The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton

by Catherine Alliott

  I seem to remember things getting a bit tense, and Dad telling her to cut it out and get the bloody lunch on the table, when Caro announced she was pregnant. Three months pregnant, a honeymoon baby, and everyone was thrilled. Everyone forgot their irritation in that moment. Dad hastened to the cellar for a bottle of champagne, Mum hugged Caro, yes, everyone was delighted: the first grandchild, the first Milligan, Dad said proudly as he popped the cork, and Ant and I joined in the congratulations. And I was genuinely thrilled, because, after all, I was getting married soon, so no sicky feeling inside, not like when she'd got engaged before me, and delighted for Tim, really delighted for Tim, so then why, oh why, on the way home in the car, had I casually wondered what he thought of me coming off the pill? Ant? After all, we were getting married in a couple of months, so even if I got pregnant immediately, it wouldn't show. And it might take us ages; it had taken Sally Armstrong fourteen months!

  Ant had cleared his throat. Then he'd reminded me, gently, that we'd thought we'd wait a year, hadn't we? Have a year of fun – which we badly needed in the circumstances – and enjoy being young-marrieds. And I'd said, yes, but, Ant, I'm not getting any younger. I'm twenty-six, for heaven's sake, and you're thirty! And Ant had gone very quiet, as if there was no answer to that, and I, well, I hadn't given up. I'd pressed it, fired up by a few glasses of wine, thinking, golly, at least I'm asking. Some girls would just stop taking the wretched thing, this pill that's supposed to liberate us, give us so much freedom, although who exactly it liberates is debatable. And then finally: ‘Yes, dear.’

  Of course he didn't say ‘yes, dear’, but if we'd been a couple in the fifties, or in an Andy Capp cartoon, or Thelma and George, he would have done. No, he said words to that effect. Whatever you want, Evie. Wearily. Like a punch-bag. And then later that evening, when we were back at his rooms in Balliol where I was pretty much living, he'd gone out. For quite a long while. And I'd been a bit scared. Knew I'd been out of order. Pissed, too. And later in bed, I'd apologized.

  ‘I'm sorry, darling, I'm going too fast. Forget it. I won't come off the pill.’

  He hadn't answered. He'd turned over and we'd gone to sleep. Eventually.

  ‘So you went out and shagged a barmaid!’ I shrieked last night, like another cartoon character, perhaps the one whose ankles you see in Tom and Jerry, with the crinkled stockings and the rolling pin. ‘Christ, Ant, how many times? Once? Twice? Or perhaps you went on a weekly basis?’

  ‘Once!’ he roared, fists clenched. ‘I told you – just once!’

  Ant never raised his voice. Never ever shouted at me, or at Anna, but instead of being shocked, I seized on it. I shouted back, wondered how many other bastard children he had littered about the country. Finally, Anna had burst into the kitchen in her nightie, wide-eyed and scared.

  ‘What? What's going on?’

  Ashamed, we'd simmered right down, and gone quickly to bed, assuring her nothing; scared ourselves now, in case she'd heard anything. And now, here she was again, bursting into my bedroom, her eyes like dinner plates.

  ‘Mum! Come on. I said we'd be twenty minutes!’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed shortly, getting up.

  I hurriedly found some shoes and brushed my teeth, then I followed her downstairs and out to the car, shutting the door on Brenda, who wanted to come with us. Anna was in her jodhpurs and boots, her hat swinging impatiently in her hand as she stood by the car, waiting for me to unlock it. My head was swimming and I felt nauseous.

  ‘D'you know where we're going?’ she asked accusingly as I got in.

  ‘Um. No. Hang on.’ I got out and tottered back inside for the directions.

  When I got back, she was sitting in the front seat looking straight ahead, stony-faced. I fumbled with the ignition and off we went.

  ‘What were you and Daddy rowing about last night?’ she said, before we'd even got ten yards down the road.

  ‘Hm? Oh, nothing really, darling.’

  ‘Nothing!’ She swivelled to face me in her seat. ‘You were screaming and calling him a bastard and Daddy was shouting. I hardly call that nothing.’

  ‘Oh, it was just… a silly thing. About holidays. You know I always want to go abroad and your father likes Scotland. That was all.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked slightly mollified, but not entirely convinced. ‘Bit strong for a holiday argument, wasn't it?’ she said at length. ‘You were crying too.’

