The Horse Dancer by Jojo Moyes

hunched. She didn’t notice him at first.
    ‘Here,’ he said, realising she had brought nothing with her. ‘Take my jacket. You’re cold.’
    She shook her head, locked in private misery.
    ‘You’ll be no good to the Captain with a chill,’ he said. ‘Besides, he’ll call me all manner of them sorry French swear words if I don’t take care of you.’
    She looked up at him. ‘John, did you know my grandfather could ride – I mean, really ride?’
    John was briefly unbalanced. He took a theatrical step backwards. ‘Ride? Of course I did. Can’t say I agree with all that prancing around but, hell, yes, I knew. Your granddaddy’s a horseman.’
    She tried to smile, but he could see it was an effort. She accepted the old denim jacket he thrust over her shoulders, and they walked like that, the old black cowboy and the girl, all the way to the bus stop.

Five
     
    ‘For judging an unbroken colt, the only criterion, obviously, is the body, for no clear signs of temper are yet to be detected’
     
    Xenophon, On Horsemanship
     
    The lights were on in the house. She stared as she killed the ignition, trying to remember whether she had left them on that morning. She never left the curtains open: it advertised that no one was in. Except someone was.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, as she opened the front door. ‘You were supposed to come weeks ago.’ She sounded ungracious; she hadn’t meant to.
    Mac was standing in the hallway, holding an armful of photographic paper. ‘Sorry. Work went a bit mental. Things came up. I did leave a message on your phone this afternoon to say I’d be over.’
    She rummaged for it in her bag. ‘Oh,’ she said, still electrified by his presence. ‘I didn’t get it.’
    They stood facing each other. Mac, there, in her house, their house. His hair slightly different, a T-shirt she didn’t recognise. He looked better, she saw, with a pang – better for having spent the best part of a year without her.
    ‘I needed some of my equipment,’ he said, gesturing behind him, ‘except it isn’t where I thought it was.’
    ‘I moved it,’ she said, thinking as she spoke that this, too, sounded unpleasant, as if she had been determined to remove all trace of him. ‘It’s upstairs, in the study.’
    ‘Ah. That’d be why I couldn’t find it.’ He tried to smile.
    ‘I needed to have some of my files down here . . . and . . .’ She tailed off. And it was too painful having all your stuff around. Occasionally, just occasionally I had the urge to smash it with a large hammer .
    She wished she had been prepared for him. She had worked late, drinking too much coffee, even though she knew it would be subtracted in lost hours of sleep later. Her makeup had long rubbed off her face. She suspected she looked pale, worn.
    ‘I’ll nip upstairs, then,’ he said. ‘I won’t keep you.’
    ‘No – no! Don’t rush. I’ve got to . . . I need to get some milk anyway. You find what you need.’
    I’m sorry, she had said. Mac, I’m so sorry.
    For what? His voice had been so calm, so reasonable. You just told me nothing happened. He had looked at her in incomprehension. You really think I’m leaving because of him, don’t you?
    She was out of the house before she heard his protest. She knew he was being polite. He probably imagined she was late because she had been with Conor. Although he wouldn’t say as much. That had never been Mac’s style.
    She didn’t often use this supermarket, which was at the rougher end of the neighbourhood; it was the kind of place where occasionally someone managed to push out a trolley without paying and everyone else in the shop cheered. But she was in her car before she knew what she was doing, had turned off her phone out of fear or bloody-mindedness. She just wanted to get away from that house.
    She was standing in the dairy aisle, trying to avoid a mumbling vagrant talking to the frozen yoghurt and her thoughts were humming so hard that she had forgotten