The chestnut's back was broad with muscles and I hadn't sat on a horse for three and a half weeks; and if he'd been mean-spirited that morning he could have run away with me and made a fool of my deficient strength, but in fact he went out onto the exercise ground as quietly as an old hack.

I didn't enjoy his trot, which was lumpy and threw me about, but his canter was like an armchair. We went in harmony down to the far end of the exercise field where the land dropped away a bit, so that the first part of the gallop home was uphill, good for strengthening legs.

At a half-speed gallop, riding the chestnut was a bit like sitting astride a launched rocket: powerful, purposeful, difficult to deflect. I reined to a slightly breathless walk and went over to where Jim waited beside the gate. 'Right,' he said noncommittally, 'now try the other one.'

The other horse a bay gelding with a black mane was of a leaner type and struck me as being more of a speed merchant than the one I'd just ridden. He carried his head higher and was more frisky and eager to set off and get into his stride. Whether that stride would last out over a distance of ground was, perhaps, doubtful.

I stood with my toes in the irons all the way down the field, letting the trot and canter flow beneath me. This was not a horse schooled to give his rider a peaceful look at the countryside; this was a fellow bred to race, for whom nothing else was of interest. At the far end of the field, instead of turning quietly, he did one of those swerving pirouettes with a dropped shoulder, a manoeuvre guaranteed to fling an unwary jockey off sideways. I'd seen many horses do that. I'd been flung off myself. But I was ready for Stallworthy's bay to try it; on his part more from eagerness to gallop than from spite.

His half-speed gallop home was a battle against my arms all the way: he wanted to go much faster. Thoughtfully I slid off his back and led him to Jim at the gate.

'Right,' Jim said. 'Which do you want?'

'Er...' I patted the bay's neck. He shook his handsome head vigorously, not in disapproval, I gathered, but in satisfaction.

'How about,' I suggested, 'a look at the form books and the breeding over a sandwich in a pub?'

I was quite good at pub life after three and a half weeks with my father.

Jim briefly laughed. 'I was told I was to fetch a school kid. You're some school kid.'

'I left school last month.'

'Yeah. Makes a difference!'

With good-natured irony he collected the necessary records from inside Stallworthy's house and drove us to a local pub where he was greeted as a friendly regular. We sat on a high-backed wooden settle and he put the form books on the table beside the beer (him) and the diet Coke (me).

In steeplechase breeding it's the dams that matter. A dam who breeds one winner will most likely breed others. The chestnut's dam had never herself won, though two of her progeny had. The chestnut so far hadn't finished nearer than second.

The bay's dam had never even raced, but all of her progeny, except the first foal, had won. The bay had won twice.

Both horses were eight.

'Tell me about them,' I said to Jim. 'What ought I to know?'

There was no way he was going to tell me the absolute truth if he had any commission coming from the sale. Horse traders were as notorious as car salesmen for filling the gear box with chaff.

'Why are they for sale?' I asked.

'Their owners are short of money.'

'My father would need a vet's certificate.'

'I'll see to it. Which horse do you want?'

'I'll talk to my father and let you know.'

Jim gave me a twisted smile. He had white eyebrows as well as white lashes. I needed to make a friend of him if I were to come often to ride exercise, so regrettably, with all my father's wily political sense, I deliberately set about canvassing Jim's pro-Ben vote, and thought that maybe I'd learned a few reprehensible techniques, while being willing to listen to people's troubles and desires.

Jim told me, laughing, that he'd hitched himself to Stallworthy because he hadn't been able to find a comparable trainer with a marriageable daughter. A good job I wasn't Usher Rudd, I thought.

Spencer Stallworthy apparently slept on Sunday afternoons, so I didn't see him again that day. Jim (and Bert) drove me back to Exeter by three o'clock and with a grin and a warm slap on the back he handed me over to the black car with the silent chauffeur.

'See you, then,' Jim said.

'I can hardly wait.'

The future had spectacularly clarified. My father, instead of giving me a monthly allowance, had through my teens sent me one lump sum at Christmas to last me for the year: consequently I had enough saved away both to find myself a temporary lodging within cycling distance of Spencer Stallworthy and to immerse my brain in the racing press.

The chauffeur took me not to the headquarters from where he'd collected me, but to a playing field on the edge of Hoopwestern where, it appeared, an afternoon amalgam of fete and political rally was drawing to a close. Balloons, bouncy castle, bright plastic chutes and roundabouts had drawn children (and therefore voting parents) and car-boot-type stalls seemed to have sold out of all but hideous vases.

