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‘Yes. Yes, she is, isn't she?’ I agreed, inching forward myself and tentatively laying on a hand. Awfully greasy. I retracted it. But I quite liked the idea that it was a she. Mares were more docile, weren't they? Than boy horses? This one was so docile she was nodding off.

‘She'll be a bit keener when she's ridden, I suppose,’ I hazarded. ‘She looks a bit sleepy.’

‘Ah, faith, she's aisy goin, this one is. But if it's keen you want, you won't find a fleeter mare in Oxfordshire,’ said Mr Docherty, kicking her hind foot to make her stand a bit squarer.

‘And does she jump?’ asked Anna, shyly.

‘Is it jump? Jees, she'll lep that brick wall as soon as look at it.’ He pointed to a dry-stone wall behind us. ‘Lept clean out of the yard the other day, right over the five-bar gate. Shown a clean pair of heels, too, eh, Barney?’

Barney shrugged and looked noncommittal as he stood holding the slack end of the head collar rope, chewing gum and gazing into space.

‘But she's – you know – quiet too, is she?’ I said, alarmed at the prospect of her leaping around Caro's yard. ‘You know, easy to handle?’

‘Is it quiet? Ah, she is that. But she's a mare, you know?’ He gave me a conspiratorial wink. ‘She'll not be taking any nonsense.’

‘No. No, well, obviously, we won't be giving her any nonsense.’ I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, or what I meant, for that matter. God, my head. Oh, for some Nurofen. ‘I mean – we'd treat her very kindly.’

It occurred to me, suddenly, we might be under scrutiny here ourselves. A friend of mine who'd wanted to get a dog from a rescue home, and had imagined she'd been taking the philanthropic route to dog ownership, had been startled to find an earnest young woman in her sitting room with a clipboard, asking pertinent questions – and sometimes impertinent ones – about her domestic set-up: grilling her as to her suitability to own this previously abandoned-by-the-roadside pup. The fact that she lived in town and was a divorced mother of three apparently didn't go down too well.

‘We're married,’ I said quickly. ‘My husband and I.’ Anna looked at me in astonishment. ‘And although we live in the city, we'd keep it – her – at my brother's place. Church Farm in Daglington.’

‘Caroline Milligan's place?’ Some shadow briefly crossed Mr Docherty's face.

‘That's it. D'you know it?’

‘I do. Get that currycomb and look sharp,’ he snapped irritably to the boy.

‘What's her name?’ asked Anna as the boy tied the mare up and began grooming her with what looked a horribly painful rubber pad with spikes. She bore it beautifully I must say, standing stock-still as he yanked the implement over her back, pulling out great tufts of hair, poor thing.

‘Molly Malone. But we call her Molly.’

‘Oh, sw-eet!’ Anna, overcome with emotion, put her arms round her neck and kissed her. For some reason, and perhaps it was because she was unable to prevent this public display of affection even in front of this surly teenage boy, or perhaps it was because my emotions were perilously close to the surface that morning, I found this profoundly moving. My eyes misted up. A girl and her pony. First love.

‘We'll take her,’ I said decidedly. ‘Do you deliver?’

The boy turned to hide a smile, and even Mr Docherty had the grace to cough.

‘You'll be wanting your lass to ride her first? Or even the lad to hop on. Show her paces?’

‘Oh. Yes.’ I coloured. Anna was glaring at me, shocked. Was that how it was done, then? I'd never bought a horse before. ‘Yes, good idea. The lad… and then Anna. Oh, and what about her legs?’

‘What about her legs?’

Still smarting from my gaffe, I had a notion I should be feeling them. I hastened forward to run my hand expertly down a large hairy back one, but my sunglasses slid off my nose and clattered onto the concrete, which startled the horse, who stepped back and smashed them, as I, to avoid her rear end, stepped smartly into her slimy green poo in my flip-flops. I stared in dismay as it squelched up between my toes.

‘Never mind, it's only grass,’ I said quickly, seeing Anna's mortified