The Comet stood like a rock at the top end of the dressage arena; he stared into the distance, beyond the judges and their writers in the Range Rover, beyond the Jacobean manor house with its twisted chimneys and its topiary, even beyond the horizon. It seemed to me, waiting at A, that he might possibly never move again, but he was ready the second I closed my legs against his sides to begin the test.
Riding the test seemed to be more of a dream than reality. It slipped along quickly and effortlessly. I was conscious only of the flexing of the powerful neck contained by the unfamiliar double bridle, the grey ears set firmly forward, the scrubbed hooves flying in extension, thudding gently in canter, planted four-square on the turf at the halt. It all seemed so incredibly easy on the wise, grey horse, but then, I told myself, as we left the arena at a swinging walk on a long rein, he had probably done it all so very many times before.
For some reason known only to the chief, the dressage scores were not posted until all the tests had been ridden. Even before the last horse had left the arena, little knots of anxious people had gathered silently around the scoreboards.
The chief finally emerged from the secretary’s tent with the result sheet in one hand and a stick of chalk in the other. He gave us a few sharp looks, climbed on to a chair, whipped round in order to ascertain that none of us had found this amusing, threw up his chin, and began to write.
The scholarship candidates’ numbers were underlined in red to distinguish them from the non-participating competitors. The first candidate’s score was 111, the next 94, then 101, then 89. “That’s the best scholarship score so far,” Nigella commented in a nervous voice; then as a 77 was posted, “that’s better still.”
Henrietta was quite unable to speak. She gazed intently at the board and picked furiously at the sleeve of her jersey. As we watched, the chief posted a score of 92 against another candidate’s number; then he posted mine, 57.
The chief wrote it, looked at it, consulted the result sheet to check that he hadn’t made a mistake, then threw up his chin and carried on scoring. When he had entered all the marks, he dismounted from the chair, looked quickly round for signs of rebellion, and observing none, vanished smartly into the secretary’s tent.
The Fanes simply couldn’t believe it. They stared at the scoreboard with their mouths open.
“Fifty-seven,” Henrietta said incredulously, “fifty-seven?”
“It isn’t possible,” Nigella said in bewilderment. “They couldn’t have given The Comet fifty-seven; there must have been a mix-up on the score sheets, someone must have made a mistake.”
I knew there had been no mistake; fifty-seven was a fair mark for the kind of test The Comet had performed. He was older, he was not as supple, not as schooled, not as brilliant as he once had been, but it had been an admirable test, worthy of fifty-seven. “He deserved it,” I told them, “it was a good test.”
“It’s not just a good test, it’s incredible!” cried Henrietta. “You’ve got the most fantastic lead! The nearest mark is seventy-seven; you’re twenty points ahead! The others will never catch you up!”
“I don’t suppose they will,” I said, but then, remembering the set of the iron neck, the plank-like jaw, and the awful relentlessness of the grey horse’s gallop, I added: “Unless we break our necks on the cross-country course.”
We made our way towards the trestle tables set out around one of the ancient oak trees, where Felix Hissey was welcoming everyone to participate in his free luncheon. Doreen had almost finished hers. There was a powerful smell of pickled onions.
15
If You’re in a Pickle
“Whatever you do,” Henrietta said anxiously, “don’t give him the slightest chance to get away from you, keep him really collected. Once he gets his neck out, you’ll have no chance of stopping him at all.”
“I wonder if I should tighten the curb-chain another link?” Nigella fretted at The Comet’s immobile head, slipping her fingers behind the curb-chain to satisfy herself that it was tight enough, and pulling up the cheeks of the curb to test its efficiency. The Comet tried not to notice, concentrating his attention on the far distance, where tiny specks of traffic were visible, moving on the far horizon.
“I think you should both stop fussing,” I said. “He isn’t going to run away.”
