Later, when I’d polished off the remains of the bottle in front of the telly – madness not to – I went upstairs to bed. My equine ensemble had by now come adrift, all restraining buttons and zips undone and agape. Whip in hand and still in my boots, I swaggered across the bedroom to draw the curtains. I felt a bit like John Wayne. But before I reached the window I caught sight of my reflection in the dressing-table mirror, and halted. This, I decided, swaying slightly, was what I’d look like post-hunt, after a hard day in the saddle: windblown, unkempt, but exhilarated. All woman. Steadying myself on the back of the dressing-table chair I straddled it backwards, swivelling to see what my bum looked like in the mirror. Not bad. I executed a rising trot to see how it would fare going up and down, away from the meet, as it were. Very passable. Then I hung on to the chair and leaned forward to mimic a gallop, bottom out of the saddle, bobbing slightly, whip flourished. Suddenly I froze, mid-bob. Mr Fish, across the road, was drawing back from his bedroom window in alarm, no doubt hastening to find Mrs Fish and tell her that the young widow opposite was not so much finding her feet as strapping them into black leather, brandishing sex toys, and heading to Sodom, Gomorrah, and beyond.




21

As I clambered into the lorry the following morning the drink was still talking, but telling me something very different. Dad had come over early, as promised, and found me locked in the bathroom feeling neither sexy nor brave, courtesy of a paralysing hangover and a very scary horse. Thumper, when I’d flapped out in dressing gown and wellies to politely suggest he might like to get up and have some brecker, had rounded on me with such indignant wild eyes and flaring nostrils that I’d turned and fled. Typical man, I thought, running back inside. He spends the night at my place then, the next morning, acts like he’s never seen me before in his life.

‘I’m not coming out, Dad!’ I bleated through the bathroom door. ‘He’s morphed into one of the seven horses of the Apocalypse. Thinks he’s in a Schwarzenegger movie!’

‘Nonsense, he’s just feeling a bit displaced. I’ll go and have a word, love.’

Sure enough, when I peeked through the bathroom window sometime later, under my father’s professional guidance Thumper had indeed meekly succumbed. He was now washed and dressed and tied up outside the barn, his tail still a bit wet, but sleek and gleaming, mane plaited, shiny tack in place. It was inevitable, then, of course, that the white-faced daughter would be subjected to the same kind but firm hand, and soon I was being herded into my bedroom to change into clothes that didn’t feel nearly so glamorous as they had the night before, and thence into the lorry, at which point I informed my father I was going to be sick.

‘Drink,’ he ordered, handing me his hip flask as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the cab from the opposite side.

‘Don’t be silly, Dad, it’s ten-thirty and I haven’t had any breakfast.’ I couldn’t eat the toast he’d proffered earlier, nor drink the tea. Couldn’t even swallow my own saliva.

‘All the more reason to drink,’ he told me sternly. ‘No one does this sober, love. Your mate Angie tells me she’s drunk before she gets to the first fence sometimes, and everyone has a nip at the meet. You’re just having yours now. Anyway, you’ve got a hangover. Need the hair of the dog.’

He talked me into it. And let’s face it, it wasn’t hard. If the smart crowd were already quaffing merrily outside Mulverton Hall, I’d definitely need a head start. I nervously snatched the hip flask and took a gigantic swig.

‘See?’

I nodded, unable to speak on account of the heat radiating at the back of my throat. But, boy, it was good. I took another swig just to make sure and we rumbled off: Dad at the wheel, Thumper in the back, Clemmie and Archie following on behind with Jennie. My party, in fact. All there for me. As the whisky hit my empty tummy I began to feel a bit like Scott of the Antarctic, or the female equivalent, Amy Johnson, perhaps; at any rate, some super-cool heroine spearheading some major expedition of some sort.

After a while, having navigated a maze of lanes, we rattled over a cattle grid between some crumbling stone gateposts. A muddy field awaited us and Jennie, behind, gestured that she’d drive on up the lane to park somewhere less sticky. As we rumbled towards the neatly parked rows of lorries and trailers, I looked around expectantly. Horses were being unloaded, all, to a fetlock, immaculate, but their riders, I noted, were in varying degrees of dress. A few, already mounted, were in full rig, but one or two were less formal. A stunning redhead, for instance, trying to do up her girth and yelling at her huge excited grey to ‘Keep still!’ was in a Barbour and tracky bottoms. At least I had the right kit, I thought smugly, as Dad expertly tucked the lorry alongside hers. I jumped out with new-found confidence, straight into a cow pat. It squelched up my lovely, shiny, leather-clad ankles.