Painted banners promised 'GRAND OPENING BY MRS ORINDA NAGLE AT 3.00' and ' 3.00' and 'GEORGE JULIARD, 3.15.' Both of them were still present at 5.30, shaking hands all round.

Dearest Polly saw the black car stop at the gate and hurried across dry dusty grass to greet me.

'Happy birthday, Benedict. Did you choose a horse?'

'So he told you?' I looked across the field to where he stood on the soapbox surrounded by autograph books.

'He's been high as a kite all day.' Polly's own smile stretched inches. 'He told me he'd brought you here to Hoopwestern originally as window-dressing for the campaign, and he'd got to know you for the first time ever, and he'd wanted to give you something you would like, to thank you for all you've done here...'

'Polly!'

'He told me he hadn't realised how much he'd asked you to give up, with going to university instead of racing, and that you hadn't rebelled or walked out or cursed him. He wanted to give you the best he could.'

I swallowed.

He saw me from across the field and waved, and Polly and I walked over and stopped just outside the hedge of autograph seekers.

'Well?' he said over their heads. 'Did you like one?'

I couldn't think of adequate words. He looked, however, at my face, and smiled at what he saw there, and seemed content with my speechlessness. He stepped off the soapbox and made his way through the offered books, signing left and right, until he was within touching distance, and there he stopped.

We looked at each other in great accord.

'Well, go on,' Polly said to me impatiently, 'hug him.'

But my father shook his head and I didn't touch him, and I realised we had no tradition between us of how to express greeting or emotion, and that until that moment there had never been much intense mutual emotion to express. Far from hugging, we had never shaken hands.

'Thanks,' I said to him.

It sounded inadequate, but he nodded: it was enough.

'I want to tell you about it,' I said.

'Did you choose one?'

'More or less, but I want to talk to you first.'

'At dinner, then.'

'Perfect.'

Orinda was smiling warmly at me, fully recovered, make-up hiding any residual marks, all traces of the shaking, frightened woman in blood-spattered clothes overlaid by Constituency Wife, Mark I, the opener of fetes and natural hogger of cameras.

'Benedict, daaahling!' She at least had no inhibitions about hugging, and embraced me soundly for public consumption. She smelled sweetly of scent. She wore a copper-coloured dress with green embroidery to match her eyes, and Polly beside me stiffened with the prehistoric reaction of Martha to butterfly.

Dearest Polly. Dearest Dearest Polly. I was far too young externally to show I understood her, let alone insult her by offering comforts. Dearest Polly wore remnants of the awful lipstick, a chunky necklace of amber beads and heavily strapped sandals below a muddy-green dress. I liked both women, but on the evidence of their clothes, they would never equally like each other. Polly. I was far too young externally to show I understood her, let alone insult her by offering comforts. Dearest Polly wore remnants of the awful lipstick, a chunky necklace of amber beads and heavily strapped sandals below a muddy-green dress. I liked both women, but on the evidence of their clothes, they would never equally like each other.

Instinctively I looked over Orinda's shoulder, expecting the everlasting Anonymous Lover to be back at his post, but Wyvern had once and for all abandoned Hoopwestern as his path to influence. In his place behind Orinda loomed Leonard Kitchens with a soppy grin below his out-of-control moustache. Close on his heels came Mrs Kitchens, looking grim.

Usher Rudd was wandering about with his intrusive malice trying to catch people photographically at a disadvantage but, interestingly, when he caught my eye he pretended he hadn't, and veered away. I had no illusions that he wished me well.

Mervyn Teck and a retinue of dedicated volunteers, stoutly declaring the afternoon a success, drove my father and me back to the Sleeping Dragon. Four days to polling day, I thought; eternity.

Over a good dinner in the hotel dining-room I told my father about the two Stallworthy horses. A phlegmatic chestnut stayer and a sprinting excitable bay with a black mane.

'Well...' he said, frowning, 'you love speed. You'll take the bay. What makes you hesitate?'

'The horse I want has a name that might disturb you. I can't change his name: one isn't allowed to, after a thoroughbred has raced. I won't have that horse unless it's OK with you.'

He stared. 'What name could possibly disturb me so much?'

After a pause I said flatly, 'Sarah's Future.'

'Ben!'

'His dam was Sarah Jones; his sire, Bright Future. It's good breeding for a jumper.'

'The bay ?'

'No,' I said. 'The chestnut. He's the one I want. He's never won yet, though he's been second. A novice has a wider a better choice of a race. Apart from that, he felt right. He'd look after me.'

My father absentmindedly crumbled a bread roll to pieces.

