Pony Stories (3 Book Bind-Up) (Red Fox Summer Reading Collections)

by K. M. Peyton

  David still felt quite calm – uncannily calm, he told himself as he bridled Tornado. The hunters had left the ring, and had been replaced by ponies and children on leading reins.

  More people were arriving all the time. David mounted Tornado, who felt fresh and ill at ease; her back was up, her neck like a ramrod, for a few moments all her schooling seemed forgotten. Then she relaxed, dropped her nose, went into her bridle like a dressage horse, which made David realise how much she had improved since coming to Devon.

  Soon the jumps were being arranged in the ring – gaily-painted red and white bars, two gates, a wall, dark brush fences. The crowd was becoming thicker along the ring ropes, spectators were climbing on the roofs of cars, practice jumps were appearing. The elegant hunters had gone; instead, a great variety of horses was emerging from trailers, horse-boxes, and from the road – cobs, thoroughbreds with goose rumps, thickset jumpers, all sorts, all shapes. Riders in black coats were fewer; there were more martingales and odd contraptions to be seen.

  Presently Major Seely took Tornado.

  ‘Have a look at the jumps while you can,’ he said.

  It was a relatively simple course: the two brush fences had guard rails, the stile was on the flimsy side, but the combination of two gates was straightforward, and there wasn’t a twist or a sharp corner to unbalance Tornado.

  ‘Not too difficult, is it?’ asked Major Seely as David mounted again.

  ‘No, sir. The stile looks the worst fence to me,’ David replied.

  He still felt calm as he stood in the collecting ring waiting for his number to be called.

  Everyone else there seemed to know each other, which gave him the feeling of an outsider. Tornado had been entered under his own name, so that there was nothing to tell anyone that he was Major Seely’s new working pupil. Walking Tornado backwards and forwards across the collecting ring, he longed suddenly for Pat to be beside him; he couldn’t remember a show without her; she had always been there, ‘nannying’ him, as she called it. But that’s past, he decided, and the past should be nothing more than a signpost to the future. He turned his attention to the ring and refused to see the image which obscured the jumps of a girl with chestnut hair who said, ‘You’ll be a great rider one day, David. I know you will.’

  A few more minutes and the collecting ring steward was saying, ‘You next. Are you ready?’ And he was collecting Tornado, riding into the ring, not seeing the crowd, but only the jumps, thinking. Nothing else matters. Steady, Tornado. Steady – turning towards the first brush fence, remembering the guard rails on each side, letting his mare judge her own distance. It’s like poetry, he thought, approaching the stile; like beautiful music. There must be no rough edges, no wrenching. One’s performance must be as smooth as running water. Tornado tipped the stile, but it didn’t fall; she cleared the gates with ease, jumped the wall with care, lengthened her stride for the triple. The crowd was quite silent; leaning against the ring ropes, Major and Mrs. Seely watched. There was a slight turn before the second brush fence; Tornado changed legs, cleared the brush, increased her speed for the hog’s-back. Nearly home, thought David, collecting his mare for the upright fence, feeling a rush of joy as they approached the last fence of all, a Sussex gate.

  ‘He’s certainly got something,’ said Mrs. Seely.

  ‘He’s a lot better than Tony Booth,’ said her husband. I’ve done a clear round, thought David. Oh, Tornado, you’re wonderful, and I never thought you would make a show jumper.

  ‘Jolly good,’ called Sheila, running to meet him. ‘Here. Take your second horse.’

  He found some oats in his pocket for Tornado before he mounted Sandstorm. The groans from the crowd told him that a popular competitor had knocked a fence. For the first time he noticed that the day was unbearably hot.

  ‘Well done, David. A very nice round indeed,’ commented Major Seely.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Best of luck,’ muttered Sheila.

  He was anxious now; he wanted to do as well on Major Seely’s horse as he had on his own. But another clear round seemed like asking for the moon. He remembered his father saying once, ‘It’s what you expect from life you get, son,’ and he thought: Perhaps I’d better expect it. Sandstorm felt nervous. She eyed the ring suspiciously. However hard he tried, he couldn’t imagine her jumping a clear round.

