They had been in the old cart shed at the time, for both cars were now garaged there, and Jonty had looked hopefully at his father across the cracked and much dented bonnet of the bull-nose. ‘Well, Pa? Wouldn’t that be the best solution? Only I worry that your style of driving is more suited to the Morris, and if you go on refusing to depress the clutch . . .’

‘That there Ford Prefect cost me a deal of money and I int ready to hand it over to a young greenhorn,’ his father had said obstinately. ‘When you’ve got the money to pay off the instalments, then we’ll mebbe discuss it again.’

So now Jonty checked that the bus would have roared into the village and roared out again without him before he descended the stairs and emerged in the kitchen. His father was sitting at the table drinking a large mug of tea. He looked up as his son entered the room. ‘You’ve been prettyin’ yourself too long; you’ve missed the perishin’ bus,’ Mr Bell said. ‘And don’t think I can’t see through you, because I can. You’ll be wantin’ to drive me lovely new car so you can show off to young Tess. Am I right?’

Jonty grinned. ‘Got it in one, Pa,’ he said breezily. ‘But of course I’ll borrow the Morris if you’d rather.’

Arthur Bell gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Have you drivin’ my poor old Morris as if you was Juan Fandango or whatever his name is. No siree!’

‘Fangio. Juan Fangio,’ Jonty murmured. ‘And if I could drive like him I might even get the Morris to go at more than thirty miles an hour. As it is, however, I’d be happy to take the Ford off your hands full time; you can take the payments out of my wages.’

This was a nasty one, because like all farmers’ sons Jonty was unpaid, but his father, grinning, raised a hand, acknowledging a hit. ‘All right, all right, you can meet your young lady in the new car,’ he said. His eyes raked his son from head to toe. ‘If she reckernise you, that’ll be a miracle! Fine as bloody fivepence you are. The last time she seen you, you were in gumboots and school uniform. Ah, well, times change and young men with ’em.’

So it was with his father’s blessing that Jonty jumped into the Ford, put it into reverse, backed out of the shed and then slammed it into first. The car, though the family always referred to it as ‘new’, was in fact a couple of years old, having been bought second-hand at a car auction the previous year. It was blue with red leather seats and Jonty had wanted to name it Priscilla, after his favourite cow, but his mother preferred Bluebell, and in general the family just referred to her as ‘the Ford’. Jonty wound down his window and drove carefully along the ruts and puddles of the lane, keeping to a steady fifteen miles an hour until he reached the tarmac road whereupon he put his foot down and sped towards Norwich, only slowing and stopping when he reached the traffic lights where Thorpe Road and Riverside Road met.