Lizzie Vogel 1 - Man at the Helm

20

My pony Maxwell turned out to be nothing but trouble, as I knew he would. I don’t want to write too much about him as I’m planning a whole book (all about him) and he should only have a bit part in this one.

In the beginning he behaved in such odd ways that I was genuinely afraid of what it all meant. He was an attention-seeker, an escape artist, a thief, and so utterly selfish it wasn’t true. He wasn’t like any ordinary pony and it was typical of me to end up with him.

If I rode Maxwell when it didn’t suit him, he would do his best to knock me off by walking or trotting very close to a tree or a wall. And when I learned how to lift my leg to avoid being hoicked off, he would fake a stumble and put his head down so that I might topple off the front, and when I got used to clinging on to the pommel and holding myself on until he’d corrected himself, he’d roll over. But that was only if he didn’t fancy a hack out. To be fair, he sometimes did fancy a hack out – however, on these days he’d always return home exactly when he wanted to and when the moment arrived he’d simply turn round and trot me home.

He was much better behaved with my sister on him because she was a proper horsewoman and didn’t mind using the crop on him. I wasn’t a crop-using type and Maxwell knew this. It got so that I couldn’t go out riding with my sister because she would get so cross with Maxwell that she’d snap a twig from an elder tree and give him a whack. And so if he saw her ready for a hack, he’d refuse to accompany her, knowing he’d get a whack.

As far as this story is concerned, we got into trouble for taking Maxwell upstairs. Our mother hadn’t been at home when it happened. We didn’t tell her exactly what occurred but she found out. When she knew the main details, she became like any normal nasty mother and made us clean out the hen house as a punishment (a job that Mr Gummo would usually do) and it put me right off the hens and almost off eggs. It seemed unfair because we didn’t take Maxwell upstairs as such, he just came when we called – we never really thought he would. He came up because he was such an unusual pony. An unusual pony that our mother had insisted on buying – that I had never wanted in the first place.

I tried to explain this to our mother, but she hated long sentences and judged you on the first few words.

‘We didn’t take Maxwell upstairs, as such,’ I began, and before I could add the rest she’d accused me of trying to tell her black was white.

That day had started out OK. Our mother had gone to a hospital appointment in a taxi – Denis the retired mechanic’s Ford Zodiac. She hadn’t wanted to drive herself because she didn’t want to have to drive home again afterwards because she was having a pregnancy terminated. Mr Oliphant was the father (and in my opinion should have done the driving) and had apparently been mortified to hear about the pregnancy as he already had four children with his wife, that awful clingy woman we’d seen at the summer fair who kept linking arms with him even though the marriage was on the rocks.

Our mother said that had made it doubly disappointing (that we could behave so stupidly while she was out of the house having a horrible procedure and was utterly miserable and sad).

This is what happened.

She’d gone off in the retired mechanic’s Ford Zodiac and we’d gone to play on her four-poster – a thing we loved but seldom got the chance to do, her being in it so much. From the bed we could see through the open balcony doors that Maxwell had escaped from the paddock and was in the garden, nosing around, as he often did. We called him in the style of his ex-owner at the riding school (‘Come oi, come oi’) and to our astonishment and delight we soon heard him clopping up the interesting staircase. And he appeared at the doorway of our mother’s bedroom and walked smartly across the polished boards. I liked him then, for a moment, his big brown eyes full of wonder at the new place, his chestnut lashes tinged black at the tips. He was a handsome pony, I can’t deny it. Much handsomer than Sacha, who was grey and a bit wishy-washy.

Unfortunately, once fully in the room, he stepped on a rug, skidded slightly and became fretful. In this state, he stepped on the draped bed-curtain, which began popping off its brass rings, and a section flopped down over his head. In all the head-tossing that followed, our mother’s walnut dressing-stool broke in half and clattered to the ground.

Maxwell then clip-clopped into the landing and that’s when he looked out of the window. He let out a loud whinny and bashed at the mullioned panes with his muzzle. The window rattled and banged and miraculously didn’t break. Mr Lomax the Liberal candidate happened to be in the street posting his manifesto at the time and he looked up with a most unhappy expression.

