Pony Jumpers 3- Triple Bar

by Kate Lattey

  I let Buck walk out on a loose rein, then nudged him into a trot. He picked up an easy rhythm, turning whenever I shifted my weight to the side, slowing when I slowed my rising trot. I kicked my feet free of the stirrups and slumped in the saddle, sitting like a sack of potatoes, just to see what Buck would do. He tensed his back a little, flickered an ear at me, and trotted on. Nothing ever fazed him, nothing ever surprised him. I was starting to get bored of riding him.

  I turned him back towards the crossrail and jumped it without stirrups, my reins still loose and flapping. Buck ignored my ineptitude and cleared the jump neatly, and I wished he would do something wrong for once. I wished he would be a challenge, that I would have something to think about while riding him instead of just posing in the saddle and looking as good as possible while he cleared the fences.

  I wondered what it would take to piss him off. I slumped more in the saddle, swung my lower legs back and forth as he trotted. Buck flicked both ears back and lowered his head slightly, but didn’t do anything. I kicked him gently in the sides, and he moved up to a canter. I flapped my arms, the reins still loose in my hands, and I could practically sense him rolling his eyes in exasperation as he cantered rhythmically on.

  “You’re never going to win anything if you keep riding like that.”

  I slammed my body back into the correct position and pulled Buck up as quickly as I could, staring across the arena at the owner of that familiar voice. He was leaning on the gate, watching me. He looked the same. Tall, blonde, handsome as ever. We looked so alike. We had the same pale hair, the same light blue eyes, the same high cheekbones and slightly aquiline noses. I’d forgotten how similar we were.

  “What are you doing here?” I rode Buck towards him, wondering if he was a mirage, if he was a figment of my imagination that would disappear when I got close.

  Pete grinned. “Came to see you. Told you I would.”

  I glanced past him at the house, then back to his smiling face. “But…”

  My brother reached up to rub Buck’s forehead, looking slightly hurt. “Thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  “I am. Of course I am!” I flung myself out of the saddle and he opened his arms, then pulled me in for a hug. I hugged him back hard, pressing my face against the soft cotton t-shirt he was wearing. Buck snorted, and Pete released me.

  “Missed you too.”

  “I never thought you-”

  I broke off as a car drove into our driveway, and I felt my chest constrict. Pete followed my gaze as Mum parked in front of the house. We watched her get out and look at the rental car that Pete had turned up in with some confusion. The arena was right behind the house. She only had to look up and across the narrow strip of lawn that separated house and barn, and she’d see us. Both of us.

  Watching her.

  It took her a moment. First to look, then to recognise Pete. Or perhaps just to believe what she was seeing. She approached us slowly, grasping her handbag in both hands, her eyes wide.

  My brother stood his ground, watching her come. When she was only a couple of metres away, he spoke.

  “Hi Mum.”

  And that was when she started to cry.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You don’t have to stay here.”

  “Peter, don’t.” Mum’s fingers gripped the handle of her coffee cup tightly.

  “You can leave. Believe me, I know.” He looked at her intently, locking her into his icy blue gaze. I knew that look.

  Mum shook her head, then looked at the clock on the wall. “Your father will be home soon.”

  “Then I’ll see him when he gets here.”

  But Mum shook her head again. “You can’t be here when he gets home.”

  “Mum,” Pete started, but she was adamant.

  “No. I’ll talk to him. Tell him that you’re thinking of coming home for a visit. Talk him around. But if you’re just here, if you’ve just shown up while he was gone…No. He won’t like that.”

  Pete looked angry now. “So what if he doesn’t? This is your house too. It’s Susie’s house. Two against one.”

  We all knew that wasn’t how it worked. I told him so, and he turned his anger towards me.

  “He doesn’t have to be in control all the time. You have to see that.”

  “It’s easy for you to say,” I snapped back at him. “You left!”

  Pete nodded. “So can you! Both of you. That’s what I came here to say.” He looked at me, pointed a finger in my direction. “You knew that. We’ve already talked about it.”

  Mum’s jaw dropped. “When was this?”

  I blinked, shook my head. “It wasn’t like that. I never said…”

  Pete whipped his phone out of his pocket and waved it at me. “Nobody listens to me or cares what I want. Its driving me crazy. I just want a way out.”

  Mum looked hurt. “Of course we listen to you, darling.”

  “No you don’t!” Pete spoke up before I could. “You never have. You just do what Dad says, when Dad says to do it. But we don’t have to stay here. We can go back to South Africa together, as a family.” He reached across the table and grabbed Mum’s hand. “You can come home.”

  Oh no. Mum’s eyes had welled up with tears, but my own heart was pounding hard against my chest. Mum hadn’t wanted to move here in the first place. All her family were in South Africa. Pete had been born there, but Dad had talked her into moving here before I’d come along. I’d only been there twice, and it had scared me. The size of the cities, the crowds, the poverty, the crime. Napier was a lot tamer than Johannesburg.

  Mum was clutching at Pete’s hands, her nails digging into his skin. He was meeting her eyes, full of certainty.

  “You can do it, Ma. You can leave him behind.” His accent was changing. I could hear the South African edge to it now. “You don’t owe him anything.”

