Choose your words more wisely than your gods

There’s a postscript to our holiday in Greece: a tragic one, I’m afraid. Although this memoir has concerned itself with my reflections on my father, a few passing references have been made to my sister, who, of course, was likewise grieving the loss of a parent.

My father had used a part of his redundancy money to buy Sis a horse. He was a thoroughbred, with the wonderful name Cadenza Fancy Pants - Fancy, for short - a handsome, sturdy fellow, bright-eyed, white-starred on his forehead, with a sheen on his chestnut coat that was electrifying to behold. My sister idolised him. In the months following Dad’s death, Fancy, I think, consoled her in a way that my mother was unable to do. I certainly couldn’t do it.

On our return from Crete, we were picked up from the airport by my uncle Colin; the same uncle who had imparted the news of my father’s death to me.

As we neared home, Sis became steadily more excited. She’d missed Fancy tremendously. Forget the unpacking: the first thing she was going to do, on getting home, was to run to the stable where she kept him, give him a good rub down, then take him for a ride.

A few hundred yards before we reached our destination, Uncle Colin abruptly pulled the car to one side. He turned his head around, looking grim-faced at my sister. He said, bluntly:

‘There’s no easy way to say this. A couple of nights ago, Fancy got out of the stable. He was running wild, stumbled…broke his leg. There was nothing that could be done. He had to be put down. I’m sorry.’

There was nothing more to be said. Turning round - no doubt tired of playing the part of Grim Reaper’s messenger - my uncle resumed the course of the journey. My mother was motionless in the front passenger seat. I sat in stunned silence, in the back, next to my sister. She too was silent, just for a moment. Then the howling began. She cried more bitterly, in those next five minutes, than I think she had ever done before: even on the day she woke to find Dad had passed away. This was a second sword piercing her soul. As long as she had her magnificent stallion, I think, she still had a part of our father with her. It had been his last great gift to her.

It was so fucking unfair.

Perfidious Poseidon, god of horses as well as oceans, had failed us. The Athenians had done well to cherish the goddess of wisdom before the capricious deity of the deeps.

Mum got my sister another horse. His name was Charlie. She loved him, of course.

He wasn’t Fancy.

How do you replace a beloved father? How do you replace the horse you adored, the noble steed who comforted you, who gave you solace, in your darkest days?

You don’t.