‘You stay calm, lad,’ said Joan, noting his white face. ‘You’re doing really well, Freddie. Are you her brother?’

‘No.’

‘Just take some deep breaths.’

Freddie sat back, determined he wasn’t going to pass out, and he didn’t. The feeling passed. He felt detached from Kate now, the image of her forever imprinted on his soul. There seemed to be little he could do to help her, except sit there and pray his prayer.

The shrill jangle of a bell announced the arrival of an old Model T ambulance with a red cross painted on it. Everyone moved aside to allow it free passage down the street. In a daze, Freddie watched the driver and his crew of one nurse in a starched white hat. They brought a stretcher and carefully manoeuvred Kate onto it, immobilising her neck with big pads of brown leather. She didn’t stir at all.

‘Like the Sleeping Beauty, ain’t she?’ said Charlie who still had his rolled-up green flag in one hand.

‘Someone should go with her,’ said Joan, looking at Freddie.

‘Her sister,’ he said.

‘She’s in a bit of a state. Of course she is.’ The motherly woman in brown gingham brought Ethie over to the ambulance. ‘I’m Gladys,’ she said, ‘I’ll go along with both of them. Someone’s got to see to the pony. She’s worried about it.’

And Freddie heard himself saying, ‘I’ll do that. I know where Hilbegut Farm is. I can lead the pony home.’

‘She’s called Polly,’ said Ethie.

‘I’ll go ahead of you in my motorcar, and explain everything,’ Joan offered. ‘I know the way.’

Joan brushed herself down, and Freddie gingerly picked up the fox fur and handed it to her. They both stared after the ambulance as it revved and roared up the station road with Kate inside, its bell ringing urgently. Freddie felt as if his whole life had been turned upside down and shaken violently, displacing his usual codes of behaviour.

‘You’re a very helpful young man, Freddie,’ said Joan. ‘I wish you were my son.’

With those encouraging words ringing in his ears, Freddie then found himself being given Polly’s reins to hold. He’d never led a horse in his life but he tried to act as if he was used to it. Polly had been caught and disentangled from the cart, she’d had a rest and was munching grass from the bank.

‘Take her gently,’ advised the man who had caught her. ‘She’s very shaken, and a bit lame. It was a disgraceful way to treat a pony. I shall be lodging a complaint to that girl’s parents. Headstrong young hussy.’

‘What about the cart?’ asked Freddie, eyeing the wreckage lying on the side of the road. One wheel had come off and was propped against a wall. ‘I could get the wheelwright to fix it.’

‘We’ll do that,’ said the man. ‘You go on, ’tis a long walk to Hilbegut.’

Freddie set out awkwardly, surprised to find Polly walking meekly beside him. He remembered how Kate had been talking to the Shire horse, so he thought he would try it. What should he say? He wasn’t used to talking non-stop the way Kate did, and he felt embarrassed. So he waited until they were out in the country and then started on ‘Innisfree’ and a few other poems he knew. Polly seemed to enjoy them. She flicked her ears and gave him a gentle nudge with her soft nose. He walked with his hand on the crest of her mane, scratching her gently, and he began to enjoy her company.

It was six miles to the village of Hilbegut, through beautiful countryside that Freddie knew well. Across the Levels, over the river bridge and through the peat-cutting fields where the ‘ruckles’ of cut peat stood in the hazy sun like a prehistoric village. Then through the withies, tall forests of willow stems shimmering red and gold, reflecting in the water. A pair of bitterns fishing, and vast flocks of lapwing with their strange wobbly flight that made their wings twinkle against the sky. The September meadows were full of the seed heads of knapweed, sorrel and thistle.

After the years in town, cooped up in the bakery, stuck all day in school, the walk into his old haunts was an unexpected delight for Freddie. He saw people working in the fields, cutting peat or bundling willow and it felt good to nod and touch his cap as he passed by, feeling proud to be leading Polly. He stopped by a stone water trough to let her have a drink, amused by the way she stuck her face in and sucked noisily at the water, then shook herself all over sending bright drops flying out.

‘You’re a nice pony, Polly,’ he said. ‘In fact you’re lovely. I didn’t know how lovely a horse could be.’

He leaned on her for a moment, his arm across her warm back, and wondered what it would be like to ride. Better not push his luck, he thought, especially after what Polly had been through that morning. A sense of togetherness settled into Freddie’s heart as he plodded on with Polly. He liked the quiet way she walked beside him; it had an ambience of trust and acceptance. Freddie felt he had been walking alone all his life through lanes and fields and streets, and now he was no longer alone. It wasn’t just Polly’s company. It was Kate. He carried her now, in his soul. They had shared that shining sanctuary of peace, for a moment when time had stood still, and even though Kate was unconscious, he felt that she knew. They had bonded in spirit. Freddie was concerned for her, but he wasn’t worried. He knew in his prophetic mind that she was going to recover.

The distant chimes of the Hilbegut Court clock interrupted his thinking. Twelve o’clock. Lunchtime at school. He must be home at the usual time. He planned to say nothing to his parents about his secret day, unless they asked, and then he would tell the truth. The time was coming when he would have to detach from them, stand up for himself. He was nearly fourteen, old enough to work, and he didn’t want to be a baker.

The chimneys of Hilbegut Farm were coming into view now, and Polly had lifted her head, pricked her ears and was stepping out with new energy. Freddie walked with that thought going like a chant in time with his footsteps: ‘Won’t be a baker. I won’t be a baker. I won’t . . .’

The stone lions stared beyond him into the distance as he passed through the gate. After many secret visits in his childhood, he knew them well. They were old, and slightly different, covered in cream and soot-black lichens, both were snarling into the landscape, so alive that Freddie imagined them shaking the rain from their curly manes filling the air with droplets made fiery by the sun.

Passing through the gateway was a different sensation, as if the lions guarded a world from which he had been banned. Now Polly was taking him through, eagerly, and he felt a sense of gratitude, as if he had broken a seal, a way into fields of gold.

Ethie sat miserably in the hospital waiting-room on a brown leather chair. She felt grubby and unfeminine in her farm gear, her hair matted and dirty, her skin so prickly that she longed to run to the river and plunge her head into cool water. She wanted to strip naked, hurl her farm clothes into a dustbin, and wash and wash until the sweat and the pimples and the guilt had gone. The river would sweep her far out to sea, under the waves like a water baby, and transform her into a beautiful being whose captivating charm would guarantee eternal forgiveness.

Her parents would never forgive her for what she had done to Kate, and to Polly. She hadn’t done it by mistake. She’d done it with a hatred, so strong it had driven her mercilessly like a demon on her shoulders. Ethie felt suicidal, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

She’d wanted to sit with Kate, be there when she opened her eyes, and say sorry, and Kate would forgive her like she always did. But the nurses had refused, stiffly, and Kate had been wheeled away on a squeaking trolley into the mysterious disinfected interior. Hours passed while the hospital clanked and rustled around her and every time the door opened Ethie jumped nervously, but nurses and other patients came and went, taking no notice of her.