Tess tilted out at a perilous angle, waving violently as the train’s speed increased and Gran’s figure got smaller and smaller, and presently, as she turned away from the window and returned to her seat, she was aware of a tight feeling in her throat, and tears beginning to gather in her eyes. Gran was such a lovely person! She had been as good as a mother to her granddaughter, possibly even better, sharing all Tess’s hopes and fears, and getting the job in the bakery so that they could manage financially. Tess intended to begin earning as soon as she could find someone willing to employ her, but this had not yet happened, and partly, she knew, it was her own fault. Gran had talked to Clackem, telling her that at the Norfolk school they had expected Tess to get a scholarship to one of the fee-paying schools in the area and go on to further education. Gran had pointed out that a scholarship girl would be a feather in the cap of her council school and most particularly of her teacher, and ever since that meeting life had been a lot easier for Tess. With the teacher on her side, actually setting her homework which would help rather than hinder her, Tess saw that if she worked all out she might eventually go to university and herself be a teacher, which as far as Clackem was concerned was what every bright girl should aspire to.

But now, sitting in her corner seat and watching Liverpool’s houses and factories gradually disappearing and rolling countryside appearing in their place, scholarships, examinations and university were the last things on Tess’s mind. In her imagination she was sliding a hand into the nesting box at the farm and taking the warm brown eggs which lay there. Then she was holding the bucket of sweet milk and dipping her fingers into it so that the leggy little calf, born only a few weeks previously, might suck the milk off them. There were so many tasks which, the previous year, had seemed more like fun than work. Tess hugged herself and looked around the compartment, which was only half full. A woman was immersed in a copy of the Echo while her son was staring out of the window and asking every five minutes: ‘Are we nearly there yet, Mam?’ They sat opposite Tess, and beside her, further up the seat, was a middle-aged couple who had already told Tess that they were going to visit their daughter who worked in Rugby, and her fiancé, whom they had never met.

When asked where she herself was bound, Tess had just replied she was to stay with relatives, for though this was not precisely true she had no desire to fall into conversation. She much preferred her own thoughts, and time to anticipate the visit to come.

The train drew to a halt at Norwich Thorpe and the young man who had been chatting to Tess on the last leg of her journey swung her case down from the rack and followed her along the corridor and down on to the platform. He stood the suitcase at his feet, then looked around him. ‘You said you were being met—’ he began, but he was interrupted.