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By Root 1758 0

back to Ant in the kitchen, and without waiting for his response, but knowing he was coming towards me down the hall to say goodbye, went down the steps and quickly walked away. Didn't want him to spot the lump in my throat. Knowing they were standing together in the doorway, watching me go, and wanting to appear jaunty and casual, I swung my bag. Quite difficult with Brenda under one arm. Two minutes later I walked jauntily back past the house, still swinging my bag and clutching Brenda, because of course, my car, after last night's little débâcle, was in the opposite direction. They watched me go.

Caro was waiting in the yard as I drew up to the farm, wearing her very best ‘meet the pony's mother’ kit: lovat-green Puffa, black jodhpurs and fashionably soiled Dubarry boots. She frowned as I parked and got out; slapped a whip impatiently on her boot.

‘Come on, quick,’ she muttered. ‘She's here.’ Her eyes were roving straight ahead, up the lane. I scuttled to her side, leaving Brenda yapping and circling hysterically in the car. Sure enough, a ruddy great lorry, all hissing air brakes and hundreds of huge rumbling tyres, trundled down the lane and turned into the yard. I watched as Caro's frown for me turned into a beam of pleasure for Camilla, looking regal, perched on high at the wheel. I wondered if I could even smell fresh paint on the stable doors.

‘Camilla!’ Caro called in the hearty voice she reserved for her hearty friends. ‘You made it!’

‘Only jarst. Bloody tyre wars flat. Had to bloody change it!’

A formidable-looking blonde with a weather-beaten face, also in tight jodhpurs and a Puffa, jumped athletically from the cab. She slammed the door on two obedient fox terriers. They didn't move a muscle and sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead to attention, unlike Brenda, who'd stopped circling and was now eating the car seats. I imagined Camilla changing the wheel herself: hoiking this enormous great lorry single-handedly up onto her shoulder. Yes, probably.

‘Camilla, this is my sister-in-law, Evie. Camilla Gavin.’

‘Hi!’ She strode across and flashed me a smile. Nearly broke my fingers as she shook my hand.

‘You're the mummy, ya?’

‘That's it.’

‘And where's the gel?’ Camilla looked around brightly, in that slightly vacant way overbred people have, as if expecting Anna to appear from behind a stable door.

‘Oh, she's—’ Caro and I made frantic eye contact.

‘Meeting someone,’ I said quickly.

‘A friend.’

‘Of her father's,’ I finished.

Camilla frowned. Looked piqued.

‘Eau. I rather wanted to see her orn him. See how she sits.’

She walked around to the back of her lorry and began flicking catches and bolts back. She reached up, and with a deft heave-ho tug on a rope, had the ramp down before you could say Jack Robinson.

‘Oh, she sits beautifully,’ I assured her, hurrying round to assist. ‘Got a lovely little…’

‘Seat,’ put in Caro, helpfully.

‘And hands?’

‘Yes, she's got hands.’ Heavens. What a question!

‘Are they light?’ Camilla turned to me impatiently.

‘Oh, yes! Terribly light. Hardly weigh a thing!’ Had I missed that in the Penelope Leach book of mothering? Who weighed their child's hands?

‘Only Heccy's very sensitive.’ She eyed me gravely.

Aren't we all? I thought as she fixed me with a gimlet eye. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just brayed chummily. ‘Heu heu!’ She swept on, ignoring me.

‘J'a hunt?’

This, delivered like a pistol shot. I glanced at Caro. She nodded, eyes huge.

‘Oh… yes!’

‘Who j'a hunt with?’

‘Oh, er… you know. The usual ones. The local, um, hunters. And gatherers. At least – Anna does,’ I said quickly, which she hadn't. Ever.

‘Bicester?’

Bicester. Blimey. Wasn't that a town?

‘Yes, quite a lot in Bicester.’

She gave me an odd look but, happily, disappeared into the depths of her lorry. Moments later she reappeared, leading an immaculate, but disconcertingly purple horse: purple coat, purple leggings, purple ribbons in his tail. I could just about see, under the purple head collar, its head, which was dazzlingly beautiful, with huge eyes and a dished forehead.