The riders waited for a big pickup to come the other way.

‘His first wife took off with the kids to live in Australia, which is pretty ouch,’ Petra let slip.

‘He sounds a right one,’ Mo tutted.

‘Don’t you feel sorry for him?’ Bridge was surprised.

‘Mothers don’t put continents between kiddies and their dads without good reason.’

‘Mack looks like George Clooney, mind you.’ Gill raised her crop hand in thanks as the pickup passed.

‘Jimmy Nesbit,’ Petra downgraded.

‘Not more geriatric pin-ups!’ grumbled Bridge, noticing Petra sucking in her plump lips, clearly party to the inside story thanks to her dog-walking alliance with Ronnie.

As a third car appeared over the hill, trapping them all on the verge longer, Petra cracked, ‘He’s a terrible control freak and his parents are Presbyterian zealots; Ronnie thinks that when the in-laws moved down from Aviemore last summer to rule the roost from a neighbouring bungalow, Pax went from fed up to clinically depressed.’

Bridge let a sarcastic huff escape her lips, her eyes drifting back across to the beautiful golden stud, unable to imagine feeling miserable when you could escape there.

‘So she’s spending more time with Mummy and the horses?’ She feigned a cut-glass accent, sitting tight as Craic took objection to the approaching car’s roof box.

Mo chuckled. ‘You’ve got the right hump today, Mrs Mazur.’

‘I just don’t see what’s special about having a selfish husband and mad in-laws. Sure, we’ve all got those.’ The chip on her shoulder sizzled. ‘At least he’s a snappy dresser, this silver fox of hers. Aleš has been trending plaster-encrusted joggers and trainers for years, and his parents are certifiable – but you don’t catch me doing the shouty Bluetooth thing or running home to Mammy, do you? Sure, she’d just tell me to get down on my knees, and not to pray: every Walsh woman learns early on that to have a good marriage you need to give him lip and head in equal measure.’ Craic spun round as the offending roof box whooshed past, cannoning into Mo’s good-natured cob who flattened its ears, his rider’s face puce.

Chastened, Bridge apologised. ‘Sorry. Horse and mouth running away with me again.’ She had no bate with Ronnie’s daughter; she didn’t know the woman. Today’s bad temper was entirely directed at herself.

‘We can’t all have your exciting love life, Bridge duck,’ Mo sighed. ‘When Barry gets up my nose, I spend time with Mum and the horses. Bloody muddy and hard work it is too. You try mucking out ten when it’s so cold you can’t feel your fingers.’

Smarting quietly because Craic was one of those ten kept at the little livery yard Mo ran from her parents’ farm, Bridge remembered Aleš arguing against paying the extra for him to be stabled in winter (‘He should live in field. You treat that fucking animal like baby. You want another baby, let’s make another baby, baby.’ His Bond baddie way of talking, once so endearing, now got firmly on her nerves).