Riding Out

We spent the afternoon sorting out a couple of riding habits. I learnt that what is worn nowadays are called jodhpurs. The boots were awesome and would have made kinky bedroom attire. During the afternoon we had to go to a friend’s house. I was driven by Vera to the next village in her BMW. Vera’s friend had two daughters and hence a collection of ball-gowns. The girls were away at boarding school, so would not be needing gowns.

By the time I met Sid for our walk home, I was fully equipped – mentally and physically – for the execution of Vera’s scheme. The physical bit I would like to have saved myself. The bag with riding outfits, including boots, and the two ball-gowns were more than I could carry, so I was pleased to palm the gowns off on Sid.

She looked mistrustfully at the packet and then asked, 'What actually is in this bin-liner?'

'Two ball-gowns. We are going to do it.'

'We are so not going to go to either the hunt or ball! And you can’t go on your own, because I’m the one with the invitation.'

I ran her through Vera’s arguments, about it being an opportunity to broaden one’s experience and how she couldn’t be expected to lend random horses to random employees, who fancied a ride. She was running a business after all, and one from which we all profited. And, of course, we shouldn’t prejudge the county set or aristocracy.

Sid dropped her bin liner in the dust and sat down in the bus shelter.

'You, Millicent Backhouse, are talking shit! I am not going to be the token pleb for the entertainment of Lady Ashington’s’ plum-mouthed, weak-chinned, degenerate, dawky, bloodsucking leeches, who exploit us, every day of the year, while they fart around on their fucking nags, chasing a fox for fun, or worrying about the scratch on their Off-Road gas-guzzler, that has never been off road, and was actually scratched when they last reversed past their scarlet climber. You can tell Lady Vera to shove her ball-gowns and jodhpurs up her arse. She and you are so full of crap, of course, that nothing else will fit up there. I know that!'

I was left trying to suppress a fit of the giggles, but managed to maintain a straight face for long enough to say, 'Don’t let me put words in your mouth, Miss Sidonie Walker, but I think that was a ‘no’ wasn’t it?'

We both collapsed in a heap, hugging each other, tears of laughter streaming down our faces, bags of gowns and jodhpurs in the dust under our feet. We failed to notice the black Beamer, windows down, cruise silently by.

When our mirth had subsided, I took Sid to task.

'You have certainly dealt with my revisionist tendency to fraternise with the enemy, but may I remind you, that you were prepared to sleep with Vera if the terms were right.' There was no reply so I added. 'So, you said.'

'Everyone is entitled to their moment of weakness,' she replied, 'and she is a very elegant woman. We all have our desires and are likely to weaken when confronted with a more bourgeois existence than we presently have. I work in her café, don’t I? I, as the only regularly waged person in our household, have also to grovel for my share of the crumbs from her table. Didn’t Lenin describe us as the running dogs of capitalism?'

'I think it was Chinese, pre-dates Mao, but I take your point. I take hers, too. She, too, is the victim of her circumstances.'

'She copes better than me, because of all the hundred-pound notes that have been stuffed in her mouth since birth. If she suffers so much, it is far easier for her to do something about it than for me to change my circumstances.'

'You’ll have to send an official thank you, but no thank you letter.'

'I don’t have to do anything. She’ll know the answer when she finds those bloody bags behind her grizzly bears. Let’s do it now.'

I glanced up the road towards the visitors’ entrance to the house. Just a few hundred yards separated us from the grizzlies. At that moment in time, Sid’s idea made sense. Sometimes ideas have the capacity to sweep you away on a wave of excited action. Twelve hours later you awake and cringe at what had seemed such an obvious path to take the day before. This was to be such a situation, and I underestimated its cruelty and gravity that evening, sitting at the bus stop.

As we walked through the gate we met Charley coming the other way.

'Hi, Millie! I was just looking for you two. I was told you were coming for riding lessons this evening.'

'It’s cancelled. Can we get through to the grizzly bears without being spotted?'

'Probably. Why?'

'We need to leave the bags behind them.'

Charley looked concerned, like a man who had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Finally, he answered.

'I’d better do it.'

He took the bags.

'Thanks, Charley. And the horse thing is off for the rest of the week. For ever.'

'Drat. And I thought I had some overtime.'

He disappeared through the brick arch. I turned to Sid.

'You see? There is always a loser in this life. You could have done the riding, the hunt and ball for him and he’d have five hours overtime.'

I watched Sid put on her earnest face -  the one that doesn’t reveal if she is sincere or making a mockery.

'Oh, Millie. You are such a dreamer. His overtime would have been at flat-rate. This way, we’ve struck a blow for the working classes, by preventing him accepting the exploitation.'

'Oh, Sidonie. You must go into politics one day. No one can turn an argument or take the piss like you.'

Bedtime. Finally remembered to put Wilf’s money in an envelope and take it round to his house. He wasn’t in and I had no reason not to give it to my Aunty Gladys. I warned her it wasn’t as much as he expected, but she took it, wrapped a scarf round her unkempt hair and immediately went through the village settling various bills and accounts. Wilf will be beside himself. I must remember to keep a very low profile in the coming days.

Then disaster struck. I was taking a walk in our garden, admiring what seemed like acres of the most beautiful young lobelias that my father had sowed at the request of Mrs Gormley-Stuart, when I heard a car coming down the lane. Was it a premonition? Did I assume it was Uncle Wilf’s plumber’s van? Instinctively, I chose my childhood hidey-hole and slipped into the tiny gap behind the privet hedge and under the mulberry tree.

The car stopped. It had been too quiet for Wilf’s clapped out van. I was baffled who the visitor could be at this time of the evening until I spied Vera, with a face of thunder, storming up our path. I couldn’t hear what she said to Dad, but I heard him reply, 'Sorry, Vera. I don’t know where she is. She shouldn’t have upset you like that. Most ungrateful. I’ll have a word.'

Now, dear Diary, since when has my dad been on first name terms with Lady Ashington? I bet he’s been giving her one. Cunning old fox! That would explain her ‘research into my background knowledge’, as she calls it.

As soon as Vera left, I emerged and ran over to where Dad was picking some soft fruit.

'Well?'

He looked at me.

'Well what?'

'What did Vera want?' I accentuated the ‘Vera’.

'You know already. I said you’d annoy her and you have. Bit cruel of you, but nothing more than she deserves. I told her I’d have a word with you - tell you off etc. So consider yourself told off. She intimated that Sid would be sacked, which is serious for her, so maybe you two need to stop fooling around where you don’t belong. They will always be stronger than you. Stop fighting battles you can’t win.'

He offered the bowl of redcurrants to me. I devoured a slack handful and changed the subject.

'Lobelias look strong.'

'Don’t mention it. You know Mrs G ordered a thousand. She wanted the long bed next to the drive all in blue. I took them round, stacked all those trays in the van, out the van, in her shed, and she sent a message that it’s not to be blue this year after all.'

I gasped. Had that woman any idea how many hours go into preparing a thousand plants, twelve to a tray, eighty odd trays, the seed cost, compost, time?

I put my arm round the old man.

'I’ll ask around.'

The sack for Sid. A disaster. What about me?

I still haven’t seen the House. Probably never will now.

I still haven’t asked Vera for a sub or asked my dad why he is so chummy with her. If he did once have a fling behind the haystack, it shoots my theory about her sexuality down in flames. Plenty of material there to speculate on. Who cares about the accuracy?

I do, as it happens.