Because of the reverse result order, I was last to go in the show-jumping. There had been ten clear rounds so far, six of them by short-listed candidates. The liver chestnut gelding inside the ropes took off too close to a white-painted gate and brought it thudding down. He had looked set for another clear, and a sympathetic groan went up from the small crowd of spectators seated on canvas chairs under an awning fronted by a banner which proclaimed If You’re in a Pickle – Make sure it’s Hissey’s!
I could see the rotund figure of Felix Hissey himself seated under the awning. He was talking to Nick. As I gazed at them in an abstracted manner, my attention was suddenly caught by two people seated by them; two people whose faces were alarmingly familiar.
“Nigella,” I said in dismay, “isn’t that …?” But the liver chestnut was cantering out of the ring and now there was no time. The ring steward called out my number. The Comet and I trotted into the ring. I pushed him into a canter and we circled around, waiting for the bell. The Comet was perfectly calm, perfectly manageable. As I had known he would, he cantered purposefully through the start, taking all the jumps in his stride, soaring over them accurately and obediently to finish with a clear round, well within the time allowed.
As we cantered through the finish I glanced into the crowd under the awning. Nick looked pleased, Felix Hissey was clapping his hands in delight. The two seats which had been occupied by the familiar-looking people were now empty. I closed my eyes and whispered a little prayer for myself and The Comet; praying that I had imagined it; that Lala Thornapple and the nurse had never been there at all.
The Fanes and I hadn’t liked the sound of the dormitory accommodation; we had brought sleeping-bags and we were going to spend the night in the horse-box. Felix Hissey was providing a fork supper for everyone under the awning and Henrietta, Nigella and Doreen had gone off to investigate this, leaving me to take The Comet over to his stable at the manor.
On the way I stopped in the shadow of a small spinney to allow The Comet to graze. But The Comet preferred to stand and stare into the spinney, so we both stood and stared into the spinney, made ghostly by its silver birch trees, and I leaned on the fence, listening to the small sounds of life around us, and The Comet’s breathing.
“Elaine?”
Someone called my name softly. It was Nick, creeping up behind us like a thief in the night. He came and rested his arms on the fence beside me. We stood for quite a while, looking into the spinney with The Comet standing silently beside us. “Have you walked the course for tomorrow?” Nick wanted to know.
I told him that the Fanes and I had walked it earlier, all four miles and twenty eight fences of it, through woodland, over grass and along tracks. I wanted to say more, I wished with all my heart that I could confide in Nick, that I could tell him what I had begun to suspect and ask him what I should do, but all of this was made impossible by his friendship with Felix Hissey. So everything I might have said remained unspoken, and I stared into the spinney, thinking, but unable to speak.
“If you’re worried about the cross-country,” he said, “I’ll be there. I’ll be driving Felix round in the Range Rover; if anything happens, if the old horse takes off, I won’t be far behind.”
“Thanks,” I said, “I appreciate it.” My voice sounded distant, even to my own ears.
“Elaine,” Nick said gently, “what’s the matter?”
“Why should anything be the matter?” I said. I blinked furiously, glad of the shadows, quite unable to cope with sympathy.
“You’ve won the dressage by a huge margin, you’ve got a clear round in the show-jumping,” he said, “aren’t you pleased?”
“Of course I’
m pleased,” I answered. “Why shouldn’t I be/”
“Because something tells me that you’re not,” he said, “something tells me that you’re not pleased at all.” He removed his elbows from the fence and turned his back on me, staring across the shadowy park towards the distant crowd of people gathering around the awning. “Something tells me that you’re sorry you came, sorry I even suggested it.”
There was nothing I could say to this. I just stared down at the long, lush grass growing beside the spinney, grass that The Comet didn’t want. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful,” I said, “because I am.”
“I don’t want you to be grateful,” Nick said, his voice low and angry. “I just want to know what’s gone wrong between us in the space of a few days. I thought we understood each other after the other night; I thought there was something definite between us. Now I’m not so sure.”
“It isn’t anything to do with you and me,” I told him. “It’s nothing to do with the way I feel. After all this is over, I might be able to tell you and then you’ll understand.”
“And perhaps I won’t,” he said wearily. “I can’t understand you, Elaine. I’m not even sure that I want to try.”