  ‘Yes, well, you know, wrong time of the month. Makes monsters of us. Where is Daddy, by the way? Have you seen him this morning?’

  ‘He's in the garden. Reading.’

  ‘Ah.’ Reading. Always his refuge. His escape. From me? I took a deep breath. Let it out shakily. Come on, Evie, get a grip. ‘Now, anyway,’ I turned a bright smile on her, ‘this pony. How exciting! I wonder what colour it is.’

  ‘It's a skewbald, he said on the phone.’

  ‘What's that, then?’

  ‘Brown and white.’

  ‘Oh.’ I blinked. ‘I could have sworn the advert said it was grey.’

  ‘So you do know what colour it is.’ Still belligerent, accusing. Not letting me off lightly. I knew I had to raise my game.

  ‘Oh, well, maybe it's grey, or maybe it's brown and white,’ I said lightly. ‘Or maybe it's grey and brown and white?’

  She shot me a withering look. ‘It's down here on the left, according to your bit of paper.’

  ‘Here?’ I blanched at the somewhat unpromising urban landscape.

  ‘Yes, look, it says, “After the Shell garage.”’ She waved the piece of paper in my face.

  We were bowling along the Woodstock Road and I obediently swung a left, down a street lined with terraced houses. I slowed down and peered at the directions as she held them up in front of me. This looked like an industrial estate. At length, though, we wiggled around a few bends and then the road petered out and we achieved a track, which led, in turn, to what could hardly be described as a stable yard. More like a collection of sheds with corrugated iron roofs, and a mobile home standing gauntly in their midst, I thought as I gazed around. There were a few scrubby-looking paddocks in the background with telltale sprays of ragwort, which Tim would have had up in seconds, none of which betrayed the presence of horses. We came to a halt in the yard.

  A couple of fierce-looking mongrels bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Anna and I shrank back in our seats while they shouted at us, teeth bared, all curling lips and white eyes. Eventually a young lad appeared and dragged them both away, tying them to a chain. When we were sure they were secure, Anna and I ventured forth gingerly.

  I wasn't really dressed for this, I realized, having stuck my feet into the first shoes that had come to hand: a rather expensive pair of beaded flip-flops I'd bought in Italy. I'd ruin them, I thought, as I picked my way through a mucky yard. Ruin flip-flops! I jolted with horror. My husband had a child with another woman, and I was worrying about flip-flops?

  A small, scrawny man in baggy fawn trousers, braces and a flat cap slid out of a shed. He came to meet us. His eyes were small, light blue, and very quick. A practised smile revealed an unusual dental arrangement.

  ‘Mr Docherty?’

  ‘Tha's right.’ In a slow, singsong Irish brogue. ‘You'll be coming after the pony.’

  ‘Exactly. But now just remind me, Mr Docherty, what colour is the pony?’

  ‘What colour will you be wanting?’ Quick as a flash.

  ‘Oh. Well. It doesn't really matter, I suppose. It's just that, well, in the advert you said grey, and my daughter thinks you said skewbald, so—’

  ‘Ah, well, you see the grey one, she was after being sold, but the skewbald now, she's a rare beast. A grand mare altogether. Pure-bred Connemara, out of Mayflower Summer by In Your Dreams, so she is. You'd go a long way to find another a mare like that, may the Good Lord crack me legs from under me if it isn't so.’

  Still smiling, he jerked his head economically to the lad, who took a head collar from a peg and went sullenly
towards a stable.

  ‘I see. So… the one in the advert in the paper—’

  ‘Went in moments. I have an awful high turnover here, you see, and you're lucky to be seein' the skewbald at all. I've a gentleman comin' all the way from Bristol he is, wants something special for his little gurr'l. A very wealthy businessman, by all accounts, but he's after breaking down on the M5. Rang just a moment ago, and here you are, so…’

  ‘Oh! Yes, well, how dreadful. But we are here first…’

  It didn't occur to me to wonder why a very wealthy businessman should own a car liable to break down on the M5, and feeling my luck was in for a change, I followed him with Anna to where the horse was being led out of its stable.

  It was indeed brown and white, and bigger than I'd imagined: rather thin and rangy too, with ribs I could see, and its back looked slightly humped with the tail tucked in between its legs. Was that normal? But it had a kind, somewhat sleepy eye, I decided. The mare raised her tail and evacuated copiously out of her rear end a stream of rather evil-looking green slime. Perhaps she was nervous. She wasn't the only one.

