Read Online Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alexandra Fuller
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But of course, with the minimum amount of fuss, I’d dust myself off and get back on again as soon as I could see straight. Then I’d ride to school, usually a bit battered and shaken. The nuns got angry with my father and said that I couldn’t learn anything if I’d been knocked out two or three times before breakfast, but I think they were just lousy teachers.”
THE NUNS ORGANIZED GAMES in the afternoon at the convent and tournaments of various kinds on the weekends. “Hours and hours of tedious tennis,” Mum says. “But I never waited around long enough to hit a single ball.” Instead, she took riding lessons. “To begin I rode with Babs Owens. She had a very scary, vicious temper. She was famous for flinging herself off a horse if it was annoying her and biting it as hard as she could on the ear.” Babs would make Mum ride very rigidly, pressing a penny between her knees and the saddle. “If I dropped the penny—smack, biff, wallop—there was hell to pay.” Mum sniffs. “Babs’s husband, Cyril, had been a Japanese prisoner of war. And I’m sure that can’t have been much fun, but I imagine it was a welcome break from a life of domestic bliss with Babs.”
Then Babs’s temper must have become too much because my grandparents shifted Mum’s lessons over to Betty Webster. “I adored Betty,” Mum says. “I think she was like a lot of Kenyan women of that time. She marched around in corduroys and a man’s shirt, very self-sufficient, very tough and independent and always trailed by a herd of dogs.” Nane didn’t improve much, but Mum’s love of riding swelled beyond measure. “I can’t separate horses from my childhood, or Betty Webster from my love of horses,” she says. Mum holds up her hands and makes a pair of horse’s ears with her fingers. “For as long as I can remember, I have seen the world from between the ears of a horse. That’s my view. Straight ahead, don’t look down. Don’t look back.”
ABOUT A YEAR AFTER SHE GOT HIM, Mum entered Nane into a show-jumping competition at the Eldoret Agricultural Show. “I think we managed to scramble over about three jumps, but the moment there was a suggestion of a spread, he dug his heels in, made his neck fat and then gave all the spectators their money’s worth in an unscheduled rodeo. Still, I was expected to leave the arena smiling pleasantly.”
The afternoon of Mum’s humiliating defeat at the spread, Betty Webster rode her favorite gelding in the stadium event. “Around she went in beautiful form, sailing over everything. Then right in front of the grandstand there was a very tricky gate. Betty must have miscalculated the distance, or messed up her approach, because the gelding hit the jump in such a way he flipped right over it, head over heels, and landed on top of Betty.” Mum describes the expanding stillness of the moments that followed. Everyday noises were unnaturally amplified—the hadeda ibis calling from the racetrack, horses shouting to one another from the collecting ring. “Then Betty’s gelding scrambled to his feet, but Betty continued to lie there, very pale and still. She wasn’t dead, but she was unconscious and you could tell from the way she was lying at such an unnatural angle that she’d broken her neck.”
The riderless horse, reins slack around his legs, galloped away toward the arena gate, leaving the crumpled rider in the wreck of the jump. Someone ran out and grabbed the horse. A few others scrambled over the fence and ran toward Betty. She was loaded into the back of a car and driven off to the hospital. “One young man—I don’t remember his name now—took her gelding,” Mum says, “and bravely finished the round for her. He might have been shaking like a leaf, but he did it. Then he went on and rode the gelding for the rest of the weekend. The show must go on; we all understood that.” Mum pauses. “That young fellow won on Betty’s gelding, so on Sunday night, he
THE NUNS ORGANIZED GAMES in the afternoon at the convent and tournaments of various kinds on the weekends. “Hours and hours of tedious tennis,” Mum says. “But I never waited around long enough to hit a single ball.” Instead, she took riding lessons. “To begin I rode with Babs Owens. She had a very scary, vicious temper. She was famous for flinging herself off a horse if it was annoying her and biting it as hard as she could on the ear.” Babs would make Mum ride very rigidly, pressing a penny between her knees and the saddle. “If I dropped the penny—smack, biff, wallop—there was hell to pay.” Mum sniffs. “Babs’s husband, Cyril, had been a Japanese prisoner of war. And I’m sure that can’t have been much fun, but I imagine it was a welcome break from a life of domestic bliss with Babs.”
Then Babs’s temper must have become too much because my grandparents shifted Mum’s lessons over to Betty Webster. “I adored Betty,” Mum says. “I think she was like a lot of Kenyan women of that time. She marched around in corduroys and a man’s shirt, very self-sufficient, very tough and independent and always trailed by a herd of dogs.” Nane didn’t improve much, but Mum’s love of riding swelled beyond measure. “I can’t separate horses from my childhood, or Betty Webster from my love of horses,” she says. Mum holds up her hands and makes a pair of horse’s ears with her fingers. “For as long as I can remember, I have seen the world from between the ears of a horse. That’s my view. Straight ahead, don’t look down. Don’t look back.”
ABOUT A YEAR AFTER SHE GOT HIM, Mum entered Nane into a show-jumping competition at the Eldoret Agricultural Show. “I think we managed to scramble over about three jumps, but the moment there was a suggestion of a spread, he dug his heels in, made his neck fat and then gave all the spectators their money’s worth in an unscheduled rodeo. Still, I was expected to leave the arena smiling pleasantly.”
The afternoon of Mum’s humiliating defeat at the spread, Betty Webster rode her favorite gelding in the stadium event. “Around she went in beautiful form, sailing over everything. Then right in front of the grandstand there was a very tricky gate. Betty must have miscalculated the distance, or messed up her approach, because the gelding hit the jump in such a way he flipped right over it, head over heels, and landed on top of Betty.” Mum describes the expanding stillness of the moments that followed. Everyday noises were unnaturally amplified—the hadeda ibis calling from the racetrack, horses shouting to one another from the collecting ring. “Then Betty’s gelding scrambled to his feet, but Betty continued to lie there, very pale and still. She wasn’t dead, but she was unconscious and you could tell from the way she was lying at such an unnatural angle that she’d broken her neck.”
The riderless horse, reins slack around his legs, galloped away toward the arena gate, leaving the crumpled rider in the wreck of the jump. Someone ran out and grabbed the horse. A few others scrambled over the fence and ran toward Betty. She was loaded into the back of a car and driven off to the hospital. “One young man—I don’t remember his name now—took her gelding,” Mum says, “and bravely finished the round for her. He might have been shaking like a leaf, but he did it. Then he went on and rode the gelding for the rest of the weekend. The show must go on; we all understood that.” Mum pauses. “That young fellow won on Betty’s gelding, so on Sunday night, he
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