The Rocking Horse
The small crowd of people watched as a couple of policeman carried the rocking horse out of the house and put it in the back of the police van. They handled it carefully, gingerly, as if it was very valuable, like an antique. The Policeman slammed the door shut and the two of them drove off in a cloud of dust.
* * ***
I knocked on the door of the big farmhouse and waited. Nothing. The house was as quiet as the grave; everything was still, except for the crickets doing their daily dirge to the dry Highveld.
A window to my left opened a crack and I could see an eye through the chink in the curtains. It was dark inside, and most probably nice and cool. I heard a woman's voice ask.
“What do you want?”
“Mrs. Fourie? My name's…”
“Are you a reporter?” She had a strong Afrikaans accent and I could imagine her as a thick-ankled Boer woman, accustomed to standing her ground.
“No. My name's Epis Harram. I'm from the Old Mutual. I was …”
“Bugger off!” A hand came out from behind the curtain and pulled the window closed. I was used to this kind of reception from people, but only after I had told them who I was. This woman just didn't like the sight of me I suppose, or maybe she could smell who I was. I looked around. The rest of the house was tightly curtained and closed. It seems I had come a long way for nothing.
I thought about knocking again when a door opened somewhere round the back of the house and I heard a bark that lifted the hairs round my neck. I began walking very quickly towards my car, which was about thirty yards away, keeping my ears peeled for any sounds of movement behind me. I was about half way there when I heard him coming; fast. Throwing decorum to the winds I ran like hell for the car, my patent leather shoes slipping and sliding in the dusty road. I ripped the door open and flung myself inside. The dog hit the car door with a thump that rocked my bones. How the window didn't break I don't know. There was a slobber of saliva and snot smeared all across it where his huge head had hit the glass.
I locked the door just in case he was one of those smart dogs you hear about that can open things with their mouth. I tried to put the key in the ignition but I was shaking so much I dropped it on the floor. The dog was still there when I sat up, staring into my ear from a foot away. He was one of those dogs that the Boers used to breed to chase lions and hyenas away. I suppose he thinks I'm one of the latter. Most people do. Anyway, there's no more lions out here, except those that have escaped from the zoo. However, that was of no comfort to me at the moment.
I turned the key in the ignition and nervously pumped the accelerator, which any woman knows is the wrong thing to do. Of course, it didn't start. Shit. Now I was in trouble. Even if I knew how to fix it I couldn't get out of the car. That wasn't the worst though; the seats were getting so hot you couldn't touch them and air conditioning wouldn't work unless the engine was running; so, we sit and sweat; me and my imitation Saville Row suit and its polyester pin stripes.
I wound the window down just a fraction to try and coax in some air but the car rocked again as the dog hurled himself at me, scrabbling at the tiny gap like a demented dervish, trying to gain a tooth or paw hold that he could exploit. It was a fearsome struggle; me trying to close him out with the flimsy window winding handle and him trying to eat the car. That dog was all mouth and muscle.
Somehow I managed to get the window closed as still more slobber and slime came slipping down; spittle speckled with blood where he had torn his mouth on the metal and glass. It made me feel shaky and sick. What's the matter with these people? I punched the steering wheel in frustration and thumped backwards into the seat in disgust. Damn them. I stabbed my palm onto the steering wheel and hooted angrily at my humiliation.
That was the wrong thing to do. I had to cringe as the dog launched himself at the car in another furious frenzy of snarling, snapping teeth and scrabbling paws. Jesus that thing hates me. I'm sure he thinks I'm just a meerkat in a burrow and it's only a matter of time before he digs me out. I felt like crying. Can you believe it? A grown man. I must tell you, this is a rough country.
I looked up at the sun and the flash of yellow light and heat pierced into my brain and made me see spots and stars. It took a while for all the funny colours to go away and then, through the heat haze over the cars bonnet I saw a girl on a horse, like a mirage, coming dark eyed and deathly pale; a flimsyn wraith upon a night-black charger.
The dog whined softly and lowered his belly into the slithering dust, half turning his head away from the awesome apparition. I gave her a stupid little wave through the windscreen as she pulled up and sat there looking at me, waiting for her answer. Her head eclipsed and chilled the midday sun, threw a shadow across my heart, deeper delved than demons, and drew from that sunny day a dark and desperate desire in me to…I felt as if I'd been running on neutral my whole life…I wanted to…shout something, just to hear the echo.
