Swimming with Horses

by Oakland Ross

  One thing he did know was that most of the blacks here in Natal were not apt to be troublesome, unlike the kaffirs you found up in the Transvaal or down at the Cape. Here in Natal, you had Zulus, and they were all right. They were warriors, yes. That was their history. But they warred against black, not against white. And there was none of this communistic nonsense, either. No, man. They weren’t so bad, the Zulus. At least they knew their place. A rand’s work for a rand’s pay. Tankie, baas. And off they’d go. Drink corn brew all weekend. Stumble back to work on Monday, flat broke again, of course. Pitiful. But at least you knew where you stood with Zulus.

  But this Berkeley Hunt — he was a shifty-eyed bugger and a Xhosa to boot, not a Zulu at all. Still, looking back, Jack could see that the trouble had really got started even before the kaffir stuck his foot in things. It had all got underway that sorry Sunday evening, when Hilly first pitched up in the stables to blather about telling her pa. It wasn’t the kaffir. It was the girl.

  It had been the girl all along.

  FOUR

  Sam

  Ontario, Summer 1963

  BY MID-JUNE, THE rumours about Hilary Anson had spread throughout Kelso. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t sink to, it was said. Booze. Cigarettes. Not to mention half the single men in three different towns. Soon she’d be getting started on the married ones, it was said.

  Already she’d become a sort of local celebrity, if only because she was talked about. As a result, her laughter seemed louder, more raucous, her manner more jarring, her behaviour more brash. Everything she did seemed magnified now and served only as further confirmation of the rumours swirling in the background. There she was, Hilary Anson in the flesh, laughing too loudly as she swung herself up onto Club Soda once again — so it must all be true. It was as if she could refute the gossip only by ceasing to exist. Show your face, and you’re done.

  Meanwhile, the spring hunts were over, but the combined-eventing season was just about to begin. I was determined to earn a place on the preliminary-level team from Kelso that would compete in the provincial championships in Cardenden at the end of August. Granted, no one expected me to qualify. People thought I lacked backbone, I wasn’t gritty enough, and Della was too delicate and poky. I meant to prove them wrong. That was my goal for the summer.

  As a result, I spent much of each day training Della for the trials ahead. I was up at five thirty each morning for road and field conditioning. It was still dark at that hour, but soon enough the light broke over the rolling hills and the tall maple thickets, already decorated with the lime spray of new leaves. A sharp breeze shifted the branches, and the first rays of sunshine flashed against anything that contained water — glinting from marshes, popping like flashbulbs from puddles in the road, glancing against the trickle of streams. Sometimes the mist hung so low above the fields that I could lift my head into a floating cloud simply by rising from the saddle and arching my back. One moment I’d be cantering Della along a path worn into the edge of a newly ploughed field. A moment later my face would be pressed against the pale, roseate splash of oblivion.

  After that, there was more work to be done — the cooling out and sponging off, followed by a long walk on a halter and shank until Della’s coat had dried, and then a rubdown for her legs with Absorbine Senior. The liniment always left my hands cold and tingling. I mucked out the stalls or cleaned tack, with the barn radio tuned to CKEY. That spring, my favourite song was “Up on the Roof,” by the Drifters. Back in the house I had a bath, brushed my teeth, and dressed for the day. I gulped down my breakfast and then raced out the door. My father drove us both to school, Charlotte and me, first to Alyth and then to Hatton, before heading south to Evanton, where he had a legal practice of his own, specializing in real estate deals.

  In the afternoons, after school, I worked on dressage exercises or schooled Della over fences in the paddock. On Sundays there were riding lessons at the hunt club with Major Duval, a special round of instruction meant only for the team hopefuls. There were to be three riders on the preliminary-level squad and two at the intermediate level. High above everyone else loomed Lisa D’Angelo, the club’s only advanced-level rider.

