HORSE (P)RIDE

“What would he do in this situation?” she thought to herself. She ran the programme like somewhere inside of her there was a fragment of him that was independent of his being. She turned the corners of her mouth down slightly like he did when he was thinking and narrowed her nostril, tilting her head back. He was turning it over in his mind. Next thing she found herself patting her imaginary pockets for tobacco but then remembered she had finished the last of it earlier that day, during midmorning coffee. She spotted something out the corner of her eye and for a moment clicked out of character to snatch up a piece of hard wood lying by the side of the bench. It was a bit of root or wood knot. A stem of branch came out one side and had been cut clean through, most probably with the long handled pruning sheers that hung in his garden shed. It felt just right. It was the perfect pipe. She parked herself down on the bench and gave it a couple of fairly hard taps on the front of the seat to clear out any old ash. She may not have any tobacco but several times she had seen him chewing on his unlit stem pondering a problem. She put the end in her mouth. It was too green to be perfect. There was a hint of sap there but the bitterness could pass for the acridity of tobacco. After a while she pulled her left foot up on to the chair as only the thinnest of men are wont to do, and held on to her shin. After a couple of muted clicks in the back of his throat she shook her head slowly.
“It’ll never do,” she said to herself. “The girl has done it to herself and now there’s no helping her.” Hillary was immediately unconvinced that her father would be so harsh. “Hillary,” she attempted again. “Whatever were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry papa,” she said. “I never realised it would do that if I let it out.” Her father looked at her with a quizzical gaze and took the pipe out of his mouth. “You are a very naughty girl. We’re going to have to shoot him now and I’m sorry to say that that is entirely your fault. You should never have let him out of the field.” Hillary could feel her eyes filling as she spoke. She had no choice. She would have to try and retrieve the situation herself.
Pride comes before a fall and she had been certain she could handle him. He was big and boisterous and on one of their long walks things had got a little out of hand. She loved him desperately and in the end all the inner admonishments of her father could not stop the impending disaster. Now she was pregnant and he had bolted. Where she knew not. In principle at least she could recapture the huge cart horse that was careering round the country lanes of Whittering, kicking out at cars and pedestrians, but she could never regain the other, or lose what she had growing within her. Deep within her darkestness. She had been insane to try to ride the horse to Beachy Head. Now she would have to drive the car. She had seen her father do it often enough. But she was not her father and now she was no longer her father’s little girl.