  He wished now that he had jumped her first.

  ‘That’s one of Major Seely’s horses, isn’t it?’ asked a man on a large ugly black.

  ‘Yes. Sandstorm.’

  He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He had always felt like that before going into the ring; it was as though he needed silence in which to collect all his energy and concentration, so that he could empty his brain of everything but the task ahead.

  He tried to relax, but his sense of calmness had fled, to be replaced instead by a pit in his stomach, by a nagging doubt of his own ability.

  But when his number was called again his calmness came back. He entered the ring as he had before, and again only the jumps counted. Somehow his calmness seemed to enter Sandstorm, who jumped the first three fences like an old hand. After the fourth jump each moment became an agony of suspense to David. Could she clear them all? It seemed too much to ask; and yet the dun mare didn’t hesitate, but judged fence after fence perfectly, while David sat still, letting himself go with her strides.

  He knew by a burst of clapping that he had done a second clear round. His first thought was: I wish Mum was here, because the moment would have meant so much to her – more, perhaps, than to anyone else.

  He dismounted, stood shading his eyes with one hand, praising Sandstorm. Afterwards he would look back on the next few minutes as some of the happiest in his life, but at the moment it was a sense of relief he felt more than anything. Once again he had proved something to himself: he knew now that he was fit to ride Major Seely’s horses; that show jumping was really his métier; that he was right in believing he belonged to the world of riding.

  ‘Well done. That was really superb,’ said Major Seely.

  ‘Congratulations. I’ve never seen her go so well. She was transformed!’ cried Mrs. Seely.

  He came back to reality. ‘She was wonderful. I just sat there,’ he said.

  ‘There have only been four clear rounds, so you’re in the running on both horses,’ said Major Seely. ‘I can only say: do the same again.’

  ‘In capital letters,’ added Mrs. Seeley.

  He felt in a dream as he handed Sheila Sandstorm, mounted Tornado. He couldn’t believe that he was here in Devon, changing horses after jumping two clear rounds. Success had always come to him as an appalling surprise, probably because he had never been much good at school – until he took up riding, almost the dunce of a clever family.

  ‘I suppose one day you’ll get over your inferiority complex,’ Pat had said once, ‘and discover that you can really ride.’

  But so far he never had.

  He entered the ring again. The jumps were higher. Tornado knocked the stile, otherwise she jumped a clear round. He changed on to Sandstorm. A band was playing now. People were opening picnic baskets.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Sheila.

  Sandstorm was inclined to rush this time; several times she shortened her stride at the wrong moment; once she put her nose in the air and, taking command, jumped the triple at full speed. But because she was clever she always adjusted herself at the last moment and when she left the ring it was with another clear round to her credit.

  He dismounted, but a moment later was called back for a jump off. This time there were only three fences and Sandstorm cleared them one after another.

  He came out of the ring, thinking this is my day, one of those days when nothing can go wrong.

  A moment later he was back riding Sandstorm, leading Tornado, being presented with first and third rosettes, his mind soaring into the future, imagining other rings, bigger shows, foreign stadiums.

  When the congratulation
s were over and Major Seely had insisted that he and Sheila celebrated with a drink, he sat on the trailer ramp in a daze and ate the sandwiches Olive had made for him.

  He felt quite limp, and too tired to listen to Sheila, who was talking as much as usual, now that Major and Mrs. Seely were having lunch in the refreshment tent.

  In the trailer the horses munched feeds. David had taken off his coat, pulled down his braces and rolled up his sleeves. Later he would collect Tornado’s prize, which Major Seely insisted should be his. He knew from the programme that she had won £5. He felt like putting it in the Post Office in her name, but was afraid that people would laugh at him. He had been brought up to save money against ‘a rainy day.’

  ‘It never hurts to have something put by, however little,’ his mother had often told him.

  Even so, sitting now on the trailer, more than anything he wanted to buy a dog.

