‘I can’t believe you met the Horsemaker.’

‘Put his feet up in the tack room and fell asleep as soon as he got there, can you imagine?’

‘Bit of a New Age stoner?’ Bridge suggested hopefully, carrying the coffee across to the sofas. Petra’s disappointment if he was an acid-dropping soap-dodger might teach her to manage her expectations at last.

‘Turners hate New Agers,’ Carly flopped down on a cluster of brightly embroidered cushions, ‘the sort that bang on about the simple life and buy old gypsy wagons to run vegan patty stalls at music festivals, which is a load easier when Daddy subs you twenty grand a year.’ She helped herself to biscuits. ‘Luca’s not like that. Scared me a bit, if I’m honest.’

‘In what way?’

‘These burned.’ She looked at her hands, a kołaczci in each. ‘They feel it when things are damaged, you know? Animals that are hurt. Diseases that haven’t been diagnosed yet. People with secrets.’ She popped the biscuits in her mouth.

Thinking guiltily about her Fantasy Ash gym dream, Bridge burned her lips on a gulp of coffee. ‘How do they feel now?’

‘Like they want to be near horses.’ She chewed the little biscuits, one in each cheek like a hamster, smile in between, swallowing. ‘You’re right, that spell we did is totally ’mazing, like totally. Are you still feeling it?’

Bridge didn’t want to think about it. ‘That was just the wine talking, Carly.’

But Carly shook her head. ‘Something changed last night.’

‘The year?’ Bridge flicked a finger back to indicate the calendar on the wall behind them.

‘Bridges of Ireland?’ Carly laughed. ‘Nice one.’

‘I get one every Christmas. My brother Brendan never lets me down; he thinks it’s the funniest joke.’

Eyes now languid and sleepy as they had been last night, Carly yawned and admired January’s Peace Bridge in Derry with its colourful backdrop of fireworks. Checking Ellis and Sienna were distracted cracking through the toy pile Bridge had dug out, she whispered, ‘I’m knackered. Ash had an anaconda in his pants last night. I didn’t sleep a wink.’

‘Lucky you.’ Bridge forced a bright smile, reluctant to dwell on the contents of Ash’s pants any more than she already had.

‘Only now he’s sour at me for going to the stud first thing. His lot hate Percys even more than New Agers. He went off to the gym this morning with the hump cos I asked him to pick up the kids from his mum’s. I swear, those egg-box abs are on account of his bad temper.’

Bridge didn’t want to linger on the image that conjured, either. She crammed in a handful of jammy biscuits without thinking, then felt three hundred calories stick to her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

Carly was looking at her very intently. Chewing like a grumpy camel now, Bridge sensed that if it hadn’t been for her kids the pretty blonde was in the mood to unload a lot more about her marriage today. Thank God for her kids.