Fly-by-night Page 3

  ‘Do you think Daddy will say I can have a pony now? He said we could when we lived in the country. Do you think, if I ask him . . .?’

  ‘There’s no harm in asking. But don’t expect too much. This house is about all we can afford at the moment. The mortgage is over five pounds a week. Where do you think it all comes from?’

  Ruth shivered, and went upstairs to change. ‘I will have one,’ she said to herself. ‘I will earn some money myself. I’ll work in a shop on Saturdays. Or do a paper round. Or —’ She couldn’t think of anything else. ‘If not I shall die.’

  She took her wet clothes downstairs and dumped them in the kitchen. Her mother, smart in towny shoes and a frilly apron, was cutting up tomatoes. Ruth thought gloomily, ‘She’d never sit all day on a little stool in a wood scoring marks for a Hunter Trials. She doesn’t understand anything about what matters.’ She felt uncomfortable thinking such things, but the thoughts came nevertheless. Ruth wanted a tweed mother, with pony-nuts in her pockets.

  Ted came in, and later her father drove his car — or, rather, Tibbett’s car — into the drive and stamped his feet on the doormat, sniffing the kitchen smells. They all sat down to supper and Ruth ate without noticing, only thinking of what she had to ask her father. ‘Tonight I will know, one way or the other,’ she thought, and felt sick. She could not get the question out. Her father finished his meal and sat on with a cup of tea and the evening paper. Ted went out. Mrs. Hollis started washing-up, and Ruth had to clear away. She felt cold in her stomach, and the question would not get past her lips. There was a pencil on the table, and she sprawled in a chair opposite her father, drawing a horse on the formica.

  ‘Ruth, for heaven’s sake!’ Her mother swooped down with a cloth.

  ‘Can I have a pony?’ Ruth said desperately.

  ‘Pour me another cup of tea,’ her father said, pushing his teacup out from round the newspaper. Mrs. Hollis took the cup.

  ‘Ruth’s on about this pony business again,’ she said. ‘You’d better settle it one way or the other, John, else we’ll get no peace.’

  ‘Oh.’ John Hollis lowered the paper reluctantly. ‘What is it, then?’ He knew perfectly well.

  ‘Please can I have a pony? You said I could when we lived in the country.’ Ruth looked at him, quivering.

  He frowned. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Please. I shan’t ever ask for anything else. Not clothes or anything. If I can just have a pony. I’ll look after it and everything. You won’t have to do anything.’

  ‘Only pay for it,’ said her father.

  ‘I’ll earn some money. I’ll do a paper round. Mary Barker does one, and they want another — there’s a card in the shop. I promise. And I could use my National Savings. Ted did for his bike, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. I’ve got forty pounds.’

  ‘Oh. Would that buy a pony?’

  ‘I don’t know. I should think so. I could find out.’

  ‘But then you have to feed it when you’ve got it. How much is that a week?’

  ‘Nothing in the summer and only hay in the winter. And hay’s cheap in the country, almost nothing,’ Ruth said recklessly.

  ‘Where would it go?’

  ‘Out the back. There’s enough. You wouldn’t have to do any gardening. He’d graze it all smooth and it would look lovely.’

  ‘It sounds a lot too simple the way you put it,’ her father said, half serious, half smiling.

  ‘Well . . .’ Ruth smiled too, uneasily.

  ‘How do you go about it, then? Buying a pony, I mean. You have to know something about it, don’t you? Do you know enough?’

  Ruth knelt on the chair, thin eager elbows on the table. ‘I met a man today, the man who picked me up in the horse-box, and he works for a Mr. McNair who lives on the Hillingdon road, and he’s a dealer. Very straightforward, the man said. He said I’d get a good pony from him. I could go and see him, couldn’t I? I mean, it’s like a shop. You just go and look round and get an idea. Could I go?’

  ‘You never get a bargain off a dealer.’

  ‘I could look at the adverts. Could I look, though? If I found one, could I have it? It’s no good looking if I can’t have one anyway. But if you say I can look . . .’ Ruth’s words tumbled out in a heap. ‘If you say I can use my National Savings money, then I could look, couldn’t I? Ted used his.’

  ‘Well, his motor bike was for getting to work on. Not just pleasure.’

