Bertie, May and Mrs Fish

I go in the stable and dandy-brush dust out of the black pony’s silky summer coat and finger yellow wavy dandy bristles and hold up my hand in sunlight strips of dust. I hear Mrs Fish’s gumboots flap up the stable path and she looks in over the half-door … You can take me back home now … get him out …

I say … No thanks …

And she says … Get him out here … I’m telling you.

She slams back the barrel bolt and the pony’s head jerks up and I push his face in a webbing halter and lead the pony. Mrs Fish steps up on the mounting block under swallows playing in the blue sky. She lifts one white gumboot and hops a circle on her other foot and says … Come on then … bring him close … And I say … I’ve got to get on first.

I vault on off the ground and ride past the mounting block and she steps behind me across the pony’s broad back. We turn out of the yard and start down Rickyard Lane. White elder flowers big as saucers lean over stone walls on either side. Mrs Fish begins to sing … If you were the only boy in the world, and I was the only girl … in a sweet, husky treble and I groan.

At Fiveacre gate the stream parts clumps of gold kingcups and goes under the lane and oak and ash and larch grow along steep slopes either side and the path gets darker. Low branches stretch across and meet. The pony walks in hardly any light. Mrs Fish finishes singing ‘God Save the King’ and begins … If you walk through a storm hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark … and we come to the wide-open Valley gate. The pony trots across baked mud ruts and starts to canter on the grass and I yell … I can’t stop him … and Mrs Fish shouts close to my ear … Let him go then.

Her bony arms are tight round my waist and her fingers hold a butcher’s grip. The galloping pony rocks. I pull up my knees and crouch and grip mane hair in both hands and hold the halter rope. Mrs Fish leans her chest on my back.

The pony gallops flat out over Valley cowslips and thistles. Rabbits run past bluebells and disappear down warrens in trees. Hoofbeats rumble and jays scream. A pigeon swerves above us as we race down the long bright-green strip. Where the woods end a chaotic plan of anthills circles Alexandra’s Gorse hillside. Green tumps bulge high as the pony’s knees and at a tall one the pony swerves downhill. Gravity pulls Mrs Fish sideways and she hugs me tightly. Her thighs slip. Our bodies cling and wobble and our legs stick out sideways and wave.

Mrs Fish and I fall … rolling over gorse twigs … stuck by green gorse needles … squashing yellow gorse flowers … red ants scurry … lucky for us ancient grass is spongy. We sit up side by side between anthills puffing hard. Downhill the pony pulls couch grass and mows small brilliant blue speedwell flowers and Mrs Fish says … Go on then … fetch him up here.

A rabbit skims a gorse bush and scuds uphill to the wicket gate and the flowering horse-chestnut tree and the pony’s head comes up and his ears prick.

I say to Mrs Fish … Stand on an anthill … and I tug the pony up close and say … Bend your knee … one two three … and I lift her foot and she lands astride. I jump off the bouncy anthill behind her.

The pony walks to the Valley end and I see smoke from Mrs Fish’s cottage and above Windmill blackthorn spinney grey windmill blades spin on a frame of legs and bars. Mrs Fish sings hymns – ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ and ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and ‘And Did Those Feet in Ancient Times’ – up to Needlehole Cottages. In the paddock the scent of dead lilac and cow-parsley and wood and stone blow past and I slide off and Mrs Fish swings her gumboot across the pony’s neck. She sits side-saddle and slips down and I pull the pony round the way we came. Mrs Fish says … I’ll have a ride back after Betty comes in for tea.

She hauls a split elm rail across the paddock track and pokes it in a horseshoe nailed on the gatepost and says … I’ll fetch water … you let him go.

Dog roses grow up broken walls and stick through empty pigsty windows. Orange marigolds flower against a dark-green water-butt. Mrs Fish drops in a wooden bucket for water. The pony pulls at roses. Mrs Fish shouts … Get him off the flowers.

She throws a stone so the wall rings. The pony backs away. She lugs the bucket up the garden path and water slips inside her white rubber boot. The pony drinks and huffs. His breathing starts a whirlpool in the bucket. He sucks and gulps and his long top hairstar lip wipes inside the rim and the bucket falls over and rolls and rattles. His front legs rear up towards Halfmoon Spinney and he prances along the trees with his nostrils flared and his tail crooked high. He halts and his knees and hocks fold and he sinks on the grass and rolls and chucks his body side to side and gallops his legs upside down. He sits front legs straight and stands and shakes his skin and starts to graze.

Mrs Fish says … You come along indoors.

I cross my legs and stand still. She opens the blue front door and looks round and shouts … The privy’s round the back.

I hear water pour and wood fall inside the cottage. I can’t see past geranium flowers and green leaves clambering up smeared window-panes. I go along a grass strip between carrot rows and peas twined in hazel sticks to a corrugated-iron hut. I shove my finger in an opening and lift a wire hook. Inside the hut torn newspaper hangs on mouldy green string and a circle is cut in board on a box and down the hole is black water and floating brown lumps and the smell’s sweet rotted muck. I hunch off dungaree straps with my thumbs and shove down white cotton knickers and sit on the damp wood ring and shut my eyes tight. I can hear piss splash and see pink garden worms and shiny grey slugs crawl on my skin.

I don’t touch the paper flaps. I hoist up knicker elastic and trouser bib and one strap and lift the hook and run along the grass path strip.

Mrs Fish’s lovely daughter Betty comes in the garden gate. She is taller than Mrs Fish. Her auburn hair shines in the sun. She wears a white cotton puff-sleeve blouse and daffodil-yellow full gathered skirt and white ankle socks and slip-on black elastic plimsoles. Her blue eyes look my way. She smiles my father’s smile and says … You coming in?

I don’t follow her. In the paddock the backs of my legs press the drystone wall. I pick off yellow lichen cushions and hear chair legs scratch brick floor. The sun goes in. Swallows fly low over the two cottage chimneys. The cold breeze raises goose bumps on my skin. I lean on the pony’s withers and fold my arms and put my cheek on my hands and when he steps I step.

Rain begins. I turn over the water bucket and step up and spring off onto the pony and whack his neck with the halter rope knot.