Whispering Back (5 page)

‘Well, how much do horses cost?’ asked Adam. ‘Perhaps we should buy her.’

I was dumbstruck by this idea. Then it became clear: I was living with a genius!

‘Although, I suppose they must be quite expensive to keep?’ he retreated, gripped by an unusual sense of practicality.

I thought back to all the long conversations I’d had on this topic with my parents: the vet’s bills, the feed, the bedding, the shoes, the insurance, the saddle, the tack, the transport, and all the things I didn’t know much about: chiropractors, massage therapists, dentists, not to mention riding lessons.

‘Oh, no.’ I flicked it all away with a contemptuous wave of my hand. ‘Not really. They just live off grass. A bit of hay in the winter, a set of shoes now and again, nothing much. Besides, I could use the horse to teach on, and she’d earn her keep – might even bring some money in.’

I wasn’t being deceitful. I really believed it.

The next day I set off resolutely to track down the owner. There was a large mansion overlooking the field, and I cycled tentatively down the long, winding drive. There were peacocks and statues everywhere, but no sign of any human activity. I was secretly relieved, left a note, and carried on.

The next property was located on the river that ran along the edge of the horses’ field. The owner was a bright, cheerful man, and he directed me a couple of miles along the road to a house on a corner. ‘There’s a couple of horses in the field next to the house – you can’t miss it.’

As I drew nearer the house, I grew increasingly nervous. It was all very well, as an abstract idea, to fulfil a lifetime’s longing, but as the prospect of actually discovering the identity of the filly’s owner grew nearer, I began to panic that my dream would never turn into reality. Until I found out one way or another, there was always the possibility that my dream might come true. Finding out for certain could mean the end of my hopes. It was probably best not knowing, I decided.

I was wrong about that, though. It turned out that the field owners were not in. I bumped into the postman who informed me they were away. I left a detailed note, describing precisely the location of the field, more than a mile from their house, and asking if they could give me the name of the horse owners who rented the field from them. I then waited for them to come home. It turned out to be ten long, agonising days.

Of course, we should have done the sensible thing and not visited the horses until we knew one way or another. Instead, we went every day and fell deeper in love. We visited late one night, ‘on our way’ back home from college. It was a wild, windy night, with a full moon. We stepped to the gate, and called out, and almost immediately there was a thundering of hooves and two horses materialised out of the darkness. They were restless and stopped only a moment to say hello before hurtling off around the field again. I couldn’t bear the idea that all this might have to stop, that someone might take this perfect horse away, and I might never see her again.

The call came the next day. ‘Yes, I know the mares you mean. Two in a field together, one with a star and a sock, the other without any markings. Two bays. That’s right. No, I’m afraid they’re not for sale. Old favourites of mine. Sorry.’

I couldn’t trust myself to speak. The man by the river must have been wrong. She did own the horses. There couldn’t be another pair to match the description. I mumbled my goodbye, and burst into tears. There was nothing to be done.

‘I’ll go to see her,’ Adam volunteered, desperately trying to find a way to stop me crying. ‘Try to change her mind.’

‘She sounds pretty sure about it.’ It felt like my life was falling apart.

With the gallantry for which I have always loved him, he insisted. ‘I’ll do my best, but don’t expect too much,’ he warned. ‘It’s not like we have unlimited funds to offer.’ He added, under his breath, ‘God, this is going to be embarrassing.’

He came back half an hour later, a half hour that seemed the longest of my life. I knew as soon as I saw his face that it was no good. He put his arms around me, but I was inconsolable.

Some hours later, my mood had still not improved. In an attempt to find a way of breaking the gloomy silence, Adam spoke, hoping to make me laugh but worried that I might hate him for ever if he didn’t.

‘But I thought you said you knew a bit about horses,’ he offered tentatively. ‘You said that they were thoroughbreds, and young, about two years old. It turns out that they’re New Forest ponies, that the oldest one is eighteen, and she’s eleven months pregnant – just about to give birth, in fact!’

I looked at him through my tear-bleary eyes as he waited nervously for my reaction.

‘Oh, my God – she’s got it wrong!’ I shouted.

‘I don’t think so, Nick, I think she’d know her own horses . . .’

