VIRAGO

Chapter 13

      Stella revisited me a week after our initial interview. She presented me with a sheet of crisp A3, decorated with a list of the most beautiful handwritten questions she had about her treatment. Such a rarity to see handwriting of any description these days, her fine blue cursive script lifted my lips with joy. Brahm hadn't arrived in as yet; puzzling that he wasn't here as pre-arranged, given that he was ahead of me and the gun most days. I ran through the itemization with her, meticulously answering every concern she'd documented. It was the least I could offer in light of the time and effort she'd invested in this hand-crafted compilation.

     'You think they're silly don't you?'

     'Far from it, Stella I do apologise. It's just the memories, wonderful memories this beautiful writing brings back to me. My own mother wrote so much; I too, in my youth.'

     'Well, it's something I've never quite got out of the habit of. My boys tell me the world is paperless now; come to think of it, I can't recall the last time I saw them write anything. The youngest sent me an e card for my birthday last year, can you believe that?'

      'I can, but it saddens me nonetheless.'

      'Half the sentiment of sending a card was in the choosing; the writing, that walk down to the post box. 'Times have moved on mum' they say to me, the suggestion been that I should too.'

I could still picture the once black binder, disguised neatly by the horse wrapping paper I'd meticulously folded and taped around the book. Protection and decoration, something we all need. The smell was a little musty, for the last time I saw the folder was about thirty years after I'd compiled it. It was amongst the belongings I'd kept from my childhood, jammed into a plastic carrier with wads of brightly coloured rosettes, hard won in various shows with my beloved Toffee.

Shortly after mother moved into Claremont, I found myself adrift and out of place. A tourist in my own life, on a one way trip to hell. Father was rarely around; always off with weasel face spending God knows how much, on God knows whom. Father's hunters remained, but the other ponies were gone. I couldn't bear the thought of having something I loved ripped away from me again after Toffee, so I refused his offers to purchase another cross country gelding. Fathers pathetic attempts to assuage his guilt; first for murdering my pony, then having my mother carted off to a mental institution. He fit my romantic image of an absolute brute, one I had no intention of letting off the hook lightly.

I spent much of my time wallowing during that stage of life and I found my bedroom to be very accommodating to my woes. The day I stood up from the bed to find a dark stain beneath me, marked the lowest point in my life thus far. I knew puberty to be almost upon me; the frequent rages and floods of tears couldn't all be apportioned to my life traumas. None the less, my passing from girl to woman unobserved by any female of significance highlighted my solitary confinement.

A LoveHeart turned rogue, A L O N E stamped across my cardiac muscle.

Companionable enough; the housekeeper did her best when with cheeks flaming, I took fairy steps down to the kitchens, where I mumbled my need for sanitary products. Despite glaring at my feet the entire time, I could feel the poor woman above was as embarrassed as I was. I also think she secretly hated my father for dispensing with my mother or perhaps that was just a fantasy I made up, along with many others in support of my version of childhood events.

One morning whilst lamenting the loss of my four legged soulmates, the door to another fantasy world opened. My imaginary sponsor Steve Walker asked me to compile a list of all the competition horses he'd bought me; absurdly rich and the type to pander to my every whim, he'd kind of lost track with precisely how many we owned. I say we; as ours was a partnership, he did indeed supply the funding, but let's be honest, I made the equestrian magic happen out there. Movie star handsome, he was of course the perfect surrogate father who doted on me. I selected the correct depth of lined paper, adding further columns which allowed me to write the name of each horse, followed by its age.