The Princess and the Foal

Happy Frances will cheerfully play games and sing songs. She will sew the pink hat back on Doll just like Haya has been begging her to do for days. Happy Frances reads proper bedtime stories instead of ones that last just one page.

If the King is in the room then Happy Frances fusses over Haya and smothers her with cuddles. But her arms are so bony and her hugs are stiff and awkward. All they do is make Haya miss Grace more than ever.

Haya never talks to Baba about how much she misses Grace, just as she never speaks about how much she aches every single day for her Mama.

One day, Haya hears noises in the upstairs bedrooms, and walks in to find Frances overseeing her staff as they work their way through room by room with three large cardboard boxes.

Haya watches in horror as Frances picks up one of Mama’s silk scarves and flings it into a box.

“What are you doing?”

Frances does not turn to look at her. “Decluttering.”

“Those are Mama’s things!” Haya can feel her cheeks turning hot. “You leave them alone!”

Frances shakes her head. “This is a palace, not a shrine. If you were more considerate, you would see that your father needs to put the past aside and move on.”

If Baba were here then Haya would run to him right now – but he is away in Aqaba and Frances has chosen her moment all too well. Haya has no choice but to stand by helplessly as she watches Frances sweep her mother’s memory away as if it were so much house dust.

No more Mama. That is the rule now that Frances is here.

There is a hole. Haya can feel it inside her, an emptiness that overwhelms her. Into this void she pushes down all thoughts of Mama. Only she does this a little too well, pushes too far.

Now, if she tries to picture her Mama’s face or the sound of her voice, she finds it harder and harder. She is losing her Mama all over again. This time it is like Haya is trying to grab at smoke with her fingers. She wants so badly to hold on to her memories and yet her eyes well with tears whenever anyone mentions her Mama. And so people stop talking about the Queen in front of the little Princess. Everyone stops talking about Mama. Everyone, that is, except for the one person who should.

Frances barely met Queen Alia, but she speaks of her with an air of absolute authority.

“Your mother would never…” Frances always begins her lectures with these words and very soon Haya can hear them coming before Frances even opens her mouth. Your mother would never… dress like a boy, laugh too loud, get dirty fingernails, stain her clothes, forget to brush her hair, play childish games, or – worst of all – waste time with smelly, filthy horses.

Frances is an expert on the King too. She says His Majesty would be so much happier if Haya would try to be more feminine. “Your mother had such noble manners, she was such a lady.”

A lady? Is that what Baba wants Haya to be? He has never mentioned it, but Frances says it over and over again, so Haya doesn’t know any more. And she doesn’t know how to tell her father about the dark empty place inside her that is getting bigger every day. When her Baba says, “You are very quiet, Haya, tell me what is wrong?” she finds that there are no words for her sadness and so she says, “It’s nothing. I am fine.”

Haya cannot voice her emotions, not even to Baba. But she has found a place to put them. They are kept inside her treasure box. The treasure box is made of gold. Well, not really: it is made of cardboard, a shoebox painted gold with magazine pictures stuck all over it. Kept safe inside, where no one else can see, Haya stores her most precious things: her memories of Mama and life before Frances came to the palace.

The box is her museum and Haya treats each item inside it with the utmost care. There is a pair of her Mama’s sunglasses with tortoiseshell rims, huge and square like a TV set. Two tape cassettes – Abba and Gloria Gaynor – which she found with the glasses in the glove box of Mama’s car after she died. A pink pebble from the beach at Aqaba and the pointy white ice-cream seashell, pressed flowers, wild blooms from the meadows near the Summer House, once soft and delicate, now brittle like parchment, tucked between the pages of a notebook. There are photographs too and empty bullet cartridges, made of cold metal, just like the ones that bounced off her father’s medal.

Haya spends hours arranging everything from the treasure box on her bed and then packing it away again. The last item she puts in the box is an almost empty bottle of her mother’s favourite perfume. Before she puts the bottle back she very carefully removes the stopper and dabs the tiniest amount on her wrist, just like her mother did. Then she closes her eyes and inhales deep breaths, until the scent overpowers all her other senses and the world disappears.

*

Several weeks after Frances arrives, with great reluctance, the governess gives in to Haya’s pleading and they make a visit to the Royal Stables.

As usual, Santi is there to greet them when the car pulls up at Al Hummar.

“Welcome back, Titch!” He smiles at Haya. “The horses have missed you!”

Santi invites them into his office, where the music is playing and the pot of cardamom coffee is bubbling.

He offers Frances a cup. She takes a sip and then screws up her thin lips in disgust, placing the cup promptly on the table. “I should like a tour of the grounds, Señor Lopez.”

Santi is very proud of his stables. He has given many tours here; Sultans and Kings have come to visit. None of them were ever as critical as Frances. The governess inspects the horses in the same way that she ran her eyes over Haya the day they met. “They’re a little underweight, aren’t they?”

