Fly-by-night Read online

  It was cold on the back of the motor bike. Ruth pressed up close to Ted, her thumbs hooked in his belt, her nose full of the oily smell of his coat. The bike crackled through the village, bounced over the level-crossing, then roared away with the ear-splitting din that Ted loved up the hill and into the country. Through streaming eyes, Ruth saw the Friesian cows, the bare elms and the rolling pastures that fell away to the flat, ditch-seamed marshes and the shining thread of the tidal river. She grinned into Ted’s coat, for having come to live in such a place, after London. She saw herself riding along the sea-walls on her pony, a gleaming, eager little beast, ears pricked up, the wind in his tail . . . ‘Oh, I must!’ she said into Ted’s coat.

  After some twenty minutes of wild swooping along narrow lanes, Ted turned and shouted something. He was slowing down. Ruth lifted her head and peered over his shoulder. She saw a flag flying at the gateway of a field, purple, pale blue, and gold, and in the field a lot of ponies being ridden, and horse-boxes parked in a row by the hedge.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Ted, pulling up by the gate. ‘All right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ruth got off, shivering.

  ‘I’ll look out for you on the way home, in case you’re still walking.’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ Ruth said. She pulled off her crash-helmet. ‘Here, what shall I do with this?’ She looked round in dismay. Nothing would have induced her to enter the field wearing anything as inappropriate as a motor-bike helmet. ‘Can’t you take it?’

  ‘I can’t wear two, can I? Stick it in the hedge. Don’t leave it behind, though. Cheerio.’

  With a blast of noise he was gone. Ruth, nervously fumbling the helmet, walked through the gate. There was nobody to take any money, or tell her to go away; nobody took any notice of her at all. The field was huge and open, on the top of a hill, and the cold Easter wind swept it. All the adults Ruth could see wore suede coats with sheepskin linings, but they looked cold, and stamped their feet. An enclosure was roped off not far from the gate, which Ruth took to be a collecting-ring, for it was full of ponies and riders, standing or walking about, and from it at intervals a pony would go out and a loudspeaker would give its name and number, and the name of its rider. It would then canter off across the field, jump (or refuse to jump) some rails into an adjoining field, and canter away up this field to disappear over a brush jump and into a wood in the middle distance.

  ‘It’s Hunter Trials,’ Ruth decided.

  She surreptitiously hid the crash-helmet in the hedge, and walked over to the collecting-ring, shivering with cold and excitement. She half expected to be told to leave by one of the cold adults, but she was ignored. The girls on the ponies looked at her without expression. This suited Ruth very well. She did not want to be noticed. She only wanted to look at the ponies.

  The ponies were a mixed bag. Quite a few of them, when it was their turn, cantered stickily away from the collecting-ring, refused the first jump three times, and then, on being eliminated, cantered eagerly back to their friends. Ruth’s heart bled for their riders, who tried not to look as if they minded. ‘If I had a pony,’ she thought, ‘he would jump that jump.’ She was sure she could make him. It was an easy one. She pushed her cold hands into her anorak pockets, and saw herself galloping up the hill towards the wood. ‘Like that,’ she said to herself, when a boy on a flaxen-maned chestnut did as she would do. The pony went like a tongue of flame over the bright grass. The girls in the collecting-ring watched him, scowling. Ruth heard one of them say, ‘Oh, that Peter McNair!’

  Peter McNair was better than any of the girls. His pony (Toadhill Flax, according to a programme Ruth caught blowing across the grass) was a Welsh cob with cream feather, like an Agincourt charger, and a white mane that fell down to his shoulder. The course was over two miles long, and the middle part ran through a wood that straggled down the valley just below the collecting-ring. The ponies had to go through it at the top, out into the country and back into it at the bottom before the fast finish over two of the big fences left over from the point-to-point, but squished down in the middle with regard for the smaller animals. Ruth watched Peter McNair disappear at the top end, and ran down across the grass to the bottom end of the wood to watch him come through. There was nobody there except a woman on a folding chair, taking the score, and stamping her feet in the leaf-mould. She took no notice of Ruth, who stationed herself where the course came out of the wood. The way in was through a gate, which had to be opened and closed again, through some trees and over a stream, then round over a log, over the stream again and immediately up a steep muddy bank and out over a rail at the top.

