The Queue

We stopped to check the map after our row. And there they were. Four white horses, who looked as though they’d frolicked in a pot of black paint, lining up one behind the other while their leader stretched its head into the ice-cream van.

‘Mum, can I stroke the horses?’ said Maisie, tugging at my arm.

‘They’re wild; they probably bite,’ I said, trying to ignore my own urge to rush up to them and throw my arms around a shaggy neck. ‘Best not. We’ll just have to queue behind them.’

‘Let’s hope they’ve got the right money,’ said Geoff, grimacing.

‘You grab a table. We’ll get the ice-creams,’ I said, raising an eyebrow at my acerbic husband.

He sauntered towards the picnic area; Maisie and I headed to join the queue. We stood a safe distance behind the last horse; I didn’t fancy either of us getting kicked.

Maisie pulled again at my sleeve. ‘Please, mum.’ She gestured to the horse in front of us, which bent its neck to stare, its long mane cascading over its face like a teenager’s unruly fringe. ‘It looks friendly.’

The horse snorted gently at us, as though it had listened to our conversation. Maisie slipped her hand from mine and dashed towards the horse.

‘Maisie, be…’

But she was caressing the horse’s face while it nuzzled her with velvety lips as my words of warning dissolved into the air.

‘You in the queue?’ the ice-cream man called. ‘You’ll die of hunger waiting for these rascals. Come on.’ He waved for me to approach the van.

‘Maisie, ice-cream,’ I said, holding out my hand.

‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ Maisie lingered, her small hand resting on the horse’s cheek.

‘Whose horses are they?’ I asked, having placed our order.

‘Nobody’s,’ he said. ‘They live wild on the common and visit me most days.’

‘Do they have a favourite flavour?’ said Maisie, as she licked her chocolate ice-cream.

‘They do. This fella…’ He stroked the stallion under its chin. ‘His preference is for vanilla, the mare behind him likes chocolate, like you, and the two behind always want strawberry. They get very cross if I get it wrong.’

‘How do you know they’re cross?’ she asked, wide -eyed.

‘They deliberately drop the cone!’ ‘Let’s get this ice-cream to Dad, before his melts,’ I said, stepping away from the van. ‘He’ll think we’ve deserted him.’

Maisie ran ahead of me, yelling. People at other picnic tables watched her progress, no doubt wondering when she’d drop her ice-cream. She arrived safely at the table, where Geoff had opened the map book. He held a finger on a particular spot as he looked up at her and smiled.

I handed over his cone.

‘You haven’t given us too much of a detour,’ he said, all rancour gone. ‘We can get back to our route easily enough.’

‘It’s lucky mum made a mistake. We’d never have seen the horses, otherwise.’