“They are Arabians,” Santi replies. “The breed is much lighter in the frame than the horses you are accustomed to back home in England.”

“I know my breeds, Señor Lopez,” Frances says. “All the same, I should like to see them a little more filled out than this.”

“I did not realise that you were such a horsewoman, Miss Ramsmead,” Santi says, casting a glance at Haya.

“Oh, yes,” Frances says. “In England I rode with The Quorn. Have you heard of it?”

Santi raises an eyebrow. “That is a very exclusive hunt,” he says. Frances looks smug until he adds, “You must know my wife Ursula. She hunted with them for many years. I will ask if she remembers you …”

“Oh,” Frances falters. “Please don’t bother. I never … rode to hounds very often. Besides, it was such a long time ago I hardly think—”

Suddenly a muzzle thrusts over the door of the loose box beside Frances. She emits a piercing shriek and leaps forward, almost landing on top of Haya.

“It’s all right,” Santi says as he reaches out to stroke the bay mare who has popped her head over the door. “This is Amina. She is being friendly; she didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared!” But Frances won’t step any closer to the mare.

“She’s got a rather coarse look about her for a pure-bred, hasn’t she?” Frances says, glaring at Amina’s flat nose and heavy jaw.

“Amina is Desert Born,” Santi says. “Her temperament is excellent and she was once a very good showjumper …”

“Arabs don’t jump,” Frances says emphatically.

“That is what they say,” Santi agrees, “but some, like Amina, are very bold, confident jumpers …”

“Yes, well, thank you, Señor Lopez,” Frances says flatly. “I think we’ll be leaving now.”

“But we only just got here!” Haya says.

“I think we’ve been here quite long enough,” Frances says. She walks back towards the car and Haya only just has enough time to snatch up a handful of alfalfa to feed to Amina.

“I wish you had tried to bite her,” Haya whispers. “She deserves it.”

Amina nickers. “I know,” Haya agrees with the mare. “I don’t think she does like you. And I don’t think she likes me either.”

“Stay for lunch!” Santi implores as Frances ushers Haya into the car. “Ursula can bring food up from the house for us.”

“No, thank you.”

“Well then, leave Titch here for the afternoon. She loves the horses and my grooms will keep a close eye on her.”

“The grooms? She’s not a horse!” Frances replies. “Thank you for the tour, Señor Lopez.”

The car trip home is awful. “Those horses are ill-mannered brutes!” Frances proclaims. “Small wonder with Señor Lopez in charge! The dust and the dung in those yards …”

“I like it there.” Haya juts her jaw out bravely. What is wrong with dung anyway? To say there is dung in a horse yard is like saying there is sand in the desert.

The rest of the journey home is spent in silence. But the next day, when Haya asks to go to the stables, Frances says she can’t. She has a piano lesson instead. And the piano lesson is followed by French and then ballet. There is no time for the stables.

*

“Baba? I don’t feel so good.”

The King puts down his newspaper and looks at his daughter. Haya’s face is flushed and she has hardly touched her breakfast.

“You haven’t got a fever,” the King says as he feels her forehead.

“Maybe I am coming down with something?” Haya says hopefully.

“Maybe.” Her father looks at her knowingly.

“Frances?” The King summons the governess. “Princess Haya will be coming with me today.”

Haya packs her colouring-in pencils and waits with Doll at the front door as the driver brings the car round. She tries not to look too happy or too healthy as she gets in the back seat beside her father. The car cruises out of the gates and up the winding roads of the palace compound to the Royal Court.

“Welcome, Your Royal Highness!” The women who run the office are always pleased to see her. Her father’s secretary brings the King his morning coffee and also some orange juice and crackers for Haya, with a stack of paper and more coloured pens. In the corner of the office Haya makes herself a fort out of sofa cushions and lies on the rug, drawing pictures of horses while her father talks on the phone and looks at the important papers on his desk.

She is very quiet when the King’s ministers come for a meeting at the large polished-oak table in the corner of the room. Haya focuses hard on her colouring-in, but she hears them, their voices deep and serious as they discuss Egypt and Israel and a place called Camp David. After the men are gone, the King asks his secretary for more orange juice and chocolate biscuits. Then he takes off his shoes and climbs inside Haya’s sofa-cushion fortress.

“Haya, are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, Baba.”

“You are very quiet. Why don’t you tell me what is wrong?”

Haya hesitates. She doesn’t want to bother her father. He is a King with the weight of a nation on his shoulders.

“It’s OK,” her father says, “you can tell me.”

“Frances won’t take me to see the horses,” Haya says. “I keep asking, but she always says no.”

A misunderstanding. That is what Happy Frances calls it. Of course she is more than happy to escort the Princess to Al Hummar if that is what she wishes.