  Finally, there was Hilary Anson. I heard rumours she might be allowed to compete in the championships, too, and in the advanced section, but not as a representative of Kelso. Instead, if the authorities approved, she would ride for her own club — the Mooi River Equestrian Club. Mooi River was where she’d grown up, somewhere near Durban in South Africa. Whatever they thought of her morals, everyone agreed that she was a sensational rider.

  I, however, was less than sensational — a lot less. This had long been apparent to me, and it became ever more evident, starting with the first of the summer’s Sunday coaching sessions provided by Major Duval. This had been a disastrous affair, even worse than I had feared. When the episode was finally over, I set out with Della on the long ride home. I was in a foul mood. It had seemed I could do nothing right. I had fumbled with the reins, slumped in the saddle, and interfered with Della, who hadn’t exactly helped. She’d been sluggish and lazy, a tendency of hers. Together we’d made a mess of everything, and Major Duval had noticed. In fact, he singled me out — a custom of his. He had separated me from all the other riders and proceeded to dissect my abilities with alternating doses of sarcasm and scorn. He made me trace circles in the middle of the ring while he excoriated my posture, my hands, my seat. He pumped out his chest and raged at me in his throaty French accent. Did I genuinely think I had any hope of making the preliminary-level team? Riding like zees? Like a robot?

  The other riders kept silent during the man’s tirade. They trotted along the outer edge of the ring, kicking up waves of terracotta dust and saying nothing — everyone except Edwin Duval, who snickered after each of his father’s remarks, just loudly enough for me to hear. He was a year older than I was, and he was both an idiot and a third-rate rider. But he had a magical horse, an American Saddlebred named Requiem, that moved with perpetual grace, barely needing a human on board. Requiem would jump anything. Would and did.

  Later, as Della and I ambled toward home, I replayed the training session in my mind, over and over. My head burned with anger and humiliation. The season had barely begun, and already I was thinking that I should just give up. I wasn’t getting better; I was getting worse.

  Before long, I heard a drumming of hoofbeats approaching from behind. I shifted around in the saddle and saw Hilary Anson cantering along the shoulder of the road, headed in the same direction I was. She slowed her horse to a walk and drew alongside me.

  “Want some company?” she said.

  I just shrugged.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The truth gushed out of me; I couldn’t help it. When I was done recounting the worst of my ordeal, Hilary reached over and gave Della a swat on the neck.

  “You know what?” she said. “I have an idea. I’m supposed to be working as a groom for Colonel Barker, but there really isn’t that much to do. Maybe I can give you some help. What do you say?”

  School was out for the summer, and I had plenty of time on my hands. I shrugged.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She toussled Della’s mane. “So. We’ll get together tomorrow? Two o’clock?”

  “Where?”

  She gazed around. “Here?”

  “All right.”

  “Done.” She gathered her reins. “Oh — and bring your baggies, hey.”

  In an instant, she was off at a hand gallop, heading back the way she’d come, kicking up long bursts of gravel.

  “My what …?”

  “Your bathing costume!” she shouted. She glanced over her shoulder. “Bring your bathing costume!”

  FIVE

  Hilary

  South Africa, Winter 1962

  HILARY LEANED FORWARD, STUBBED out her smoke in the clay pot. What was it, her twentieth of the day? She had to quit, an absolute must. Once again, she promised herself she would, just as soon as sh
e’d sorted matters with Jack Tanner. She stood up, wandered over to the balcony railing.

  It was nearly a week since she’d last spoken to him, since she’d put matters in what she thought was their final form, an ultimatum. Just to be on the safe side, she hadn’t ventured anywhere near the stables since then. She wanted the finality of her absence to sink in — or, anyway, that was what she told herself. Maybe it was true. But if it were really true, then by now she’d have made good on her threat to speak to her father. Tell him everything. The whole ghastly tale. But she hadn’t done it. She had never really intended to, despite what she’d told Jack. The truth was she was afraid of her dad. In some ways, she was.

