My Animals and Other Family Read online

  I spent the afternoon in my room, with a needle and thread, taking in the lower legs of my cords. I was thrilled with the outcome—the lower legs were tight and sort of straight. When I emerged, Mrs. Berwick was standing outside her flat at the end of the corridor.

  “Are we impersonating a frog, my dear? How very o-rig-i-nal.” She separated the syllables and peered at me over her glasses and her beak.

  I spent most subsequent weekends pretending I was either going to or coming back from lacrosse practice—that meant I could wear tracksuit bottoms and my green games sweater and get away with it.

  After a month, we were allowed a long weekend away from school. It was called the Short Exeat. Most of the other girls seemed to be meeting up in Sloane Square near somewhere called the King’s Road in London. I watched them greet their parents. A kiss on both cheeks, a bear hug from their fathers—it was physical. We didn’t do that in our family. My mother’s idea of a public display of affection was a wave, from a distance. As for my grandmother, even a wave was pushing it.

  I stood outside waiting for my mother. Annabel’s parents had come down from Scotland to take her out for the weekend. I stared at Jenny’s divorced parents, watching how they each hugged her in turn, hanging on for a long, long time before backing away and allowing the other one to come forward. I had never before met anyone whose parents were divorced, so I was fascinated. I probably stared a bit too intently, because Jenny gave me a dirty look as she climbed into the front seat of her father’s Mercedes. Her mother followed them in a Range Rover. They kept cars in the UK as well as at home in Jersey, so that they didn’t have to hire one. Or two.

  I looked at my watch and wasn’t surprised that my parents were late. It was a Saturday—work morning on the gallops. Dad would be busy. Too busy to come and pick me up, I supposed. My mother would have been making sure everyone had breakfast. She’d be here soon. It was eleven o’clock.

  The next time I looked it was twelve o’clock and all the other girls had long gone. Mrs. Berwick came out and saw me sitting on the concrete step, a small bag at my feet.

  “Who’s picking you up?” she asked.

  “My mother, I think,” I replied.

  “Have you called her? Is everything all right? Could she have been called away on an emergency? Could she be ill? You cannot sit here all weekend, my dear.”

  I found a ten-pence coin and headed off to the phone booth in the corner of the Darwin common room. I think my mother said, “Oh shit,” or words to that effect. She had forgotten. Clean forgotten her daughter’s first Short Exeat from her boarding school. Of course I didn’t tell Mrs. Berwick that—I said she’d had a car crash and was waiting for the AA but would be here as soon as she could. Half an hour later, my mother came racing through the gates of Downe House in her blue Citroën Dyane, which had clearly not been in a crash.

  “I do hope you’re all right,” said Mrs. Berwick, looking as concerned as I’d ever seen her. “Such a terrible thing to happen. I had a crash only last year. Very disturbing. You may find you’ll be suffering from shock for days to come.”

  “I don’t know what you m—” My mother was interrupted from whatever she was about to say by me, flinging myself at her like a koala bear, my arms wrapping around her stomach.

  “Mummy,” I cried. “I’m so glad you’re all right. Thank God for that. Thank God.”

  As I hugged her, I pushed her toward the driver’s door and forced her into the car.

  “Best to get straight back in the saddle,” I said as I slammed the door and gave Mrs. Berwick a knowing glance. “That’s what Daddy always says when you have a fall. ‘Get straight back in the saddle.’”

  I waved Mrs. Berwick good-bye and headed off home to see Frank and Flossy.

  ~

  We had many nannies. There had been Jane the nurse, who looked after Andrew when he was a baby; Liz the Irish nanny, who found us when we had run away from home—we had only gotten to the bottom of the hill before Andrew realized he’d forgotten to pack his pajamas; Jackie Knee; and then Annie the Nanny, who was the sister of John the Jockey; Elaine, who crashed my mother’s car; Emma, who told tales about triangular aliens and took us swimming in Basingstoke; and Geraldine, who left when Andrew walked in on her having a bath for the third time.

