The horse sighs. She wheels around. Facing the open moor, she lifts her tail, spreads her hind legs and provides a close-up display which could easily fascinate an eight-year-old boy: opens and flexes her bright-red arse and lets out a steaming stream.
     'Is it the kind of compass where the top lifts up, like mine?' asks the boy eagerly, with eyes only for the man. "I'm sure you can't mean you think about having sex with me two-fifths of the time," she said.
     "Well I do. I do at the moment, anyway. Perhaps I won't when we've been together for twenty years. Or two years. Or even two months."
     Helen picked up a pillow and threw it at him, knocking Frank Harris to the floor. Sam threw a pillow back at her. Three minutes later he had her knickers off, but not her tee-shirt. He stopped as he was about to penetrate her.
     "We should talk more about sex," he said. "You should tell me what you like. I just have to guess, otherwise."
     "Okay," Helen agreed. "And you tell me."
     As the stream goes on hitting the ground, the man snaps the boot shut, with satisfying clicks attaches sleeping bags and tent to his own pack, and shoulders the lot. The boy is gratified by his speed but unsettled by his subtle nervy hurry. The man checks the car locks. 'Right?' he says, and decisive, without looking round to check the boy is following, sets off.
     Which is good, thinks the boy: no nonsense. There's an important adventure ahead, which means there's no time for hanging around. 'Right!' he echoes, and sets off too, running to catch up.
     Neither looks back at the nestled shiny car, the snaking wall, the ghost-coloured ponies in the hummocky grass.