Fly-by-night

by K. M. Peyton

  ‘Idiot!’ She was out of the gate and on to the pavement, Fly churning wildly in circles, letting out frantic whinnies. Milky Way backed away cautiously and Pearl stared politely. Ruth could only hold on, while Fly’s hoofs slithered across the concrete road. She could scarcely hold him and felt herself flung about like a dead mouse with a cat. Her hat came down over her eyes, blotting out the vision of Pearl’s derisory snigger. Ruth wished she were dead.

  ‘Here, here, you daft pony.’ It was Ron who came to her rescue, his oily hand and wiry strength pulling Fly to a heaving standstill in the middle of the road. The pony was shaking all over, and still letting out high-pitched whinnies which brought all the neighbours out into their front gardens to see what was going on. Ruth felt herself going crimson.

  Ron said, ‘I’ll hold him. Get on. Then I’ll lead him for a bit, till he settles. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s only excited, after being on his own all this time. I won’t let go.’

  Ruth scrambled into the saddle and fumbled for her stirrups. ‘You go in front,’ Ron said to Pearl. ‘He should follow all right.’

  Milky Way moved off, and Fly-by-Night was pulling madly to get behind her. Ruth, hot with shame, sat grimly down in the saddle, her fingers clenched on the reins. She was frightened, not only of what Fly might do, but of what Pearl was thinking. Fly-by-Night’s bare hoofs scuttered over the concrete. Ron, in his oily jeans and leather jacket, a spanner sticking out of his back pocket, hung on to the pony’s noseband, forcing obedience. They cavorted down the slope and across the main village street, then Pearl turned Milky Way into the quiet opening that was Mud Lane.

  ‘Down here?’

  Ruth nodded, sticky with apprehension. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to Ron. ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘He’ll settle,’ Ron said somewhat dubiously. He turned and looked at her, and smiled. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Pearl was waiting, watching Ron distastefully. She held the lovely Milky Way on a very tight rein, even when she was walking, and Ruth began to wonder if, after all, Pearl knew a great deal more than she did.

  ‘If you walk on,’ she called to Pearl, ‘he should follow now.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Pearl asked. Still holding the mare on a tight rein, she kicked her with her heels to make her walk on, and the mare did as best she could, over-bent and uncomfortable. Fly-by-Night bounded after her and jiggled along, pressed up close to her quarters, giving little eager whinnies. Milky Way was too well mannered to kick, but laid back her ears. Ruth concentrated on sitting well down in the saddle, ready for a buck or a shy, prepared for the worst. A part of her mind, at the same time, was thinking of the picture the two of them made, like a pony-book photograph captioned, in big letters: ‘BAD’. Amidst all her anxiety, this part of her was already grieving, because she could see already that Pearl did not know. She was no female equivalent of Peter McNair, which was the role in which Ruth had cast her. In fact, if she had had Milky Way for three years, and still rode her at a walk on a rein so tight that the poor mare could hardly get her head past a vertical position, Ruth guessed that her ignorance was of the permanent kind, an ignorance in her own character, which did not permit her to admit that she did not know anything. This revelation was so great a blow to Ruth that she almost forgot to worry about Fly-by-Night.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Pearl asked again.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with him,’ Ruth said. ‘He’s not used to being ridden in company, that’s all. I’m still breaking him in.’ If you could call it breaking in, she added to herself. She felt herself wallowing once more in this mire of frustration that was habitually overtaking her, because nothing went according to the books, and the books, for all their value, had no answer for this abyss that existed inside her which was lack of practical experience. Half of her concentration was always fixed on keeping her insecure seat — on herself, in fact. She sighed deeply, almost groaning.

  In spite of her fears, Fly-by-Night did not disgrace himself. Anxious to keep as close to Milky Way as possible, he did not gallop headlong across the fields, nor refuse to go at all, for Milky Way was always moving at an impeccable pace just in front of his nose. He followed her avidly, and although it was plain that his schoolboy ardour annoyed her, she did not show her feelings beyond laying back her ears, because she was so well mannered. To Ruth, the ride was memorable more for the behaviour of Milky Way than the behaviour of Fly-by-Night.

