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His name is Cal, he is a modern-day countryman

19 November 2006, around 2.13pm… Cal is late. He walks silently along the unsealed Fyfe Road towards Fanny’s Flat. At around five, or six, metres away he spots his younger wife leaning through the doorway to place something on the only step.

His wife does not see him. Cal slows his step to avoid announcing his presence before he is ready. He wants to offer her his quiet apologies in the privacy of close proximity. He wants her to realise he is genuinely sorry.

Only her back is now visible in the doorway. The pleats of the burgundy silk dress dance around her calves in the breeze. Cal steps into the doorway and makes his presence known. She looks him in the eye, her face cool and calm. She turns away and makes herself even busier than what she needs to be.

She offers him duties to ready Fanny’s Flat for the guests who will soon arrive to celebrate the frock shop's launch with champagne and strawberries. She loves him too much to punish him with undue meanness. She has too much grace to unleash obvious anger, particularly in public.

Cal tackles his duties with enthusiasm, knowing full well that once they are completed all is likely to be forgiven, and smiles will replace her current cool and calm expression. 

“So, where have you been?” a friendly neighbour asks Cal after most of the launch guests have settle with champagne and strawberries. A giddy smile of excitement creeps across Cal’s face underneath the weathered countryman brown leather hat. He places his hands high on his hips, just about at the spot where belted jodhpurs meet a long-sleeve shirt.

Despite being a long-term jodhpur wearer – and pith helmet wearer – it was the first time Cal had been on a horse. He rode a young, energetic horse, which he was happily able to bring to a trot. 

It was such bad luck that the offer to ride a horse for the first time fell on the day of his wife’s boutique launch. The former cityman could not choose between one or the other. Both were of high importance two him, and he decided with all effort to take on both.

An hour later, the launch over and launch nerves dissipated, Cal manages to provoke a favourite coy look from his wife. This coy look, all flirty and from under her eyelashes, is her look just for him. Then with dry humour she needles him for his lateness, for his lapse in good husbandship, for his recently acquired saddle-sore walk.

Once the launch guests leave, together they will pack up Fanny’s Flat, gather the month’s supplies from the farmers’ market and head home to their ex-headmaster’s residence located on top of a former goldmining town’s hill.

Tomorrow, Cal may chop some wood, perhaps tinker in the shed or continue to work the art studio he built for his creative wife, and will he think about the first time he rode a horse.

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