The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [82]
I drooled quickly. ‘Ooh… isn't he lovely! He's blond!’
‘Palomino. Welsh crorss.’
‘He doesn't look cross. Or Welsh. He looks lovely!’
She had a disconcerting clipped way of talking as if she was far too busy or posh to begin or end a sentence. In fact her machine-gun delivery was almost as hard to follow as Mr Docherty's brogue. Perhaps speaking in tongues was a prerequisite for horsy people.
‘J'a ride yourself?’ She tied the pony to a bit of binder twine on the side of the lorry and was busy whipping off rugs, pulling ribbons from his tail, quick and dexterous, but eyeing me beadily the while.
‘Um…’ I twiddled my hair, sensing a route, equestrianally speaking, to her heart, but also sensing she might find me out in seconds when she'd hoiked me into the saddle, which she was even now, fixing expertly to his back. Sensibly I plumped for: ‘A bit. I mean – I used to. As a child.’ I rubbed the base of my spine. Winced. ‘Got a bit of a bad back.’
‘Ah.’
She smiled wryly as she flicked up the saddle flap and clinched the girth, and I realized it would take more than a bad back to keep good old Camilla out of the saddle. Probably born in it. I imagined her mother out hunting, hugely pregnant, slipping little Camilla out onto the pommel, slapping her on the breast as she soared over the next hedge. I was rather fascinated by her face. You could put a whole tub of Clarins on that and it would suck it in like a sponge – shloop!
She'd popped the bridle on now and, rather impressively, the pony was standing to attention without being tied up. As petrified as the dogs, I imagined. She turned to face me, legs astride, hands on hips.
‘Want me to run through your wardrobe?’
I gaped. Visions of her powering, in slow motion and in jodhpurs, through the rails of my extensive fitted wardrobe, sprang confusingly to mind.
‘Not… unless you…’ I waved my hand vaguely, playing for time.
‘Think I will. Hang on. Just take these orf. Should have done it first, of course, but wanted to show you how they work.’
She turned and removed Hector's purple legs, which, I realized, stood up by themselves and were made of polystyrene.
‘Oh my God – thigh boots!’ I squealed.
‘Travel boots.’ She shot me an icy look as she peeled off the last one. ‘Velcro, see?’
‘Ah, yes. Right.’
I remembered Tim telling there was no end to the money these horsy women would spend on their mounts, and that the next time he diversified it wouldn't be bloody pick-your-own, it would be selling this stupid bloody stuff to these stupid bloody women in a barn. She'd disappeared into her vast lorry now, only to reappear with a wheelbarrow, piled high with blankets. She set it down with a thump.
‘Right.’ She proceeded to toss the blankets on the ground, one at a time. ‘Stable rug, turn-out rug, summer sheet, fly sheet, sweet itch rug, all-weather turn-out rug, sweat rug and thermal. Got it?’
I gaped. ‘Blimey. He's got more clothes than me!’
She treated this with the contempt it deserved, gazing at me steadily, hands on hips. I realized she was still waiting for an answer.
‘Oh! Got it.’ I chewed the inside of my cheek. This horse wore thermal underwear? I couldn't look at Caro, who was whispering, ‘Sooper,’ unctuously, every so often. I felt about fourteen.
‘And this is his hood.’
He had a hood? A horse with a hoody?
‘What, for when he goes mugging?’ I spluttered, which was quite amusing, I thought, but her eyes were like flints.
‘For when it gets a bit chill. Goes orn like this, see?’ She snapped it onto his neck like nobody's business. ‘Take it orf when it's milder.’ She unsnapped it.
‘Righto,’ I agreed meekly.
‘Now.’ She reached into the wheelbarrow again and her voice boomed out like a loud-hailer as she threw more garments on the ground. ‘Jumping boots, overreach boots, crorss-country boots, exercise boots, competition boots, brushing boots, more travel boots, support boots…’ and so it went on. On and on, until I was beginning to long for