You

by Phil Whitaker

  Who’s drowned, Zambo asks, coming back into the church.

  No one, Prof tells him. Not yet. And I hope no one’s going to.

  FOUR

  Horse whisperer

  I head down from Carfax, St Aldate’s church down there on the right somewhere, some uptempo praise song escaping its doors, reaching up the street like a promise of salvation. Rev, with her love of God, her belief in Jesus and all that he had to teach. I pass the huge oak doors into Christ Church, the ranks of people waiting for buses at the stops there. I feel unable to reach you. Was it too much, what we saw on our last flight: Billy, triangular life; Mummy, you, me? Have you retreated somewhere into the maze of Oxford’s streets, never again to be seen? I will myself airborne, craving the intoxicating freedom of the sky, wishing we could once again be coruscating through that crisp clear blue. But all I feel is heavy, earth-bound; my feet are made of clay.

  Forty-five minutes to go. There is still so much I want to show. As I walk, I try to summon you from out of the fabric of this city. But all I can sense is your absence. It is as though you have utterly withdrawn, back to your digs, back to your lectures. Back to the life you have now, closed off and walled off and letting no one too far in, least of all me. What was it that resonated? What set your Tacoma Narrows Bridge buckling, the ground under your feet pitching and yawing? The Your daddy no longer loves me? The WE ALL LOVE YOU! card? The guilt-induction of that ruined Mother’s Day? A glimpse of the triangular life, and an inkling of the way you became triangulated, too?

  I think I know what’s going on; I think I know why you have become unreachable again. Splitting, that’s what Prof calls it. According to her, it would have been the only way you could defend your juvenile psyche from the intolerable conflicts that were ripping it asunder. The only way you could survive the cauldron that your childhood became. Black and white thinking. Mummy all good. Daddy all bad. Is any of this ringing true? Mummy, hoisted aloft on to that plinth, worshipped as the poor victim struggling against all odds to make it through. Me, boxed up, nailed shut, buried in a pit under a thick layer of concrete poured glutinously from the mixer and soon set firm, the site of the interment marked by a wooden cross bearing the one-word legend Bastard. So I needn’t ever be thought of again – except to hawk spit in my general direction.

  Now though. Have those hard-driven nails started to work loose? Has your bridge been set resonating; is that concrete cracking? If so, as the ground begins to quake, the statue of Mummy, up there on its pedestal, its plaque inscribed with a simple Poor Me, will be beginning to tilt, threatening to topple. Even now, perhaps, you’ve rushed over to it; you have clasped it in your arms and are steadying its great weight, desperate to prevent what you have for so long felt it was your responsibility to prevent: Mummy’s shattering, Mummy’s disintegration. Am I right? Then how about this. At one and the same time, in a feat most circus acrobats would give a lot of money to be able to pull off, you must somehow be managing to stamp down hard on the upheaving concrete, trying to keep my grave from bursting open, endeavouring to prevent my ghoulish exhumation.

  I’m so sorry, I know it’s hard. Believe me, I mean no harm. What I say is said out of love, a dad to his precious daughter, however painful it may be to hear. It seems to me that there is pain at the very core of your being – no matter which version of truth you espouse – and that can never now be avoided. But it is far better that the pain you feel arises from that which actually happened. That way you can one day set yourself free.

  Have I overstepped the mark? Who am I to tell you how to be free? Seven years – chapters and chapters of your life that have been a closed book to me. I’ve so little idea what story has been written there. Nor is it for me to know what twists and turns you might author in future volumes. All I want is to give you material you might otherwise never see. It’s for you to decide whether to incorporate it into your narrative, or whether instead to scrunch it and ball it and discard it in the wastepaper bin.

  I’m suddenly aware of a young woman right in front of me, coming up St Aldate’s the other way. We stop abruptly and do that thing, each of us stepping aside to let the other pass, both going the same way simultaneously. To the right. To the left. I give a little laugh, remain where I’m standing, and sweep a theatrical arm to usher her through. She gives me a grateful smile, beguiling in its generosity.

