I am, by now, too experienced a competitor to suffer badly from nerves, surely? Skellum enjoyed my cornflakes more than I thought he would, and he won’t tell, but at least I don’t feel quite so ill now. The dressage test didn’t go too badly, I guess. Perhaps Encore will excel himself over the cross country course and be just as controllable as my darling Induna. Perhaps he won’t get himself too wound up. I can handle it, anyway. We’ll be fine. I have to give him a good experience because he’ll take me so much further than Indie. This is just the start of our eventing career.
George holds his bridle while I mount and Gill comes running from the clubhouse.
“You’re lying sixth! Excellent! That’s out of some thirty-odd competitors.”
I’m over the moon that she came with me instead of going to Beatrice with Piet and Nathan. Selfish, I know, especially as Piet’s got Nathan a ride in one of the races. He would be wanting Gill to be there, but I need her more. She’ll go with him and Bravo to the dressage show tomorrow in any case and help him like she helps me.
The winter sun has warmed the day up considerably now but she’s still wrapped into that pale blue padded anorak she brought back from England. It’s actually faintly pale green in places now with three years’ worth of horse slobber. She gives me calm instructions on how to warm up for the cross country and my confidence comes groping back a little. Take the small log quietly in trot a couple of times, canter a few circles, bring him into the bigger log, then jump the tyres straight away. Make much of him and then walk and trot him and don’t jump again until we’re actually on the course. Less is more with Encore.
I often wonder how far I would’ve got without Gill. I love equestrian sport and I couldn’t live without horses but everything I’ve achieved has been with minimal support from my family and a ton of it from hers. Mine say, “Oh, well done!” and “Congratulations – another rosette?” and “You qualified for the championship again? You are doing well!” and they tell all their friends how lovely my horses are, but they’re not really here. Not here, with me, sharing the experiences. I guess we all have different interests, but it would be nice if they turned up at competitions more than twice a year. And as for Danny? I wish… well he’s got an important assignment to get done this weekend. I understand. So once again, under this endless blue African sky I love and with the faint taste of woodsmoke in my mouth and the dry, blonde winter grass underfoot, I’m out with my second sister Gill and my second father Charles. It could be worse.
Charles is there at the starting point, deep in conversation with George. They both acknowledge my presence with a wave and just knowing they’re there rooting for me sends my determination to do this up another notch. My horse is like a coiled spring under me. In spite of the quiet warm-up he knows he’s going to get a good gallop and he’s fitter than he’s ever been so he’s not going to run out of stamina. At least he’s not a bucker – he just springs around on the spot like a pogo stick. Gill’s behind me and I think she calls, “Good luck!” as we prance sideways towards the start, Encore snatching at the reins and me crooning, “Easy now. Easy, boy.” She shouts something anyway.
As soon as I allow him to straighten up, when the starting flag drops, he leaps forward and the air is whistling in the straps of my helmet.
The first few obstacles are simple. We sail over them at speed and Encore is jumping cleanly, accurately and with great scope. Now I’m enjoying myself. We’re in it, doing it, and this is where I forget I was ever nervous with anticipation. We crest a ridge, some gravel scatters and the view ahead is a long valley filled with trees and scrub. The track leads me to the floor of the valley and to that wide stone wall followed by a spread of timber rails two strides beyond. Encore clatters down the path. These jumps are not high, but I need to get him balanced on level ground. It’s a split second decision. I try to give him an extra stride in front of the wall by riding a slightly larger arc but he stumbles fractionally and because he’s all heart, he takes a flyer at the wall from there while totally off balance. I’m way behind the movement.
My arms snap out straight in a reflex reaction to give him as much rein as I can instead of jabbing the bit against the corners of his mouth. His whole body is stretched out like he’s on a rack but he’s not going to get over the wall.
But he is over it, and without any scraping noises. How? Now I’m floating somewhere over the back of the saddle and my teeth are clenched tight and I’m just a passenger instead of being his pilot.
He takes one long, gallant stride towards the rails. I’ve half caught up and he can’t possibly get over them from here, but that’s what he’s going to try. I can feel his body ready for the leap and I’m too late to stop it. Then his common sense kicks in. He stops dead in his tracks, skids.
Like I’ve been fired from a catapult, I’m over his shoulder, rolling in mid-air and there’s a thud that I feel rather than hear. The timber rails are bloody solid.
It’s odd, because a period of time has gone missing. I’m sitting with my back against the rails and there are two people in front of me, a man and a woman. I’m not sure when they appeared. I must have been lying on the ground – I’ve just come off my horse – but here I am sitting up. This pair must be the jump judges. I don’t remember seeing them when I came into the wall approach. Wall. Bad jump. Left behind. Encore trying to make the most of a bad situation. Encore. Where is he?