  He suddenly wanted possessions: a dog, a bicycle – who knows, perhaps later a car.

  ‘Here comes the governor. We’d better pack up. I don’t believe you’ve been listening at all,’ complained Sheila.

  He stood up and a wave of happiness came over him. The impossible had happened. He had won! Anything could happen now. Even his dreams might come true.

  He thought of the letter he would write home, of how pleased the Bates would be, and his life seemed full of hope and opportunity, like the beginning of a perfect day.

  THE SECOND SHOW

  THE DAY AFTER the show was rather an anticlimax. Tornado and Sandstorm rested. David schooled Jolly Roger and was told to take the afternoon off, and wandered along the lanes, suddenly lonely and homesick for Oxfordshire.

  Three days later there was another show. This one was further afield and there was more bustle about the preparations. Mr. Booth plaited both the horses. David rose at five. This time Tornado boxed without trouble. Mr. Booth came instead of Sheila, and drove the car, because Major Seely was to come later, after visiting his office and answering the morning mail.

  David travelled with the horses, preferring their company to Mr. Booth’s, which seemed always to hold an undercurrent of hostility. The day was wet. Mr. Booth instructed him endlessly and kept him running around for things like a stable boy. The course was tricky; David was wet to the skin before he entered the ring. All the same, both horses jumped a clear round and were finally placed second and third, this time Tornado above Sandstorm. It seemed to David then that his name was already half made. He could hear the experts talking about him, other competitors looking at him with envy, one rider saying, ‘Who’s the boy Major Seely’s found? He’s someone to be reckoned with.’ He belonged now completely. The name of David Smith was on everyone’s lips. In spite of the rain, and the fact that Major Seely hadn’t arrived in time to see his performance, David was happy. Looking at Tornado, he kept thinking again: She’s mine. And now he imagined riding her himself in foreign competitions, himself competing on his own horse, and it seemed that he could ask for no more, that once he had done that he would be at last content.

  Travelling home through the wet afternoon, he thought of all the things Major Seely had said, and now there was a shaft of anxiety in the back of his mind, because next month Major Seely was going for a holiday in France, leaving Mr. Booth in charge.

  ‘You’ll go on just the same as usual. We’ll work out a schooling chart for the horses before I leave; and you might go to a show or two. Then when I get back we’ll start on the really big ones – the Royal, the Three Counties. You may have to sleep in the box. You won’t mind that, will you?’ Major Seely had asked.

  The future had seemed like Paradise to David, until he imagined himself being organised by Mr. Booth. He wanted to say something to Major Seely, but what could he say? That he didn’t like Mr. Booth? That Mr. Booth didn’t like him? His anxiety hung over him like a cloud all the way home. He had a ghastly sense of foreboding. Now he realised that everything was working too perfectly, that life wasn’t like that. He started to dread next month.

  Sheila shrieked her congratulations. As they took off Sandstorm’s bandages, he asked, ‘Did you know Major Seely was going away next month?’

  ‘Yes. It’s doctor’s orders, apparently. He’s been doing too much again. You know he’s got a weak heart.’

  He hadn’t known.

  ‘That’s why he doesn’t ride any more,’ Sheila said.

  ‘He doesn’t look like someone with a heart,’ David said.

  ‘Don’t you like the thought of him going?’

  ‘Not much.’ She understood, which made David’s fears seem all the more real to him, though if anyone had asked, ‘What do you think’s going to happen?’ he couldn’t have said.

  ‘Well, don’t let it get you down. Jimmy and I are behind you,’ she said.

  He said good night to Tornado, walked to the bungalow with his hands in his pockets trying to rid himself of anxiety. But he couldn’t forget how he had felt about Pat, how he had known weeks before she had said anything what was in her mind. And he had been right. He could only pray that this time his premonition would be proved wrong.

  The next week-end he went home. The journey took four hours. He read Horse and Hound, and as he reached Oxfordshire felt as though he had been away for months instead of a few weeks. The trees were no longer in blossom; a few farmers had started to cut their hay. When he had left Oxford and was travelling in the familiar ’bus past fields which held so many memories for him, he felt really home.

