LIFE
Real life
Melissa Kite
‘This isn’t so bad,’ said my friend, as we
knelt at my old mare’s side as she lay on the
ground beneath a tree growing weak.
Aged 33 in horse years, or ninetysome-
thing in human years, Tara had been enjoy-
ing an extraordinary renaissance since
Darcy the thoroughbred had been turned
out to live with her and Gracie the skew-
bald pony.
My old girl had taken to the young race-
horse to the extent that the pair became
inseparable and Gracie had to leave them
to it and pootle off around the field to graze
on her own.
Tara and Darcy shadowed each other
day and night and even walked to the water
tank together. Having been lame and stiff,
the renewed walking did Tara so much good
that after a week she didn’t need painkill-
ers and for the first time in years she was
medication-free.
She even galloped again. She and the
youngster took to racing each other towards
the fence when I arrived with their break-
fast each morning. Tara lost the extra weight
she had been carrying from malingering in
the field shelter and started to look com-
pletely sound.
And then, suddenly, I arrived one day andBack to the disappointingly familiar, dis-
appointingly limited wares in the half-dozen
shops that close most afternoons and some-
times capriciously all day. Back to the fan-
tastically rude woman in the paper shop.
The uncompromising reserve of the woman
in the delicatessen. The industrious, cheer-
ful young brothers in the à la page mini-Spar
where monks and nuns contemplate the fro-
zen-food cabinet. And in the hairdressers,
Elody, always laughing off her incredible
sexual magnetism. The last time I was in, she
summoned me into her chair with ‘Amour?’
and I almost blacked out. She broke her
ankle playing football last year and the
heavy plaster cast encumbering that leg tur-
bocharged the fantasy. All the chaps looked
smart last year.
Back to the perfectly maintained, perfect-
ly smooth country roads and mental drivers
pushing small, unpretentious, state-subsi-
dised cars to their absolute limit. Back to one
hairpin bend after another and the tempera-
ture gauge of my old Merc rising into the red
on the climbs, and the road often an immac-
ulate tarmac ribbon winding through miles
and miles of evergreen oaks with mountains
in the distance and toiling, elderly cyclists
with stringy calves the only other traffic.
Back to rifle-toting hunters in mud-
encrusted pick-ups, to low-flying military
helicopters, to long walks in the silent, stony
countryside, on stony tracks, everywhere
stones, including underfoot: white, sharp,
broken, destabilising stones that demand
concentrated attention. Back to ranks of
black leafless vines and ruined vine work-
ers’ huts desolate in cold winter sunshine.
Back to the glass of rosé at lunch, gin at six,
and going out to dinner with other expats in
other villages in the evenings, the conversa-
tion a series of assertions and interjections.
Or dinner sometimes in the village res-
taurants that stay open in winter, whose
staff welcome us with kisses and a free ape-
ritif. Back to daube and mussels and crème
brûlée and artisanal pizza and young waiters
who treat you with a deference to age per-
fectly allied with social equality, especially
the waiter with the film-star looks spiritu-
ally weighed down by a faint, inch-long scar
above his shoulder blade, the result of a
recent minor operation. Back to the three
village bars, and the professional booz-
ers, including the suicidally drunk Geordie
builder, the rascally old millionaire artist
who holds court with his slavish admirers,
the abnormally hairy man who looks like
the Missing Link, and the only black man
(a florid schizophrenic) in the otherwise
racially homogenous village. In winter these
bars are irritatingly closed and shuttered by
nine in the evening but open again and busy
at 7.30 the next morning, doing a brisk trade
serving neat spirits to the wide-awake alco-
holic community.
Back to the cave house in the cliff that
was once a waterfall. Back to living rock
instead of interior walls. Back to a double
bed where you can lift your head from the
pillow and see the Massif des Maures 40
miles away to the south. Back to Catriona.
I shouldered my bag, took a last look at
the sea, and climbed into the taxi. The taxi
took me to the station. Train to Bristol. Taxi to
the hotel. Bed. Breakfast. Hotel shuttle car to
the airport five minutes away. I sat in the back
and checked that I had everything safe and to
hand: wallet, boarding pass, passport. Check.
Check. Check. I opened the passport to the
photo page. The photo was of my grandson
looking serious. Reaching into the drawer,
I’d picked up the wrong passport. There was
nothing to be done except catch the bus back
to the station and go back home. There is no
such thing as an accident, said Freud. All the
way home I considered this statement in the
light of my ridiculous mistake.she was lying down. When I went to see what
was wrong, she whickered at me, rolled on to
her side, stretched her head out and lay still.
I sat on the ground with her, stroked her
face and neck and felt tears welling in my
eyes. She made little neighing noises, very
faint. She looked so weak and helpless.
A girlfriend who has a horse in the paddock
next door arrived and ran from her car to
help. A grave look on her face, she knelt
beside me and together we petted Tara and
talked to her. She was in no pain. She simply
lay there, muttering away to us.
‘This is all right, you know,’ my friend reas-
sured me, and I knew what she meant. We all
want our horses to grow very old, have good
years in retirement in a lovely field kicking
up their heels, then one day lie down under-
neath an oak tree and simply go to sleep.
Tara began to snore gently. I felt the tears
rushing down my face. My friend left and
I sat with her.
‘I... I... I... well, you know. And all the
things we did together... and... well... I...
you know... and I always have...’
Tara nodded her head in her sleep. Her
life and mine flashed before me. Gallop-
ing flat out, leaping over hedges, her buck-
ing midair. Seventeen years we have been
together. She has been in my life longer than
most humans. I stroked her face and cried.
And then, with a great heave she hauledherself to her feet and looked at me as if to
ask me what on earth I was doing.
‘Bloody hell, Tara, you sod!’ I said.
‘I can’t believe you did that!’
Every autumn, when the grass comes
through, it’s the same. Last year she fell
asleep by the roadside hedge with her head
outstretched and her tongue out and a pas-
serby called for help screaming blue murder
about the poor dead horse who had been
abandoned.
Having said that, I could see that this
time she wasn’t right. After struggling to her
feet, she looked weak and exhausted.
She couldn’t eat much breakfast and
hardly any dinner. She didn’t want her hay.
I had to call the vet and when she came she
confirmed she wasn’t right. But it wasn’t at
all clear what was wrong. She was amazed by
how good the old girl looked for her age. She
didn’t have a temperature or a much raised
heart rate. She was just very weak.
She asked me if she had a history of this
or that and I had to explain: ‘This horse has
never had a day sick or injured in her entire
life. She is the toughest and fiercest creature
I have ever known. I think she is just fad-
ing away.’
The vet gave her some probiotic because
her stomach sounded weird, although she
clearly wasn’t colicking.Tara h a s been in my life l onger
than most humans. I stroked
her face and criedThe last time I was in, Elody
summoned me into her chair with
‘Amour?’ I almost blacked out