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‘Yes, look, it says, “After the Shell garage.”’ She waved the piece of paper in my face.

We were bowling along the Woodstock Road and I obediently swung a left, down a street lined with terraced houses. I slowed down and peered at the directions as she held them up in front of me. This looked like an industrial estate. At length, though, we wiggled around a few bends and then the road petered out and we achieved a track, which led, in turn, to what could hardly be described as a stable yard. More like a collection of sheds with corrugated iron roofs, and a mobile home standing gauntly in their midst, I thought as I gazed around. There were a few scrubby-looking paddocks in the background with telltale sprays of ragwort, which Tim would have had up in seconds, none of which betrayed the presence of horses. We came to a halt in the yard.

A couple of fierce-looking mongrels bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Anna and I shrank back in our seats while they shouted at us, teeth bared, all curling lips and white eyes. Eventually a young lad appeared and dragged them both away, tying them to a chain. When we were sure they were secure, Anna and I ventured forth gingerly.

I wasn't really dressed for this, I realized, having stuck my feet into the first shoes that had come to hand: a rather expensive pair of beaded flip-flops I'd bought in Italy. I'd ruin them, I thought, as I picked my way through a mucky yard. Ruin flip-flops! I jolted with horror. My husband had a child with another woman, and I was worrying about flip-flops?

A small, scrawny man in baggy fawn trousers, braces and a flat cap slid out of a shed. He came to meet us. His eyes were small, light blue, and very quick. A practised smile revealed an unusual dental arrangement.

‘Mr Docherty?’

‘Tha's right.’ In a slow, singsong Irish brogue. ‘You'll be coming after the pony.’

‘Exactly. But now just remind me, Mr Docherty, what colour is the pony?’

‘What colour will you be wanting?’ Quick as a flash.

‘Oh. Well. It doesn't really matter, I suppose. It's just that, well, in the advert you said grey, and my daughter thinks you said skewbald, so—’

‘Ah, well, you see the grey one, she was after being sold, but the skewbald now, she's a rare beast. A grand mare altogether. Pure-bred Connemara, out of Mayflower Summer by In Your Dreams, so she is. You'd go a long way to find another a mare like that, may the Good Lord crack me legs from under me if it isn't so.’

Still smiling, he jerked his head economically to the lad, who took a head collar from a peg and went sullenly towards a stable.

‘I see. So… the one in the advert in the paper—’

‘Went in moments. I have an awful high turnover here, you see, and you're lucky to be seein' the skewbald at all. I've a gentleman comin' all the way from Bristol he is, wants something special for his little gurr'l. A very wealthy businessman, by all accounts, but he's after breaking down on the M5. Rang just a moment ago, and here you are, so…’

‘Oh! Yes, well, how dreadful. But we are here first…’

It didn't occur to me to wonder why a very wealthy businessman should own a car liable to break down on the M5, and feeling my luck was in for a change, I followed him with Anna to where the horse was being led out of its stable.

It was indeed brown and white, and bigger than I'd imagined: rather thin and rangy too, with ribs I could see, and its back looked slightly humped with the tail tucked in between its legs. Was that normal? But it had a kind, somewhat sleepy eye, I decided. The mare raised her tail and evacuated copiously out of her rear end a stream of rather evil-looking green slime. Perhaps she was nervous. She wasn't the only one.

‘Right. What d'you think, darling?’

Christ. In the recesses of what was left of my mind I remembered Caro telling me to bring someone along. Ant, at least. Caro, even better. But we were here now, befuddled and bemused. I deferred to my daughter.

‘She's lovely,’ she said, stepping forward to pat her, her eyes aglow with owning a pony