A DAD'S LIFE:Late night visitor is a dream come true for my daughter
FOR YEARS now I have battled requests for a pony. At the start it was straightforward enough: “Can I have a pony, Dad?”
“No you can’t.” Simple, easy.
But as the elder has grown she’s realised she has to make her pleading more attractive, she has to come up with more than a beg.
In recent times she has offered to pay for it herself (obviously a nine year old can’t fund her own horse in these stricken times), she has offered to work for its keep (again, there are a couple of holes in that suggestion), she has suggested it would pay for itself by keeping the garden mown and, most recently, she has floated the idea of sneaking it onto a farmer’s land.
Each time this is raised, and it is weekly, I admit to getting a kick out of how she can always put a new spin on a tired old argument.
She is determined and resilient. But I still find it incredibly easy to say no. “No, you can’t.” Works every time.
Which is all fine and dandy until the spirits collude and curveballs are thrown in the dark of night.
It’s been cold lately and sound seems to travel better on the frosty air. I woke one night recently and took a while to realise I was awake.
The thing is, when the realisation hits, I know I’m doomed. I may as well go downstairs for a mug of scald and a read. Insomnia, how are ye?
A noise begins to penetrate consciousness and work its way behind the eyes. It is a solid and regular “shoomp”. Shoomp, shoomp, shoomp. Fear claws at me. Rats. We’ve had them before and it was a battle to send them packing.
Back in the height of the rodent invasion we would be woken at night to their scratching, above us, around us, in the walls.
Lying in the bed shivering, hands over ears to quell the rat céilí beating a bodhrán all round us.
The shoomp seems different though, too steady, not frantic or gnawing. My body relaxes an inch.
The missus stirs too. “What is that?” she says. I feign sleep wondering will she sort it and leave me snug. Brave.
She gets out of the bed and moves to the curtains over the double doors out to the garden. She pulls them aside, screams and launches herself to the bed in a leap not seen since Bob Beaman in 1968.
“Something’s out there! There’s a man out there!”
All right, she has me nervy but the manly bits kick in and I’m forced to investigate. I pull the curtains again and am confronted with a . . . well, it’s just a great, big rectangular shape.
It’s certainly not a man, and it can’t be a snooker table on its side, they don’t make noise. It lifts its head from eating, shoomp, shoomp, and makes itself known as a horse in the way horses know best.
It defecates with aplomb and goes back to its meal, all three inches from my nose. He/she is pressed into the side of the house as if to escape the cold.
I know my mind isn’t functioning because I suggest waking the elder, that she’d get a kick out of this.
The missus tells me to shut up and go back to bed. Yeah right, I grab my book and head for the kettle. Thanks horse.
The morning reveals our midnight visitor has not departed. In fact he/she (let’s just call him he) has a friend, a grey donkey. They both seem to be competing to fertilise my lawn.
I am not happy. The kids are ecstatic, but worryingly they expect the donkey to speak with Eddie Murphy’s voice and are disappointed when he brays.
They stay for three days and by the time their owner moves them (they paid me no attention whatsoever when I tried to herd them down the drive with a nine-iron) the elder had presumed ownership by possession.
She and her sister had developed a feeding and watering system using buckets and discarded dolls’ rock-a-tots. They had made friends, aided by sugar, carrots and patience.
I had resisted demands that they be lifted onto the animals’ backs and stamped out a project to develop a home-made girth and bridle fashioned from old dog leads.
But finally the animals were led away, only to a neighbouring field, but still away.
The elder cried herself to sleep that night. I am still saying no, but it’s not so easy any more.
abrophy@irishtimes.com