Tivington Nott (2 page)

I let the cow out from the stall into the small yard behind the milking shed and she stands there chewing, her brown eyes half closed. Then I go and open the gate through to her from the big yard, which the bull will have to cross. The Tiger meanwhile chaining the orchard gate.

Chains everywhere!

We’re almost ready. Roly-Poly observing from behind the upstairs curtains. Everything quiet down here in the yard except for the smash of those big horns on the buckled frame. He’s shifting from one foot to the other and letting out a bit of a moan every now and then.

We’re all set.

Me and the Tiger step back a bit and look at Morris.

I’ve got my pitchfork. Tiger’s got his stick. What a laugh! I’m supposed to guard the gate to the orchard in case the Diplomat decides to go off in that direction. Tiger will stand with his back to the dairy door, ready to bolt into the house should the bull head his way.

The bashing in the bull pen stops. We look at each other. The old boy must have caught a whiff of the proceedings. Silence for three seconds then he goes crazy, bellowing and moaning and hurling his great carcass around.

‘Let him out!’ the Tiger says, and he turns away, going for the dairy and safety. I look at his broad flat back and then I turn to Morris. Morris smiles and goes off to do his job. I could stick the Tiger with my pitchfork! Drive a steel prong through his tweed jacket and deep into his lung. Dig it in. See Roly-Poly come shrieking from the house. And dig her too! Something worse than her dread of all this. Be a mad bull myself. Go on a rampage! They don’t care if their nephew gets pulped in that pen.

I go over and take up my position by the gate.

I’m waiting.

I’m ready to make a run for it.

The yard is empty. Morris is in there. On his own with the bull and he’s stretching out on tiptoe over the horns trying to reach the release pin on the shiny steel chain—polished by the greases from the hide. A sudden swing of that loaded head and Morris will be crushed. But the Diplomat’s probably sitting back hard on the chain, keeping it stress-tight, rolling his sick eyes and choking on his tongue, fired up to go and break that cow’s back with one almighty thrust. Too lunatic to co-operate. Just wanting to jump her then smash everything in sight.

I’m waiting for him to come out.

And I feel certain that if I were to drive the steel tines of this pitchfork into his eyes I wouldn’t stop him. He’d just keep coming into the pressure. Something in his nature.

I look across to where Tiger is standing by the door. It’s too far to see the expression in
his
eyes. I know it anyway. Sullen at this point in case something goes wrong. Then he’ll go bright red in the face and start screaming abuse at Morris. Roly-Poly backing him up. Like a couple of maniac woodland trolls. The whole world conspiring against them. Morris a disloyal, useless nephew who should never have been given a job. And so on.

The moaning and choking is still going on in the pen.

I’m set to take off the minute things get out of hand. It’s a matter of personal survival. If Morris should fall under the bull when he comes careering out that door on to the cobbles I shan’t be rushing over to distract it. I’m not living in a land of heroes and legends.

Here he is! The huge red carcass slamming through the door! Going too fast to know where he is, and bigger than I remember him. He hesitates, then catches a whiff of the cow and away he goes, ploughing his way clean across the corner of the dung-heap, moaning and bellowing and spraying shit all over the yard. Morris after him, yelling and waving his arms, pretending to be doing the steering. But really this is all just a matter of hoping for the best. Letting nature take its course. Standing back and watching the miracle of procreation.

And he’s on her! Up on his hind legs and heaves one into her. Love at first sight.

It’s all over.

Now he’s looking around to rip one of us apart. He swings his head and hauls a two-hundredweight chunk off the dung-pile. Spoof! he whams it into the dairy wall. Shit everywhere. Then lets out a shriek as he spots Morris heading for him with an armful of sweet golden mangolds.

If it was up to me at this stage we’d all clear out. But Morris believes in seeing things through.

There has to be a better way of doing this.

The trick now is to lure the Diplomat back into his pen by leading him along a trail of mangolds. The idea being that if we can keep him busy gutsing himself he might forget to kill us all. I can’t believe he won’t catch on to this strategy sooner or later.

I must endure it while he inches his way back across the yard, lifting his head every step or two between bites and spraying some saliva around, keeping us in mind of what’s on for afters. Between shifts at laying the bait-trail, Morris—he’s doing all this on his own as me and the Tiger are frozen to our spots—slips into the pen and hangs up the chain so that Diplomat will put his head into the noose when he goes for his final titbit, a honeyed bowl of sugarbeet!

