‘It’s going too fast,’ Norm mumbled for about the twentieth time, while Matt said absolutely nothing at all, like he hadn’t the whole time.
Since they’d set off, some time ago – it felt like a long time but in reality was probably well under half an hour, because the sun had barely moved round since then – he’d been fully focused on just trying to stayonthe horse. He’d kind of thought he’d befineat riding. Normally he had good balance. And he was fit. And he liked playing football. And tennis. And he was alright at them. So why was it so hard to sit on a horse? Well, it wasn’t that hard. None of them had actually fallen off yet. But it just felt like he was going to fall off any minute. And that was not a good feeling.
‘Stop,’ Norm begged, as his horse broke into a little trot.
‘Maybe pull on the reins,’ Matt suggested. Good to know that his voice still worked.
Norm gave a little tug, nearly fell off and then shouted, ‘It worked,’ as his horse slowed down, and then the horse reared a little in shock, and Norm wobbled, a lot. Matt would definitely have laughed if he hadn’t been sitting on a horse himself and therefore not finding anything at all funny.
‘So, um, this is nice, isn’t it?’ said Lily, slowing down – literally, slowing her horse down, as in, she was actually in control of it – to wait for them.
‘Not really,’ Norm muttered.
‘It’s great.’ Matt was getting better at multi-tasking talking and riding. ‘Loving it.’
‘You know.’ Lily manoeuvred her horse so that she was riding next to Norm. ‘It does get better. It really does. The first time I went riding, I fell off seven times in an hour. It’s taken me ten years to get to this point but honestly it’s okay. Ihatedit the first time I went but my friend Meg loves it and kept making me go and here I am. On a horse, not hating it, not falling off – yet, anyway – and chatting while riding. But the key thing is, I haven’t actually got better, I’ve just relaxed into it. And, also, I cling on with my knees. Like, really cling. I always have thigh ache afterwards but it does make you feel a lot more secure.’
Matt clenched his thighs and knees around the horse. That did feel good.
‘That wasn’t what the instructor told us to do, though,’ Norm said.
Why hadn’t the instructor stayed with them, actually? Wouldn’t that have been the responsible thing to do? Why had Carole said they didn’t need anyone with them? Why had the riding stableletthem go without anyone responsible?
‘Bugger instructors, Norm,’ Lily said. ‘We don’t want to begoodriders, do we? We just want to be moderatelyhappyriders.’
‘You’re bloody right,’ Norm said, sounding the happiest he’d been since they’d arrived at the stables.
Shewasbloody right. Matt was pretty sure he wasn’t at any point going to enjoy this outing, but with the leg-clenching thing there was a chance he was going to stop feeling like death was imminent.
They rode along like that for a while, and Norm actually started chatting to Lily, like he was okay with life on horseback.
Every so often, Lily took one hand off her reins to take some photos, of the scenery and of Norm or the others on their horses. Never Matt. He could see her flicking through the photos immediately, and deleting a few.While on horseback. Unbelievable.
He’d love to ask her about the photo curation. And realistically he never would.
Lily moved her horse over to him and leaned over – actually leaned, and did not fall off; how was shedoingthat? – and asked, ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’ He managed to nod without feeling like he was about to land on his head. ‘As you said, starting to enjoy it.’ He had his pride. No way was he going to admit that he was hating this.
‘That’s good.’ She smiled at him like she knew exactly how much he was lying.
She was really annoying him.
And he was really annoying himself because right now he couldn’t help noticing how even in a stupid riding hat she just looked beautiful, because all he could see was her lovely smile and her gorgeous eyes.
Seventeen
Lily
Lily couldn’t help smiling at Matt. He wassofar out of his comfort zone.
His horse stepped up his pace a tiny bit and Matt wobbled massively. ‘Bloodyhell,’ he said. ‘This is a terrible way to spend an afternoon. Bloody Carole.’
Lily caught herself smiling even more. Matt couldn’t really pull stroppiness off; it just wasn’t him.
‘Are you taking my wife’s name in vain?’ Norm said.
‘She’s my aunt and yes I am and right now I’m really regretting letting her talk me into this.’ Matt lifted a hand to adjust his hat and wobbled alarmingly. ‘Oh myGod. I can’t even scratch my head without risking my life.’