  Mum looked at me across the table. “What do you think, darling?”

  What a time to finally ask for my opinion.

  “We’d find a place out of the city,” Pete told me. “Away from the crowds. With some land, so you can have horses there too.”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I honestly had no words. I hadn’t seen this one coming, and I had no idea what to think, so I just shrugged. They looked away from me then, back at each other, murmuring in quiet voices.

  I looked past them and out the window, watching a tui flutter into the kowhai tree in the garden. The puff of white feathers at its throat wobbled up and down as it launched into a strange cacophony of coughs and clicks before sending out a pure note that wobbled through the air.

  In the paddock just beyond, Buck wandered into view and pawed at the ground for a moment. I watched him sag at the knees, then drop to his belly in the dust patch he’d created for just this purpose. Grunting with exertion, he rolled over onto his side, and then onto his back, waving his legs comically in the air. Skip walked up and watched him, swishing idly at the flies that tried to land on his flanks, his chestnut coat shining in the sun.

  This was the only place I knew. I didn’t want to leave.

  I was in my room when Dad got home, pretending to do homework. I heard his car pull up, the driver’s door slam shut, his footsteps crunch over the gravel. I looked out of my window at him as he approached the front door, noticing for the first time the way that his hair was thinning on top. He flung the door open and announced his presence to the house, and I heard Mum reply.

  She’d convinced Pete to go home before Dad got here, although it had taken some persuasion. My brother was a hot-head like our father, and he had been primed for a fight. But Mum had talked him down. Told him that the only thing he would achieve by springing a visit on Dad was to get himself kicked right out again. I’d nodded along, not wanting to bear witness to the inevitable shouting match that would’ve followed.

  But Mum had told Pete that if he wanted her to leave Dad and move back to South Africa, that he had to let her do it on her own terms. Starting wi
th letting her control the situation, and letting her talk to Dad first. She’d been serious, and that’s what had eventually persuaded my brother.

  And that’s what scared the hell out of me.

  Dinner was normal – or so we tried to make it seem. I don’t think Dad cottoned on that anything was up, and Mum and I put pretty good faces on it. We pretended that everything was fine, that our family was functional, laughed and smiled and ate our food. I watched my mother closely, wondering what she was thinking. Was she changing her mind? Or was she resolving herself to changing her life?

  When she knocked on my bedroom door later that evening, I didn’t bother clicking off Facebook. I didn’t care about getting in trouble anymore – at least not with her. We lived by a series of unspoken rules, and one of them was that Dad made the decisions for all of us, and we abided by them. It wasn’t a rule that either of us particularly liked, but now she was planning on breaking it, and I was struggling to wrap my head around that concept. She’d never stood up to him before, not even when he’d thrown Pete out. What had changed?

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” I scrolled on down the page, pausing on a photo that AJ had posted of jumping her pony Squib over – of all things – a wheelbarrow full of manure. I clicked on it to enlarge it, and wondered if my ponies would’ve jumped that. Probably. There wasn’t much they didn’t do. It would never have occurred to me to try though, and I wondered what AJ’s life was like. Different from mine.

  “Facebook? I thought we’d talked about this.”

  “You talked about it. I listened.”

  “Susie. It was for your own sake.”

  I sighed, pulling my eyes away and looking at her. “I know, and at the time it was the right plan. But I have to face up to things eventually. I can’t just shut myself off from the world forever.” I could see the fear and worry in her eyes. “I’m being careful.”

  She pursed her lips, but nodded. “Fine. Well, turn it off now, and give me the laptop.”

  “No.”

  Mum looked startled. “Excuse me?”

  “No. I’ll turn it off, and promise not to use it again tonight, but it stays in my room.”

  Mum looked at me, wondering whether or not I could be trusted. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you sure you want to move back to South Africa?” I countered, and she blanched.

  “Shh! Keep your voice down.” She lowered her voice to almost a whisper, taking her own advice. “I said that to your brother to make him leave.”

  “You wouldn’t really do it, would you?”

  Mum looked around the room, avoiding eye contact. “Of course not. Now turn the computer off and go to sleep.”

  I nodded, doing as I was told. She stood up, and kissed the top of my head.

  “Good girl. Soet drome.”

  I made myself smile at her as she left. “You too.”

  After all, she was far more likely to have sweet dreams that night than I was.

  * * *

  Bruce rolled the placing pole out with his foot, then nodded to me. “Again.”

  I picked up Skip’s reins and moved him into a trot. Dad was standing at the side of the arena watching, his arms folded on the top railing of the fence. He adjusted his sunglasses, and called to me as I passed him.

  “Eyes up!”

  I ignored him. Skip picked up a canter, and I rode him down to the line of jumps. Over the placing pole and then over the vertical, two short strides to the oxer, three forward strides to the square oxer and then bring him back, back, back for the two short strides before the planks. I rode it accurately, and Skip jumped it like a mechanical pony, every step perfect. I’d been with him the whole way, leg still, back flat, hands soft. Eyes up.