  Pearl rode badly. She sat well back on the saddle with her feet thrust forward, and held on by the reins. She had Milky Way in a double bridle, and the mare was cramped with discomfort. In spite of the difficulties Pearl provided for her, the mare’s manners were faultless. She had obviously been expertly schooled; she moved beautifully, and obeyed Pearl’s ham-handed aids with a willingness to please that roused a great pity in Ruth. Ruth could see that the mare would handle on a gossamer rein and quicken to the merest suggestion from the leg, yet Pearl pulled her about with her impatient, yellow-gloved hands and banged on her sides with her shining black boots as if her lovely Arab were some seaside donkey. And the trusting animal docility with which Milky Way accepted this gross treatment grieved Ruth. The mare had been so well schooled that it never crossed her mind to retaliate. She was all anxiety to obey, her dark eyes fretting and unhappy.

  Conversation between the two riders was limited by Fly-by-Night’s excitement. Ruth had to concentrate, and Pearl maintained the rather superior, cool reserve that Ruth began to realize was her normal manner.

  ‘Do you belong to the Pony Club?’ Ruth asked her when Fly chose to go demurely alongside for a few moments. ‘Heavens, no,’ Pearl replied, with such scorn that Ruth did not dare ask her reasons. ‘I hunt,’ she added, without enthusiasm.

  ‘She doesn’t seem to be interested in anything much,’ Ruth told Ron when she got home. Pearl baffled her. ‘Not even riding. Only she did say she would come out with me again. So that’s something.’

  ‘You mean she’s horrible, but you’ll put up with her for the sake of your pony’s education?’

  ‘Something like that, I suppose. Not horrible, but — oh, queer. She seems so bored. And her poor pony. It’s so lovely, and she’s so — so unfeeling with her.’

  ‘She probably rides because it’s the thing to do. And she’ll come out with you because she’s lonely. Half her boredom is being lonely probably. She never went to the village school, because it’s free, and now she goes to some tin-pot private school somewhere miles away, so she doesn’t know anybody in the village.’

  ‘She doesn’t know much — she’s not horsy, in spite of having a pony. In fact, I think she — she’s worse than me.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Ron looked appalled, teasing.

  ‘But it was a good idea, all the same. Your idea. I should think Fly will stop being so funny if I go out with them a few times. I mean, I can stand her if he improves. She might improve, too, come to that.’

  ‘Or you might meet someone at the new school.’

  ‘Oh, school!’ Ruth grimaced.

  That was tomorrow.

  CHAPTER VI

  SLOW PROGRESS

  WHEN RUTH WENT to the new school she quickly discovered that there were no depths of horsy talent waiting to be plumbed among her new classmates. Four admitted to having ridden, one on a thirty-year-old Shetland pony, one on a heifer and two on donkeys. But on her fourth day at school, standing patiently in assembly while prayers were read, pretending she was Fly-by-Night lining up in the show-ring, mouthing an imaginary bit, she was startled by the sight of the boy who stepped up beside the head-master to read the lesson (a dreaded task that she had learnt was liable to fall on any pupil at any time, forecast only by a list pinned up on the notice-board every Monday morning). The boy in his navy-blue blazer, red tie, and dark-grey trousers was fair and stocky, and spoke in a flat, untroubled voice which roused Ruth out of her dream.
It was Peter McNair.

  It was, of course, perfectly natural that he should attend the same school as herself, but the possibility of it had never entered her head. She felt almost stunned by the shock of his incredible appearance before her very eyes, reading the Bible: quite the last occupation she had ever envisaged him at. But after a few days, having become used to seeing him about, she realized that his presence at school was as remote as it had been at the Hunter Trials. He was in the form above her, which mixed with her own class scarcely at all, and, as a boy in a clique of boys, he was hardly likely to want to make friends with a girl. From a few discreet inquiries, Ruth discovered that nobody knew that he rode at all. He was a quiet boy whose only claim to fame seemed to be a second in the 100-metre back-stroke in last July’s swimming gala. And his great passion was acknowledged to be butterflies. ‘Butterflies?’ Ruth was astonished again.

  ‘Oh, he knows everything about butterflies. And moths.’