It’s really quite a nice day, if only I were free to enjoy it. The sun has come out and is warming me through my jacket. Not that I’m actually beginning to relax. I’m not doing that. But I am letting myself hope that the bull will go on doing the right thing. I can see the Tiger inching forward. Morris sees him too and waves him back. It’s too soon to rejoice. I’m staying still as a rock, letting my eyes roam around, keeping tabs on the scene. Watching that big slobbering mouth stuffing itself full of sweet pulp. And the Diplomat’s checking me every now and again. Making sure I’m not trying to sneak away.

It’s maybe another ten yards to the bull pen when this retired Australian army officer who lives about half a mile down the road from Morris’s cottage, at Gaudon Manor, Major Fred Alsop, jumps his stallion Kabara over the road gate into the yard.

I suppose he thought we’d be impressed with his horsemanship. After all, leaping from tarmac onto granite cobbles over a fixed gate at least four-foot-six high on a fiery stallion of around sixteen hands is a fairly out of the way thing to do round here in the middle of an ordinary working day. It’s unexpected.

There’s sparks actually flying out from the horse’s shoes where they’re slamming and sliding around and he’s practically through the bull before he can pull up. But there’s not a lot of control in it that I can see. And the horse doesn’t know what he’s jumped into. It’s not hard to tell. He’s confused and excited. Wondering what he’s supposed to be doing next.

That’s what we’re wondering too. We’re all assuming, I suppose, that Alsop has some plan of action that he’s about to carry out; and we stand there gaping, waiting for him to get on with it. The Diplomat as well. He’s taken by surprise like the rest of us. Half a dripping mangold hanging out of his mouth. Staring.

And meanwhile the black horse is leaping and rearing around, threatening to pound Alsop into a stone wall any second. And the major himself only just staying up there, reefing and jerking on the reins, ripping the bit backwards and forwards as if he’s riding a one-wheeler for the first time.

A spectacle! Alsop, sixty years old, wrinkled, skinny, got up in the garb of the local gentry, living out some crazy idea here in Tiger Westall’s yard! All the way from the other side of the world. Paying a social call. Being a trick rider. Something! An Australian horseman in fancy dress prancing around on Exmoor. Out of a book, this bloke. A tourist!

The Tiger’s the first one to wake up and he starts yelling and waving his stick. Trying to get in a jab without coming into danger. A dwarf attacking a giant! ‘Get on out of my yard, you mad bastard!’ Something like that. Incoherent. Okay to sell this fancy prancer hay and milled oats and one thing and another at twice the going price! Laugh at him behind his back. Dig your neighbour in the ribs when you see him turned out with the Staghounds. Terrific! But the Tiger’s not going to put up with
this.
You can see that.

I’m enjoying it.

I’m hoping the Tiger might get a bit trodden under foot.

The bull takes an off-hand look around at all this capering and yelling and he tosses his head and walks straight into his pen. Going for the honeyed sugar beet without any more fuss. Morris is in after him in a flash and has him chained up again.

Alsop’s off the horse by now and he and the Tiger are working something out. A bit of heat from Tiger, but after all, this man’s got money to spend and there’s no real harm done. I’m ordered over to hang on to the horse while they go into the house for a drink and a chat to settle it all up. Alsop greets me by my first name but I pretend I don’t hear him. I’m glad to see the back of him. Tiger’ll fix him up. And that’ll cost him a pound or two one way and another. Still, he’s ripe for it. He’d be over at the cottage attending Morris’s card nights, this bloke, if Morris weren’t a bit too cagey for him. He’s a dreamer. That’s clear.