  ‘Oh, it is pleasure!’ Ruth said. ‘You’ve only got to look at him —’

  Her father grinned. ‘He had a wonderful argument for buying it, though. Better than yours, my girl.’ But he was too kind to tease her further. ‘All right. You use it. In ten years’ time it won’t be worth much anyway, and as you’re so set on this idea I won’t say no. You can go shopping.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Looking. If you find anything hopeful, you must report home. And don’t look too keen.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ruth was speechless with excitement. Her face went red, and then white, her lips quivered. Her father looked at her, and said, ‘You are a funny girl.’

  Mrs. Hollis picked up the empty teacup. ‘While you’re in a decision-making frame of mind, dear, how do you feel about my putting my name down with the Council again? We’re well settled in now, and I’d like a child about the place again.’

  When they had lived in London, Mrs. Hollis had been on the local council’s list of foster-mothers, and a succession of small children, one at a time, or occasionally two, had followed each other in the Hollises’ spare bedroom. They were children whose mothers had had to go to hospital, or occasionally whose fathers were in prison, or whose parents had been evicted; normally they had not stayed for more than a few months. Just long enough, Ruth had often thought, to get so that they were one of the family. Then, when they went, it was a wrench and a misery; she did not like it.

  Her father said, ‘All right, dear. If you want to. But past the crying-in-the-middle-of-the-night stage, please. Sixish, say. Tell them your husband is very sensitive.’

  ‘Well, you take what you’re sent as a rule. But I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Right. Everybody happy?’ Mr. Hollis grinned at Ruth. She was sitting in a dream, staring into space. She did not even hear him. Mr. Hollis looked at his wife and shook his head.

  ‘She’ll come down to earth,’ Mrs. Hollis said. ‘When this pony is a reality. It might not be all bliss — all roses. She’ll learn.’

  But Ruth, if she had heard, would not have believed her.

  CHAPTER III

  THE FORTY-POUND PONY

  RUTH CYCLED SLOWLY up the driveway that led to McNair’s. She wished it was longer than it was, for she was dry-mouthed with nervousness. The great moment had arrived, but perversely she felt no joy: she was too frightened. It meant so much, and she knew so little. Reading her old-fashioned horse-books by the light of a torch most of the night before had done nothing to help. Her head reeled with the fatal diseases of the horse, imperceptible to the inexperienced eye; with the vices that meant doom: from bolting to wind-sucking. She had read about dealers who filed their horses’ teeth to pass them off as youngsters, and dealers who injected their horses with sedatives when prospective buyers were trying them out. ‘No foot, no horse,’ was an adage to remember, and, from the feet up, the possible blemishes were legion: curbs, splints, spavins, thorough-pins, windgalls and sidebones on the legs alone. Expressive words with ominous meanings floated through her brain: stargazer, daisy-cutter, herring-gutted, Roman-nosed, ewe-necked, cow-hocked . . . She pressed down on the pedals, standing up, as the gravel bogged her tyres. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she thought in a panic, ‘only words.’

  But now she was in a yard, meticulously tidy, surrounded with loose-boxes, like a photograph captioned ‘A desirable layout.’ The loose-boxes were new and smart, with concrete forecourts. At one side was a wooden chalet labelled ‘Office’; beyond, behind the stableyard, the roof of a large modern house s
tuck up. Ruth put her bike against the nearest wall, where it looked very untidy, and went to the door marked ‘Office’. Before she got there a man came round a corner from the direction of the house, and Ruth stopped short, feeling like a burglar. Mr. McNair, she thought. He was what Ted would have called very hacking-jacket. He said, ‘Can I help you?’

  Ruth took a deep breath. ‘I want to buy a pony.’ Her voice sounded very peculiar.

  McNair looked at her carefully. He was smart, almost dapper, in a tweed jacket and well-pressed trousers. His expression was non-committal, his eyes shrewd. He had grey hair and hard, working hands.

  ‘For yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About thirteen hands? Thirteen-two perhaps. How well do you ride?’

  ‘I can’t really.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s honest. Mostly they say, “Oh, I can ride,” as if the question is an insult. About ten per cent of them can, after a fashion.’

  Ruth felt better. If he appreciated honesty, he must be honest with her, surely?

  ‘What do you want it for?’ McNair asked. ‘Wembley? Or just to keep the grass down at home?’

