She yawned and stretched herself. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘You coming?’

I shook my head, though I ached for sleep. ‘I’ve got to clean the harness,’ I said. ‘It’s getting too dirty. I’ll not be long.’

She went without a backward glance, and when I came to the wagon two hours later she and Katie were fast asleep; Dandy on her back, her hair a rumpled black mass on the pillow.

I crept into my own bunk and gathered the blankets around my shoulders in their comforting warmth. But as soon as I shut my eyes I started dreaming again. I would dream I was the red-headed girl and the land was turning against me. I would watch the fields grow ripe and yet know an absolute fear of loss clutch cold at me. I would dream I was the woman who had been out in the storm and I would ache for the loss of the baby whose name was Sarah. Then I would hear her anguished call, and sometimes I would sit bolt upright in my bed, cracking my forehead on the roof of the wagon, as if I were trying to answer her.

In the morning I would be heavy-eyed and pasty-faced. But still there would be the horses to train and the ponies to work. The hay and the water to take around, the tack to be checked, and every single one of the twelve animals to wash and groom.

Rea helped. But Robert was training him for rosinback riding and he was tired and bruised from his falls. Jack helped. But he was training on the trapeze and helping Rea learn to stand. Most of the work fell to me. I could not ask Katie for help; she was afraid of Snow and Sea and would only groom the little ponies. I would not ask Dandy. I always wanted her to rest.

Our quietest time was around noon. We ate early, and Katie and Dandy did most of the cooking. Robert ordered Jack and Rea to clear up the plates and wash them. Sometimes we would pile back into our bunks and sleep the early afternoon hours away. Sometimes, as it grew warmer, we would find our way to the nearest river or lake – going three-up on Morris or Bluebell – and spend an hour splashing in the cool water. One time, when we were playing in a field outside a little fishing village called Selsey in west Sussex, we all five of us went down to the sea: Jack and Rea on Snow, Dandy, Katie and me on Sea. We rode them along the pebbles of the beach down to the hard sand at the water’s edge and then urged them in. Sea jinked and fretted at the little waves and Katie cried to be let off. Dandy and I let her go and Dandy held tight around my waist while I urged Sea into the water. The waves came up to his knees and I still pressed him on until he made a little leap deeper into the sea and he was swimming with great heaving magical lunges. Dandy and I clung to his mane, swam beside him, letting his great heaving movement tug us through the water, buffeted by the waves. Jack and Rea were shouting with delight, trying to stay on Snow, and Katie lost her fear and played at the water’s edge. We five became children again for that little time, playing as we had never been allowed to play in our overworked childhoods. But then Jack looked at the sun and nodded at me.