Morris comes to the door of the bull pen and stands in the sunlight and rolls a smoke. His back to the Diplomat. Everything under control. Taking his time. Getting his reward now. Idling. Enjoying the moment of leisure while he attends to the details of his own pleasure. He doesn’t look across at me. Not on this occasion. He’s no help when it comes to horses. He’s not interested in this impressive entire that I’m hanging onto. Tractors. Motor cars. He knows all about them. Machinery. That’s his idea of what it’s all about. Given half a day off he’ll follow the hunt from the front seat of his motor car with a pair of binoculars. That’s the way to do it, according to Morris. Stay dry and comfortable. Never far from a thermos of tea, and if things don’t work out you can head home without any fuss and bother. That’s the way he goes hunting. His wife beside him. They’re very close those two. There’s a lot I don’t know about them. It’s another world. And they keep it closed. But horses are his blind spot. And this animal of Alsop’s doesn’t impress him. He doesn’t want to know about it. Anyone else would come over and start theorising about breeding and condition and schooling and all that stuff. But not Morris, he wanders away after a minute, down to the orchard to take a look around.

I’m left here holding the stallion on my own. Like Diplomat, I can see there’s no fear in this animal. Energy! Lots of energy. And maybe a touch of insanity too. But no fear. He’s shivering, a continuous tremor running over the surface of his skin. Prepared for anything. Ready to go. So I decide to walk around with him. Something to do. Show him the place.

He can kill me if he wants to. The decision is his. He’s a big energy-packed aristocrat stepping alongside me. Keeping the reins loose. Not hanging back and waiting to be led, not waiting to be told what to do. None of that. Not plodding along behind me but right here next to me. Head up and alert. Intelligent. He’s not going to miss anything. Wanting to check it all out. Wanting to know where he is and what it all amounts to. He has a curiosity in him that alerts me too. A matter of paying attention. Keeping my mind focused.

We go along, from one end of the yard to the other. He stares into the bull pen, nostrils working, eyes seeking it all out in the half-light of the interior where the massive bulk of Diplomat is imprisoned.

Shoulder muscles just brushing against me as he breathes.

Let’s move on!

His decision.

What’s over there? I go along with him and he hurries me, energy flowing through him, moving me faster than I want to go comfortably, making me keep on my toes. Then he stands and stares at the cow. She’s chewing again. Her back still arched. Big brown eyes dull and dreamy. Set for eternity! Kabara lets out a tight, aggressive grunt and moves away sharply, almost wrong-footing me, his head going down without warning; snuffling the cobbles, grunting and blowing.

We complete the circuit and stand in the middle of the yard. Surveying the scene. Has he missed anything? He is still. His hard-muscled shoulder leaning against me. And it begins to seem to me that he doesn’t mind being with me. I can feel it. The way he’s looking out and away from the two of us. And not peering down sideways at me, suspicious of what my intention might be. I try returning the pressure of his shoulder, wondering how conscious he might be of my touch. I’m not pushing at him, just holding a pound or two firmer. He’s a sire! Words like noble, beautiful, heroic, they’re making sense. I’m beginning to see what all the fuss is about.

It’s something new to me.

Tiger’s two chestnut hunters don’t have it. They are just horses. Nobility doesn’t come into it with them. H for horse. That’s about it with Tiger’s geldings. I should know. No comparison to this thing of Alsop’s. May as well be another species. Horseradish.

It’s looking after Tiger’s hunters that’s my special job. My particular area of responsibility you might say. The horses belong to me the way the machines belong to Morris. And the Tiger tutors me himself. It’s not all fun and games. Clipping, shoeing, grooming, feeding, exercising, cleaning out, polishing the gear, worming, whatever. You name it. He likes to turn out just right on hunting days. He doesn’t want anything left to chance. Hunting is his reward in life for all the skimping and grinding. Hunting the wild red deer. They’ve been doing it here since the Anglo-Saxon kings were around. It’s not something they just decided on yesterday. It’s in their blood. And the Westalls have been here forever, so when it comes to his hunters the Tiger watches me every inch of the way. Criticising mostly. Offering abuse. Sarcasm. Looking for perfection where it isn’t to be found. If he says nothing I know I’m doing extra well.

I do the best I can. But perfection is not something you can get from those geldings.

Kabara, I’m deciding, is another story. I can feel the quality of this beast standing next to me. It’s got something to do with ancestry. Breeding. Lineage. Stuff like that. Oats and polishing and clipping and grooming won’t fake it.

The horse and I make the decision together and walk over to the gate. We stand staring down the road. Just looking. I have read in an old book on venery that men are better when riding, more just and more understanding, and more alert and more at ease . . . The sun is warm on my back and the day is calm. Going on towards noon now, and everything quiet down the road.