EVENTER’S DREAM
by
Caroline Akrill
First published 1981 by Arlington Books
This ebook edition published 2014
Copyright © Caroline Akrill 1981, 2014
The right of Caroline Akrill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of the eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction.
The author would like to stress that that no character in this book relates to any person living or dead and that all incidents are entirely imaginary.
Other books by Caroline Akrill
Non-fiction:
Not Quite a Horsewoman
Showing the Ridden Pony
Fiction:
Eventer’s Dream
A Hoof in the Door
Ticket to Ride
Make Me a Star
Stars Don’t Cry
Catch a Falling Star
Dedication:
For Karen
With thanks for making this possible.
CONTENTS
Uncertain Advantages
Mutual Disagreements
A Nice Long List
If Something Isn’t Done …
Liquid Assets
Thunder And Lightning
A Friend Of A Friend
Eventer’s Dream
A Tricky Customer
Can’t Make It Tonight
High Class Liveries
Flight Of The Comet
A Raison d’Etre
A Very Old Mare
A Very Good Day’s Hunting
King In A Pickle
Another Legend
1
Uncertain Advantages
“The thing is,” Nigella said, giving the teapot a vigorous shake, “that if you did decide to come and help us out, we couldn’t pay you much.”
“Hardly anything at all, really,” Henrietta said. “Just pocket money wages. But on the other hand, there would be certain advantages.”
I sat beside the stone-cold Aga in the antiquated kitchen and I thought of the pot-holes in the drive. I remembered the straggling laurel bushes that bordered it, smelling of damp and leaf-mould and fox. The broken park railings. The dead elms. The grim old house with its blind and shuttered windows and the heavy atmosphere of age and neglect and decay.
“Certain advantages for whom?” I enquired. I couldn’t imagine that they could possibly be for me.
“For us, naturally,” Henrietta said. “Because we would have someone to organize the stables. And for you, Elaine, because you would have a job, and somewhere to live, and a stable and keep for your horse.”
“I haven’t got a horse,” I said.
“Oh, but you will have,” Henrietta said confidently. “I mean, if you want to go eventing, you will need a horse to do it on. Unless,” she added in an uncertain tone, “you were thinking of using one of ours?”
“Oh no,” I said. “That wouldn’t do at all.”
In actual fact, it was exactly what I had in mind. The truth of the matter was that I couldn’t possibly afford to buy a horse of my own and I planned to find myself a sponsor in the shape of a sympathetic employer, who would provide me with a mount and a chance to compete. So far though, I had drawn a blank. This was my fifteenth interview and already I was planning my escape.
Henrietta looked relieved. “I’m glad,” she said. “Eventing can be a bit risky and horses are so expensive these days. One just can’t afford to keep breaking legs and things.”
“Quite,” I said.
I wondered why I had accepted the invitation to tea in such unpromising circumstances, when the situation was so clearly hopeless. Any sensible person, confronted with a pair of prospective employers like Nigella and Henrietta in their skin-tight jeans, their out-at-the-elbow anoraks and their cut down wellingtons, all liberally coated with horse hairs and mud, would have fled the place on sight.
Nigella squinted down the spout of the teapot. Her long dark plait was speckled with hay seeds and tied at the end with bailer twine. When she had tried to pour the tea, nothing had come out. She poked a ballpoint pen energetically up and down the spout.
“I don’t suppose eventing is any more risky than any other equestrian activity” she commented, “provided that horse and rider are properly prepared.”
After a bit of fishing about inside the pot, she managed to flip a sodden brown lump on to the table. She splashed tea into three chipped red beakers. We helped ourselves to milk from a bottle and damp sugar straight out of a packet. “Sorry it’s a bit informal,” Nigella said.
Henrietta looked round the kitchen in a vague sort of way. “There were some biscuits,” she said. I wondered how long ago there had been biscuits. Last week perhaps, or last month. There certainly didn’t seem to be any today.
“Can you cook?” Nigella said suddenly. “I mean, nothing too special, not cordon bleu or anything like that. Just cakes and puddings and pies and things.”
“And biscuits,” Henrietta added. “We like biscuits.”
I swallowed a mouthful of musty tasting tea. I was prepared for this. After all, I was an experienced interviewee by now and I had discovered that people who advertised for help with horses often wanted anything from a gardener to a children’s nanny and merely offered the horses as bait.
“The advertisement didn’t mention cooking,” I said firmly. “It just said, ‘Help wanted in small, friendly, private stable’.”
“Ah,” Henrietta said, looking guilty. “So we did say private. We thought we might have.”
“You mean it isn’t?” I said, surprised.
“Not exactly,” Henrietta said. She stared at the tea bag. Her wild mane of auburn hair flowed over her shoulders and on to the table. It was full of knots and it looked as if it hadn’t been combed for months.
“We do take the odd livery,” Nigella admitted. “Well, perhaps rather more than the odd one.”
“And we do let out horses for hunting now and then,” Henrietta said. “Well, perhaps more often than not.”
