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the colt’s sweat and felt the strength of its will against his own, he could already see the Derby course bathed in early-summer sunshine and a jockey wearing the redde Granville silks punching the air in victory. His heart glowed.
    Garth could not contain himself. He swore and swore again. He swore until he could think of no more swear words. ‘How many The Ones have there been already, Pa? Ten? Twenty? And how many have done anything for us except eat up money? You’re a . . . you’re a . . .’ He had used up all his bad words so he kicked the gate until it threatened to collapse completely.
    His father paid no attention. He was too busy running his hands up and down the horse’s front legs and over its withers. ‘See here, Garth, he’s not much to look at but he’s by Rataplan out of Hybla and his half-sister won the Oaks in ’54. He’s got the makings of a star.’
    â€˜He’s a horse – a hopeless, bloody great rubbish horse!’
    Charles stood back. He was smiling, and that was when Garth finally exploded, attacking his father with fists and boots and roaring as loudly as the bear whose head and pelt lay outside their father’s room must have roared on the day it earned its title ‘The Cannibal’. Gryffed’s hackles rose. Had Charles given the word, he would have gone for Garth’s throat. No word came so he stayed sitting, though he shook and his upper lip curled above his teeth.
    â€˜How dare you!’ howled Garth. ‘You’re the reason we’re having to leave here. You’re the reason the girls’ll have to go and live with Aunt Barbara. You’re the reason I’ll have to gointo the army because where else is there for me? You’re the reason for the end of Hartslove. It’ll be as if our family never existed.’ He was furious to discover that he was crying. ‘Why don’t you just DIE?’
    The horse, terrified, reared. Garth did not care, he pummelled and clobbered until, in final desperation, he blasted, ‘I suppose it was because she saw this coming that Ma went away.’
    The words hit Charles far harder than any bang in the gut. He sagged, suddenly an old man. It was hard for Garth to keep pummelling after that and, despite himself, his punches died away, leaving him breathing in short, steamy puffs. Charles stood quietly for several minutes. Garth’s heart jerked. He felt quite empty. ‘Pa,’ he said. ‘Pa.’ He no longer wanted to punch. Instead he wanted, quite desperately, to turn the clock back, not just half an hour, but back to the days when his father had never sagged and he and Garth had wrestled in fun. How reassuringly solid Charles had felt then, for all his spiky frame, and how Garth had loved him. He had loved his mother too, but even when physically there, she had never actually seemed very present. ‘It’s like being hugged by a cobweb,’ Lily had once said, and the name had stuck. Indeed, after their mother had gone, the de Granville children wondered guiltily whether she had heard them calling her ‘the Cobweb’ and taken that as her cue to sweep herself away.
    Garth swallowed. ‘Pa,’ he said again.
    Charles swallowed too. ‘Garth.’
    Neither seemed to know what to say next and the colt was restive. Eventually, with an apologetic murmur and a self-deprecatory shrug, Charles began to urge the creature up the stable drive. There was crunching on the gravel. Skelton was striding down. Charles greeted him and within moments was reciting the horse’s breeding. He already seemed to have forgotten about Garth.
    The ‘for sale’ sign flapped and the boy’s temper surged again. How dare his father? How DARE he? Doubling over, he found a pebble. Taking careful aim, he threw it at the horse’s rump with all the force his anger could muster. It hit true. The horse grunted and spun round, whisking the rope