  Once I went to boarding school as well as Andrew, we didn’t need a full-time nanny so we had an au pair over the summer. One of the French ones pointed at a bowl of cherries and asked my father what they were called in English. “Nipples,” he replied. He kept a totally straight face as she asked if she could have another nipple. For one reason or another, none of the au pairs came back for a second summer.

  I was reading Black Beauty by Anna Sewell—again—when the front doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” I shouted and ran through the hall, across the white and black marble tiles, skidding to a stop by the heavy door. The glass in it was thick, distorting the shapes on either side. I stood there for a few seconds, eyeing up the silhouette on the outside.

  I opened it.

  “Hello, I am Clare Balding. Who are you?”

  I looked at him from the floor up. The shiny, expensive shoes, the impeccably cut suit, the round tortoiseshell glasses perched on a prominent nose, the receding gray hairline. This man had the aura of importance.

  “Well, well,” he said slowly, examining me with as much care as I had bestowed upon him. “You look a little like your father, a little like your mother and, most of all, you look a lot like you.”

  “Good,” I said. “I want to be me.”

  He handed me his hat as I held open the door and then crouched down so that he was eye level with me.

  “Never forget that, my dear. Whatever the world throws at you, you must be your own person, responsible for your own decisions and your own destiny.

  “I am Arnold Weinstock, by the way, and I am here to see your father, but it has been my pleasure to see you.”

  “Ah, Lord Weinstock.” My father was charging through the house. “I’m so sorry, sir. I hope my daughter has been behaving.”

  Dad’s hand was gripping my shoulder now, just a little more tightly than I would’ve liked.

  “She has been quite delightful,” said Lord Weinstock. “She has spirit.”

  They started to walk together toward the drawing room, and I heard Lord Weinstock say, “If that girl ever needs a job, you just let me know.”

  I did not realize it then but Arnold Weinstock was one of the most respected businessmen of the twentieth century. As managing director of the General Electric Company, he had masterminded its development into a firm with an annual turnover of £11 billion. As far as my father was concerned, he was a hugely knowledgeable owner and breeder of racehorses, including the 1979 Derby winner, Troy.

  ~

  That winter and over the spring, I had a growth spurt. All of a sudden, I was not just too tall for Frank, I was too tall for ponies, so my mother and I went in search of my first proper horse. Most people think the difference between horses and ponies is purely a size issue and, to some extent, it is. Ponies generally go up to fourteen hands two inches in height, and a horse is anything above that, but just as a tall child is still a child, there are some tall ponies and some small horses.

  The other differences are in attitude and in looks. Ponies tend to be—how to put this politely—slightly dumpy in their proportions. They have a bushy mane and tail, thickset necks, stumpy legs and round tummies. Horses are rather finer in their hair, their bones and their skin. But where the ponies have the upper hand is in intelligence. You will rarely find a pony who is not the equal of or superior to their rider in terms of how fast they can learn.

  This does not always work in a rider’s favor, as a clever pony is not necessarily a good pony. They work out what they like doing and also what they don’t like doing. They will test your patience and your wi
llpower, your skill and your strength.

  All in all, I have always thought that ponies are harder to ride than horses, so a child who rides well at eight or ten years old will always ride well.

  My mother had seen an ad in Horse & Hound for a bay mare. She was sixteen hands high, twelve years old, and she was called Hattie. We went to try her in Ashampstead, a village about twenty miles from Kingsclere.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, patting her on the neck. I could not quite believe I was going to ride something so beautiful. I got a leg-up—it was a long way into the saddle—and rode her into the field. Even though Hattie was big, she felt as though she fit. We trotted and cantered around the field and then popped over a few show jumps. She was lovely.

  “Do you like her?” my mother asked as I came toward her and Hattie’s owner, Mrs. Williams.