‘I didn’t see any cows!’ I cried in dismay, looking around accusingly and coming face to face with a hefty Friesian, who gazed back opaquely.

‘The cattle grid was a clue,’ Dad remarked mildly as he went round to unload Thumper and as I tried to scrape it off on the grass. ‘You’re better off in wellies, love, until you get on.’

Beside me the stunning redhead peeled off the tracky bums and Barbour to reveal a pristine equestrian ensemble. She added immaculate boots and hopped smartly on board.

As Dad walked Thumper down the ramp he looked around speculatively at the surrounding country. ‘Oh, OK.’

‘What?’ I said, squeezing myself into my very tiny jacket. ‘I honestly can’t breathe in this, Dad.’ I was standing completely rigid, arms out like a scarecrow, as he brought Thumper round.

‘Never mind, you won’t be breathing much anyway,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘Come on, up you get.’ He gave me a leg up, at which point all my jacket buttons popped off.

‘I’ve just realized where we are,’ he said, glancing about. ‘You kick off with about six or seven jumps round these fields followed by quite a hefty ditch. Hold on to the mane and don’t worry if you pull the plaits out. No one notices once you’ve set off.’

‘What? Jumps? So soon? Do I have to? Oh, God – look at my jacket!’ I wailed, but Dad had already smoothly produced a spare stock pin from his pocket and was busy pinning me back together again.

‘Well, no, you don’t have to jump if you don’t want to, you can go with the non-jumpers. There’re always a few. But that’s not really why we’re here, is it, Poppy?’ He gave me a flinty look, which he was capable of occasionally. Fastened the pin with a sharp snap. ‘We’re here to show some metal, aren’t we?’

‘Right,’ I agreed faintly.

I felt a bit better, actually, now I was on board. And although most people looked sleek, effortless and born to hunt – a beautiful blonde, slim as a reed, rode past, nonchalantly rolling a cigarette on her taut thigh – I had seen one or two harassed riders struggling with recalcitrant mounts. Well, one. And she was about eight, on her own, with a shaggy Palomino. Dad popped across to hold the circling pony while she got on and I grinned chummily at the child. Perhaps we could ride together? She trotted off smartly, alone, waving to friends up ahead. Happily, though, with Dad by his side, Thumper seemed to have morphed into My Little Pony again and was once more displaying those pixie-perfect manners. Could Dad run alongside me perhaps? Hold on to the reins?

‘Wish I’d brought a horse myself,’ he remarked as we made our way across the field and through a gate towards the main body of the hunt in the distance: a swarm of sleek horses with riders in black and pink coats, the hounds circling at their feet, expertly controlled by a mustard-coated whipper-in. It was like a scene from a Cecil Aldin print. ‘I could have come out with you,’ he said wistfully.

I gazed down at him, stricken. ‘Why didn’t you?’ I wailed, casting wildly about for a stray horse as we approached. ‘Oh God, that would have been perfect! Why didn’t we think of that? Why didn’t we – No, Dad, don’t let go!’

It perhaps wasn’t the entrance I’d envisaged in the safety of my own bedroom: safety-pinned, muddy-booted, clinging pathetically to my father and humming ‘Raindrops on Roses’ manically to myself, as I do in moments of stress. But if my own appearance was disappointing, the setting was everything I’d imagined.

This was a lawn meet and although we weren’t actually invited to trash the ancestral grass, we were bidden to gather on the drive right at the front of the house. Mulverton Hall was Georgian, treacle-coloured, mellow and all one would hope for, I thought, as I gazed up admiringly. Tall sash windows winked back at me in the sunshine from a benign, aristocratic facade, like some old boy in his dotage who knows he’s still got it in him, twinkling away merrily. On closer inspection it was crumbling at the edges, but then old boys often are, and the window ledges were peeling too. It also appeared to have some alarming damp patches, but that didn’t detract from the charm. At the bottom of the flight of stone steps, which culminated in an extravagant sweep on the gravel, the hunt had gathered: chatting and laughing atop their steeds, knocking back the port, horses gleaming, bits jangling, voices carrying fruitily in the crisp morning air. It was a perfect day: bright and blue with just a hint of a breeze to ruffle tails and catch lipgloss.