“Why can’t I do some practice jumps on Syrup?”

“Why can’t I ride Stardust over to get an ice cream?”

“Oh, Snowball’s trodden on my toe.”

“How d’you rate Sally Ann’s chances in the junior jumping?” asked Mrs. Thomson, sweating in an emerald green wool suit.

“Nonexistent,” snapped Jake.

“Joyce Wilton said Sally Ann was the best little horsewoman in Surrey.”

“Can Patty enter for the potato race?” asked Mrs. Beasley.

“If she wants to waste her money, the secretary’s tent’s over there.”

Sally Ann’s mother returned to the attack: “We’ve paid for the pony all day.” (Mrs. Wilton charged £12 a gymkhana.) “My little girl should be able to ride as much as she likes.”

Jake’s head throbbed with the effort of filtering out conversation. The clamor went on, deafening, shrill, and demanding. He might as well get a job as a nanny. No wonder sheepdogs had nervous breakdowns. No wonder mothers battered babies and babies battered mothers. He wanted to turn off the din, like the wireless, and lie down in the long lush grass by the river and go to sleep.

His eye ran over the row of bored, depressed-looking ponies standing on three legs, tails swishing ineffectually against the flies, occasionally flattening their ears at one another. They’re trapped like me, he thought.

His face became less frosty as he came to little Fenella Maxwell, standing on a bucket, replaiting the long-suffering Dandelion’s mane for the third time. She was a good kid. Surprisingly she wasn’t spoilt by her bitch of a mother, who would be guzzling champagne up at the big house with the nobs by now.

His eyes softened even more when they came to rest on Africa. Not dozing like the ponies, she looked around with her huge eyes, taking everything in, reassuring herself constantly that Jake was still there.

The prospect of the open jumping and the risk he was running made him steadily more sick with nerves. He lit another cigarette.