  ‘Tricky,’ Ruth thought, imagining. Most of the competitors got off for the gate, but Peter McNair did it all from the saddle. Toadhill Flax skidded to a halt alongside, tearing great streamers out of the grass, and his rider leant down and pulled off the loop of string. The pony, having covered most of the last one and a half miles at a gallop, danced through, quivering with excitement, but Peter McNair held him with one hand, and turned him with his legs, and got him to stand while he dropped the string back. Ruth, watching, thought it was done by magic. Everyone else had had terrible trouble with the gate, pulling their ponies through, and then not being able to get near enough to shut it again, or not being able to remount for the whirling of the excited pony. But Toadhill Flax, as if held on a thread, trembling with excitement, pivoted on his forehand for Peter McNair to put the string back. The cold wind tossed through the wood. Ruth shivered, her eyes riveted on the beauty of Toadhill Flax. She saw Peter McNair just then, easing the chestnut so that from his quivering immobility he leapt into life again, with a great churning of mud, down the bank and over the stream. Instantly he was caught up, to trot neatly through the trees, over the log, and back to the stream, beautifully in hand. Peter McNair pressed him on then, three strides from the stream, and he was over it with a fine stretch and a lifting of the white mane, and up the bank like a trained commando, his rider well forward and with him, ready for the awkward rail at the top. ‘Up, Toad!’ Peter McNair shouted, and Toad jumped, neat as a cat, springing from his muscled hocks, his tail streaming in the wind. Then out into the open again, at a flat gallop. Ruth ran after them, to watch them finish, entranced by the display of perfect control. ‘That’s how I would do it,’ she said to herself. And, even though her father said she had no sense of humour, she grinned, mocking herself. ‘Ruth McNair Hollis,’ she thought, ‘on Sunnyside Semi-Detached . . . Oh, how can I ever? Without a pony at all?’

  Peter McNair, at close quarters, was rather a disappointment. Ruth went back to the collecting-ring, and stared at him. Toadhill Flax stood impatiently, jiggling his quarters and snorting out through wide red nostrils, but Peter McNair just sat without looking excited at all, not speaking to anyone. He looked (was it possible? Ruth thought) bored. He was about the same age as herself, or a little older, a stocky boy, sandy fair. He looked at Ruth, and through her, without his expression changing. Ruth looked at his pony, and thought she would never see another animal as lovely as Toadhill Flax. He was all spring and spirit, yet stood obediently, mouthing his snaffle. When Peter McNair went to get his red rosette, the pony looked more handsome than ever, the red silk clashing against his chestnut, its forked tails fluttering beside the big, inquisitive eye.

  The last class was for jumping the course in pairs. Ruth, not missing anything, watched Peter McNair ride across to the girl who had come second to him and ask her if she would ride with him.

  ‘I can’t. I’m entered with Jill,’ the girl said.

  ‘Jill could find someone else,’ the boy said.

  Ruth saw the girl with the blue rosette hesitate. But before she could say anything, a girl on a grey pony said, ‘Jane, you wouldn’t! Just to give the McNairs another rosette!’ And she looked at Peter with angry green eyes. ‘Cat’s eyes,’ thought Ruth, fascinated. Peter flushed slightly, but grinned.

  ‘Will you?’ he said to Jane.

  Ruth watched Jane being sorely tem
pted. A whole range of expressions ran over her face, from excitement to doubt. But she caught the cat’s eyes of the girl on the grey pony, and shook her head.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she said. ‘No.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Cat’s Eyes. She looked mockingly at Peter, and said, ‘I’ll pair with you, if you like.’ Ruth recalled that her grey, a fat gelding with sleepy eyes, had refused three times at the first fence and been eliminated. Peter, obviously not easily ruffled, said, ‘Thanks for the offer, which I take great pleasure in refusing.’ He wheeled the chestnut round and trotted away towards the row of horse-boxes.

  ‘There!’ said Cat’s Eyes. ‘What a nerve! Typical McNair. He’s going home now. Talk about sporting spirit!’

  ‘Oh, well. He can’t help it, I suppose.’

  ‘I feel rather sorry for him, in a way,’ said Cat’s Eyes, maddeningly complacent. Ruth disliked her. ‘Anyone could win with the McNair stable to choose from.’

