LIFE
Real life
Melissa Kite
Why do people find it so hard to believe
that a horse can be a psychopath? Not an
obvious, screaming mad psychopath either.
A brooding, deceptively quiet sort of psy-
chopath who turns on a sixpence.
I arrived at Tara’s field the other day
to find one of the girls with a horse in the
neighbouring field wandering about in her
field shelter — while she was asleep in it —
searching the ground for something.
I’ve told them repeatedly never to go
under the wire into Tara’s field and run
the gauntlet of her homicidal hooves and
treacherous teeth.
But Tara stands there snoozing and
smacking her lips sleepily like a harmless old
lady in an old people’s home, and they look
at me like I’m mean and say: ‘Aw bless her!’
I ran across the field with buckets of feed
muttering prayers to all the saints. I could
see the murderous ginger one silhouetted in
the shelter snoozing as the girl searched, and
I could see Gracie, the pony, standing half in
half out, her head just underneath the roof,
getting as much coverage from the elements
as she is allowed to have by She Who Must
Be Obeyed.
In fact, Grace doesn’t mind Tara and
the strict boundaries she has to keep to in
order to co-exist with her. A scaredy-cat by
nature, Gracie likes the fact that nothing and
nobody will ever harm her while the red peril
stands watch. And as Tara is big on family,
as psychopaths usually are, she would never
hurt either me or the pony. But I wouldn’t
want to risk anyone else in there.
The girl was rooting around the ground
and as I got closer I could see that Tara’s
face was a picture of lethal intent. I can read
her expressions only too well after nearly 20
years together. She had the same look she
wore one day, years ago, when a male friendcould walk towards the deep end on tiptoe
before the water covered his nostrils. The
difference, since our last swim, was about
three metres. The only other occupants of
the pool were a swimming teacher and his
pupil, a little girl aged about five. The little
girl was learning to front crawl. She respond-
ed to her teacher’s laconic instructions by
throwing herself at the water with an almost
suicidal fanaticism and flailing madly. Oscar
and I stood in the shallow end and threw
a small plastic octopus back and forth over a
low-slung string of bunting.
Simple and undemanding as this game
was, Oscar played in earnest. I am not above
throwing and catching a small plastic octo-
pus competitively either. Equally and excit-
ingly matched, we threw the octopus to
each other for half an hour, keeping score
of catches and drops, disputing vehemently
over no-balls and dropped catches, while the
poor pool attendant, visibly bored out of his
young skull, gained about £4.50 at the cur-
rent minimum wage rate, and surely won-
dered to himself how life’s glad confident
morning could suddenly deteriorate to this.
After our swim we drank Fruit Shoots
and ate chocolate tiffin at Costa. The café
used to be a much-loved pub, and from our
comfortable sofa I considered the internal
structural changes. The door and Geor-
gian windows were the same; everything
else was altered. A dozen members of the
Satan’s Slaves biker gang had once come
surging in through that door, I remem-
bered. Standing at the bar was a similar
number of their hated rivals, the Aquila. I
remembered too that my sister and I had
perched precariously on that window sill
over there and viewed the battle in rela-
tive comfort and safety. Chairs, tables and
bar stools were swung or thrown, lending
a cowboy-film atmosphere to the proceed-
ings that made us laugh till we cried.
Oscar and I were home and in front of
the telly in time to catch the thrilling fin-
ish of the France vs Ireland rugby interna-
tional. Then grandad went into the kitchen
to make supper and lost his temper because
even microwaving a supermarket ready
meal is often fraught with unexpected dan-
gers and difficulties. Then, because it was
cold in the house, we went to bed early and
played rummy, then chess. Finally, I read to
him, choosing the episode of the Battle of
the Nile from an adoring Nelson biography.
During the battle, Nelson was wounded in
the head by a lump of flying shrapnel, expos-
ing an inch of skull. ‘As he fell into abso-
lute darkness he thought he was dying and
begged to be remembered to Fanny.’
After annihilating the French, his head
bandaged, the victorious Nelson visited
the court at Naples. Here, unfortunately, he
made such a hilarious fool of himself that
our biographer felt it necessary to excuse
him by pleading in mitigation a combination
of heavy drinking, sex deprivation, a mid-life
crisis and brain damage. This Neapolitan
episode was as new and surprising to me as
the historical figure of Nelson and the Battle
of the Nile was to Oscar. Before we slept we
said our prayers, adding Horatio Nelson to
our list of people with faintly comical names,
such as Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn,
whom we ask God to bless. ‘Are you happy,
really?’ I said after turning out the light. In
the darkness Oscar answered, this time with
an upbeat squeak, to be interpreted, I think,
as yes, he really was.of a friend, hearing that I had a horse that
was proving unrideable, came and got on her
back, took up the reins tightly and said: ‘I’ll
sort this one out!’
On that occasion, Tara gave me a chilling
sideways glance out of the corner of her eye
that said: ‘We’ll see who sorts who.’
I begged him to desist, to get off and give
up right then and there, but he would not.
He had trained with the Chinese Olympic
team, he said.
‘Yes, but you haven’t trained with the
Tara survival team. She has the look on her.
I’ve seen it before. She’s going to try and kill
you. I can tell.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘What this horse
needs is for someone to show her who’s
boss.’ Oh dear God, you’re a dead man,
I thought.
We rode out over a disused airfield and
she behaved herself ominously well in walk
and trot. But then we got to the part where
we gallop and, with me riding behind on
Gracie, he told Tara to giddy-up even as
I begged him not to.
Tara surged forward, and the second she
was at top speed she plunged her nose to
the floor in a standing halt and flicked her
backside into the air. She flipped this man
over the top of her head and sent him flying
through the air at 30mph as if he were a ragdoll, and as he groaned and rolled from side
to side on the ground she sauntered up to
him and looked down at his crumpled form
as if to say, ‘Sorted’.
He didn’t get up for a long time and
when he did he said something about how
he ought to get back on so she didn’t think
she had won.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘She has
won. And she will always win.’ I got off
Grace and offered him the reins of the
pony. ‘You are going to ride this one and
I am going to get on Tara and that is that,
because otherwise you are not going to
make it back alive.’
Hat askew, smart riding clothes ripped
and muddy, he hauled himself on to the
pony still moaning in agony. I heard about
him from our mutual friend on and off over
the years, and always the news was mainly
about his physio.
As I say, approaching the shelter I saw
that same look in Tara’s eye. ‘I’ve dropped
my phone somewhere,’ said the girl, ‘and the
GPS says it’s in here.’
‘I’m letting her have a little rummage
round my feet,’ said Tara’s eyes, ‘and then
I’m going to pick her up by her lovely long
hair and...’
‘I’ll look for it! Leave it to me! I’ll find
it if it’s in here!’ And I escorted the girl back
under the wire as Tara exhaled a disappoint-
ed sigh.As I got closer I could see that Tara’s
face was a picture of lethal intent