Oliver’s mother stood at the fence rail with her arms folded tight across her chest in the universal posture of a parent who was trying very hard to be brave about watching her child do something that terrified her. Her husband was beside her, hands in his jacket pockets, his jaw set.
Barnaby led Treacle out of the stable block. Treacle was a fourteen-hand bay cob they’d rescued from a dealer’s yard in Wales three years ago, underweight and head-shy, who had since become the most reliable therapy horse in the programme.
Oliver was in a wheelchair at the mounting block. He was small for seven, with round glasses that kept sliding down his nose and a Team GB hoodie that swallowed his arms. He was staring at Treacle with an expression that sat precisely on the border between fascination and panic.
Barnaby crouched beside the wheelchair. His knees pressed into the rubber matting. Oliver’s parents watched from the fence. Gill, his senior instructor, stood at Treacle’s head with the reins gathered in one hand.
“Oliver.” He kept his voice low and even. “This is Treacle. She’s been doing this for a long time, and she’s very good at her job. Better than me at most things, if I’m being fair to her.”
Oliver’s hands were clamped on the armrests of his wheelchair. His knuckles were white.
“You don’t have to get on today,” Barnaby said. “You can just meet her. She’d like that.”
He held out his hand, palm up, and waited. Oliver’s right hand released the armrest by fractions, finger by finger, and settled into Barnaby’s palm. His grip was fierce and damp.
Barnaby stood, drawing Oliver’s hand with him, and guided it to Treacle’s neck. The cob stood perfectly still, her ears pricked forward, her dark eyes soft. Oliver’s fingers made contact with the warm, coarse hair, and his whole arm went rigid.
“She likes it here.” Barnaby placed his own hand over Oliver’s and stroked downward, slow and firm, showing him the pressure, the direction for movement. “Do long strokes. Like you’re smoothing a blanket.”
Oliver stroked Treacle. His hand trembled beneath Barnaby’s, and his lower lip was caught between his teeth. Treacle dropped her head a fraction and let out a long breath through her nostrils, warm and grassy. The gust of it ruffled the front of Oliver’s hoodie.
Oliver laughed. A single, startled sound, bright as a bell, and his hand pressed flatter against Treacle’s neck.
“There you go,” Barnaby said.
He stayed crouched beside the wheelchair, his hand resting lightly on Oliver’s shoulder, and let the boy stroke the horse’s neck in long, uneven passes while Treacle stood like a statue. Behind him, Gill was preparing the mounting hoist.
The last time Barnaby had been here was with Lex, for the King’s Trust feature. The BBC crew had set up in the indoor school, and Lex had arrived in a brand-new pair of jodhpurs that Barnaby suspected he’d bought specifically for the cameras.
Lex could sit a horse well by then. Barnaby had taught him himself. He’d spent many mornings in the schooling ring at Chatham, Clover’s ears flicking back while Lex gripped with his knees and did exactly the opposite of what Barnaby shouted at him to do. By the end of those sessions, his rising trot was passable, his hands were soft, and he could canter a twenty-metre circle without grabbing the mane.
None of this had made it into the feature. Lex had bounced in the saddle, grabbed the pommel, pulled faces at the children, and generally performed the role of a man whose physical genius stopped at the edge of a boxing ring. The kids had loved it. The parents had loved it. Sophie had called him a silly sausage, which Lex had accepted with the gravity of someone receiving a knighthood.
Barnaby had watched from the mounting block, his arms folded, and hadn’t said a word, because Lex had instinctively understood something Barnaby had taken years to learn: that the children didn’t need another competent adult. They needed someone willing to look a fool.
Later that night, when they were alone in the bedroom, Lex had asked Barnaby if he’d like a taste of his silly sausage, and Barnaby had said yes as he lay back…
Barnaby’s hand tightened on Oliver’s shoulder without meaning to. “Shall we see if she’ll let you sit on her?” he asked.
Oliver looked up at him. His glasses had slid to the tip of his nose again. “Will you stay?”
“I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”
Oliver nodded. His hand was still on Treacle’s neck. Gill operated the hoist. Oliver’s body rose from the wheelchair in the sling, his legs dangling, his hands gripping the support straps so tightly that the tendons stood out on his thin wrists. His face had gone very still, concentrating too hard to be frightened.
Barnaby walked alongside Treacle. His hand stayed on Oliver’s back, a steady point of contact through the canvas of the sling. He talked the whole way across, letting out a low stream of continuous narration. He talked about Treacle’s favourite treats and the time that Treacle had eaten an entire packet of Polo mints off a shelf when no one was looking, wrapper and all.
Oliver’s legs swung over the saddle. His weight settled, and the transfer was clean, Gill guiding his feet into the adapted stirrups while Barnaby held the neckstrap from the off side. Oliver’s hands found the pommel. His knuckles went white again, and his breathing was shallow and fast through his nose.
Treacle didn’t move. She stood with her weight distributed evenly across all four hooves and her head low, ears flicked back to listen.
Oliver looked down at Barnaby from the saddle. The height difference had reversed. Barnaby was looking up at him now, and the boy’s round glasses caught the strip-light from the indoor school and flashed white. He grinned down at Barnaby.
“I’m tall,” Oliver said.
“You are.”
Oliver’s grip on the pommel loosened and his spine straightened. Barnaby let his hand drop from the neckstrap, and Gill began to lead Treacle forward in a slow walk around theschool, one step at a time, with Barnaby at Oliver’s knee and a side-walker on the other flank.
