are, and I’m entitled to my opinion. But I also think you’re in a bit of a spot, and if I can help out, and provided you don’t mind a bit of slave labour,” Miss Trubshawe said, “I think we might have found a way to keep you out of the dole queue – for a little while, at least.”
The film test loomed. Despite Ziggy’s assurances that it was just a formality, it assumed monumental importance. It lay ahead, immovable, impenetrable. I could see neither round it nor over it, and it was impossible to imagine what life would be like on the other side of it. The film test barred the way to my future; it was an obstacle I would either negotiate or fail to negotiate, but either way I could not see beyond it.
Make me a Star (The Silver Bridle Book 1) Page 5