I didn’t call after him as he walked away. After a while I continued on my way towards the stables behind the Jacobean house with its twisted chimneys black against the sky. The Comet walked beside me; he wasn’t exactly invisible, but he was as insubstantial as a ghost or a memory in the twilight.
“If all this fails,” Henrietta said, as she knelt at The Comet’s feet and sewed up his bandages, “and something terrible happens today, we can always go back to fund-raising, and show-jump The Comet. I can’t imagine why we haven’t thought of it before.”
“We haven’t thought of it before,” Nigella pointed out in a harassed voice, “because he’s a bolter.” She was very het-up about the cross-country. She pulled up the surcingle and slipped The Comet’s rubber-covered reins under the stirrups and leathers. “Are you positively sure you don't want the double bridle, Elaine?” she asked me for the umpteenth time. “I’m sure you won’t be able to hold him in the snaffle.”
“The snaffle’s fine,” I assured her. “I can’t possibly risk taking him in a double, I wouldn’t be able to cope with all those reins, especially when they get slippery with sweat, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to risk hurting his mouth. I’m sure to get left behind over a couple of fences.”
“Hurt The Comet’s mouth?” Henrietta exclaimed incredulously. “What a joke!”
I pulled on my navy Guernsey and slipped my number-cloth over it. Doreen stood by holding my safety helmet and the cross-country starting times. The horses were being sent off at five minute intervals and I was the last one to go. I had less than half an hour to prepare.
Nigella was working herself up into a state of total panic. “Do we need over-reach boots?” She began to fling various articles of tack out of the locker in a frantic effort to locate them.
“If she’s looking for over-reach boots,” Henrietta called, “tell her they’re here, on the ramp.”
“What about Vaseline?” Nigella wanted to know. “Do we need to Vaseline his legs?” She ran to the back of the horse-box in order to consult Training the Event Horse. It had lost its dust jacket and there was hoof oil on the cover. I couldn’t imagine what the library was going to say when, or if, she ever returned it.
“Please don’t panic,” I said. “There’s no need. It’s going to be all right, honestly.” I could remember Nigella saying similar reassuring things to me at the Point-to-Point. It seemed ironic that I should be repeating them now. “I’m not going to get bolted with, we’re not going to fall, nothing is going to happen to us.”
Nigella starred at me. Two bright spots of colour burned on her cheeks. “How can you possibly know what is or isn’t going to happen?" she demanded. “Why are you suddenly so confident?”
I put on my safety helmet and fastened the chin strap. I couldn’t tell her why. “It isn’t a difficult course,” I said, “it isn’t exactly Badminton.” I strapped my watch to my wrist and wrote my starting and finishing times on my shirt cuff with a ballpoint pen.
As I went to mount, I saw that Nigella had left Training the Event Horse open on the ramp. Genesis was there for all to see, being hung with laurel wreaths after his victory in the Olympics. I tipped the book closed with my boot. It toppled off the side of the ramp and landed in the water bucket. Nigella fished it out, appalled.
“They’ll make you pay for it now,” Doreen informed her. “They won’t take it back, they’re ever so fussy, libraries are.”
I took The Comet’s rubber-covered reins from under the leathers and pulled down the irons. “I wouldn’t worry,” I said. “I doubt we’ll need it after today.”
Horses trickled home as The Comet and I waited for the signal to start. Horses returned dripping with sweat, with pumping sides and gusting breath, horses returned lame, others flew through the finish with their heads in the air, looking as if they would do it all again. Their riders looked red-faced, hot and triumphant, or pale and strained; one returned sodden from a ducking, slipping and squelching like wash-leather in the saddle, another came on foot and in tears, leading a horse with a twisted front shoe, comforted by parents.
The Fanes stood to one side looking fraught and anxious and five minutes seemed like fifty, but at last the flag was dropped, the stopwatch started, and The Comet and I were cantering away down the hill to the first fence.
