A Rural Affair (34 page)

No time to bask in it, though, because suddenly I was jolted from my reverie by a loud blast on a hunting horn and Thumper
and I were shoved unceremoniously out of the way by the huntsman and whipper-in, hounds at their heels, as they set off down
the drive towards open country. The rest of the field bustled about importantly, waiting to be led by Sam. With fire in my
heart and port in my belly, I couldn’t help but leg Thumper through to the front.

‘Hi, Sam!’ I called, aware of shining eyes and a very broad grin. Not his.

If he was surprised, he mastered it beautifully. He touched his hat and smiled.

‘Good morning, Poppy.’

But rather than stopping for some golly, fancy-seeing-
you
-here chat, he was off in moments, at a very fast trot down the drive, after the hounds. Angie was beside me in a flash.

‘Always,
always
call him master,’ she hissed. ‘Even if you privately know him as fluffy-bumkins. Even if you’ve shared a pillow the night
before!’

Many heads nodded in severe agreement at this, faces grave. I’d obviously breached a sacred code.

‘Oh, OK. It’s just we did share a pillow and he said Sam would be fine,’ I told her airily, clearly disastrously pissed.

Some people thought this was quite funny and tittered, for which I was grateful, but not Angie. She shot me a withering look
and trotted off to join the thrusters at the front. Hard not to join them, actually, as Thumper surged excitedly beneath me,
doing an extended trot down the drive. I managed to hold him back a bit, though, and keep some distance. As we went through
a gate into pasture we all broke into a canter and I scanned the airborne bottoms of Angie’s smart crowd ahead. I recognized
a local actress with pale blue eyes on an iron grey; Hugo, Angus’s grandson, on an overwrought roan, one or two mates of his
from Harrow ragging alongside him. Then there were the gays who ran the garden centre and quarrelled incessantly – one was
prodding the other spitefully with his whip even now; a judge Dad knew, whose horse was called Circuit so that, if anyone
rang, his clerk could truthfully say, ‘He’s out on circuit’; then a very attractive couple I couldn’t quite place until …
good God. Simon
and Emma Harding. I nearly fell off my horse. Why weren’t they on their honeymoon, for Christ’s sake? Was she going to be
everywhere
I went?

I yanked hard on my left rein and sped towards Angie.

‘Angie – Emma Harding’s here!’ I gasped as I galloped up beside her. It wasn’t hard, Thumper was pulling like a train.

‘I know, bloody cheek, isn’t it?’ she yelled back, instantly on my side despite my earlier jibe, bless her. We cantered along
together, the wind whipping our words away. ‘They’re having their honeymoon later, apparently,’ she told me. ‘She clearly
means to stick around like a turd on a shoe – bloody nerve!’

‘I’m going to out her,’ I seethed into the wind. ‘Just wait and see what everyone thinks when they know it was
my
husband she was … Holy shit. We’re not jumping that, are we?’

Up ahead was a sizeable post and rails with quite a few foot followers gathered around it. I spotted Jennie, Dad and my children
clustered excitedly. Clearly we were. Sam flew over it, followed by the gays, then Hugo et al., then Simon and Emma. Right.
So this was my Becher’s Brook. But, boy, was it huge. Thumper pulled excitedly at the sight of it, and as Angie sailed confidently
over ahead of me, I was right on her heels. Too close, actually, but too late to do anything about it because I was already
airborne. I clung on to the plaits for grim death, losing the reins as we landed, so that Thumper, given his head, let out
the throttle and sped away. As we galloped towards another jump, a small hedge which he took in his stride, I realized something
alarming was happening here: I was having trouble staying on board and pulling the reins at the same time. I could do one
at a time, but not both together, and certainly not with jumps thrown into the equation. I plumped for staying on board and
clung to his mane, which
meant that Thumper – who, if he hadn’t been hunting before, was loving every minute of it – had a free rein to take me wherever
he wanted, at whatever speed, which was top, and straight to the front.

Spectacularly out of control I rocketed past Angie, Simon and Emma, the actress on the grey, Hugo and his muckers. Then I
cannoned past Sam in pink, who shot me a startled look, then the huntsman and the whipper-in, in mustard. Finally – trust
me, it didn’t take long – I shot past the hounds, who scattered like beads of mercury as I galloped through them, ensuring
that in five short minutes, I’d broken every single rule in the book.

