She rang off.

Marlon was laughing now and my heart ached because I remembered that feeling when Maple realised that it was sugar in the palm of your hand, how eagerly she hoovered it up, and how much her tongue, lips and breath tickled. I stared at the scene at the end of the stable. Uncle Jack placed Maple’s favourite blue blanket on her back and showed Marlon how to close her gate. Then Uncle Jack took Marlon’s hand and led him out the far end of the stable where there was an incinerator bin smoking in the spring sunshine. Uncle Jack supervised Marlon as he dropped dead branches into the bin and then the pair of them stood back, watching the dead branches begin to burn.

I slowly walked down to Maple, standing in her stall.

She lifted her lovely head with a soft snort, always happy to see me. It’s you again. Uncle Jack stored a box of treats opposite Maple’s stall and I found a wad of bread and slipped it into her mouth, feeling the saliva slick against my hand as she took it. I pressed my hands against the long sweep of her beautiful face and those bottomless black eyes blinked at me once.

‘What am I going to do, girl?’ I said.

I stood there in the half-light of the stable, comforted by the old familiar smells of leather and hay and soapy water and horse and the wood burning in the incinerator bin. The smell of horse above all. I could hear the voices of Uncle Jack and Marlon as they stoked the fire, my son chuckling, happy again. My old saddle was on a stand, the worn leather gleaming with glycerine saddle soap. I walked slowly along the shelves that my dad had put up years ago, full of well-ordered boxes of bridles, bits, shoes, sponges, blankets and brushes.

I found the toolbox.

I picked up a nailing hammer.

There were a few in there, and I chose the oldest-looking one with a square nose on its steel head, and sharp jaws for pulling out nails and a worn wooden shaft.

I stood there with the hammer in my hand and then I saw Uncle Jack staring at me in the stable’s doorway. Beyond him, Marlon had his back to us as he lobbed a dead branch into the incinerator bin. For a long moment, Uncle Jack and I looked at each other and then he came closer and watched me as I slipped the old nailing hammer into my bag.

‘Want me to call your dad?’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘No thanks, Uncle Jack.’

My father could not help me today.

I drove Marlon home and found Christian in a funny mood, distant and distracted and rather cold, although perhaps anyone would be like that after living with me for enough years. He seemed to have no real suspicion about the true identity of the man who had come to look at our home that day. Or at least he gave no sign when I fobbed him off with a story about some random social media stalker who had been trailing me around online. Perhaps it is easy to believe what we are desperate to hear.