“In that case you are not a private stable at all,” I said. “You are a commercial enterprise. You are running a business.”
“Only in a manner of speaking,” Nigella said. “And not out of choice. We are not motivated by profit. We only do it to live.”
“We wouldn’t dream of doing it if we didn’t have to,” Henrietta said in a defensive tone. She picked up the ballpoint pen and poked at the tea bag. “Having to earn a living is the most frightful bore.”
“But in your advertisement you distinctly said it was a private stable,” I reminded them. “It just isn’t true.” I pulled the page torn from Horse and Hound out of my pocket and spread it on the table. The advertisement was ringed with red crayon. “Small, friendly, private stable …”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on about it,” Henrietta said. “It isn’t as if it really matters.” She rolled the tea bag over and leaned closer to it, narrowing her eyes.
“We are friendly,” Nigella said.
“You are not private,” I said.
“We are small,” Nigella argued. “That’s two out of three.”
“It’s still misleading,” I said, "and also illegal. You can’t say things that aren’t true in an advertisement. You could be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act. It’s misrepresentation.”
“Heavens,” Nigella said. “How awful. I had no idea.”
“This tea bag,” Henrietta commented, “Isn’t a tea bag at all.”
“What else did we say in
the advertisement?” Nigella scanned the page, interested.
“It’s a mouse.”
We transferred our attention to the tea bag. It was definitely a mouse; very small, very saturated, and very dead. Nigella clapped her hand over her mouth and let out a low moan.
“If it’s any consolation,” Henrietta said, “I should think it was practically sterilized by the boiling water.” She lifted the mouse up with the ballpoint pen and plopped it down on the advertisement. Nigella watched, appalled, as she wrapped it into a neat parcel.
“It was a natural mistake,” I said. “It was exactly the same shape and size as a tea bag. It was even the same colour.”
“A blatant case of misrepresentation, I’d say.” Henrietta slipped the parcel into her anorak pocket. “Would you like to see the horses?” she enquired.
I could hardly refuse. Once we were outside I hoped that I would be able to make my escape. As it was I allowed myself to be conducted to the stables.
The stable block had once been grand. It was built in the traditional square with a clock arch. The stables were lovely, large, airy loose boxes with blue brick floors and green three-quarter tiled walls. There were cobblestones and a lead water trough, a dovecote and a proper mounting block. It was the sort of stable yard I had dreamed of working in, except that the same air of shabby neglect I had seen everywhere else was here as well, only more so. The paint on the woodwork had long flaked away, broken windows were stuffed with rags or patched with cardboard, doors hung at drunken angles, tiles were missing from the roofs and grass grew unchecked between the cobbles.
Henrietta led the way into a tack room where a jumble of saddlery was heaped up anyhow on a table. She untangled a brittle-looking head collar and presented the damp little parcel to a large black and white cat who was curled up on a moth-eaten day rug. The cat sniffed it suspiciously and backed off. He jumped down from the table and stalked off with his tail in the air, looking offended. “Ungrateful beast,” Henrietta said.
The first horse was a gaunt, ewe-necked thoroughbred mare who rolled her eyes and seemed disinclined to leave her stable. Henrietta flipped her in the ribs with the head collar rope and she flew out of the door like a champagne cork and skidded on the cobbles.
“This is the old bay mare,” Nigella said.
I stroked the old mare’s faded brown face. The deep hollows above her eyes were full of dust.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
Nigella looked blank. “She hasn’t actually got a name,” she said. “She’s just the old bay mare.”
The old bay mare scuttled back into her stable. There was a bit of a set-to with the black horse who lived next door. He dived round the box and refused to have anything to do with Henrietta who was finally obliged to grab him by the tail, whereupon he gave in and dropped his nose into the head collar. Out in the yard he assumed an anxious expression and began to prance on the spot, lifting each of his legs in turn, as if he was performing a piaffe.
“He has a lot of nervous energy,” Nigella explained. “He simply never stands still. It’s very wearing and inconvenient at times, but he’s perfectly all right when hounds are running, he goes like a bomb.”
The black horse’s stable had blocked drains and the bedding squelched. The soles of his prancing feet showed the soggy, smelly indications of thrush. I noticed these things and my heart sank into my boots.
Henrietta led the next horse out for inspection with the head collar yanked up so tightly that I imagined that he must surely be throttled. But the grey horse didn’t appear to notice. He was preoccupied with Higher Things. He put on a noble expression and stared into the distance above our heads as if we were beneath his notice.
“This is The Comet,” Nigella said. “He’s a bolter.”
Bolter or not, The Comet presented a fine picture standing four square on the cobbles. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter that his coat was streaked with yellow and the top of his tail resembled a scrubbing brush. “We’ve tried everything to improve his braking system,” Nigella said. “Martingales, gag snaffles, twisted bits and check reins, but nothing makes the slightest difference. He just sets his neck and away he goes.”
“Luckily he always heads for home,” Henrietta said. “Which could be regarded as an advantage. Although it must be said that he has lost us some very good clients.”
