That night, Jack awakes with a start. In the looseboxes beyond the tack room door the horses sidle, their hooves catching on the cobbles beneath the straw. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. Sitting on its edge, he cocks his ear to the darkness and concentrates. His senses tingle with alertness. Getting to his feet, he steps into his trousers and pushes on his boots. He is careful as he lifts the latch on the door to make as little noise as possible.

Through the threads of moonlight he sees Gwen, sitting on an upturned bucket in front of Arthur’s stall. The horse’s head hangs over the wooden gate; he snorts softly, nudging her shoulder with his velvet muzzle.

Gwen twists round to face Jack. She is nursing a bottle of whisky and he sees at once she has been crying. The streaks on her cheeks glisten in the darkness.

‘I thought about what you said,’ she says at last, ‘about letting fate decide. I thought I’d let my body decide whether it kept this baby or not. So, I worked hard today. I worked until I thought I would drop, until every inch of me was screaming with pain. Then I had that bath – I could hardly stand it, it was so hot, I thought I’d be blistered all over when I got out. And then finally I took this from the bottom drawer of Dad’s desk. He doesn’t realise that I know it’s there. I just …’ Her chest heaves and falls on a sob. ‘And then I started thinking – what if what I’m doing doesn’t cause me to lose the baby, but just damage it in some way? What mother does that? What sort of mother harms the innocent life inside her?’ Her gaze drills into him. ‘You asked me if I wanted this baby … if I wanted to keep it. And the thing is, Jack, I do.’

She whispers her confession, then abruptly thrusts the bottle aside and stands up, walking over to the gaping doorway. She tips her face towards the full moon, the goddess of fertility shining in the night sky like an omen. ‘This is my baby as much as his. It has as much of me in it as it does of him. He can reject it … but I won’t. It is growing within me, becoming more a part of me every day. It is my baby.’

There are no tears on her face as she turns to address him, though there is profound sorrow, perhaps regret. He stands rigid, aware of the distant bark of a fox and the soughing of the wind in the trees. But all he wants to hear are her words.