  But Ruth, remembering how the boy had ridden the champing chestnut through the gate, holding his electric power with such tact, and skill, did not agree. She did not think Cat’s Eyes could have ridden Toadhill Flax through the gate, over the stream and up the bank without hitting the rail, and not lost any marks.

  But the intrigue passed, the pairs jumped, the rosettes were awarded. The judges were collected from the far parts of the course by Land-Rover; and the horse-boxes, and strings of riders without horse-boxes, started to filter out through the gate. The cold wind was still blowing, and the grass showed the way the ponies had gone, but the field was empty. There was rain on the wind now, almost sleet. Ruth realized that she was frozen. She turned her head up into the wind, and her black hair blew back from her face. The wine-warmth of joy had dissolved, and she was left with the old familiar ache that would have her crying later, when she was in bed.

  ‘Oh, I must —’ she said out loud, into the wind.

  She turned round, her eyes picking out the jumps. She was alone in the field now.

  ‘I don’t want to win,’ she said. ‘Only to get round, on my own pony.’

  She shivered, hunched against the wind. ‘I will,’ she said to herself. ‘I will. It isn’t asking anything much.’

  But she knew, to her, it was.

  CHAPTER II

  MR. HOLLIS AGREES

  ‘ALL THOSE CHILDREN on ponies,’ Ruth thought, walking home, ‘have parents in suede jackets who know about ponies.’ She had read books about them. They lived in casual old farm-houses full of big dogs and saddles slung over the living-room chairs. They grew up knowing about ponies. Their parents bought them their ponies, and knew what to look for, and how not to be swindled. ‘But how shall I,’ Ruth thought, ‘buy a pony? Not knowing?’ She was determined now to have a pony. She would not postpone asking any longer. But she knew she could never be one of those casual girls who took it all for granted.

  Her mother was right about the buses. There weren’t any. Ruth, her head full of ponies, did not mind walking, at first. She was in a complete dream, and did not notice anything. She was thinking about their back garden, which would have to be their paddock, and wondering, as she had wondered many times already, whether it would be big enough. Their ‘Sunny Spacious Home’ was on a corner of the estate, and had a bigger garden than all the rest, a big awkward triangle. Nobody in their house liked gardening, so it was still all wild and full of half-bricks and lumps of breeze block. Fortunately, being in the far corner of the estate, it backed on to a field, instead of somebody else’s back garden, and there were big trees in the hedge which gave a bit of shelter. For there would be no stable for Ruth’s pony. No luxuries, Ruth thought. Just the bare pony, if she were lucky.

  ‘I will ask Dad tonight,’ she said to herself. Anything would be better than just thinking about it, and being afraid to ask. She wished desperately that her father was a farmer, who would say, ‘Of course, lass, you can keep it in Ten Acre. I’ll pick you up a useful animal in the market on Friday,’ instead of a traveller for Tibbett’s Toilet Ware, who would go grave at the thought of spending money and say, ‘Ponies don’t live on air, you know.’

  Ruth walked along thinking about buying a pony. She had forty pounds in National Savings Certificates. Her brother Ted had had sixty pounds, and had taken it all out to buy his motor bike three months ago. It started to rain again, and Ruth plodded on, head down. She pulled the hood of her anorak up and put the crash-helmet on top. There was nobody to see, as she was on a deserted stretch of country lane which ran, undulating, between vast fields whose hedges had been cut out. ‘The sort of farmer I don’t like,’ Ruth thought. It was efficient but ugly. In the burnt-out ditches the rain-water reflected the black grass. The rain started to hurt, with sleet in it, driving horizontally across the bleak lane, and Ruth put her head down against it. Her wet jeans plastered themselves to her legs and the sleet tinned on her helmet. There was nowhere to shelter, not even a tree, so she just had to keep on walking.

  After a few minutes she heard the noise of a heavy lorry approaching from behind. She shifted over into the verge, glancing over her shoulder. It was a big horse-box, with ‘McNair’ painted over the cab. It went past, soaking her still further with spray from its wheels, but about twenty yards farther on it stopped. She walked on. The door opened and a man put his head out into the rain and called back to her, ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please!’

