—
Back at Soysambu, Jock’s warnings and expectations continued to wear on me, but only in weak moments, when I let myself think of him. Most of the time I could wrestle my worries about my own life clear away to focus on my horses and each day’s training schedule. I tethered myself to morning gallops and feed lists and details of grooming. Dynasty and Shadow Country, my two charges, were both coming along well, but there was always the chance I could take them further still; bring them even closer to perfect form. Puzzling over their care was how I got to sleep each night, how I turned off my own doubts and fears as simply as blowing out the lamp. The work was what mattered. It alone would get me through.
When the day of my exam finally arrived, D drove me to Nairobi. Over the roar of the engine, we talked about the upcoming race meeting, the Jubaland Cup, weighing the stakes and the possible competition. We didn’t speak of the exam itself or the way my nerves had climbed up into my shoulders and neck, or how I was missing my father something terrible and wishing to God he could be there. We didn’t talk about Jock and how I had to succeed that day to be free of him. There wasn’t room for a whisper of remorse or self-doubt, and so even when I turned up for the test and saw the proctor’s small, dismissive eyes, I didn’t falter. He was the marshal of the Royal Kenyan Race Association, and his office was hot and airless. As he glowered at me from behind his broad desk, I could guess what he was thinking. Women weren’t trainers, not in Kenya or anywhere else. I wasn’t yet nineteen years old, either. But I had learned to thrive when others assumed little or nothing of me—like when Kibii or the other totos in the Kip village looked down their noses, goading me to stretch for more. I was still a child to the marshal, no doubt, as well as female—but if he assumed I’d fall short, that was enough to quiet the last of my worries and make me jump higher, try harder, and prove him wrong.
—
When my exam results arrived several weeks later, I took the simple envelope off where I could be alone with it, my heart gunning, and broke the seal. Inside, instead of a dreadful notice telling me I’d failed, there was an official document, typed and signed. MRS. B. PURVES had been granted an English trainer’s licence, good until 1925. I ran my fingertips over my name and the date, the leaping scrawl of the secretary who’d endorsed it and all the corners and creases. Here was a stamp of legitimacy, my ticket to compete in a circle I’d observed for most of my life, straining towards the action from my father’s side. If only he could be here now. I longed to hand him the notice and hear even a few measured words about how proud he was of me. And he would be proud. I had rounded a new corner and could finally see a swath of territory I had only been able to dream about and guess at before. But it was a lonely, lopsided feeling—missing him even as I flared with hope, wanting him there fiercely though that was impossible.
That night D had his cook prepare a dinner to celebrate: thick gazelle chops that had been cooked over an open fire, preserved peaches in syrup, and an almond-scented blancmange custard that tasted like clouds. He played his favourite song, “All Aboard for Margate,” again and again, refilling my brandy glass until the entire evening seemed to tip pleasantly on one edge.
“You’re the best I’ve seen in a while,” D said as he wound up the gramophone for yet another encore. “Pure and natural instinct is what you have.”
“Thanks, D.”
“Aren’t you pleased, girl? You’re probably the only eighteen-year-old female horse trainer in the world!”
“Of course. But you know I’ve never been the type to do a jig.”
“Then I’ll do one for you. The papers will want your name, of course. Everyone will be talking about it.”
“If we win, they will. If we don’t they’ll say it’s because Delamere was daft enough to let a green girl run his horses.”
“We’ve got six weeks to worry about that. A bit more, actually.” He glanced at the mantel clock. “Tonight, we’re going to get stinking.”