Page 52 of Finding Home in Hartfell
After the long drive she took Maud for a quick wander around the garden to stretch her legs, thanking Gil for taking care of her. He excused himself and once back in the sitting room, Maud settled in her snug little bed, with Pippa on the sofa. The house felt different again without Harriet or Alfie here. He was very shy, but he was kind and obviously cared about Harriet, and Pippa liked him very much for that. Her eyes closed and she leaned back, glad to relax after hours in the car.
‘What’s that bloody pony doing in the garden again?’
‘Huh?’ She was nearly asleep, shattered from the drive, and she squinted at Gil who suddenly loomed in the doorway. Maud leaped up with a valiant little bark, greeting Lola with an enthusiastic tail wag as the Labrador took the opportunity to fold herself into the puppy’s bed with a grunt.
‘She’ll explode if she eats any more grass, and I can’t catch the little bugger!’ He sounded so cross that Pippa couldn’t help laughing.
‘I think you must be imagining things. I checked on her less than thirty minutes ago when I took Maud out and she was tucked up in her stable.’
‘Oh, was she?’ He marched over and took Pippa’s hand, towing her to the window. ‘So how do you explain that?’
Posy was ambling through the garden, snatching happily at lush, green lawn and made such a pretty picture that Pippa wished for her sketchbook to capture the image. The early evening sunlight was glinting off her brown-and-white coat, trees casting dappled shade onto the plants beneath them.
‘Pippa! Are you even listening? I said, you’ll have to help me catch her. She’ll be on three legs or dead by the morning if she stays out there all night.’
‘What? Sorry, yes. Catch Posy.’ She finally caught Gil’s urgency, shaking her hand free as she made for the kitchen and the wellies which now lived beside the back door.
The dogs decided it was an outing for them too, Maud’s little legs unable to keep up with Lola’s as they pranced through the garden. Posy had other ideas about spending the night in her stable, and as soon as she saw Pippa approaching as Gil hung back, she applied a brisk second gear and was soon trotting in circles always just out of reach.
‘Are you actually planning to help,’ Pippa panted at him, leaning with folded arms against a silver birch. The grass was studded with tiny hoof imprints and Posy had left a neat pile of poo amongst the geraniums. Now she’d managed to squeeze herself through a narrow gap between two hazel trees and only a flimsy gate lay between her and the field of sheep. ‘Because if you are then can you stop laughing and fetch a bucket or something.’
‘She’s wise to that trick now.’ Gil straightened up. ‘Let’s take a side each and you try and grab her when you get close enough. See if you can hang onto her mane, it’s thick enough.’
She shot him a dirty look. ‘Right, yes, good plan. Hadn’t thought of just grabbing her when I’m near enough. Genius.’
The presence of the dogs seemed to spur Posy on, and the gate was no match for her roundness when she gave it an experimental shove. She raced off into the field and Gil managed to slam it to keep the dogs out. It was another fifteen minutes before they herded her into a corner, and she allowed Pippa to put on the headcollar he’d slung over one shoulder. She led Posy back to the yard, about to put her in the stable, when he spoke.
‘Actually, whilst you’ve got her, I’ll just have a look at her teeth.’ He halted in the yard, towering over the pony. ‘She’s due a dental and seeing as Harriet’s away, you’ll do.’
‘Oh, will I? Right now?’ Pippa was ready for bed, and she’d be crawling up the stairs after Posy’s latest little escapade on top of that drive.
‘No, the middle of next week,’ he retorted, sprinting to the Land Rover parked beside the tatty caravan and opening the boot. ‘She shouldn’t need sedating for a check up and quick rasp.’
‘Sedating?’ Pippa tried to quash the nervous note in her voice. ‘How bad is she, exactly?’
‘Mind your feet. And hands.’ Gil returned with a bucket of water he’d removed from Posy’s stable and some tools that to Pippa looked as though they belonged in a museum, not a small pony’s mouth. He bent down and slipped another headcollar on, just a strip of leather which went around her ears and was attached to some awful-looking metal contraption he slid between her teeth. Posy was already swishing her tail, cute little ears flattened and giving him the evil eye as he carefully prised her jaws apart.
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘A gag. It keeps her mouth open so I can see.’ He switched on a head torch, nearly bent double on the ground to peer inside.
‘A gag! Surely she doesn’t need one of those?’
‘So are you offering to stick your hand inside and hold her tongue out of the way then?’ His own hand reappeared as he fished out a clump of soggy, half-chewed grass from Posy’s ill-gotten garden gains and threw it to the ground.
Pippa wasn’t, so she kept quiet as he produced a large metal rasp and set to work, like filing nails, dunking the rasp in the bucket to rinse it occasionally. She was busy enough trying to hang onto Posy, who did her best to back up, shoot forward and even stand on two legs to avoid Gil’s attentions. She clouted him on the knee at one point and Pippa had to bite her lip very firmly to stop herself from laughing as he yelped.
‘Can’t you hold her still?’
‘I’m trying, but in case you haven’t noticed she has twice as many legs as me and is a fair bit heaver. Can’t you work more quickly? She obviously doesn’t like it.’
‘You don’t say.’ He glared at Posy as he rinsed the rasp and tried again. ‘She’s not the only one. There are about fifty other ways I’d rather be spending my evening.’
‘Then why bother?’
‘Because if her molars get sharp again, they could ulcerate her tongue and she’ll like that even less.’
A few minutes later Gil decided Posy’s teeth were neat and even enough, and he slipped the gag off. Posy shook her head, sending drops of green flying. Pippa gave her a pat and told her she was very clever and brave, which made him roll his eyes.