They’re both talking at once but what stands out is the woman asking me if I’m able to speak now. Dear, she calls me – “Can you speak now, dear?” She’s crouched down beside me and she has a very smiley, lined face, grey hair poking out from under a tweed hat, and very blue eyes that are locked intently with mine. “Can you feel any pain?”
Well of course I can speak. What’s she on about? I start to say that no, I don’t feel any pain – or at least I think I don’t – but only a croak and a gasp come out.
“She’s winded.” He’s got a walkie-talkie in his hand and he’s wearing one of those bushwhacker waistcoat things with lots of pockets and pouches and all of them look like they’re full of something. I’ve seen him before. Who’s dad is he? No matter – the most important thing is that Encore is standing behind him.
“No, no!” he says then, but it’s too late, I’ve got up. The lady rocks backwards, caught off balance by my sudden movement and puts her hand out onto the gravelly ground behind her. I want to say sorry but nothing comes out. I stretch my arms so that I can pat my horse and take the reins, and there’s an odd twinge from my left wrist. It’s a peculiar sensation but it’s not painful so I ignore it.
A few deep breaths later I’m able to croak, “Can you leg me up, please?” I take the reins in my left hand, the cantle of the saddle in my right and bend my left knee in anticipation.
“Whoa!” says a voice that sounds like it’s from the man but comes from somewhere in the distance. Mr Rayleigh-Barnes. That’s who he is. Sylvie Rayleigh-Barnes’s father. Everything’s a bit remote, come to think of it. He’s still talking and I get odd snippets.
“Not so fast. Not. For sure. Completing the course. Can. Feel. Arms, legs, back, neck? Sure? No pain?”
I stand still and consider this. My skull cap is still in position and is securely buckled under my chin. Apart from that twisted wrist feeling, I seem to be in one piece. I wouldn’t be standing up if I wasn’t, would I? Perhaps he’s right though. To carry on would be a bit silly. That means I have to retire from the competition. Damn.
“Let her sit on the horse, and you walk back with her.” The lady’s smiling her smiley face at me but addressing Mr Rayleigh-Barnes. I might be a bit concussed, she tells him.
“I’m not concussed. My hat’s still on. I’m fine, really…”
She unfolds a bundle of papers and runs her forefinger down the top one. “Tell them to start the next rider, Will. Yvette Cooper. Number sixteen. Here, give me your radio and you go back with her to hand her over to her connections. Make sure they get her to the St John’s van.”
This is a bit like one of my dreams. Both of them have disappeared and now I find myself seated in the back of Charles’s Land Rover. I do get a vague image of riding Encore under some trees in dappled shadows with someone else walking beside his head, but this might have been yesterday, or maybe last week. Charles is half-in, half-out of the open rear door, holding my right hand. He pets my head while still holding my hand and says “Okay. Good girl,” as if I’m a dog that’s just learned to give a paw. I feel some giggles coming and swallow them, coughing, and get a couple of suspicious stares from Gill, facing me from the front bench seat with her arms resting on its back, and from the blue uniformed woman on my left. The nurse – she must be a nurse – is strapping my left hand and wrist in an elasticated bandage. I try a cautious flexion and it feels stiff and tight.
They let me get out, but they’re all three of them watching my every move. George is under the shade of some gum trees nearby grazing Encore and my horse is all dressed up in his travelling gear. George grins at me and gives me a thumbs up, then in the next scene we’re headed for home, passing that new house on the corner plot, not five hundred metres from the Makuti Park gates. They’re putting the roof on it now. Charles is asking how my wrist feels and I say it feels fine. I don’t ask him exactly what’s wrong with it because I don’t want him to know that there are whole sections of my day that have gone missing.
*
It’s happened again, because now, seated at the table in the kitchen in my own house, watching Charles and Dad sipping from mugs, I realise that in the moment before this very moment I was running my hands down each of Encore’s legs in his stable at Makuti Park. He was fine. I recall that clearly, but how did I get home?
“Get that wrist X-rayed,” Charles is saying to Dad. I’ve got a mug of coffee in my good hand. Mum is cutting a slice of Victoria sponge for herself and I have a half-eaten slice on a plate in front of me. “The Red Cross lady – not Red Cross, sorry, St John’s Ambulance I mean – thought it was only badly sprained but you must get it checked. If you run her down to Casualty they’ll do it.”
“Sure, sure.” Dad’s nodding. “We will.”
I have a bit of a headache so I’d like a couple of aspirins before we go. They might take away the dull pain in my wrist as well. So I say, “I’ve got a bit of a headache,” and I might just as well have called “Action!” on a film set. Without being consulted in any way I’m bundled out of the back door and into Dad’s car, the mugs and plates left in disarray on the table. That’s so not like Mum.