  Ruth ran, and scrambled up into the seat beside the driver. The cab was hot and fumy, with steam on the windows, deliciously comfortable. She slammed the door.

  The man put the lorry in gear and eased it into motion once more, and said, ‘I don’t pick anyone up as a rule, but on a day like this . . .’ He grinned. ‘Bit wet, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Wychwood.’

  ‘I can put you down there, then. I pass it. Bit of luck for you, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I thought there would be a bus, but there wasn’t. I went to watch the Pony Club Trials.’

  ‘That’s where I’ve been. Left at three, but had to take young Peter up to Potton to ride some ponies his father’s thinking of buying.’

  ‘What’s his father, then? A dealer or something?’

  ‘Yes. You not heard of McNair? It’s quite a business he runs, him and the three boys. The two eldest do a lot of racing now, and jumping. Young Peter has to handle the ponies — the others have got too big. They work hard between them — the old boy’s a right slave-driver. Wouldn’t have got where he is if he wasn’t.’

  ‘Have you got Toadhill Flax in the back, then?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. You saw him jumping, eh?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a gorgeous pony.’

  ‘Flashy. Done well, hasn’t he? Six months ago that pony was as wild as they come, straight up from Wales. And yet today he went round that course and beat the lot of them. That’s McNair for you. Work! He never stops. Get a colt like that for twenty quid at the sales, and a year later it’s worth two hundred.’

  ‘How does he do that, then?’

  ‘Sheer hard work. Those boys — they’re in the stable at six every morning. Peter now — he’d work young Toad (he calls him Toad — says he jumps like a toad) before school, and again when he comes home. Every day. Steady. The old man shouting at him — got a temper like the devil himself, has the old man, but only with people. I’ve never heard him raise his voice to a horse. He’s a right character, I can tell you. Fair, too. You won’t get a bargain off him, but he’ll not cheat you. He’ll not cover faults up. And if he doesn’t think you’re fit to have a horse of his, he’ll tell you straight. Doesn’t mind what he says. But work! Cor, he doesn’t know what it is to sit in front of a telly. People like that — they deserve to make money, by my reckoning. Good luck to ’em, I say.’

  Ruth began to understand what the girls had meant with their sideways remarks about the McNair establishment. No wonder Peter could ride . . . even Cat’s Eyes
saying she felt rather sorry for him made sense now. Ruth wondered (knowing how she felt herself when she first opened her eyes in the morning) whether Peter McNair really wanted to get up at six every day, to be shouted at by his father.

  ‘I want to buy a pony,’ Ruth confided to the cheerful driver.

  ‘Come and see McNair, then. You won’t be sorry. He’s got some nice little animals, just suit you. We’re only three miles farther on from Wychwood. On the Hillingdon road. It’s on the right, set back a bit, but there’s a notice on the road marking the drive. You can’t miss it.’

  Ruth, in the steamy cabin of the horse-box, hypnotized by the windscreen wipers diverting the deluge of rain out of her vision, sank into a happy dream of herself buying a pony from Mr. McNair. Having him trotted out . . . running her hands down his legs, like the people in books . . . looking knowledgeably into his mouth. Every now and then from behind the partition she heard a snuffle or the clonk of a hoof from Toadhill Flax, and for a few minutes she had a sense of belonging to the horse world, swishing through the rain with the warm smell of horse permeating the cabin. ‘It’s lovely,’ she thought. ‘I am happy.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said the driver. ‘I’ll have to drop you here. I go straight on.’

  The dream was over. ‘Thank you very much.’

  She walked home, head down against the rain.

  ‘Oh, Ruth! What a sight!’ said her mother. ‘I wondered whatever you could be doing, this weather! Did you find a bus?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t one. I walked a long way, then a horse-box stopped and gave me a lift.’

  ‘A lift, eh? What have I told you about taking lifts?’ her mother asked crossly.

  ‘Oh, Mother, in this weather, surely? Besides, I told you, it was a horse-box.’

  ‘With a horse driving, I suppose?’ Mrs. Hollis said tartly. ‘Because it was a horse-box, that makes it all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Sometimes, Ruth, I think you’re plain stupid,’ her mother said. ‘Go and get changed and put those wet clothes on the washing-machine.’