  At home Ruth said to Ron, ‘He knows everything about schooling ponies, too, but how can I get to talk to him?’

  ‘You’ll have to get interested in butterflies. And moths,’ Ron said.

  Ruth made a face. ‘That’s not one of your very best ideas. I’m just not interested in butterflies. Or moths!’

  ‘I thought it was rather a good idea myself.’

  ‘Yes, well, I should think it is a very interesting subject, if it wasn’t that I haven’t got time to think about anything else. You see, there’s homework now, and it’s getting dark earlier. And there aren’t any butterflies in the winter anyway.’

  ‘A good point,’ said Ron. ‘The Pearly Queen’s a dead loss, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, Pearl . . .’ Ruth sighed.

  Having got involved with Pearl was as much trouble as it was help. Milky Way’s presence on rides had certainly got Fly-by-Night steadied down and moving in a less erratic manner, but Ruth now worried more about Milky Way than she did about Fly-by-Night.

  ‘She’s such a sweet-natured pony, and the way Pearl treats her is awful. And in spite of being pulled about and jabbed in the mouth and completely muddled, she is so anxious to please all the time. It’s that that makes me feel so miserable. If it was Fly, he’d buck Pearl off, or turn round and bite her on the ankle like he does me sometimes, or roll on her or something. He’d stick up for himself. But poor sweet Milky Way just tries all the time, and I get sad.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what you pay seven hundred pounds for,’ Ron said. ‘Not to get rolled on, and your ankles bitten.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She’s been most beautifully schooled, and she still remembers it. She always leads on the right leg, and never refuses a jump, and she’ll do beautiful forehand turns at gates all off her own bat; but Pearl’s no idea. I get ever so miserable, thinking of poor Milky Way.’

  ‘That’s daft,’ Ron said. ‘She’ll be well fed, and comfortable most of the time.’

  ‘Yes, I know. She’s well fed all right. Stuffed with corn, yet she never gets above herself. But sometimes she goes lame, and Pearl takes no notice.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told Pearl she ought to get the vet, but she says it’s nothing, because it wears off after a bit. Which is true. There’s nothing wrong you can see.’

  ‘You’ve got enough to worry about with your own horse, without worrying about someone else’s.’ Ron said severely. ‘You’re a born worrier.’

  ‘Yes. I’m worried about buying hay now. And getting his feet done. Money.’

  ‘Oh, we’re all worried about that.’

  Ruth knew that her father was worried about it, too. The mortgage on the new house was a large strain on the family finances, and Ruth was frightened to ask for anything for Fly in case her father said he would have to go. She had to manage on her paper-round money. By the end of September the field was so bare that she had to start buying hay, and she soon found that Fly could eat a bale in under a week.

  When she went up to ‘The Place’ she would see the gardener, who fed Milky Way, measuring out chaff, oats, bran and pony-nuts, and she longed to be able to do the same. ‘Not, of course, that it’s necessary,’ she told herself. For she knew that Milky Way was grossly overfed for the amount of work she did. But she would have liked a bag of pony-nuts. Half a hundredweight was over a pound to buy. She spent two shillings a week on rough carrots, and scrounged stale toast, and cabbage leaves. When the blacksmith visited ‘The Place’ to shoe Milky Way, Ruth plucked up her courage and led Fly-by-Night round, and the smith pared his hoofs down for ten shillings.

  ‘Nice l’il feet ’e’s got. ’E’ll do without shoes if you don’t do much with ’im. Just around the fields.’

  But Ruth knew he would need shoes when he jumped the Brierley Hill Hunter Trials course. She would have to join the Pony Club, too. She found that this cost a pound. She could not spare a pound, or Fly-by-Night would have starved. ‘I’ll ask for it for a Christmas present,’ she decided. ‘Every Christmas.’ But if she joined the Pony Club she would have to have jodhpurs, instead of jeans. ‘I won’t worry about that now,’ she said to herself, turning over restlessly in bed. Sometimes when she lay there, watching the deep, wintering sky all rashed over with faint stars, she would hear Fly-by-Night whinny down the field. The lonely cry would come on the draught through the bedroom window, with the smell of old grass and ploughed earth, and it stabbed Ruth to the heart.

