Free Tivington Nott by Alex Miller Page A

his own this morning. He’ll take his time. It’s still early now, but he’s behaving as if it’s late. Letting himself feel the holiday.
    I’m starving and the bowl of thick porridge is good. I scoop on heaps of cream and sugar! I’d rather have more porridge, but as soon as I’ve finished she puts down a plate of fried bread and home-cured bacon in front of me. It’s vaguely warm. Been dished up for half-an-hour and sitting on the side of the stove. It’s something of a drawback, this stuff. That pig again! I wait till she’s not looking and then I cut out the areas of blue. I don’t know what causes this deep-blue spotting close to the rind; something to do with the action of the brine, or the copper rivets in the barrel, I daresay. It looks like the bluestone, sulphate of copper, that we put on the sheep to cure foot-rot, and it tastes so bad that it lingers on my tongue for hours. I have to face up to it every morning. She doesn’t like to see any part of that pig being wasted. It irks her. Goes right against her grain. It’s something she can’t relax about. They put a lot of care and hard work into fattening that thing up each year, and the way it all turns out after it’s been cut up and put into the barrel is a point of pride with her. She can’t help feeling criticised by the way I treat it. She’s never said anything, she stops short of nagging me, but she hates to see me picking and poking around with it instead of just gulping it down the way Morris does. I’m not expected to go into ecstasies over it, she’s not an idiot, but I am supposed to enjoy getting bacon with bits of poisonous blue stuff in it.
    I hate to offend her.
    And this time she catches me trying to slip some of it into my pocket. Well that’s too bad. She pretends she hasn’t noticed and asks me if I want another cup of tea.
    But I’ve had enough.
    I dive into my room and put on my clean pair of breeches. I’m not finished over there yet and time’s getting on. As I head back across the field the sky is a streaky grey over the Quantock Hills and the light is on in the farmhouse. Going into the yard I can hear the Tiger down towards the orchard feeding his sows, squealing and screaming and yelling going on. And the Diplomat’s woken up too, the slow smash of his horns on the tin going for another day.
    It’s time for me to saddle up.
    The Tiger gets extra-finicky on hunting days. And today more than ever, with his first ride on the noble stallion in the offing.
    Ashway watches us while I put the gear on the other two. He knows all about it and wishes he was coming with us. There’s everything you can think of to go on Kabara, and it’s not a straightforward business to get it adjusted correctly. The long-shanked pelham bit with a curb mouthpiece belongs to Alsop. It’s a severe piece of equipment if you want it to be, and in the excitement of hard riding it’s easy to hurt the horse with it. For maximum comfort it’s got to sit just nicely behind his incisors, but low enough so that his lips aren’t drawn back by it. I take plenty of time to set it just right, making sure the feeling of it in his mouth doesn’t make him want to chew and tongue it in order to try to get it into a more comfortable spot. I like to see his head still, his gaze relaxed, and no distractions. The Tiger has made up his mind that he wants a standing martingale rigged on him too. But this is not necessary either to improve his bearing or to control him. Kabara’s stance is without fault, he flexes at the poll naturally and from pride, giving the appearance of alertness and intelligence; a naturally aristocratic bearing. The martingale will irritate him and complicate matters if anything does happen to go wrong. Getting into difficulties on a horse that’s got straps and buckles and extra bits and pieces of harness hanging all over it is more dangerous than if he’s only wearing a saddle and bridle.
    But it’s the Tiger’s way to tie