Simon Barnes - Miss Chance

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, darling.’ And the descent into tears. ‘Oh, darling, oh dear.’

Then the doorbell. The tears, though copious, seemed to shoot back into their ducts by an act of will.

Mark looked down from his eminence of 15 hands and one inch and admired the sweatered bosom below. Bosomina, he remembered, and especially Sexuella. ‘All right if I give her a spin in the school?’

A reasonable request. Why the slight hesitation? ‘Sure. Shall I take her head?’

‘Don’t bother. I expect I’ll manage.’

They walked across the yard to the outdoor school, the flat sand-floored oblong, nicely fenced, the dressage letters around the sides: KEH on one side, FBM on the other, letters arranged as they are in every school in the world. A pile of showjumping poles and jump-stands to one side, a decent-sized fence set up in the middle of the sand. Bloody hell, if that was her idea of a practice fence she was serious all right.

Kath strode ahead to open the gate, and he squeezed the mare forward. But oddly, she didn’t respond. As if there were a loose connection in her wiring. Instead, she stopped dead. Mark patted affectionately. ‘We’re not going to do anything difficult, miss,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Let’s go.’ And this time kicked.

A terrible thing happened. She did not go forward, as he asked. She went up. What non-riders call rearing. Horsey people, not in the main ones for euphemism, usually call it a stand, or standing up. Rearing is too naked an expression, too terrible an event.

Some horses rear in uncontrollable terror, a rare one might even do so in malice. But she rose almost in calm. She stood to her full height with controlled grace, and having risen, stayed there, perfectly balanced. Body perfectly vertical. Mark felt his left leather slip from the saddle; he remained in place with pressure of his knees and one hand on her chest. If he lost balance himself, he would pull the mare over backwards, on top of him: potentially lethal, that, especially on concrete. He stayed still, so did she. After holding the position for, it seemed, several weeks, as slowly, as gracefully as before, she lowered her front hooves to the ground.

Mark, riven with terror and dismay, found himself patting the mare’s conker-brown neck. Patting? Shouldn’t he be beating? He had, after all, a borrowed stick in his hand. But he soothed, soothing himself, perhaps, more than the mare.

‘Can you put the leather back for me?’

‘Sure.’ Avoiding his eye.

The leather reattached, he walked the mare in a circle outside the school, patting, talking. Edging always that little closer to the gate, canny horseman he. And then, easily, unemphatically, turning her to the gate. It really should have worked.

And she was up again, that eerily poised balance, half an inch from disaster.

He tried again, perhaps half a dozen times – and the same, every time. Every time.

Kath took charge. ‘Right. I’ll take her head. You use your stick. We’ll get her in and the little trollop won’t go up this time.’

Always with shame Mark remembered going along with this plan. Only once, but once still counts as betrayal. One attempt, three crisp whacks. He didn’t enjoy it, but you don’t have to enjoy it for it to count as betrayal. And she got away from Kath, and stood again: high, serene, proud. And riven with terror. Like her rider.

Then beautifully, almost soundlessly, she lowered her hooves to the concrete. Instantly, Mark put his right hand on the pommel and flicked his right leg to dismount athletically, landing neatly on his toes, more or less chest to chest with Kath, looking straight into her navy-blue eyes.

‘Had enough?’ Contempt in her voice.

But love was moving hard within him. ‘I’m going to buy this little mare from you. And I’m going to get her right.’

‘A good beating will sort her out, don’t you worry.’

‘Let’s put her away and discuss the matter, if that’s OK with you.’

Mugs of instant coffee in the tack-room, smell of leather and neat’s-foot oil. Kath had changed her note of challenge to one of dismay. ‘Look, I can’t sell her. I’ve got a reputation to look after. I never thought she’d be that bad.’

‘My risk.’

‘Look, how about a long loan, with an option –’

‘I couldn’t do it if she wasn’t mine. I have to be committed.’

‘But it’s crazy.’

‘I know.’

‘Tell you what, I’ll buy her back if –’

‘No get-out clause. Or it wouldn’t work.’ It was a long time since Mark had heard himself sound so sure about anything. Uncannily clear in his mind, he made arrangements, wrote a cheque for £500, post-dated so he could get some money into the account. A sinewy handshake, not lingering, on the deal. A very level stare.

He walked back to her box, alone. He had no treats, no extra strong mints, no carrots. He was not yet a horseman. He placed a hand on the mare’s bright bay neck. After a moment, she touched him with her nose, holding her head against him. Touching him.

Kath saw him back to the Jeep. ‘I hope it works out.’

‘Thanks. Oh, what’s her name, by the way? I suppose I ought to know.’

She laughed sharply. ‘Miss Chance.’

‘Ha.’

‘Last fucking chance, more like.’

‘No,’ Mark said. ‘Second chance. We all need one of those.’

She looked down to where he sat in the driving seat, door still open. She had one elbow on the door, standing nicely balanced on one hip. A sudden rather gentle smile. ‘Have you always been crazy?’

He smiled in return, and said farewell. It was a couple of miles down the road before he remembered what he should have replied. A line from a book somewhere, or perhaps a cowboy film. No, a book, one Morgan had been keen on. I guess I ain’t never been put to the test before.

She looked at him admiringly. ‘You really are a bloody fool, aren’t you?’

‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘It’s because you fancy her. Admit it.’

‘Not the point.’

‘Just want to impress her as the master horse-tamer. Well, I should warn you that she lives with Jim the fat farrier, and she’s tamed a few million horses herself. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you that. And I could have told you a fair bit more about that mare of hers. Of yours, I mean.’

Mark had driven from Kath’s to make arrangements about keeping Miss Chance at the yard where Mel kept Presuming Ed. He discussed it with the yard’s owner, Jan, and then went to watch Mel and Ed complete a schooling session. As she finished, he hastened to tell her the news.

‘I already know a fair bit about that mare of mine.’

‘Good boy. Stand still.’ She looked back at Mark. ‘I mean, that was a nice little jumping mare, but she spoilt it. She jumped it in a puissance event, and I think she won – cleared damn near five feet, that I do know. But the mare was overfaced, she’s only seven, it was too much for her. She got frightened silly.’

‘It happens.’

‘And Kath, well, she can ride all right, don’t get me wrong. But I know how she treats a reluctant jumper.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’

‘Let’s put you in your box, shall we? Oh, you want a mint, do you? Well, here we are. She beats the crap out of them, that’s what she does. What she has done is to terrify the life out of a horse, and then beat it up for being frightened. So the horse has – well, had a nervous breakdown, basically. You’d think she’d know better, but oh no. Typical showjumping type, no patience. Wants results, wants them quick. And so she smiled sweetly at you and persuaded you to part with a load of money for damaged goods.’ She was putting a light rug onto her horse, turned away from Mark, busying herself with the straps.