Haya is triumphant as they drive to the stables. Frances, meanwhile, has a face like poison. When they arrive, she refuses Santi’s offer of coffee and returns to sit in the car while Haya visits the horses.

For two hours Frances just sits there, reading a romance novel. On the car trip home Frances stuffs the book in her handbag, but she still doesn’t speak to Haya.

For the next fortnight visits to Al Hummar continue in this way. And then, one afternoon, the driver arrives at the front door of the palace to transport them to the stables and Haya notices that Frances isn’t holding her handbag.

“Señor Lopez and I have had words,” Frances says, and Haya is filled with despair until she adds, “he has agreed that there is no need for me to accompany you to the stables. It is more sensible for him to take care of you in the afternoons.”

As Haya travels to the stables, she feels electrified with a sense of freedom. Frances has finally admitted defeat. Haya is going to Al Hummar stables on her own!

There are fifty horses to care for and a half-dozen grooms under Santi’s command, but he is never too busy to spend time with Haya and is always waiting at the gates to greet her.

“I hope you are feeling strong, Titch,” he says. “There is much work to do.”

At the yards Yusef, the head groom, finds a pitchfork that is small enough for Haya’s little hands and she follows along behind the two men to help with the chores. There are boxes to be mucked out first. She digs out the damp straw with her pitchfork and helps to throw down fresh bedding into the stalls. Then she fills the hayracks in each box with armfuls of lush green alfalfa.

In the boiling room she helps the groom, Radi, to stir the barley pot, a huge cast-iron cauldron strung up by metal chains on a hook over the fire. She is not allowed to touch the pot because it is very hot, but Radi lets her scoop up dry barley and add it to the water. Barley must boil for at least two hours, but Radi likes it to boil overnight. The horses, he says, have delicate bellies.

In the tack room, Haya has her own named hook and a little bag of grooming brushes that Santi has made up for her: a hoof pick, a mane comb, a dandy brush and a curry comb. She takes her kit and goes from box to box, brushing the horses in turn, always saving her favourites till last. Amina’s coat is growing thicker and fluffier. Winter is coming.

When the first snowfall comes and there are deep flurries in the courtyard, Haya clips a lead rope to Amina’s halter and takes her out of the loose box. Amina shies at the snow, refusing to step in it, but Haya keeps coaxing her forward until the mare sticks a tentative hoof into the white crust. Then she dances forward, head held high, snorting and shaking her jet-black mane. Each snort creates a plume of sweet, shimmering steam in the cold morning air.

The snow begins to fall more heavily and Amina doesn’t like the feeling of the flakes on her face. She buries her head in Haya’s coat, trying to wipe the snow off. Haya laughs and takes Amina back to her loose box and then mixes her warm barley and chaff for supper.

*

As the season passes, Amina’s winter coat begins to shed, slowly at first and then in great clumps as the weather gets warmer. Haya grooms her with a curry comb, exposing her glossy, sleek summer coat underneath. But the spring also reveals something more. Amina is changing in front of Haya’s eyes, and she must tell Santi.

“There is a problem with Amina,” Haya says, trying to adopt the tone that she’s heard him use with his grooms. “I think she is getting too much barley. She is becoming very fat.”

Santi laughs. “That mare is not fat, Titch, she is in foal.”

*

That night, when the King is tucking her into bed, Haya tells him the good news.

“Amina is having a baby,” she informs Baba. “She is very fat so it must be soon. Santi says I can watch her foal being born – if you say yes.”

Her father considers this. “I’ll talk to Santi. We’ll pack a bag full of clothes and a torch and leave it ready in your bedroom. Foals are often born in the middle of the night so you will need to be organised to go at a moment’s notice.”

“But if it is at night, I’ll be asleep!” Haya worries. “Will you wake me up?”

“I promise,” the King says.

“Baba, do you love horses?”

“Yes, Haya.”

“Did Mama love horses too?”

“She loved all animals,” the King says.

“Did she ride horses like you do?”

“She rode,” the King says, “and she loved sports. Your mother was a champion waterskier.”

“I am going to be a champion too,” Haya says. “I’m going to be a champion horse rider. One day I will ride in the King’s Cup!”

It is a bold claim to make. The King’s Cup is the most glorious sporting event in the whole of Jordan. Haya remembers Baba taking her with Mama and Ali to sit in the Royal Box and watch the horsemen compete. She remembers the banners waving, the heat of the sun and the noise of the crowds. And riders, on the most beautiful horses she had ever seen. The horsemen vaulted off their galloping Arabians, riding like daredevils. One day, she thought, I will ride like them.

“Champions need to get their sleep,” the King tells her. “Especially five-year-old champions.”

“I am nearly six,” Haya reminds him.

“What do you want for your birthday, Haya?”

