Longshot. Part 21

Touchy was big with bulging muscles; he would have to be, I supposed, to carry Tremayne's weight.

Bob Watson gave me a grin, a helmet and a leg-up, and it seemed a fair way down to the ground.

Oh well, I thought. Enjoy it. I'd said I could ride: time to try and prove it. Tremayne, watching me appraisingly with his head on one side, told me to take my place behind Mackie who would be leading the string. He himself would be driving the tractor. I could take Touchy up the all-weather gallop at a fast canter when everyone else had worked. 'All right,' I said.

He smiled faintly and walked away and I collected the reins and a few thoughts and tried not to make a fool of myself.

Bob Watson appeared again at my elbow. 'Get him anch.o.r.ed when you set off up the gallop,' he said, 'or he'll pull your arms out.' 'Thanks,' I said, but he had already moved on. 'All out,' he was saying, and out they all came from the boxes, circling in the lights, breathing plumes, moving in circles as Bob threw the lads up, all as before, only now I was part of it, now on the canvas in the picture, as if alive in a Munnings painting, extraordinary.

I followed Mackie out of the yard and across the road and on to the downland track, and found that Touchy knew what to do from long experience but would respond better to pressure with the calf rather than to strong pulls on his tough old mouth.

Mackie looked back a few times as if to make sure I hadn't evaporated and watched while I circled with the others as it grew light and we waited for Tremayne to reach the top of the hill.

Drifting alongside, she asked, 'Where did you learn to ride?' 'Mexico,' I said.

'You were taught by a Spaniard!' 'Yes, I was.'

'And he had you riding with your arms folded?' 'Yes, how do you know?'

'I thought so. Well, tuck your elbows in on old Touchy.'

'Thanks.'

She smiled and went off to arrange the order in which the string should exercise up the gallop.

Snow still lay thinly over everything and it was another clear morning, stingingly, beautifully cold. January dawn on the Downs; once felt, never forgotten.

Bit by bit the string set off up the wood-chippings track until only Mackie and I were left.

'I'll go with you on your right,' she said, coming up behind me. 'Then Tremayne can see how you ride.'

'Thanks very much,' I said ironically.

'You'll do fine.'

She swayed suddenly in the saddle and I put out a hand to steady her.

'Are you OK?' I asked anxiously. 'You should have rested more after that bang on the head.' She was pale. Huge-eyed. Alarming.

'No- I-' She took an unsteady breath. 'I just felt- oh- oh-'

She swayed again and looked near to fainting. I leaned across and put my right arm round her waist, holding her tight to prevent her falling. Her weight sagged against me limply until I was supporting her entirely, and since she had an arm through her reins her horse was held close to mine, their heads almost touching.

I took hold of her reins in my left hand and simply held her tight with my right, and her horse moved his rump sideways away from me until she slid off out of her saddle altogether and finished half lying across my knee and Touchy's withers, held only by my grasp.

I couldn't let her fall and I couldn't dismount without dropping her, so with both hands I pulled and heaved her up onto Touchy until she was half sitting and half lying across the front of my saddle, held in my arms. Touchy didn't much like it and Mackie's horse had backed away sharply to the length of his reins and was on the edge of bolting, and I began to wonder if I should just let him go free in spite of the icy dangers everywhere lurking. I might then manage to walk Touchy back to the stable with his double cargo and we might yet not have a worse disaster than Mackie's unconsciousness. The urgency of getting help for her made more things possible than I could have thought.

Touchy got an unmistakable signal from my leg and obediently turned towards home. I decided I would hold on to Mackie's horse as long as it would come too, and as if by magic he got the going-home message and decided not to object any further.

We had gone perhaps three paces in this fashion when Mackie woke up and came to full consciousness as if a light had been switched on.

'What happened- ?'

'You fainted. Fell this way.'

'I can't have done.' But she could see that she must have. 'Let me down,' she said. 'I feel awfully sick.'

'Can you stand?' I asked worriedly. 'Let me take you home like this.'

'No.' She rolled against me onto her stomach and slid down slowly until her feet were on the ground. 'What a stupid thing to do,' she said. 'I'm all right now, I am really. Give me my reins.'

'Mackie-'

She turned away from me suddenly and vomited convulsively onto the snow.

I hopped down off Touchy with the reins of both horses held fast and tried to help her.

'G.o.d,' she said weakly, searching for a tissue, 'must have eaten something.'

'Not my cooking.'

'No.' She found the tissue and smiled a fraction. She and Perkin hadn't stayed for the previous evening's grilled chicken. 'I haven't felt well for days.'

'Concussion,' I said.

'No, even before that. Tension over the trial, I suppose.' She took a few deep breaths and blew her nose.

'I feel perfectly all right now. I don't understand it.'

She was looking at me in puzzlement and I quite clearly saw the thought float into her head and transfigure her face into wonderment and hope- and joy.

'Oh!' she said ecstatically. 'Do you think- I mean, I've been feeling sick every morning this week- and after two years of trying I'd stopped expecting anything to happen, and anyway, I didn't know it could make you feel so ill right at the beginning- I mean, I didn't even suspect- I'm always wildly irregular.' She stopped and laughed. 'Don't tell Tremayne. Don't tell Perkin. I'll wait a bit first, to make sure. But I am sure. It explains all sorts of odd things that have happened this last week. Like my nipples itching. My hormones must be rioting. I can't believe it. I think I'll burst.'

I thought that I had never before seen such pure uncomplicated happiness in anyone, and was tremendously glad for her.

'What a revelation!' she said. 'Like an angel announcing it- if that's not blasphemous.'

'Don't hope too much,' I said cautiously.

'Don't be silly. I know.' She seemed to wake suddenly to our whereabouts. 'Tremayne will be going mad because we haven't appeared.'

'I'll ride up and tell him you're not well and have gone home.'

'No, definitely not. I am well. I've never felt better in my whole life. I am gloriously and immensely well. Give me a leg-up.'

I told her she needed to rest but she obstinately refused, and in the end I bowed to her judgment and lifted her lightly into the saddle, scrambling up myself onto Touchy's broad back. She shook up her reins as if nothing had happened and set off up the wood chippings at a medium canter, glancing back for me to follow. I joined her expecting to go the whole way at that conservative pace but she quickened immediately I reached her and I could hardly hang back and say hold on a minute, I haven't done this in a while and could easily fall off. Instead, I tucked in my elbows as instructed and relied on luck.

Towards the end Mackie kicked her horse into a frank gallop and it was at that speed that we both pa.s.sed Tremayne. I was peripherally aware of him standing four-square on the small observation mound, though all my direct attention was acutely focused on balance, grip and what lay ahead between Touchy's ears.