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corrosive sublimate of motor, was dwindling into oxides among the
foliage—a disagreement with the authorities.
    "I saw."
    Odd. Only then did I concentrate and actually examine George's
features. In my drunken state I'd not noticed, but now I saw the
symptomatology: the sweat, tremors, the quick glances. Even as he spoke he
leapt out of his skin because of a snuffling at the door.
    "For Christ's sake, George. It's only the hedgehog."
    Crispin stood there blinking while I went to make its pobs, bread
in milk. It has its own saucer. Soon he'd start screaming at night along my
autumn hedge, a horrible scary cry to show that he's packing up for the year.
George stared fearfully into the dark night, while Crispin slurped his
nocturnal calories and gave me reproachful glances. He isn't used to slow
service caused by trembling visitors. Narked, I bent down and showed it my
fist. "I want no criticism from you, chiseler," I threatened. Mother
Nature really irks me. All she does is breed scroungers, then sends them round
to me for alms. It's basically bad organization. One of these days I'll send
the whole frigging lot packing. "If it isn't you it's the bloody birds
hammering on the window," I grumbled. Crispin slurped the last and left,
pink feet high-stepping aloofly into the night. No wonder I'm bitter. Dignity
comes easy, on other people's graft.
    "It's the dark, George, eh?"
    "Yes." He unwound slightly as the door closed, and gave
me a feeble grin. "I was always terrified, right from a kiddie."
    That night he slept on my floor, a blanket and cushion job. And
went off right as rain in the morning, noshing fried tomatoes and marching out
for the first bus. I watched him go from my porch, gave him a wave. Nothing
wrong with having a phobia, as long as you keep quiet about it.
    That's what I meant about George not being a lover of
night-walking. Maybe he'd had some premonition? A daft thought, really, because
I'm determined not to believe in hunches and all that. Real life's trouble
enough.
    So, the morning after my epic television drama, aiming to keep
that ten o'clock appointment, I was plodding between the mathematical white
fences of Dogpits Farm while horses raised heads and belligerently stared me
down. The house grew lovelier with every plod, a resplendent black and white
Tudor voyager among modernity. I wondered hopefully how the lady in residence
would take a proposal of marriage from a scruff like me.
    Then this bloke came galloping at me on a horse the size of an
elephant, intending to whip me, while a bonny mounted girl nearby laughed
admiringly. Served me right for daydreaming.
    4
    Well, I wasn't having that. The first I realized of the assault
was a thudding of hooves, and this giant horse was charging directly at me with
a mounted idiot whooping like a maniac. In panic I fled and crawled under the
nearest fence—faster than most people leap—and started sprinting across a
field. The maniac leapt the obstruction—I'd forgotten that horses were natural
jumpers—and came thundering after me. Instinctively as the bloody nag hoofed
closer I made my dash curve, ever tighter, so the mad cavalry floundered to
regain direction. Then I was off", straightlining to a distant hedge. Of course it wasn't all athletics. I was also screaming
explanations about being invited to call for a job, and begging in terror,
anything, but it was no use. The frigging lunatic kept coming, and the acreage
grew wider and me more knackered with pain in my chest and side from exercise.
And a bit of fear.
    A cheering noise sounded, but it might have been my ears roaring.
Maybe the blond girl had friends. Third rush I glanced, terrified, to check her
distance, but she was only circling at a genteel trot and calling, "Go on,
Christopher," and this goon shouting tally-hos and similar intellectual
expletives.
    I ducked and weaved, then snatched up a great tuft of grass as the
creature crashed past the fourth time. My neck got a lash from the nutter,