My sister and I ran down the stairs and called Maxwell to follow. But he just stood at the top of the sweeping staircase, trembling and pawing the ground like a nervous little bull.

‘Come, Maxie, come,’ called my sister. But he wouldn’t. He just whinnied and pawed.

‘Come on, you bastard,’ I called, feeling desperate and responsible and resentful and thinking how I always knew something like this would happen (him being an unusual and charismatic pony).

My sister said, ‘Swearing at him won’t help.’ She went away and came back with a bucket of nuts, which she rattled. ‘Come, Maxie, come,’ she coaxed.

Suddenly Mr Lomax was there in our hall with us with his light tan boots on.

‘Keep back,’ he said, ‘in case it jumps.’

‘He won’t jump, he’s a calm pony,’ said my sister.

‘He’s a Welsh Mountain,’ I added, ‘he can turn on a tap with his hoof.’

Then it became clear that Mr Lomax was something of an expert on pony psychology.

‘Ponies can go most uncharacteristic when they’re in a strange environment,’ Mr Lomax said. ‘I doubt he’d have the wherewithal to turn on a tap in his current state, he’s gone semi-insane because you’ve let him look out of an upstairs window.’

‘Is that bad?’ we asked.

‘Bloody right it is. Never let a horse look out of an upstairs window, that’s my advice to anyone who likes bringing them indoors,’ said Mr Lomax. ‘If you have to bring them in, then you must draw the curtains beforehand.’

Mr Lomax said we were in a highly problematic situation, and in an ideal world four men would escort Maxwell down backwards with a twitch on his lip and, failing that, he should be sedated. My sister said she was anti-twitches and Mr Lomax said they were perfectly humane if applied to the lip, though never the ear. The two of them argued about twitches for a while, and then Mr Lomax asked my sister to fetch something with which to blinker Maxwell (if she didn’t object to a blinker). She fetched a bikini top, thinking it was the right shape. Mr Lomax ushered us to a safer area within our hall and we all looked up at Maxwell, who stood sweating above us. Mr Lomax crept up the stairs and reached round to tie the bra over Maxwell’s eyes. But before he’d finished the bow, Maxwell leapt the first flight of steps, crashed through the banister to the parquet below and lay there with his belly heaving. Neither my sister nor I dared approach him. We just stared, not breathing, like we had with an injured wood pigeon the day before.

I imagined, briefly, dragging Maxwell’s body out of the hall by the hoof, through the front door and into the street, realizing it would be the only way, and was just imagining Mrs C. Beard rushing across to admonish us about littering, when he was up on his feet again. He looked around, shook himself and walked slowly through the kitchen, out of the back door, and began cropping the lawn with his six-year-old teeth.

‘Jesus,’ said my sister.

She thanked Mr Lomax for his help and he gave her a couple of Liberal Party posters to put in the upstairs windows.

Our mother ended up staying in the clinic for a night and our grandmother arrived to stay with us. When she saw the wrecked banister she asked how it had happened, and we told her Maxwell had done it. She was confused about who Maxwell was but didn’t admit it or ask for details. She just shrugged and tutted and tried not to look at it. We sorted out our mother’s bedroom except for the broken stool, which we hid in a cupboard.

Then when our mother returned we said that Maxwell had barged into the banister by accident. Our poor mother was too tired and sad to even think about it but rang Mr Lomax from her bed and of course he knew all about it and the truth came out. As so often, my sister and I hadn’t thought it through.

‘Mr Lomax tells me you brought the fucking pony up here!’ said our mother, suddenly more awake.

‘Not as such,’ I began to say. And that’s when she got cross and we ended up cleaning out the hen house. I was dreading Mr Lomax turning up and giving a full account of the event, but luckily he rang back and insulted our mother by asking for a cheque upfront and waiting for it to clear in the bank before he began the work. Either that, or cash. And our mother told him not to bother and that she’d arrange for someone else to come.

Neither my sister nor I have ever forgotten the rule about horses and upstairs windows and I’ve never had one inside since. Nor that an overnight stay might be required with a pregnancy termination.