  That was no surprise, really. Daniel Anson was surely a for-midable man, with a head the size of some large boulder, his brow riddled with worry lines. His greying hair was swept back across his scalp, and he wore at all times an expression of undifferentiated disdain, barely seeming to register anything that anyone else said or did. Still, everyone knew when he was about, for his voice boomed through the house. Even the rasp of his breathing could be heard in the next room. His presence seemed to agitate Hilary’s mother especially. Each evening Sharon Anson ventured out onto the balcony adjoining her bedroom, wrapped in a nightgown and a blanket. Out there, she smoked a pair of cigarettes and put away a double shot of Scotch, neat, before retiring to bed. She did this to settle her nerves so she could sleep — a daily regimen that was the most her husband would grant.

  Daniel Anson did not readily tolerate weakness in others and not at all in himself. He raged against the infirmity in his right leg, the result of a rugby injury in his youth. During that long-ago golden time, he had played for South Africa on the international stage, and his Springboks jersey was now mounted in a glass and mahogany case in his study on the second floor, along with the many other trophies accumulated during his sporting and business career. He’d made his fortune in mining. Each Christmas his gifts to family members consisted exclusively of gold coins. Hard value, not sentiment — that was the thing. Yet he had reserves of passion.

  His great love now was for horses — the larger the better, for he required a sturdy beast to bear his weight. He insisted his mounts have legs like telephone posts and dray blood coursing in their veins, Clydesdale or Belgian or Percheron. Jack Tanner was under orders to remain on a constant lookout for just this kind of horse, for Hilary’s father went through them at a hellish pace.

  Hilary’s heart quailed at the thought of coming clean with the man. Horses were one thing, and her father’s affection for them was strong, but he betrayed no similar reserves of kindly feeling when it came to his female offspring — that is, to Hilary herself. For reasons she had never been able to fathom, her very presence seemed to cause him little but discomfort. Well, she wasn’t a man; possibly, it was as simple as that. Not that the reason mattered. Whatever the cause, the result was the same. It was a lie what she’d said to Jack. She wasn’t going to tell her dad about what she had suffered these last few years. Not on your life. Not on anyone’s. It might be different if she’d had someone to back her up, but there was no one. She wondered whether Jack knew that. Probably. He seemed to know everything.

  Now she gazed off into the distance. Beneath her, and beyond the stables, the land pitched sharply away, swept down into the Mooi River valley and then rose again in the far distance, the panorama interrupted by scattered windbreaks of poplar trees and the dark-grey ribbons of narrow hardtop roads. The river known as the Mooi meandered through that broad trough of land, flashing silver here and there in the afternoon light.

  Something in the foreground caught her eye — Jack Tanner, emerging from the barn, or not so much Jack Tanner himself as the horse he led on a leather shank, a majestic chestnut with a white blaze and three white stockings, a horse she hadn’t seen before — a massive beast and a beautiful one. A big, dancing showboat. She watched as Jack guided the animal out to the paddock. Why hadn’t she seen this creature before? Just now, the horse was in a bolshie mood; he sidestepped and skittered, tossed his head, reared around sideways, and tried to pull away. Once or twice, he lifted Jack clear off the ground.

  Even from this distance, she could see what a beauty he was, this horse, and she could tell that he knew it, too. He was making a big spectacle just in case someone was watching. Get a load of me! She couldn’t do much else. She pressed herself closer to the railing, fumbled for her smokes. Just look at the size of that horse. She knew he was a stallion — couldn’t have been anything else. Jack was definitely having trouble holding him. At times, he had to let himself be dragged along, careful to keep his feet clear of those scattering hooves. Now and again, he dug in his boot heels and jerked back on the shank, but to little effect. This horse was too strong. When they reached the paddock, Jack swung the gate open, unclipped the shank, and let the beast loose.