When I finally turned an enormous circle way out in the next field – the next county, probably – and headed back, Thumper
galloping joyously to rejoin his new friends, Angie’s face was white and horrified. ‘What are you doing!’ she shrieked, appalled.

‘Couldn’t stop,’ I gasped, skidding up beside her and jolting to an ungainly halt, hat over my eyes. ‘Bolted.’

I wanted to die, actually. Knew I probably would soon, too. I felt green with fear, sick as a dog and way out of my depth.

‘But you’re making a complete tit of yourself!’ she hissed as, fortuitously, the whole field pulled up, pausing as they drew
a copse.

‘I know!’ I wailed. ‘What shall I do, Angie? Shall I go home?’ I couldn’t look at Sam. I mean, the master.

‘No, don’t give up yet. Just keep at the back with the no-hopers. Come on, I’ll come with you.’ She turned her horse’s head.

‘No, Angie,’ I said quickly, knowing this was indeed the true hand of friendship. ‘You stay at the front, I’ll go.’

‘Well, look, see those stragglers?’ She pointed behind us with her whip. ‘The alkies and the point-to-pointers, the children
– you go with them. And for Christ’s sake, don’t come up the front again.’

‘Righto,’ I said meekly, hauling on the reins, trying to make Thumper see reason; at least for long enough to let me join
the hoi polloi.

As I rode towards them scarlet-faced, I realized they were laughing at me. But not altogether unkindly, and when they’d all
introduced themselves, it became abundantly clear that they were not only hugely friendly, but much more accepting than the
smart crowd. They didn’t mind a bit that it was my first time out and I’d broken every rule under the sun; in fact, once they’d
dried their eyes and stopped holding their sides, they told me they’d all done it once, and that Angie was a complete pain
in the tubes out hunting. She thought she ran the show and was only trying to get into the new master’s breeches. I laughed
along rather disloyally, vowing never to be that obvious.

Off we set again, this time, happily, at a more sedate pace. Thumper, his initial gallop under his belt, seemed to settle;
perhaps, like me, recognizing he’d lost the Darwinian struggle and acknowledging his true place with the novices at the back.
And I had a rather jolly time of it with my new friends, one of whom was the ravishing redhead who’d stripped off at the meet,
a nurse called Polly. Then there was an electrician called Sparks, on an equally sparky ex-racehorse; an old rogue called
Gerald with come-to-bed cataracts; Ted the local butcher, his face like one of his cheaper cuts of beef; and my very own painter
and decorator, Grant, on a huge coloured cob.

‘Grant! I didn’t recognize you in your hat! Didn’t know you did this sort of thing?’

‘Yeah, every week. I’d rather spend my money on this than send it down the red lane in the boozer. A farmer lends me his horse.
Likes it exercised.’

I felt rather shamed as we cantered on. I’d always assumed hunting was the province of the hideously wealthy, but these people
were not remotely privileged. It was clearly a sport like any other, and although you obviously needed the four legs beneath
you to do it, they weren’t all pampered, expensive steeds like Angie’s, but shaggy, workmanlike beasts pulled in from the
field, begged and borrowed.

‘My brother hunts in Ireland,’ Polly told me breathlessly when we finally drew up on the outskirts of a wood. ‘And over there
the kids follow on bikes, donkeys, whatever. You don’t have to have a horse. It isn’t quite like that here, but we’re certainly
not the Beaufort. You don’t have to join a queue to get in and you won’t get ticked off for not looking the part. Although
I might just lend you a hairnet next time.’ She grinned.

‘Thanks!’ I grinned back thinking that this was more like it, and next time I really would look the part: no safety pins,
no mud, but perhaps on Agnes, who’d be less scary. Yes, I could do this; but I’d take the slow route, not be in such a rush.
The field was moving on again and I gathered my reins to go with them, but at that moment a solitary fawn-coloured hound bustled
past me. Thumper, startled, lashed out with his left hind leg.

‘Oh God, I hope he hasn’t hit him,’ I said, turning distractedly, but my new friends had moved on, out of earshot, not at
a gallop but a fast trot, in single file across a ploughed field. I was last. Thumper, aware of this, registered his displeasure
by lifting his front hooves off the ground when I held him
back, but still I held him, because I’d spotted something fawn and inert in the bushes.

‘Shit!’