“I don’t suppose he would be suitable for eventing?” Nigella suggested. “He is a very fast horse and he is as brave as a lion.”
But even without looking at his mouth, I could see that The Comet was past it. “He is the right size,” I said. “About sixteen-three, and he is the right type, threequarter-bred; but he is too old and besides, a horse with a good mouth and a controllable nature is a prime requirement for eventing. After all, it isn’t a race. Think of the show jumping. Think of the dressage.” So as not to damn the horse completely, I said, “I suppose you have tried schooling?”
Henrietta looked astonished. “School The Comet?” she said incredulously. “What a joke.” She dragged the grey horse back into the stable and removed the head collar.
“We shall have to sell him, I suppose,” Nigella said. “It seems a shame to part with such an impressive animal, but what else can we do?
“We’ll send him to auction,” Henrietta decided. “Without a warranty. It’s the only way to get rid of him. People who know him wouldn’t have him as a gift.”
I looked at a bad-tempered chestnut gelding who swished his tail, flattened his ears and made snapping noises with his teeth and I thought of the grey horse. I imagined him standing under the hammer, wearing his noble expression as the bids flew. Then I imagined him later, when his reputation had spread and he was known in every sale ring in the country as the grey horse who was a confirmed bolter. I could visualize his final destination only too well, and the fact that he would meet his fate with that same lofty indifference only made it harder to bear.
Henrietta now produced a moth-eaten roan with tall boxy feet like a donkey’s. “This is Nelson,” she said.
Nelson regarded us solemnly out of his one eye. The eyelids of the other had been stitched together over the empty socket after some fearsome accident which didn’t bear thinking about. I looked in despair at his scurfy coat and his hollow flanks, and the way in which, once back in his stable, he took a few wisps of dry hay in his soft little mouth and chewed them with every appearance of discomfort.
I knew I had to harden my heart to all this. I told myself firmly that sentiment didn’t pay. I couldn’t possibly come here, I couldn’t take the job, it was out of the question. If I came to work in this awful place it would be the end, the absolute finish of my eventing ambitions. I would never find a sponsor to provide me with a decent horse. I would never get the chance I so desperately wanted. I would be sunk before I had even begun. The only thing to do was to leave at once. I would plead a pressing engagement. I would make my excuses now, straight away.
I turned to Nigella. “What exactly do you mean by pocket money wages?” I asked.
Nigella led the way past a row of stables which housed two hunter liveries. They were considered not worth looking at. She seemed embarrassed by this mention of hard cash, as if it was something one never mentioned in polite company.
“You would have to ask Mummy,” she told me. “She isn’t actually here at the moment. It’s her Meals-on-Wheels day.”
Henrietta brought out the last horse in the yard. It was a stunningly beautiful bay mare.
“Isn’t she lovely?” Nigella breathed. “I should be used to her by now, I know. But she still takes me by surprise every time I see her.”
The bay mare stretched out her long elegant neck and nuzzled Henrietta’s pocket. Her coat was fine and smooth and her legs and tail were silky black. Her eyes were dark and gentle and on her face there was a perfectly shaped star.
“She’s terribly well bred,” Nigella said. She recited an impressive pedigree.
“She was unbeaten in the sho
w ring as a four-year-old,” Henrietta said. “Champion at the Royal and practically every other County Show you can think of.”
I said that I could quite believe it.
“Of course,” Nigella admitted, “That was before it happened.”
“Before what happened?” I said faintly.
“Before she started to slip her stifle,” Henrietta said.
I wasn’t surprised; after all the other defective horses I had seen, if the bay mare had been fitted with an artificial limb, I would hardly have batted an eyelid.
“When that happened,” Henrietta continued, “She was sold as a brood mare.”
“She was still a very valuable animal,” Nigella said. “Because of her breeding. She sold for well over four figures.”
“Then what happened?” I said.
“Then they discovered she was barren,” Nigella said sadly.
“So we bought her,” Henrietta said, slapping the mare heartily on the neck. “Because she was the most fantastic bargain, and she was the most beautiful horse we had ever seen.”
“But that means you just keep her as a pet,” I said, astonished. “If you can’t breed from her and you can’t ride her either!” I was amazed that people in such obviously straitened circumstances had given a home to a totally useless animal. By this act of mercy, Henrietta and Nigella soared in my estimation. I could almost overlook their shortcomings in stable management. They were redeemed.
“Can’t ride her?” Henrietta said, frowning. “Of course we can ride her.”
“If we couldn’t breed with her and we couldn’t ride her either, there would really be no point in keeping her,” Nigella explained carefully. “Horses are very costly animals to keep. The price of corn alone is astronomical.”
“Not to mention hay and shoeing,” Henrietta added. “And you can’t even get free straw in return for stable manure any longer, not like the old days.”
“But what about the slipped stifle,” I wondered. “Is it cured?”
“Oh no,” Nigella said. “It still happens. When it does, we just turn her away for a month or however long it takes to come right again.”
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