  “Very nice,” Bruce told me and I smiled at him as I eased the chestnut pony back to a trot and gave him a pat. “Well ridden. You’ve certainly got him working for his oats.” He clapped Skip’s neck as I stopped next to him.

  “He’s so easy,” I said with a shrug as Dad came striding into the arena. Bruce made him stand outside the fence during our lessons now, after becoming sick of the constant interruptions and repetitions that Dad fired at me. Previous coaches had been too intimidated by my father to argue, but Bruce had put his foot down. And he’d ridden at the Olympics, so Dad did as he was told. But he didn’t like it, and he always made a point to come into the arena at the end of the lesson and get his two cents in.

  “Very nice, Susie,” he told me as he strode towards us, echoing Bruce’s words exactly. “She’s riding much better now, isn’t she? We should’ve called you in for lessons years ago.”

  Which was hilarious, really, considering how long and hard I’d had to battle with him to get Bruce here in the first place. Dad hadn’t wanted a new coach undoing all of my learned technique. He’d said that what I was doing was working, because I’d been winning, so why change a winning formula? But I’d known that Bruce was the one coach available who wouldn’t be beaten down by my father. I’d known that he’d make me work for it, instead of just flattering my father’s ego by praising me constantly like so many others had before him.

  Bruce had made me go right back to basics – even insisting, after my first lesson with him, that I go and get six weeks of dressage lessons and learn how to ride from the seat and not the hand before he would teach me again. Dad had been livid, but I’d agreed to it. I would’ve agreed to anything. I’d spent all season watching Bubbles Deveraux ride flawlessly, her equitation copy-book perfect over every fence, and I’d decided that I wanted to ride like that. I’d been willing to work for it, and I had. I could now look close to perfect, although I would never have Bubbles’ supple length of leg, or manage quite the same elegance in the saddle. But now I was ready for a new challenge. Dad and I agreed on at least that much. What we didn’t agree on, still, was what that challenge should be.

  Dad stood in front of Bruce with his arms folded, and I considered myself fortunate that he still came to coach me, despite how much he disliked my father. Then again, he made sure that he was paid handsomely for his time. I was fairly certain that he charged us more than some of his other clients.

  “We think it’s time she moved up onto a horse,” Dad told Bruce. “Get her ready for the Young Rider classes. She’s got the two ponies going so well now, there’s no need for her to look for another one.”

  Bruce quirked an eyebrow at me. “You ready for a horse?” he asked.

  I was supposed to say yes. Dad was already talking on, mentioning Steph’s horse Meadowlark, who had jumped so well for her in the Young Riders and was widely rumoured to be on the market right now. But Bruce was still looking at me, waiting for an answer.

  Waiting for my opinion.

  So I shook my head and told him the truth. “I’d rather have a young pony to produce.”

  Dad glared at me, but Bruce nodded. “I think that’s a good idea,” he agreed. “You’ve only had made ponies, and it’ll help your riding a lot if you get something a bit younger, a bit greener. You can’t ride pushbutton mounts forever. Not if you want to ride in team competitions. Never know what kind of horse you’ll draw, and if you can’t ride anything quirky or difficult, forget it.”

  That shut Dad up, and fast. One of his greatest ambitions was to see me ride in international team competitions, and one of his biggest regrets was that I’d aged out of the Children’s International FEI classes without ever managing to win one. I’d been second twice, but second wasn’t good enough.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for something for you,” Bruce said thoughtfully. “Something that’s been well-started and is already competing, but needing mileage to get it up to the top level.” He was nodding to himself, and I could almost see him flipping through possibilities in his head. “I’ll ask around. Keep you posted.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.” I think we were both aware that price wasn’t a factor, but my reputation probably would be. I’d come up against it before, and lik
ely would again.

  “Unless there are any you’ve already got your eye on?” Bruce asked.

  I hesitated for a second, then shook my head. “No.”

  There was no point even bringing it up. I’d asked once, a year ago, when I’d first seen the pony out at the Taupo Christmas Classic. He’d turned my head immediately, but when I’d politely approached his owner and asked if he was for sale, she’d laughed in my face. Over my dead body will I ever sell him to you. And although some things had changed, that one wouldn’t have. I was sure of it.

  So I lied to Bruce, because I didn’t want to go through that again. Even though I still really liked that pony. He reminded me of Buck, with his glossy dark bay coat, and he had at least as much jumping talent. He was quirky though, and I’d seen him play up a few times. That only made me want him more. I wanted to sit on something difficult. I wanted to know if I could handle it.

  At least now Bruce was in my corner. As we walked back to the stables, I wondered what kind of pony he would find for me. Whether I’d actually get the challenge I wanted. Whether Dad would let me keep it if I did.

  Mum was coming down the path from the house. She looked nervier lately, more on edge than usual. She kept telling Dad that it was work-related stress, but then she’d shoot me a look that made it clear that it was nothing of the sort. I knew that she was still thinking about Pete’s offer.

  My brother was going back to South Africa in two weeks’ time, and he was determined to take me and Mum with him. He’d headed up north to stay with some friends for a few days, but he’d be back soon. Mum hadn’t told Dad any of this yet, but it was only a matter of time before she did.