  Something about the encounter, its good nature and simple humanity. I find myself floating up from my body, up past Old Tom in his tower, sneaking an aerial peek of Christ Church’s bowling green quads. Airborne once more, I keep a renewed optimism in check: despite a careful scan of the sky, you aren’t with me. It’s pointless going solo, a joyride devoid of meaning. I cruise like a Zeppelin above the parkland of Christ Church’s fabled meadow, mirroring the routes of the gravelled paths that meander beside the tributaries to the Thames, hoping against hope that you will appear. Below me, rare-breed cattle dot the fields, mouths bent to the ground, intent on cropping the grass. Still you are nowhere to be seen. Eventually, becalmed, I turn in a gentle arc, start heading back towards St Aldate’s and my arm-ushering body, there to resume my terrestrial progress. This, I decide, must have been a ­self-indulgent lift off, a wistful yearning for something that will not be.

  But then I make you out, I’m sure of it. No more than the faintest of condensations in the pale blue way out to the east of the city. You, too, are moving slowly, creeping across the sky, as if weighed down by all you have seen. Not a hint of the lightning-bolt fizz and zing of our recent encounters. But you are here, you are here. I feel a tidal surge of love wash through me: how impossible it must be for you to leave the ground, what with how unstable it has become. Yet you have done that exact thing.

  My mood lifts a little, bubbles of optimism rising despite the gravity of where we have been. I reverse my arc and start towards you, aiming to intersect your path. As I approach, you hold your course – not a hint of veering away. I join you in a loose formation, keeping a respectful distance, mindful of your soberness despite the brightness of the day.

  What is your mood? I try to sense it. Resignation? Depression? Or resolution to continue this journey that we have started? You answer by your actions, sticking a hundred yards from my wing, gradually gathering momentum as I start to pick up speed. Certain that you’re here for the duration, I accelerate still further, sure now of what it is you ought next to see. North over Oxfordshire, across the border with Gloucestershire – somewhere about there we breach the sound barrier, our sonic booms startling the sibilant air, one after the other in quick succession.

  I’m searching forwards, probing the undulating hills, seeking out our destination, when suddenly I see movement. There, below us, beetling along the ribbon of road: my old car, that clapped out Peugeot of your childhood. Amazing. I swoop like a sparrowhawk after its prey. It’s a hot day, back then, unseasonably so – the car windows are wound down; I’ve never owned anything with air con. I fly alongside, gauging my moment, then barrel roll myself inside.

  A sudden end to the buffeting. I look across to see you slooping similarly through the gap between glass and frame of my driver’s door. We slip noiselessly into the back. It could do with a good valet, this vehicle: discarded crisp packets, dried up mud marks in the footwells, sketch pads and car park tickets and newspapers littering the rear seat.

  Pay no heed to the debris, our weightlessness will not damage anything. Sit with me. No need to fasten your safety belt – you cannot be harmed, even were a crash to occur. You settle yourself behind the driver’s seat, the back of my younger head all of me that you can see. I do likewise on the passenger side, behind eleven-year-old you. Your long blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. Dressed in your favourite jeans and Fat Face hoodie. You’re excited – you’re out for the day with your daddy. This is your birthday treat we’re going to. The road noise is thrumming, you find it hard to make out what we’re saying, child-you and me, as
we chatter our way along. The details don’t matter – all I’ll say is, you’re full of news from your first term at senior school.

  We thread up the big trunk road that takes us further into Gloucestershire. On past rolling Cotswold hills, though wisteria-fringed villages. I don’t have a sat nav, not back in those days: you’ve got the map open on your lap and are helping me to find our way. A couple of wrong turns but it doesn’t matter, we should still have time. Eventually, down an unpromising B road, we see signs for Hartpury College.

  It’s an amazing place. Who would have thought there could be such a thing, nestling in the countryside between Cheltenham and Monmouth and Wales beyond? A huge campus, multiple sports fields, enormous barns, rows of stabling ranged round sizeable yards. Here people come to study animal husbandry, outdoor pursuits, equine management. You’re bowled over by it, child-you; you start wondering aloud if this might be the sort of place you would eventually come to. Your head full of dreams about a career in the equestrian world.

  Today, though. Today we’re here on a jolly. Today we’ve come to see a special show.

