Ah, the challenges of having a common name.
How many people manage to secure an email address involving their full name and only their name? Perhaps not a huge number, but it’s certainly not impossible. I once had the naïve idea of a ‘maryking@gmail’ kind of address. It soon became apparent that, without the ‘.lochinver’ part, I’d need to be ‘maryking4672918’, or thereabouts.
There are other artists sharing my name. Apparently, at least one of them signs her work with an identical mark! I learned this when a Picture Shack customer mentioned she’d bought one of my paintings down in Montrose or somewhere I’d never been. It was definitely mine, she insisted – it had my signature on it. Others have since verified this uncomfortable fact; indeed, we may be a complete clan, all calling ourselves ‘MK’ in the bottom right-hand corner.
Then there’s the ghost. Taxis in Edinburgh warn of my proximity via the stickers on their doors – Mary King’s Close – while a recent social media post exchange saw an adversary suggesting I **** off back to my underground chambers. His politics were suspect but at least he had a sense of humour.
If I ever manage to finish and publish my memoir, I have considered doing so under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of innocent, yet vital, characters in my story. I am beginning to think it would be a good idea in any case, since my name is already in use as an author, perhaps several times over.
I have received two separate, random, messages in as many weeks, each due to mistaken identity. The first, a rather persistent chap hoping to market and promote my book, which apparently isn’t reaching its true potential. I initially believed it to be a scam, or ‘phishing’ message, before I discovered that a Mary (S.) King has, in fact, published a book on post-gastric band surgery recipes. The entrepreneur in question prided himself on his attention to detail, so it’s a little odd he didn’t notice I am primarily a painter, and that my authoring credentials are hitherto more aspiration than reality. I was also mildly put out by the gastric band reference.
I felt slightly more complimented by the second message, from someone who just wanted to praise my glittering career as an eventer, and declare herself a lifelong fan. The most cursory of glances at my website would have revealed (until this month) a complete lack of horsiness. This should, one would have thought, indicate that perhaps they were writing to a different Mary King? I’m glad I look sporty enough, although in a spooky twist, it turns out we were born in the same year, just five months apart. Why the message landed in my inbox, though, out of 4,672,918 online Mary Kings, is a mystery. Perhaps my SEO is more successful than I realised?
A couple of years ago, too, I received a message from a school leaver, hoping for a training placement as a groom in ‘my’ yard. This one was strange, as I would have been that person – the one looking for an opportunity – once upon a time. In a different lifetime. Back in the mist, when all I wanted was to be Mary King – but not the cookbook writer, nor the Montrose painter, and definitely not the ghost. The schoolkid sounded so earnest, I hated to let her down.
Once, at an art exhibition, a lady approached me with a small girl clinging to her legs and gazing at me, too shy to speak.
‘She wants your autograph,’ said the mother. For a split second, I was quite overcome; I’d never been asked that before.
‘She thinks you’re the horsewoman,’ she added, before my head had the chance to swell.
Neither of them was interested in my paintings.
When I was not much older than this girl I, too, was hanging around well-known show jumpers collecting autographs, but at least I was looking for them at horse shows. My hero was Eddie Macken, noted for winning the Hickstead Derby four times in a row (three of which I saw in person) on the legendary Boomerang, and for his gentle riding style. When I learned I could never marry him – he was already married – I was going to work for him. I formulated a plan.
I left school to become a ‘working pupil’, studying for my Horsemaster’s Certificate, which would have qualified me as a groom. The height of my ambition was an outdoor life around horses; I was never happier than forking steaming manure on a frosty morning and saddling ponies for others to ride. Of course, if I were the one aboard, that was even better, but I never imagined I could be famous. Little did I realise that in these precise moments, a girl of my age, who carried my name, was beginning her journey towards stardom.
Within a month, my dream lay in tatters. After four weeks, my riding skills had improved tremendously; I was confident and competent in the saddle, and I was handling some quality horses. But physically, and emotionally, I was suffering. The lumpy, sagging camp bed upon which I slept, in a cramped bedroom-dormitory of twelve girls, left me with an aching back; our enforced diet of chips, white bread and margarine provided little nourishment for the dark, freezing mornings nor the hard manual labour we undertook for our keep, and the grey, dismal, pancake-flat landscape around the stables bruised my soul. I had the eyes of a painter, and there was no beauty to be found here. The final straw, however, was the bullying. The owner’s daughter had a particular dislike for me (it was mutual), but worse, the other pupils who lacked the academic qualifications necessary to train as instructors resented the fact that I had ‘O’ levels, but I didn’t need them; I desired only to work with horses, not people. My teaching gene had not yet been stimulated; I was a particularly young, and easily bruised, seventeen.
I walked out without saying goodbye – except to my favourite horse – and, heavy-hearted, enrolled in art college instead.
I never intended to stop riding. But who knew that the opportunities in the land of John Whitakker and Harvey Smith would be like gold dust? The plodding lines of novice hackers on shaggy ponies were far from what I was accustomed to, but I found no alternative. Soon, the only time I mounted a horse was on holiday. Nowadays, I am so out of practice it’s as if I never spent my poor father’s hard-earned cash on a month’s wasted training. I can hear my childhood instructor yelling: Lengthen those legs! You’re bouncing around like a pea on a drum. An oversized pea, to boot.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I miss the smells; I’d pay to sniff a pony. Luckily, there’s usually no charge. But saddle-soaped tack; dusty hay mixed with rich, sour pony nuts and warm, sweet sugar beet; damp straw, sawdust and a creosoted stable door all take me back to my first love, and I vow to bring it back into my life somehow.
Just imagine, if I’d had the talent, the money, the experience and determination to stick at it, perhaps I could have ended up competing against myself. Or being Mary King the groom for Mary King the rider’s horses. That would confuse the journalists. Mind you, we’ve never been in the same room at the same time. Perhaps, after all, parallel universes do exist and in one of the others, I succeeded with Plan A?