  “She does flying changes! Did you see? And she goes from walk to canter! Wow, she’s amazing.” I was buzzing. This was like tasting wine or eating smoked salmon—it felt so grown up.

  My mother smiled and started talking to Mrs. Williams in her “money” voice. I gave Hattie a pat and walked her back to the stables. I had never really ridden a mare before. I didn’t think there would be much difference. It’s funny how wrong you can be.

  Hattie came home with us that day. The first time I rode her up through the yard, I felt so proud. Spider whistled as I walked by with Hattie’s head down and her neck arched, like a proper dressage horse.

  “My word, young Clare, that’s a good-looking mare you’ve got there.”

  I sat a few feet taller and squeezed slightly with my legs so that her hind legs came up underneath her and she walked even more elegantly.

  One of the three-year-old colts came out of the top yard, with a young blond boy called Danny Harrap riding. I liked Danny. He was only a few years older than me and he wanted to be a jockey. Nearly all the young boys who joined our yard came with the ambition of being a jockey. Many of them would get the chance to ride in “apprentice” races, a few of them would do well, and maybe one or two would make it and become full-fledged professional jockeys.

  Those who didn’t make it—and they were the majority—did not fail because they weren’t good enough, they failed because they were built too big. They were too tall or too heavy, or enjoyed food and drink too much to keep their body weight below 112 pounds. Racing is a tough master for a jockey. You can be as talented as the next person, but you have to be light, or there is no future.

  Danny was a beautiful rider. He was kind and sympathetic, he never lost his temper with a horse and my father often used him on difficult animals and to break in yearlings—teaching them to accept a saddle, a bridle and a rider on their back. Danny rode into the Straight Mile, and I was just ahead of him.

  I still have no idea how Hattie knew it was a colt behind her. She must have smelled him. Her tail suddenly shot up over her back and she started prancing on the spot. She was making a strange noise and started backing up toward the young colt.

  “Bloody hell, watch out,” shouted Danny.

  I was trying hard to watch out, but there was nothing I could do. I kicked her in the ribs, smacked her down the shoulder with my stick, but she was still racing backward. She seemed to be spraying urine as she did so.

  Spider started laughing. “She’s a madam, all right. You’ve got your hands full there,” he said. “Just trot on by, Danny. Go on, that’s a lad. On you go. She’s only winking at you, that’s all. Ha ha!”

  I was so ashamed. My beautiful bay mare was an out-and-out tart. She was at her worst when she was in season and so I had to learn about the estrous cycle of horses. Mares come into season (i.e., are sexually receptive) from the spring to the autumn about every three weeks. Their hormones are triggered by the lengthening of the days and, as the gestation period of a horse is eleven months, in the wild they naturally avoid getting pregnant during the winter months, as that would mean giving birth in the winter as well, when a foal in the wild would have little chance of surviving.

  Hattie seemed to be in season from March to November, pretty much all the time. She would shove her backside under the nose of any male horse—colt or gelding—within a hundred yards. She wanted it so badly that I had to keep her well away from the racehorses and any other horse at a one-day event or a show-jumping competition. It may have been a valuable biology lesson but, to me, it was mortifying.

  My father had trained many tricky fillies and showed more interest in Hattie’s development than he ever had in mine. He told me to keep her busy and to make sure she was as fit as she could be.

  “She’ll be better if she’s busy, but you can’t force a mare,” he said. “They’re funny like that.”

  I now realize that, although my father trained many good fillies, he never rode a mare. They were too fickle for him. He preferred a big, brave gelding who wouldn’t question his desire to jump everything in sight at speed.

  As for owners, Dad was direct and honest with them. He may have been born into a horse-dealing family, but he lacked the persuasive qualities of a salesman. He thought it much better to tell owners whether their horses were any good or not, rather than allow them to dream of the Derby if a donkey derby was the only thing their precious colt or filly was likely to win.