  ‘Right. What d'you think, darling?’

  Christ. In the recesses of what was left of my mind I remembered Caro telling me to bring someone along. Ant, at least. Caro, even better. But we were here now, befuddled and bemused. I deferred to my daughter.

  ‘She's lovely,’ she said, stepping forward to pat her, her eyes aglow with owning a pony – any pony.

  ‘Yes. Yes, she is, isn't she?’ I agreed, inching forward myself and tentatively laying on a hand. Awfully greasy. I retracted it. But I quite liked the idea that it was a she. Mares were more docile, weren't they? Than boy horses? This one was so docile she was nodding off.

  ‘She'll be a bit keener when she's ridden, I suppose,’ I hazarded. ‘She looks a bit sleepy.’

  ‘Ah, faith, she's aisy goin, this one is. But if it's keen you want, you won't find a fleeter mare in Oxfordshire,’ said Mr Docherty, kicking her hind foot to make her stand a bit squarer.

  ‘And does she jump?’ asked Anna, shyly.

  ‘Is it jump? Jees, she'll lep that brick wall as soon as look at it.’ He pointed to a dry-stone wall behind us. ‘Lept clean out of the yard the other day, right over the five-bar gate. Shown a clean pair of heels, too, eh, Barney?’

  Barney shrugged and looked noncommittal as he stood holding the slack end of the head collar rope, chewing gum and gazing into space.

  ‘But she's – you know – quiet too, is she?’ I said, alarmed at the prospect of her leaping around Caro's yard. ‘You know, easy to handle?’

  ‘Is it quiet? Ah, she is that. But she's a mare, you know?’ He gave me a conspiratorial wink. ‘She'll not be taking any nonsense.’

  ‘No. No, well, obviously, we won't be giving her any nonsense.’ I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, or what I meant, for that matter. God, my head. Oh, for some Nurofen. ‘I mean – we'd treat her very kindly.’

  It occurred to me, suddenly, we might be under scrutiny here ourselves. A friend of mine who'd wanted to get a dog from a rescue home, and had imagined she'd been taking the philanthropic route to dog ownership, had been startled to find an earnest young woman in her sitting room with a clipboard, asking pertinent questions – and sometimes impertinent ones – about her domestic set-up: grilling her as to her suitability to own this previously abandoned-by-the-roadside pup. The fact that she lived in town and was a divorced mother of three apparently didn't go down too well.

  ‘We're married,’ I said quickly. ‘My husband and I.’ Anna looked at me in astonishment. ‘And although we live in the city, we'd keep it – her – at my brother's place. Church Farm in Daglington.’

  ‘Caroline Milligan's place?’ Some shadow briefly crossed Mr Docherty's face.

  ‘That's it. D'you know it?’

  ‘I do. Get that currycomb and look sharp,’ he snapped irritably to the boy.

  ‘What's her name?’ asked Anna as the boy tied the mare up and began grooming her with what looked a horribly painful rubber pad with spikes. She bore it beautifully I must say, standing stock-still as he yanked the implement over her back, pulling out great tufts of hair, poor thing.

  ‘Molly Malone. But we call her Molly.’

  ‘Oh, sw-eet!’ Anna, overcome with emotion, put her arms round her neck and kissed her. For some reason, and perhaps it was because she was unable to prevent this public display of affection even in front of this surly teenage boy, or perhaps it was because my emotions were perilously close to the surface that morning, I found this profoundly moving. My eyes misted up. A girl and her pony. First love.

  ‘We'll take her,’ I said decidedly. ‘Do you deliver?’

  The boy turned to hide a smile, and even Mr Docherty had the grace to cough.

  ‘You'll be wanting your lass to ride her first? Or even the lad to hop on. Show her paces?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ I coloured. Anna was glaring at me, shocked. Was that how it was done, then? I'd never bought a horse before. ‘Yes, good idea. The lad… and then Anna. Oh, and what about her legs?’

  ‘What about her legs?’

  Still smarting from my gaffe, I had a notion I should be feeling them. I hastened forward to run my hand expertly down a large hairy back one, but my sunglasses slid off my nose and clattered onto the concrete, which startled the horse, who stepped back and smashed them, as I, to avoid her rear end, stepped smartly into her slimy green poo in my flip-flops. I stared in dismay as it squelched up between my toes.