  ‘Oh, the grass,’ Ruth said hastily. Mr. McNair was smiling, but she didn’t notice. She was beginning to think that Mr. McNair’s ponies might cost more than forty pounds. Everything was so new and expensive, from Mr. McNair’s trousers to the first shining bolt that he was pulling back on loose-box 12. There was no rust at Mr. McNair’s, no chipped paint, no dirty straw blowing in the evening breeze. Only perfection. Ruth remembered Peter, holding Toadhill Flax on a quivering rein, while he dropped the string. Perfection. ‘This isn’t my sort of place,’ Ruth thought, and in her imagination she saw a stableyard, slightly untidy, with dipping tiled roofs and pigeons, and loose-boxes converted from the old carriage-horse stalls, with cobbles, and cats, and a faithful head looking over the half-door . . . the sort in books. She swallowed desperately.

  ‘Pennyroyal,’ Mr. McNair said. ‘Nice sort. Six years old.’

  Pennyroyal was a dark liver chestnut with no white on him, save a small star. He had a kind eye, and he gave a friendly knucker. Ruth, trying to hold back, loved him immediately, and felt doom descending. She just looked, speechless.

  Mr. McNair smiled again. He ran his hand down the hard muscle of the pony’s neck, patted his shoulder, and came out into the yard again.

  ‘I don’t tell my customers that my horses are what they’re not,’ he said. ‘I don’t tell them they’re marvellous. They’re not marvellous. I just buy horses I like myself.’ He was leading the way to loose-box 7. ‘I’m hard to please. I’ve been buying horses for thirty years now. And for every horse I’ve bought, I’d say I’ve looked at twenty.’

  None of her horse-books had described to Ruth a dealer like Mr. McNair. She was lost, and she knew it. She was far too frightened now to say that she wanted a pony that only cost forty pounds. She looked into loose-box 7, and saw a grey mare, dappled like a Victorian rocking-horse, with black legs and eyes blue-black like best coal. To Ruth she was perfect, utterly desirable, from the bold glance of her lovely eyes to the tip of her frosty tail.

  ‘Sixpence,’ said Mr. McNair.

  Ruth, in her nervous state, almost jumped out of her skin. ‘Sixpence?’

  ‘Her name,’ said Mr. McNair gently. ‘The price is somewhat more.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ruth went scarlet with horror at her idiocy.

  ‘She’s Welsh mountain. I’ve got her papers in the office. A bit on the small side for you probably. Not now, of course, but in a year or two she would be. Attractive pony, though.’

  ‘Oh, she’s lovely!’ Ruth’s voice was full of misery.

  ‘Most of the ponies are in the field. I’ll get Peter and we’ll go and see them.’

  They left Sixpence and walked down the row of loose-boxes to a gate which led to the house behind and, presumably, the field. Ruth glimpsed aristocratic heads, honest hunter heads, and the flashy gold beauty of Toadhill Flax. She paused. Mr. McNair said, ‘He takes some holding, that one. I wouldn’t offer him to a young girl. I’d lose my reputation.’

  They went through the gate, which led down between the new house and a newly planted orchard, to another gate at the bottom. As they passed the house, McNair turned his head and bawled, ‘Peter!’ By the time they got to the bottom Peter McNair was coming down behind them, a couple of halters in his hand. He joined them, leaning on the gate, and nodded to Ruth, but said nothing.

  There were about ten ponies in the field, which was large, stretching away to a line of elms on the top of a rise. Some of them raised their heads and looked towards the gate; two walked towards them in a hopeful fashion; one looked, gave a shrill whinny, and galloped away. Against the ridge of the hill, the gallop looked splendid, wild and free, and Ruth watched admiringly.

  McNair said, ‘Damned animal!’

  The pony was a bright bay, not bold in the way of Toadhill Flax, but with an airy, fine action. It seemed to float over the grass. Its gallop set off two or three of the others, but none of them was in earnest like the bay. They wheeled round a few times and went back to grazing. The bay stopped when it was on the horizon, and stood with its head up, watching.

  ‘We made a mistake, turning her out in this field,’ Mr. McNair said to Ruth. ‘Woodlark, a Dartmoor, T.B. cross. But wild as they come. There’s a lot of work there, to make anything of that one. Peter, fetch Sandalwood first.’

