All hands to the pump

Wind-driven rain beats on the windscreen. There’s tree debris in the road and standing water in all the usual places when it rains as hard and as long as this. The fuel gauge is resting on empty but I make it to the garage, which is still open. All the pumps are free except one, which has a horse standing next to it. I draw up at the next one and bung in a tenner’s worth.

Three people are clustered round this horse. A man in overalls is kneeling on the concrete and doing something to its hoof; a woman in jodhpurs and an expensive hair-do is stroking its head and talking to it; and an oppressed-looking boy with a sharp, upper-class face is standing back and watching the man. The horse’s jacket of orange, yellow and black horizontal stripes looks glamorous under the forecourt’s halogen lighting. The horse is standing quietly, with dignity.