Over the first and the second fences The Comet flew, his bandaged legs settling into a regular, strong gallop, his steady head, pricked ears and his firm, plaited neck reassuringly familiar. Down towards the first drop fence he went, steadying with his powerful shoulders, jumping down and down and putting in a stride between the fences and down and down again, then up a short incline and over the tallest but least awkward of the Helsinki steps, just as I had planned it; then a stiff gallop and a huge leap over a hog’s back constructed from telegraph poles, and on again, settling into the steady rhythmic gallop, following the orange direction flags down to the water.
It was here that The Comet and I met our first problem. The bed of the swift-running river was sandy, and as The Comet landed he pecked badly as his front feet sank and stuck in the sand.
I flew out of the saddle and up his neck, only saved from a soaking as he threw up his head in a valiant effort to pull out his front feet, and knocked me backwards into the saddle again, plunging forward and cantering gamely across the shallows. I had lost my reins and one stirrup, I was splashed and almost blinded by the water, but pushed onwards by my flailing legs, The Comet leapt up the sleeper-faced bank on to dry land. I barely had time to recover my lost iron and my reins before we were galloping over a stone wall, racing over four timber fences set for galloping, and into the woodland.
In the woodland it was dry and dense. The track was twisting and narrow and it was impossible to gallop. It was very silent and I was conscious of The Comet’s laboured breathing, of my own breathless gasps, and the crackle and crunch of dead twigs and leaves under the steadily cantering hooves. It was quite a surprise to be suddenly confronted with a post and railed ditch with a jump judge sitting solemnly beside it on a shooting stick. The Comet put on a spurt and lengthened into it, managing to retain enough impulsion to carry us over the wide, low hedge which followed on immediately afterwards, bringing us into a lane with an unexpected clatter of hooves.
Made cautious by recent experience, we approached the second river crossing with care, trotting up to it slowly and dropping off the bank, fully expecting the bed to be soft; it was hard. We splashed across to the opposite bank making watery clopping sounds on the river bed, and jumped out over a low rail. After a gate, a wicket fence, a small bank, and a tight double constructed out of two fallen trees, we were approaching the zig-zag rails and only eight fences from home.
The zig-zag rails had been the fence I had not liked the look of when we had walk
ed the course the previous day. They were a Z shape of silver birch poles and we had to jump all three poles. Cantering up to it, it looked like an impossible mass of angles and I tried desperately to remember exactly where I had planned to jump each one. I needn’t have worried; The Comet made nothing of it. Jumping exactly where I asked him, slipping in an extra stride here, and lengthening a stride there, he sailed over like the veteran he was, never faltering, as we went on to clear the elephant trap with its sloping gate and yawning pit, up and launching into space over the ski-jump, then down, down, a seemingly endless succession of drop fences with the Fanes and Doreen standing at the bottom. I was feeling tired now, and even The Comet’s powerful stride was beginning to flag, but as we breasted the hill and the bandaged legs flew stoutly onwards towards the quarry steps I saw the Range Rover cruising along about a hundred yards away, and looking up the hill, I could see little knots of people under the oak trees. We were approaching the run in.
We pinged through the bullfinch and cleared the chicken coops, there was nothing in front of us now but a level sweep of turf and the finishing posts. There was no danger, though, of The Comet starting to accelerate; he had no reserve left. He couldn’t have bolted to save his life. We cantered in wearily to the finish, level with the Range Rover, out of which the Fanes and Doreen and Felix Hissey and Nick tumbled, flinging themselves at The Comet, slapping his wet, hot, sticky neck, shouting their congratulations.
Everyone crowded round, wanting to touch the exhausted grey horse with his sides heaving like a bellows, as if he was a good luck charm. Even the chief was there, barking “Well done!” and “Jolly good effort!” Felix Hissey clasped his hands and cried “Wonderful! Wonderful!” The Fanes were jumping up and down with excitement and Doreen was trying to get through the crowd with rugs for The Comet, sniffing and wiping away tears with the back of her hands, overcome by the emotion of the moment.
A Hoof in the Door (Eventing Trilogy Book 2) Page 11