She had fine sculpted nostrils, thin, sensuous, pink young lips and deep-set blue-rimmed eyes, full of promise and pain and sleepless nights. She was watching me to see if I was…inevitable, or just a passing stranger with something to sell and nothing to say, not willing to die with his hands in the dirt, holding her head to his heart like the last flower in the wilderness.
Like all girls, she needed someone…hollow to escape in – a husband of sorts, to save her from death, depression and her mother. But there are no more men; just mommy's boys who get caught and run away while the women cry because they have seen the glow on the horizon; and they know that it's a fire not far from home-truths that can't be kept at bay, once they have taken flame, called somebody's name across the dry and brittle, bitter bush, rattling in the dust.
“Home!” she said to the dog without taking her eyes off me. He slid backwards on his belly, wagging his tail and showing his teeth in a nervous rictus of a grin, dribbling drool in the dust.
When he was far enough away I wound the widow down slightly and spoke to her through the narrow opening like a modern day Thisby-fool in a farce. I was not the man for her, I could tell.
“My car won't start,” I said. Well, that just about sums up my life too. “I think it's flooded.” No response. I could feel she was waiting for me to say something real, something she could recognize and respond to.
“I'm a bit nervous of your dog. I was wondering if you could …” I was wasting time, buying time, anything to keep her from turning away and leaving me to my fate. I pointed at the dog but didn't get time to finish my sentence because he launched himself at my finger and I just managed to get the window closed in time as the car rocked back under the impact.
“Samson! “ She, as one with her horse, lunged at the dog, driving him away from the car with her stamping hooves. He retreated to a safe distance, his fear of the horse and his desire for me holding him shiveringly in the balance; I could see he wasn't going to give me up that easily.
I wound the window down again. “I would like to speak to your father actually.” I was getting angry at them all; mother, dog, the horse, and her for making me look such a fool. I was nearly in tears from frustration and failure.
“My father's not here. He's out on the tractor…” The horse was so close now that I could see every detail of her slender soft moccassined feet in their steel stirrups. It was a very high horse and very highly strung. She had to constantly keep it under control, gripping it snugly with her legs and correcting it with the reins as it fretted at the bit and high hoofed backwards and forwards until I was scared it would trample on the car. I was finding it very difficult to look dignified under these conditions.
“I can fetch him if you like.”
“No!” I panicked. I wouldn't last another five minutes cooped up in this incinerator with Cerberus waiting there until my goose was cooked. As if she read my mind, she suddenly urged the horse into a full blooded charge and the dog ran for his life.
When the coast was clear she got off the horse, pulling the reigns over its head, and walked him up to the car.
“Sorry about the dog. We don't often get strangers around here.” Her voice was soft and sensitive. “That's alright.” I said, getting out. My legs were shaking so much I had to hold onto the car to steady myself. God, I looked like I had nearly pooped my pants.
She held her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “I can take you to my father, but I have to stable the horse first.”
A window opened and that horrible woman started shouting again. “Lilly! What are you doing?”
“Nothing ma. This gentleman wants to…”
“I don't want you talking to that man do you hear me?”
“…talk to daddy.”
“Do you hear me young lady?”
“Yes ma.” The girl shrugged her shoulders at me in fatalistic resignation and turned to lead the horse away.
“And you Englishman!” she bellowed at me. “Don't make me have to get out of my sick-bed and come out there!”
“My car…”
She slammed the window shut.
“…won't start.” I answered to the winds.
Before I could even think a thing I was running down the Eucalyptus lined avenue after the girl. I pantingly caught up with her and walked along for a while.
“Your mother doesn't like me,” I said. She ran her fingers lightly down the horses brown satiny nose and whispered in its ear.
“She's not my mother.”
Oh, I thought. A real witches cauldron bubbling under the surface here then, complete with evil stepmother and impotent father. I hope I hadn't just walked into the firing line. But then, men never see what they are rushing into until it's too late. The distraction of a damsel in distress disguises the ditches of despair that he will inevitably fall into and never find his way out of again. I know because I was already lost in another woman's clutches.
“You from Johannesburg ?”
“Yes.” I said and saw her go a bit dreamy and stare longingly at the horizon. She was much younger than her eyes.
“I sometimes go with my Dad.” At the mention of his name she fell silent and an ache came over her features. To disguise it she turned and laid her cheek lovingly on the horse's nose. He snorted and shook his head away. “Easy boy.” She stroked him and he settled down again.