  Our tickets admit us to a stadium the size of Olympia. Follow us as we go past the programme sellers, up the scaffolded staircase, arriving at the top to find a view of a vast sawdusted arena. The buzz from a couple of thousand people eager to be entertained rises to meet our ears. Stay close as we make our way down to our seats – I’m checking our ticket stubs to identify the right place. Ephemeral you and I perch ourselves cheekily on the laps of a couple from Worcestershire who happen to be occupying the row behind child-you and me. It’s OK, don’t worry about them; we weigh precisely nothing, and we’re entirely transparent. We won’t do anything to spoil their view.

  Look at you there, made-up young girl that you are, a bit too small for the seat you’re occupying. Eleven years old. I’ve bought us a big pack of Minstrels. You’re munching on them while taking in the sights: the brightly coloured poles arranged like a showjumping course, the areas of fencing and the swathes of blue plastic laid out in the ring below.

  Then it’s time. Some man’s voice comes booming from the PA. Ladies and gentlemen! Girls and boys! Announcing what a great pleasure it is to welcome to the UK none other than the legendary Monty Roberts. Known to millions as the Horse Whisperer.

  You’ve read his book cover to cover. You’ve even tried out some of his methods on ponies you get to borrow. If it were possible, you would want to be him.

  He looks curiously diminutive from this vantage. Must be about seventy. Boots and chaps. Stetson on his head. Waving to the crowd, acknowledging the applause. Striding the arena, his voice broadcasting from a headset microphone. The first horse, he tells us, the first horse tonight is called Charlie. Charlie’s come all the way from Northumberland, his owners desperate to see if Monty can do anything to conquer his dread of water.

  Dutifully, Charlie is led around by his mistress in a ­real-time Before photo. Whenever they approach any of the wide sheets of blue tarpaulin, Charlie shies and scitters and digs his hooves in. The power of the animal; his owner cannot move him, no amount of cajoling can hold sway. No way is Charlie putting a hoof anywhere near something that even resembles a stream or a big puddle. Again and again he does it, till the entire audience is convinced of the strength of his phobia, and how impossible it must be ever to ride him in open country.

  Then Monty goes to work. He takes Charlie into a fenced-off circle in the centre of the sawdust ring, and sets him to trotting round and round the perimeter. He has a whip, Monty – standing in the middle of that circle, his body swivelling to track Charlie’s progress – but it goes nowhere near the young gelding. He gives the occasional crack on the floor, though, any time Charlie starts to come in towards him. Running commentary: Notice the posture of Charlie’s head and neck – they’re upright, proud. Charlie is thinking he’s dominant; Charlie is thinking it’s his herd. But every time he veers closer to Monty, he’s sent away with a whipcrack and a sharp cry and an arm flail. Trotting on he goes, back close to the fencing, round and round the miniature ring.

  Horses, Monty tells us, fear nothing more than being separated from the herd. Survival depends on numbers, the protection only a group brings. What I’m doing at the moment is casting Charlie out, he says. I’m abandoning him. He’s starting to get really worried – there are bound to be wolves and bears and untold other monsters out there, all eager for a horse-meat meal.

  In Charlie comes again, head held high, mane rippling. Crack! Yah! Out to the perimeter once again.

  What I’m looking for, Monty tells us, his voice filling the spellbound space, is a change in his body language. Watch for him dipping his head. That’s how he’ll tell me he’s decided to submit. That’s how he’ll tell me he’s got too scared.

  On trots poor Charlie. Look at yourself. You’re rapt in the moment. Even the Minstrels are forgotten.

  Crack! Yah! Out he goes again.

  Then, just as predicted, a change. Charlie ducks his head down, neck as graceful as a swan’s. Once, twice. As soon as he sees it, Monty hides the whip behind his back, and his voice starts to croon unintelligible things, his tone one of welcome, of drawing in. Charlie turns, slows to a walk, approaches this strange human, head bowed, and stands there while Monty strokes his neck and his muzzle, the two of them bonded in the centre of that ring.

  As soon as you see it, Monty tells us, as soon as you see the submission, you welcome the horse into the herd. It’s instant reinforcement. He’s now accepted you as the leader. It’s what I call Joining Up.