  Some owners are happy with phone calls about the progress of their horses; others like to see their physical and mental development for themselves. The latter group tend to be those who know what they are looking at and are less driven by results, more by achieving a greater understanding of the equine bloodlines they are developing.

  My father rang his owners each Sunday to discuss the likely running plans for their horses. If he had shown any interest in current affairs or life outside Park House Stables, he would have had interesting conversations, as his owners had influence over a broad range of businesses and countries. Occasionally, if something so big had happened that even he couldn’t miss it, he might stray off the topic of racing. There was betting on the General Election, with prices offered on who would be prime minister, what the majority would be and which individual seats would be won. It was therefore covered in the Sporting Life.

  When he rang Buckingham Palace, he was put through to the Queen immediately.

  In May 1979, he started their conversation thus:

  “Your Majesty.”

  “Ian, how are you?”

  “Fine. All well here. The horses are in good shape and I think we’ll have runners at Royal Ascot.”

  He went into more detail about which horses were being aimed at which races and told the Queen about the one or two who had had slight setbacks and would need time to recover. She took it all in, made the odd comment and, as he reached the end of his update, the Queen said, “By the way, what do you think of the election result?”

  The Conservatives had won the election and Margaret Thatcher had become the country’s first female prime minister. Dad was vaguely aware that this event had occurred, but as it did not affect his daily life, he had not given it an awful lot of thought. My father is not a stupid man, but he does sometimes lack intelligence and that is the only way I can explain his reply.

  “Well, it’s going to take a while to get used to a woman running the country.”

  Honestly, that’s what he said. To the Queen.

  I have always thought it is entirely to her credit that the Queen did not remove her horses straight away. Maybe she thought my father was a “card,” an oddity, a bit of a loose cannon. Maybe he amused her. Or maybe she just concentrated on his ability to train racehorses and ignored the rest.

  The Queen liked to track the behavior of her horses from birth onward—which ones were being difficult, which were showing promise, who liked to lead on the gallops, who might pull and who might show reluctance. Whenever she came to see her horses, my father would make sure Andrew and I were prepped well in advance:
r />   “Your Majesty” on first greeting. “Ma’am” (as in “spam” or “jam,” not as in “farm” or “palm”) from then on.

  Don’t grip the hand, touch it lightly, and curtsy or bow. Left leg behind right, or right behind left, Dad wasn’t clear. Consequently, I have never been sure.

  Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, and look the Queen in the eye.

  Don’t swear—you might think this was obvious, but I had been developing an impressive array of profanities and anything could happen.

  On this April day in the early 1980s, my father had neglected to tell us that the Queen was coming to Kingsclere. So it was that I came charging in from riding Hattie to find two men wearing suits sitting at the kitchen table. I thought perhaps someone had been murdered and these two charlies were in charge of the investigation. I had been watching Bergerac and that was just the sort of thing that was always happening in Jersey.

  “Wotcha,” I shouted through the door, as I tugged off my jodhpur boots in the dogs’ room. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Next door in the dining room,” said the one who looked like the chief inspector.

  Skidding along the cork floor in my socks into the kitchen, I saw Mrs. Jessop carefully placing bacon and sausages on to one of the smart china serving dishes.

  “Oh great, cooked breakfast!” I said excitedly. As I ran out of the kitchen I thought I heard Mrs. Jessop saying something about someone feeling queasy or queer—it started with a Q.

  I flung open the dining-room door and, in my haste, fell into the room. I was wearing my green-cord riding jodhpurs, with stains from two weeks of wear, one red sock and one blue, my favorite rugby shirt and a spotted handkerchief around my neck.

  The Queen, who was sitting at the head of our dining-room table, was dressed rather more soberly in a navy-blue dress suit. My entrance had caused a break in the conversation, one of those uncomfortable silences you always hope will not happen because of you. And then it does, and there’s not a lot you can do except say, “Sausages. Yummy!”