'You,' he said eventually, 'you are literally Sarah's future. Let's say she would be pleased. I'll phone Stallworthy in the morning.' are literally Sarah's future. Let's say she would be pleased. I'll phone Stallworthy in the morning.'

Far from slackening off during the run-up to polling day, the Juliard camp spent the last three days in a non-stop whirl.

I drove the Range Rover from breakfast to bedtime. I drove to Quindle three times, and all around the villages. I screwed together and unclipped the soapbox until I could do it in my sleep. I loaded and unloaded boxes of leaflets. I made cooing noises at babies and played ball games with kids and shook uncountable hands and smiled and smiled and smiled.

I thought of Sarah's Future, and was content.

On the last evening, Wednesday, my father invited all his helpers and volunteers to the Sleeping Dragon for a thank-you supper. Along in a room off the Town Hall, Paul Bethune was doing the same.

The Bethune cavalcade had several times crossed our path, their megaphone louder, their travelling circus larger, their campaign vehicle not a painted Range Rover but a roofless double-decker bus borrowed from his party headquarters. Bethune's message followed him everywhere: 'Dennis Nagle was out of touch, old-fashioned. Elect Bethune, a local man, who knows the score.'

A recent opinion poll in the constituency had put Bethune a few points ahead. Titmuss and Whistle were nowhere.

The Gazette Gazette had trumpeted merely 'An End to Sleaze' and waffled on about 'the new morality' without defining it. Though by instinct a Bethune man, the editor had let Usher Rudd loose and thereby both increased his sales and scored an own-goal. The editor, I thought in amusement, had dug his own dilemma. had trumpeted merely 'An End to Sleaze' and waffled on about 'the new morality' without defining it. Though by instinct a Bethune man, the editor had let Usher Rudd loose and thereby both increased his sales and scored an own-goal. The editor, I thought in amusement, had dug his own dilemma.

My father thanked his faithful workers.

'Whatever happens tomorrow,' he said, 'I want you to know how much I appreciate all you've done... all the time you've given... your tireless energy... your friendly good nature. I thank our agent, Mervyn, for his excellent planning. We've all done our best to get the party's message across. Now it's up to the voters to decide.'

He thanked Orinda for rallying to his side. '... All the difference in the world to have her support... immensely generous... reassuring to the faithful...'

Orinda, splendid in gold chains and emerald green, looked modest and loved it.

Polly, beside me, made a noise near to a retch.

I stifled a quivering giggle.

'Don't think I've forgotten,' she said to me severely, 'that it was you who changed Orinda from foe to angel. I bear it only because the central party wants to use your father's talents. Get him in in, they said. Just like you, they more or less told me to put his feet on the escalator, and he would rise all the way.'

But someone, I thought, had tried to prevent that first step onto the escalator. Had perhaps perhaps tried. A bullet, a wax plug, an unexplained fire. If someone had tried to halt him by those means and hadn't left it to the ballot-box... then tried. A bullet, a wax plug, an unexplained fire. If someone had tried to halt him by those means and hadn't left it to the ballot-box... then who who? No one had seriously tried to find out.

The speeches done, my father came over to Polly and me, his eyes gleaming with excitement, his whole body alive with purpose. His strong facial bones shouted intelligence. His dark hair curled with healthy animal vigour.

'I'm going to win this by-election,' he said, broadly smiling. 'I'm going to win. I can feel it.'

His euphoria fired everyone in the place to believe him, and lasted in himself through breakfast the next morning. The glooms crowded in with his second cup of coffee and he wasted an hour in doubt and tension, worrying that he hadn't worked hard enough, that there was more he could have done.

'You'll win,' I said.

'But the opinion polls...'

'The people who compile the opinion polls don't go round the village pubs at lunchtime.'

'The tide is flowing the wrong way...'

'Then go back to the City and make another fortune.'

He stared and then laughed, and we set out on a tour of the polling stations, where the volunteers taking exit polls told him they were pretty even, but not to lose hope.

Here and there we came across Paul Bethune on a similar mission with similar doubts. He and my father were unfailingly polite to each other.

The anxiety went on all day and all evening. After weeks of fine weather it rained hard that afternoon. Both sides thought it might be a disaster. Both sides thought it might be to their advantage. The rain stopped when the light-bulb workers poured out of the day shift and detoured to the polling booths on their way home.

The polls closed at ten o'clock and the counting began.

My father stood at our bedroom window staring out across the cobbled square to the burned-out shell of the bow-fronted shops.

'Stop worrying,' I said. As if he could.

'I was head-hunted, you know,' he said. 'The party leaders came to me and said they wanted to harness my economic skills for the good of the country. What if I've let them down?'

'You won't have,' I assured him.