I was off in a trice, pulling the reins over Thumper’s head, dragging him into the undergrowth. There in the bracken lay the
hound: stretched out stiffly, a terrible gash to its head. I gazed in horror. Blood was pouring down its cheek. Oh God, was
it dead? I lurched forward, touched it. Shook it. It most certainly was. Either that or unconscious. I felt for a heartbeat.
Nothing. I shrank back, aghast. Oh God, I’d killed a hound. Or Thumper had, which was surely one and the same thing. My hand
flew to my mouth.

‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ I wailed, crouching over it again, stroking its poor fawn coat, the reins looped over my arm as Thumper
danced impatiently on the end. ‘You poor thing!’ I whispered. There he’d been, happily running along with his mates one minute,
and then, courtesy of yours truly, stone dead the next. Tears sprang to my eyes and I gulped hopelessly, wringing my hands.
Thumper cavorted, but I ignored him. In fact right now I downright hated him and spun round to tell him so in no uncertain
terms.

‘You stupid
stupid
horse!’

I cast about desperately for help. One by one the hunt was disappearing across the ploughed field over the brow of the hill
and, horrified as I was, I couldn’t help feeling relief. For something else was building in my breast. Some other, weighty
emotion. Terror. I was fairly sure that up there in the litany of hunting sins, this was the most heinous. Forget not having
the right kit. Forget not addressing the master correctly, overtaking him, the whipper-in, the pack; this was the black cap.
Not just for the hound, but for me too.

Dry-mouthed, I stared at the empty horizon. All gone. No one even in the distance. But if I was tempted momentarily to get
back on and just turn and belt for home, for the safety of my cottage and a nice cup of tea, I resisted manfully. No. What
I’d do, what I’d jolly well do, was get back on and catch up with them. Yes. Tell them exactly what had happened. Fess up.

Heart pounding and feeling very fluttery and sweaty-palmed, I somehow, with the help of a log, got back on a prancing and
distressed Thumper – but not as distressed as I was, oh God no – and around we spun. We galloped off across the middle of
the sticky plough, then through a gate and sharp left across a meadow. The riders in the distance were going at speed now,
and I realized I’d have to leap a ditch or two along the way to catch up. But ditches were nothing to me now. Risking my own
neck was a mere trifle. In fact breaking it was hugely preferable to what was about to befall it.

In a trice I was steaming up a grassy hill beside Polly, the nurse. A good person. A nice person. Think of the hours she worked,
the minimum wage, the bedpans. She’d understand. And maybe it wasn’t dead, after all? Maybe she’d administer mouth to mouth?

‘Polly –’

‘Oh, hi, you’re back! We were worried about you. Gosh, you must have jumped those ditches – well done!’

‘Polly, I –’

‘Holes on the right!’ she shouted in warning as we careered past a badger set.

Thumper swerved violently to avoid the craters in the ground, and of course I was doing my level best to stay on, let alone
speak. And with every furlong we galloped, we were
getting further away from the poor dead hound. One of many, of course. So many. Look at them all streaming out ahead. Heaps
of them, so of course he wasn’t missed. But I must impart my intelligence. Must divulge the grave news. We were jumping now,
a series of little blackthorn hedges, not very big, but as I landed beside Polly’s huge grey, I screamed, ‘I’ve done something
– I must tell you!’

She swung around. Only, to my horror, it wasn’t Polly at all; it was Emma Harding.

She looked annoyed at being yelled at, mid-jump. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ She glared. ‘I hope it wasn’t you on the crops back there.’

‘What?’ We’d straggled to a halt before a massive hedge that not even the thrusters could jump.

‘Someone went on the crops, and you were specifically told to keep to the edge.’

I gazed in wonder. She’d slept with my husband for four years, wanted my children’s inheritance, and now she was telling me
not to trample a few Weetabix seedlings?

‘And you should have a red ribbon on that horse’s tail if it kicks.’

I went pale. Did she know? Had she seen?

‘He doesn’t kick,’ I heard myself splutter.

‘Well, he nearly got my horse back there. I saw him lash out.’

‘You barged into me,’ I retorted. ‘And how dare you even begin to lecture me about how to behave when you have behaved
so
abominably,
so
despicably, you – you hussy!’

All my rage, all my pent-up emotion flooded out as I regarded her up on her grey mare with her carefully painted face. So
much I wanted to say seethed and jostled within, but which words to choose? Surely I could do better than hussy? Strumpet,
perhaps? As I struggled to find a twenty-first
century expletive I was capable of uttering, she watched disdainfully. Her red lip curled as she looked me up and down.