  Look at us. We’re giggling, you and I, as Monty now leads Charlie up to stretch after stretch of blue plastic, and the horse meekly crosses each one. It is amazing. The absolute turn-around. The way Monty has completely changed Charlie’s behaviour. Applause strikes up; the audience is delighted. Just to demonstrate how completely Charlie now trusts him, Monty finishes with a flourish, taking the unperturbed animal along the entire length of one of the pretend rivers, Charlie at his shoulder the whole way. What an After photo. It’s extraordinary, how rapidly this reluctant paddler has been won over. It’s as though he’s now eating out of the palm of Monty’s hand. He is completely unaware of the power of his muscles, the sheer mass of his body, of how he could knock this puny human flying should he choose to. It’s as though he is under Monty’s spell.

  Come, let’s away, let’s lift ourselves as feathers from the laps of the delighted Midlanders in the seats behind our erstwhile selves. It’s astounding stuff – we could stay longer; perhaps you would like to. Perhaps you would like to relive the other amazing sights we saw that day. Another mare, Nancy, scared rigid by the sight of a horsebox, utterly refusing to go inside the enclosed space, in which she would be trapped, cornered, vulnerable. Then seeing her being led up and down the ramp, in and out, going at a trot such was her new-found eagerness to oblige once Monty had done his joining up on her. Or that young colt, Thunder, pathetically spooked by plastic bags, transformed in just a few short minutes into the epitome of unperturbed cool when confronted by their rustling strangeness.

  The power of that short-arsed Californian magician – no wonder he’s achieved such international fame. Most people training horses do so through fear. They know they have to be dominant, so they assert themselves with pain and punishment. But fear breeds fear, which merely stokes the phobias. How much more powerful is Monty’s method. He has studied the nuances of horse psychology and behaviour. His dominance is wrought through joining up – through love and acceptance – underscored by the terrible threat of being cast out from the herd; of being abandoned, alone. He uses this awful power for good, of course, helping his equine charges to overcome their irrational fears and to grow. In that, it is akin to good parenting. But none of us is in any doubt that, were he to be so inclined, he could get these joined-up horses to do things that were damaging and harmful. That if he were so minded, Monty could just as easily cast mal
evolent spells.

  Back we fly, returning to the Oxford of now. As we retrace our path, approaching once again the idyllic Thames Valley, I try to read you, arrowing alongside. Your mood feels reflective, contemplative, almost as though you are no longer here, though your vapour trail tells otherwise. You feel calm to me; still – despite your air speed. How much memory do you have of these moments, these childhood experiences? Did you remember even the first thing about that day? We don’t tend to, not looking back from an adult age. Sporadic childhood recollections, random events, glimpsed as though through lulls in a heat haze. How different for me as a parent; these things are burned into my brain. And perhaps I have held on to them more tightly than most, flotation points to cling to as I have been progressively erased.

  We part company over Boars Hill, our trails diverging as they ever must do. My heart feels heavy – for some reason, this feels like the last flight I may ever do with you. It’s your placidity, I decide – it’s as though the wind has abruptly dropped, and the Tocoma Narrows Bridge is untroubled once more. Back at Christ Church, I put in a final flourish for my own sake, rocketing upwards like a Eurofighter, clearing the college, then diving vertically. Straight back into myself again.

  ❦

  My ushering arm falls to my side. The young woman – to the left, to the right – has long since passed. I start to walk, on past the police station, inside which play out myriad dramas of all our clashing truths. More Zambo’s and my territory than Prof’s or Rev’s. I head nearer our rendezvous, contemplating the horse whispering that was done on you.

  Once I’d moved into that rented place on Drake Avenue, your initial fury thawed. Your sister let you have the better bedroom, even though she won the toss. It had been made by joining together two smaller rooms; you planned to put a backless wardrobe across the narrow part in the middle, to create your own Narnia. You went with me to Tesco and helped choose all the kit I would need to start again – kettle with cool blue light when boiling, four-slot toaster, cooking utensils. You loved the idea of a Breville. Back at the house, unpacking our spoils, you stood in the kitchen-diner and said how much you liked it: it reminded you of a Center Parcs villa, with its sliding glass doors and long horizontal windows looking out over the combe.