“I want to ride across the desert,” Haya murmurs sleepily. “And go to bed with my horse beside me and my camels outside my tent. I want to be a real Arabian Princess.”

Her father kisses her on the forehead. “Goodnight, Haya,” he whispers as she falls asleep.

“Hey, what is this?” Ali asks as he crawls out from beneath the bed with the golden shoebox grasped in his hands.

“It’s nothing,” Haya insists. But before she can stop him Ali has taken off the lid and has put on Mama’s sunglasses.

“No!” Haya snatches the glasses back from him. “You’ll break them!”

She tries to wrestle the box off him too, but Ali won’t let go. “Leave it! It’s private!”

“I’m just looking,” Ali says as he continues to rifle through the contents. “What is this stuff anyway?”

“Treasure,” Haya says.

Ali digs to the bottom of the box and holds up a photograph. It is black and white and the edges are worn from being held so often. A beautiful woman wearing the sunglasses that Ali has just tried on is smiling at the camera and holding a bright-eyed, dark-haired baby in her arms.

“Is that you or me?” Ali asks.

“It’s me,” Haya says quietly. “You weren’t born, I don’t think.”

Ali looks at the picture in silence, as if he is trying to place himself in it, even though Haya has just told him he was never there.

“Are there any pictures with me too?” Ali asks.

“Not in here.” Haya shakes her head.

Ali gazes at the photograph wistfully. “You had Mama for longer than me,” he says.

Haya’s eyes well with tears. Does that make her the lucky one, she wonders? Ali can hardly remember life when Mama was here. But Haya can, and it only makes her absence so much more awful.

“Are these real?” Ali asks, his eyes diverted like a magpie that has spotted something sparkly. He picks up the tiny metal casings and examines them, peering inside each one. Haya complains that she wants her treasure box back, that it makes her anxious to have its contents spread out like this. What if Frances came in and found them?

“Frances is a meany,” Ali confirms.

*

That afternoon, as usual, Frances has a lesson plan of mathematics and English, followed by violin, piano and dance. It hardly leaves any time to visit Amina.

Amina’s belly is enormous and tight like a drum now. Each day Haya is surprised to see that the mare has grown even bigger than the day before. She is too heavily in foal to be ridden any more, but it is good to stretch her legs sometimes. After Haya has finished brushing her, she takes the mare out of her box for a walk. Sometimes Haya leads Amina down the driveway, letting the mare pause at her leisure to take a pick of the flowers at its border.

Today Haya endures her afternoon of lessons and when she arrives at the stables she finds Santi with Amina in her loose box. He is crouched down, peering beneath the mare’s belly.

“Come here, Titch,” Santi beckons her. “You see how the udders are swollen with milk? It means the foal is very close. It is due any day now.”

“Why is she sniffing herself?” Haya asks as she watches Amina turning to snuffle at her distended belly.

“That is another sign,” Santi says. “The foal will come soon, I think.”

Haya sits down quietly in Amina’s loose box to wait for her to have the baby. She waits and waits. It is late in the afternoon when she sticks her head round the corner of Santi’s office. “Nothing is happening,” Haya tells him.

“A watched pot never boils,” Santi says. “I am sure her foal will come this evening.”

“Can I come and help like you said I could?” Haya asks.

Santi nods. “I’ll send the driver back for your things. You can stay here tonight with me and Ursula at the house and wait for the foal to come.”

Frances makes a fuss of course. His Majesty is away on business and she makes it clear that she is not at all happy about this new arrangement, but eventually the driver arrives at the stables to drop off the bag and Haya makes her way up the hill to Santi’s little house surrounded by a grove of olive trees.

Santi’s wife Ursula is blonde and has blue eyes and laughs a lot, but not in a fake way like Happy Frances. Ursula is always in jodhpurs, even when she is not riding, and she is still dressed in them that evening as she chops the vegetables while Santi prepares the roast chicken with olives and preserved lemons. After they have eaten, Haya doesn’t want to go to bed, but Ursula is firm. “You need to get some sleep so that you can be useful when the foal comes,” she reasons.

“Promise to wake me,” Haya insists as Ursula tucks her in.

It is almost three in the morning when Ursula comes back in and rocks Haya gently on the shoulder to rouse her.

“Haya,” she whispers. “Get dressed. It has begun.”

Haya is glad that she has a torch; it’s really dark on the path from the house to the stables. The beam of light ahead of her wobbles as her hands shake with excitement.

Santi is already in the loose box when she arrives. He is leaning against the wall, watching Amina as she paces her stall, pawing at the straw bedding on the floor.

Eventually Amina gives a grunt and drops to her knees, lying down on her side. The mare is covered in sweat and her body is shiny and damp. She lies down for a while, raising her head from time to time to sniff her belly.

“This is it,” Santi says expectantly. But Amina heaves herself to her feet and stands up again.