‘Oh, Wide!’ she said lazily. ‘D’you still think of it, Merry? I thought it only gave you nightmares now.’

‘I do,’ I said. The old longing was still calling me. ‘I think I always will,’ I said.

Dandy leaned back against me and dozed, and when I kissed her hair, softly not to wake her, I tasted salt from the sea.

She stirred and glanced back over her shoulder at me, her dark eyes smiling. ‘I’ve got him at last,’ she confided.

‘Who?’ I asked. I was stupid with my usual weariness and with the dizzy dancing feeling behind my eyes from being out in the bright sunlight and watching the sparkle on the waves. I was aching all over from my swimming and I knew I would be stiff tomorrow. I was dozing like Dandy had been. I did not think what she was saying.

‘Got who?’ I asked.

Dandy nodded her tousled head towards the other horse which was ahead of us. Just a little way ahead, turning into the gate where the wagons were pitched and the little ponies hobbled.

‘Jack,’ she said. Her voice was a purr of satisfaction. ‘I’ve got him so that he won’t escape me, and the show will be half ours as I promised.’

‘Dandy, what have you done?’ I exclaimed, struggling to wake and understand what she was saying; but Sea followed Snow into the field and Robert Gower was tumbling out of his wagon, his face flushed and his eyes bright.

‘Where the hell have you been!’ Robert exclaimed. ‘Meridon Cox, you’re going to have to work like a sugar-island slave to get these horses ready for tonight! And tonight of all nights! Don’t you bodge it, m’girl. Either the first or the second show there’s a man coming specially to see us! I had a letter after you’d all gone jauntering off! If it’d come before you left I’d have kept you back.’

‘What man?’ Dandy asked.

Robert beamed at her. ‘Never you mind, little Miss Nosey,’ he said. ‘Just you remember that he’s coming to either the first or the second show. He could make my fortune too if he likes what he sees.’ He nodded at all of us. ‘If he makes me an offer for the show you’ll all see the benefit of it,’ he said. ‘A London season! A proper-built ring. Quality audience. Two shows a day but never out of doors! No more travelling! No end to what we could do!’

He broke off and looked around at us. ‘My God, you look like a camp of gypsies!’ he said irritably. ‘Meridon! Get to work on those horses! Rea! Help her! Jack! Check the rigging and then come and see what Merry needs doing.’