  ‘Never mind, it's only grass,’ I said quickly, seeing Anna's mortified face. ‘I mean, that's all they eat, isn't it? And hay. Oh, don't worry about that, they're only Boots ones,’ I said, as the boy made a pretence of picking up the bits of broken sunglasses. He promptly abandoned his efforts and deftly shovelled the evidence into a wheelbarrow.

  ‘Her legs are clean,’ Mr Docherty assured me smoothly.

  ‘Oh, good.’ I nodded, disinclined to take the investigation further.

  ‘Tack her up then.’ He nodded to Barney.

  In another moment, Barney had got a saddle and bridle on her, and vaulted onto her back. After leaning down to get some muttered instructions from his father, he gave the pony a hefty kick, and a sharp flick of the reins on her neck. At this his mount jolted off at a rather unsettled pace, through the open gateway and into the ragworty paddock. We followed at a slower pace, and then leaned on the fence, watching as he went round and round in circles: first walking, then trotting, then that faster thing… marvellous. I felt I was on the set of Rawhide: just needed a cowboy hat and a piece of grass to chew. He came back and slid neatly off, handing the reins to Anna.

  ‘All right, darling?’ I looked at her anxiously.

  She looked a bit nervous, but got on carefully, like she'd been taught at the riding stables, not in a leap and a bound like the boy, but holding the reins in one hand and levering herself up. I felt so proud as I watched her trot off. How brave! A strange horse! I'd no more get on that than fly to the moon. I watched her do a careful up-down, up-down trot, immaculate in her yellow jodhpurs, shiny boots and velvet hat, but I was only half watching. I'd spotted a water trough just along the fence line, and unable to bear the poo-between-the-toes feeling any longer, nipped off to dunk my foot.

  When I got back, she seemed to be going quite fast, I'd say a gallop, and Mr Docherty was shouting, ‘Pull her up now, gurr'l!’ but Anna's eyes were shining, cheeks pink, as she careered unsteadily back to us.

  ‘Yes?’ I called up to her.

  ‘Yes!’ she said breathlessly, elated and excited.

  ‘Marvellous.’ I beamed at the man. ‘A thousand, wasn't it, you said?’ The boy looked astonished, and Mr Docherty anguished, as it presumably crossed his mind that he could have asked twice as much, but he was quick to point out that yes, that was indeed the price, but minus the tack.

  ‘Ah. And how much is the tack?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  ‘Five hundred!’ I
looked at the saddle, rather dirty and grey, and the tatty old bridle. ‘Good grief. I had no idea.’

  ‘Ah well, you see, it's all in the workmanship,’ he said, sucking air in through his teeth. ‘There's a devil of craft goes into it, and sure, you could buy new, but this is Molly's tack. Fits her like a glove, always has done. She'd be desperate in an ill-fitting saddle.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Like a tight pair of shoes, I imagined. Except with someone on your back too. Horrid.

  ‘We'll take it,’ I said firmly as the boy made an odd barking sound into his hand. ‘She must have her familiar things.’

  ‘And I'll throw in the head collar for free,’ Mr Docherty assured me, kicking his son.

  ‘Oh, how kind!’ I exclaimed, but even as I was writing out the cheque, on an upturned bucket, which had been hastily provided, I wondered, uneasily, if this was rather like marvelling delightedly at the free Aga cookbook, which, as Ant had pointed out, had come free with five grands-worth of cooker.

  ‘And did you say you would deliver?’ I persisted, as Mr Docherty smartly pocketed the cheque. I really had to gain some ground here.

  ‘Ah, we will. Wednesday morning I'll pop her in the lorry and bring her round, just as soon as the cheque's cleared.’ No flies on him. ‘I'll tek her straight to your brother's place, will I?’

  ‘Yes, please. Oh, and if there's no one about – my sister-in-law's frightfully busy – don't worry too much about trying to find her. But perhaps my brother, Tim…’

  ‘Ah, no need to trouble anyone. I'll keep out o' harm's way and pop Molly straight in a stable, will I?’ He widened his eyes, encouragingly.

  ‘Um, yes. Why not?’ I certainly didn't want Caro disturbed and batey, and Tim would be relaxed about that. ‘You can't miss the stables, they're just round the back of the large Dutch barn.’

  ‘I dare say the boy and meself will make them out.’ He touched the peak of his cap, in a rather sweet, old-fashioned gesture, as, I felt, in a gentler age, a horse dealer might.