It took me some time to make myself understood. ‘No, she’s talking about the wrong horses – she means the ponies next to her field, not the ones at the end of Long Drove. She didn’t read my note properly! Call her up, and tell her not those bloody horses!’

On reflection, it was hardly surprising she’d thought I’d meant the two mares next to her house, as they matched my description almost exactly. I watched intently as Adam spoke politely to this woman, who seemed quite unperturbed about the fact that she had nearly killed me with grief.

‘Sorry to bother you again, I think there’s been a funny misunderstanding.’ I harrumphed loudly in the background. ‘Did you think we meant the ponies next to your house? In fact there are some others, in a field a couple of miles away. Yes, that’s right. They’re not yours? I wonder if you could possibly give us the number for the person who owns them. That’s terribly kind of you. Thank you.’

I snatched the number from his fingers, and had started dialling almost before he had hung up. I got through to the owner straight away.

‘You’re interested in the older of the two? Well, no, she’s not really for sale. I was going to break her in myself and sell her afterwards. But I suppose I could let her go, if you’re really interested. When would you like to meet?’ I looked at my watch, I could be there in five minutes. ‘Would Wednesday suit you?’

Wednesday! That was two days away! But I didn’t want to seem too desperate, and agreed.

I must have been hell to live with for those forty-eight hours. I was worried about the cost. Adam had kindly offered to liquidate his Post Office account, paying me back as he’d demolished my savings from my ‘year out’ working, but he only had £500. Would it be enough? If not, how could I get more? Prostitution, robbery, drug trafficking? There had to be a way.

I tried to appear non-committal when I met the owner, Wendy, but it was a difficult position to maintain. I had clearly gone to a lot of effort to track her down, and it didn’t help that the horse – we’d already named her Sensi, the Japanese word for ‘teacher’ – was clearly fond of me, and wouldn’t leave us alone. I couldn’t pretend that I’d only noticed her in passing. The owner wanted £800 for her, and I managed to negotiate down to £750. That still left me £250 short. I would have to call my parents.

They were both living in Canada again, so I had to wait until it was evening over there, Montreal being five hours behind England. They were taken aback, not having heard this familiar request for nearly three years, but they tried all the usual objections.

‘Well, I’m going to get one as soon as I graduate anyway, this is just a little sooner,’ I protested. No, of course I didn’t think getting a horse in my second year would distract me from my work. ‘If anything, it will keep me fresh – stop me getting too intense.’

They didn’t sound convinced, but promised to call me back the next day. I could, however, detect a hint of resignation in Mum’s voice. I was no longer asking for permission to buy the horse, just the loan of some money. She was worried about how else I would raise it, I guess. I knew she could talk my dad around, and I was delighted, but not surprised, when they phoned back the next day to say they were sending a cheque over. And, as is so typical of their generosity, they never asked for it to be paid back.

It took a month to release Adam’s funds from the Post Office, but I put down a deposit, and took over paying for the field. I got a job cleaning a house nearby, just a few hours a week, which covered the field rent of £6 per week.

On my twenty-first birthday, 12 May 1990, Sensi became my first horse, and I became the happiest person alive.

Looking back on it, it was madness. Or at least, naive optimism, for me to have any involvement in ‘breaking in’ a young horse. By now I just about knew one end of a horse from the other. But I had never taken the time to consider quite how powerful, heavy and easily frightened any horse – especially a young one – can be. This might seem an obvious fact, but my education had not always been of the most practical nature. Had I been fully aware of what we were taking on, I would not have made such a careless remark in that field in Cambridgeshire.

Although Nicole had a great deal of knowledge and experience of riding ponies and horses, she had never been involved in starting a youngster. However, there were three factors in her favour: Sensi was as willing and intelligent as any horse could be; Nicole had plenty of time to spend (if one ignored the work she was supposed to be doing for her degree) and she already had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of every conceivable fact known to man on the subject of horses, except, as we were to discover so much later, the ones you really need to know. On the other hand, she had no facilities to work with, and was to be assisted by me, an incompetent, extremely amateur, fair-weather enthusiast of someone else’s hobby.