  At once, this chestnut demon arched his neck and surged forward at a bold trot. When he realized for certain he was free, he drew in his haunches, and released them in a fearsome buck, hooves flashing out behind him, his white stockings glinting in a spotlight of sunshine that beamed through a gap in the clouds. He shoved out one shoulder and cantered around to the left, halted, and broke into a canter the other way. He was a gorgeous piece of work; huge, yes, but wonderfully proportioned. He didn’t have that mountainous bulk of many large horses. He looked fine and light. Just big. She wondered where this big handsome hullabaloo had come from. He was brand spanking new; she was certain of that. If not, she’d have seen him before. On the other hand, it wasn’t so surprising that she hadn’t. Her father was always buying new horses.

  She forgot about lighting her smoke and instead shifted her gaze over to Jack Tanner, something she should have known better than to do. Habits. Old habits. He was walking back to the barn now, slapping the clip of the shank against the side of one of his rubber boots. At first, he didn’t look up, and she thought maybe he didn’t know he was being watched or by whom. But, of course, she was wrong there. You’d have thought that she would know better by now than to underestimate that man after everything he had put her through. You might think she’d have him sorted by now. But no. No, sir. Not by a long shot.

  Sure enough, before he slipped beyond the stable entrance, Jack Tanner slowed, then halted. He turned and looked up at the house, shielding his eyes with his left hand. Even at this distance, she could tell what he was doing. He was looking at her, looking straight up at her. He didn’t even need to cast his eyes around. He just directed his gaze upward and set it right square on you-know-who. He had known she was up here, known the whole frigging time. That was why he’d brought that big new horse out of the barn and let him loose in the paddock. Why else? What other purpose would it serve? He wanted her to see that horse. That horse was the bait. He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist an animal such as that.

  She shifted her gaze a notch and again peered at the beast in question as he darted back and forth in the paddock, neck arched like an emperor, tail hiked and feathering. He suddenly bolted straight for the high panel fence as if he was determined to lift off and sail clear over that barrier, only to jam his forelegs into the dirt, slither to a halt, turn, and gallop away.

  She didn’t need to look back at the barn now. She knew Jack Tanner was still there, still watching her. She could damned well feel the weight of his gaze on her skin, beneath her skin, in her bones. She knew, as well, that he would keep right on watching until she had returned to her chair and gathered her things and retreated into the house. So that was what she did.

  SIX

  Sam

  Ontario, Summer 1963

  “BECAUSE WE’RE GOING BATHING,” she said. “That’s why.”

  Hilary was riding Club Soda and wore a pale-blue T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of canvas running shoes — “takkies,” as she would say. She also had a canvas backpack slung over her shoulders. She shifted the straps to rebalance the weight. That done, she gathered the reins and st
arted east along Number Four Sideroad, heading for the old Colby place, where no one lived anymore. Quinton Vasco had bought them out.

  I nudged Della into a jog to catch up. Swimming? Swimming where?

  Soon we were striding at a brisk trot, two abreast, on a route that took us right past the Quinton Vasco estates — the most beautiful land in the county, hundreds of acres of sugar bush and grassy egg-carton hills bordered by a plunging rock-face escarpment, all of it fallow, all owned by a millionaire who refused to allow anyone to set foot on his property.

  “Jerk,” I said. “Thief.”

  “Beg pardon?” said Hilary.

  I told her about Quinton Vasco, or at least what little I knew. He didn’t even live in Kelso. It was said he lived in a town called Letham, a good distance to the west. Meanwhile, he had purchased all this land, and now, because of these endless fences, no one else could go near it. Worse, he was buying up more land all the time. God knew what he had in mind. Real estate development — that was what people said. But so far there had been no sign of workmen or construction or anything of the sort. The land just stood there, fenced off and vacant, off limits to everyone. For decades that land had been available to all in the county, for walking, hacking, rock climbing — anything. Now the entire terrain was sealed off, and men in Mr. Vasco’s pay routinely came out to scour the perimeter for trespassers. They carried walkie-talkies and, it was rumoured, guns. People said it would be worth your life to sneak onto Quinton Vasco’s lands without first receiving permission, and there was no chance of obtaining that. Kelso had once been a kind of paradise. Now Quinton Vasco was destroying it.