  He could think now: This is where I fell off. This is where Tornado bucked. This is where we quarrelled. This is where I took the pupils. It made him feel very old.

  His mother was waiting at the ’bus-stop.

  ‘Had a good journey? You look well,’ she said.

  Everything was the same.

  ‘Okay. Plenty of room. I had to change at Reading,’ he replied.

  Tea was waiting on the kitchen table.

  ‘Is Mrs. Bates looking after you properly?’ asked his mother.

  She went through his clothes, found a button missing, a seam which needed stitching. It seemed funny to sit there after tea watching his mother, to have no horse looking for him over a loose-box door, to have nothing to do.

  ‘You’re doing all right, then?’

  He handed her Horse and Hound. Inside there was a photograph of him jumping Sandstorm. They were described as a promising combination.

  ‘I always knew you’d do all right,’ said his mother.

  He wanted to tell her about Mr. Booth, because he was still anxious about the future. But he didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘Tornado’s won £20,’ he said instead.

  ‘Well done. But don’t you go spending it. Put it aside for a rainy day. You never know what may happen,’ his mother said.

  He sat on in the kitchen, and started to think: What shall I do tomorrow? He wasn’t accustomed to leisure. The week-end started to look very long. He wanted to say, ‘Heard anything of Pat?’ But his mother didn’t like her now, and, anyway, he was afraid to ask, because she might be abroad by now, or already engaged.

  Presently his father came in, and there was a new pot of tea and they all sat round the table talking.

  ‘Well, you’ve done very well, David. I can’t say more, can I?’ asked his father.

  They were proud of him. He had given himself a reputation which he must live up to.

  ‘Heard anything from Pat?’ asked his father presently.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s here much now. Spends most of her time in London,’ his father said.

  He saw Harringay, himself competing, Pat appearing from the stands to congratulate him. But that sort of thing only happens in books or films, he thought.

  The next day was fine. He had no close friends in the village besides Pat, so he spent the day helping his father in the garden. In the evening he walked across the Common and remembered how he had schooled Tornado up and down the bunkers of the old golf-cours
e.

  He felt quite lost without a horse to ride. He had no other interests. He sat down on a bunker and thought about Tornado and watched the few rabbits scuttling among the gorse bushes.

  On Sunday he put on his tidy clothes and went to church, which was something he hadn’t done for years.

  By this time he was glad to be going back to Devon. He wanted to see Tornado, to school Jolly Roger, to hear when he would be jumping again. He found he couldn’t live without excitement now. He whistled as he hurried back to Sunday lunch, because by nightfall he would be back in Devon.

  There was beef, three vegetables, Yorkshire pudding, fruit and custard. It was very hot in the kitchen. They sat with the door open.

  ‘Now don’t be late,’ said his mother. She had done his packing. He kissed her on the forehead when he left, nodded to his father.

  His mother had packed him a carrier full of food.

  ‘Just a few biscuits, and an apple or two, and your favourite sweets,’ she had said.

  He caught the ’bus, watched Oxfordshire slip past the windows. The train was late; he changed at Reading again. I wonder who’s been exercising Tornado, he thought. I hope Olive leaves something out for me.

  Mr. Booth met him at the station.

  ‘Got back all right, then?’ he asked.

  David was the only passenger to get off the train. The air felt very soft, and in the distance he could see the purple hills of Exmoor.

  ‘Yes. It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Just change at Reading once you’re on the express.’

  Tornado whinnied when he stepped out of the car.

  ‘We turned her out to exercise herself,’ said Mr. Booth.

  The Bates were out, but there was a cold supper waiting for him on the kitchen table. He sat down, thinking: It’s not so bad to be back. Home’s all right if there’s something to do. . . .

  ‘Can I come in?’ called Sheila.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I was wondering whether you still want a dog, because I’ve heard of one. The sheep-dog at the farm’s got six puppies. Mr. Sellars says you can have the pick,’ she said.