  Ruth watched Peter walk away across the field, feeling guilty to be causing all this trouble, when she knew now, with a deep-down, horrid certainty, that none of Mr. McNair’s ponies cost as little as forty pounds. Half of her longed to enjoy this feast of ponies; the other half trembled with fear at the thought of telling Mr. McNair of her paltry savings. Even when buying things like toothpaste, she did not like to cause the assistant any trouble. She always took the first one she saw, even if she did not like the taste, rather than ask the person to go to any trouble looking. And now here she was, having all this time and trouble spent on her by the exalted McNairs, and it would be to no avail. In silence she watched Peter approach a group of three ponies, talking to them quietly. One came up to him, nuzzling his pockets, but he walked on to a bay that was still grazing, and offered it something out of his pocket. It came up and he haltered it, and one of the other ponies came up, pushing in for a titbit. There was a squeal of jealousy and a great show of teeth and laid-back ears, but Peter disentangled his pony with quiet tact and brought it back to the gate. It was a stocky bay gelding with a thick black mane and tail, a homely pony. Ruth could see him nicely in her back garden, a dependable sort who would go calmly past a dustcart and stop when she fell off. He was not as handsome as the others, but she could love him easily. He looked at her with humble, patient eyes.

  ‘A good beginner’s sort,’ said Mr. McNair. ‘Nothing spectacular, but foolproof. Eight years old.’

  ‘Oh, he’s lovely,’ Ruth said despairingly.

  ‘Ginny, I think,’ McNair said to Peter. ‘Then I think that’s the lot, at the moment.’

  Peter went away and came back with a dark bay mare with a mealy nose and a lot of wild mane. Ruth leaned on the gate, clenching her sticky hands over the top bar, as if she were being tortured. The two ponies stood, heads up, utterly desirable in every way, and she looked at them as if she knew what she was looking for, feeling only this terrible despair, and not able to utter a word of sense. McNair went on talking, but Ruth did not take in what he said. It was no use. They let the ponies go and walked back up to the yard. McNair said, ‘Those are the ones that are suitable, just now. In a week or two I may have something else to offer you. We have new ponies in nearly every week.’

  Ruth knew it was her turn to say something. They were back in the tidy yard. Peter stood just behind his father, saying nothing, and there was a pointed silence. Mr. McNair looked at Ruth. Gathering up all her courage, and feeling herself going scarlet, she said, ‘What — what is the price of — of —’ All the ponies�
� names completely eluded her. The only one she could remember was Toadhill Flax. ‘— of — them?’

  ‘I could let the bay go for a hundred and twenty. And Ginny, perhaps. The others . . . Pennyroyal, say, a hundred and fifty. He’s quite a useful jumper, and is good in gymkhana events. The Welsh mare the same: she’s a little winner, and you could get some good foals out of her later.’

  Her worst fears confirmed, Ruth felt her scarlet fade, and the cold despair take its place. All her instincts had been right. Not only twice but three times as much as her miserable forty pounds . . .

  She said, ‘I shall have to ask my father.’

  At that moment a large car drove into the yard and Mr. McNair said to Peter, ‘Here’s Matthews,’ and to Ruth, ‘Excuse me a moment.’ He hurried over to the car and Ruth, grateful to Matthews, whoever he was, was left standing with the silent Peter. Her tumbled emotions no longer disturbed her. It was all useless. She looked down at her feet and mumbled, ‘Thank you. I’ll go now.’

  Politely, still saying nothing, Peter followed her across the yard to where her shabby bicycle was propped against the wall. They passed McNair and his visitor, talking hard on the steps of the office, and McNair called out to Peter as he passed, ‘Stay around, Peter. We’ll get a saddle on that Woodlark tonight if it’s the last thing we do.’

  ‘All right,’ Peter said, without any expression.

  Ruth picked up her bike. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, awkwardly. ‘Good-bye.’

  ‘I’ll come down to the gate. It’s supposed to be shut.’

  Ruth would rather have shaken off Peter’s unforthcoming company, but was obliged to walk on with him down the drive. It then occurred to her that she would never have such an opportunity again to seek advice. At least to Peter she could admit her forty pounds, if not face to face with Mr. McNair.

  ‘Doesn’t your father ever have anything cheaper?’ she asked him. ‘I haven’t got that much money.’