The most useful of Nicole’s books was Lucy Rees’s
The Horse’s Mind
. I remember being shown pictures of horses demonstrating various facial contortions with descriptions of what emotions they denoted. Even back then, when horses weren’t yet my hobby, just my girlfriend’s obsession, this really did appeal to me, much more than the difference between various types of nosebands, bridles or bits. I was intrigued by the idea of what was going on in a horse’s mind.

Thanks to Nicole’s patience, and the guidance of Lucy Rees’s book, Sensi’s early education was successful. During the summer break, we moved her to a field near Milton Keynes. Nicole took Sensi out for a lot of walks in hand, to see the countryside, and gradually expose her to traffic, dogs and all sorts of other sights and sounds. By taking her time, Nicole reduced the stress of each new procedure so much that nothing seemed remarkable to Sensi. I can hardly remember the first occasion when she put on a saddle it was so uneventful. Some time later, Nicole backed her for the first time, one baking hot summer’s day in a friend’s little paddock.

‘What do you reckon?’ Nicole asked me. ‘Does she seem calm?’

Sensi was so hot and full of grass that she was having trouble not falling asleep.

So I gave Nicole my expert opinion. ‘I’d say she’s on the verge of losing consciousness.’

Nicole got me to lead Sensi up to the fence on which she was perching precariously. She patted Sensi’s back a couple of times, sort of hugged her around the neck, leant across her back, and finally scrambled on. Still lying low on her neck, she stroked her gently. Sensi turned her head lazily, and sniffed Nicole’s ankles. Nicole’s face was just one ecstatic grin. Bareback and with just a headcollar, it was hardly a conventional backing, but it worked and we were happy. At least Nicole remembered to wear a hard hat, although I probably didn’t.

In our final year we moved Sensi to a yard near Cambridge, where there was a tiny riding manège, fenced off in the middle of the field. She was not very well co-ordinated and found it difficult going around it, even in trot, as it was so small. One afternoon, Nicole arrived to find that Sensi had let herself in by limbo-dancing under the cross-rail, and was practising the work they’d been doing the day before! By making everything they did together so positive, and always ending on a good note before Sensi got bored or tired, Nicole had brought out the best in her, preserving her enthusiasm and the essence of her character.

We left Cambridge in 1991, with honours degrees in Social and Political Science, and were therefore unemployable. Nicole had switched from Engineering after one year, and I had left English after the second year, but I suspect it wouldn’t have made much difference what our degree subjects had been. It was the height of the biggest recession since the 1930s, with unemployment amongst university graduates standing at 90 per cent. This was just as well, since neither of us really wanted a job. Nicole had already achieved her life’s ambition, and mine – that of being the next Jimi Hendrix – was unlikely to be served by getting a conventional job. We signed on and moved to Milton Keynes, staying with Nicole’s parents, who had by then moved back to England from Canada. It was now clear that living with Nicole was going to involve horses. ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ was the only option, I felt. I tried to sell myself for a price, though, and eventually we came to a reasonable compromise. I would learn to ride; she would learn the guitar. She mastered a few chords, even a song or two (probably ‘Mustang Sally’ and ‘Wild Horses’), but her enthusiasm petered out after about a month. Perhaps things would have been different if there were more popular songs about horses.

Even at this early stage, however, it was already clear that I had a close affinity to horses – at least, they seemed to like me. A year after we had graduated, I went to a house party in Norwich, leaving Nicole to look after Sensi. The day after the party, my friends and I went to a pub for lunch and were walking back through a field, home to three huge Shire horses. One came over and wanted some attention, probably used to being offered treats by people using the public footpath through his paddock. He was so big that I practically had to stand on my toes to scratch his wither. He loved it, sticking his nose into the air and wibbling the end of it around, showing clear evidence of the evolution of the elephant as he stretched his lip out in ecstasy, mutually grooming the space in front of him and turning to nuzzle me, asking me to scratch harder. My friends had moved off, but as they turned to tell me to come on, they all burst out laughing at the sight of this huge animal as he contorted his face comically. Or so I thought. His belly was so big, it filled my line of sight and it was not until I had walked a few metres away that I could see just why they were all laughing. My new friend liked me so much he had let down his undercarriage and was standing on what appeared to be five legs, wistfully looking at me as I left.