  ‘He’s lonely,’ she said to herself, eaten with remorse. She could see him, standing in the frosty dark, whinnying to the stars. Sometimes, if she listened hard and the night was still, she would hear Milky Way reply from her open half-door at ‘The Place’. ‘Lots of people keep just one horse,’ Ruth said to herself, trying to be sensible. She always skipped the pages in the pony-books that started, ‘The horse is a gregarious animal . . .’ It hurt to think that Fly-by-Night was deprived of something essential to his happiness. ‘It’s daft,’ Ron said, ‘to worry.’ Ruth thought of Ron’s sense, and wished she had as much. ‘Don’t be sentimental,’ she told herself. She hated sentimentality towards animals, as opposed to sense, but thought that she verged on it herself at times. If she knew more, she thought. She would learn at the Pony Club, and meet people who knew, but she could not take Fly-by-Night to the Pony Club until he could be trusted to do as she wanted. She groaned, turning over again in bed so that the eiderdown fell on the floor.

  Ruth guessed that Ron had been right when he had said that Pearl was lonely, for Ruth, having introduced herself to Pearl, now found herself badgered by Pearl’s company. Unfortunately, with the best will in the world, Ruth could not get fond of Pearl: Pearl exasperated her, with her sulky moods and her bigoted ignorance, which she would not admit. They rode side by side, along the edges of the winter plough, arguing bitterly.

  Ruth, compelled by Milky Way’s unhappiness, told Pearl she rode on too tight a rein, to which Pearl retorted, ‘I ride her collected. I don’t let her sprawl about like Fly-by-Night.’

  ‘But a horse should walk on a long rein, freely,’ Ruth said. ‘You only collect her up when you’re going to do something else, to get her ready. Not all the time. You’re ruining her mouth.’

  ‘Who are you telling how to ride?’ Pearl asked haughtily. ‘Just tell me how many times I’ve fallen off, compared with you?’

  ‘Just staying on doesn’t mean to say you are a marvellous rider. Even I could stay on Milky Way. She never gives you any cause to fall off.’

  ‘That’s because I’m riding her properly,’ Pearl said pointedly. ‘If you rode Fly properly he wouldn’t buck you off.’

  ‘He doesn’t buck,’ Ruth said furiously. ‘He shies sometimes, that’s all. And I’ve never pretended I can ride well! But at least I’m willing to learn, which is more than you are. Why don’t you join the Pony Club? They would teach you.’

  ‘I don’t need teaching!’ Pearl retorted, equally furiously. ‘My pony does what I want her to do, which is more than yours does!’

 
As if to prove Pearl’s point, Fly-by-Night decided at this moment to take exception to a tractor parked beside the hedge some ten feet away. He stopped, goggling, while Milky Way went placidly on. Pearl turned round in her saddle, smirking. Ruth, white with a seething fury, closed her legs firmly, according to the books, but Fly-by-Night started to go backwards. Goaded by Pearl’s amusement, Ruth lifted her stick and gave Fly a belt across the quarters with all the strength of her arm. The pony gave an astonished snort, gathered himself abruptly together and shot off like a cork out of a champagne bottle. By clutching a handful of mane, Ruth managed to keep her seat. She had a glimpse of Pearl’s laughter and Milky Way’s polite curvetting, and then nothing but the stubble racing under the flying hoofs, and the thick mane flying before her. Her eyes were blinded with tears of humiliation, which she pretended were caused by the wind. She did not attempt to pull Fly up, because the field was big, and she did not want to go back to Milky Way. She sat still in the saddle, still holding the mane, until the pony had topped the long rise and Ruth could see the grey water of the tidal creek lying below behind the sea-wall, and the cold pastures stretching away on either side of the river. Then Fly-by-Night dropped his head at last, and fell back into a fast, unbalanced trot, and Ruth was able to pull him up by the gate at the top. She turned round, and to her relief saw that Pearl had cantered round in a big circle and was on her way home, alone. The white Arab pony moved like a drifting sea-gull over the grass, easy, obedient. Ruth watched her, bitter at the injustice of it, while Fly-by-Night hungrily cropped at the tops of the sour yellow thistles that grew in the hedge.