Charity and Gillian had arrived and took a patch of brambles next to Maggie.

Cook had been persuaded to equip everyone with bowls from the kitchen. Pam had grabbed the only wicker basket and was wandering around with it over her arm, gazing into the distance.

‘Like Marie Antoinette, going to visit the peasants,’ Charity whispered to Maggie and they giggled.

Suddenly, Pam started to sing. ‘Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do!’ she trilled and then, ‘Do, Ti, La, So, Fa, Mi, Re, Do!’

Maggie winced and she and Charity exchanged looks of horror, as Pam repeated it several times. Maggie didn’t know anything about singing but the high notes, in particular, sounded screechy.

‘Scales,’ Pam announced, when she finally stopped. ‘Every day, followed by thirty minutes of singing practice.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘She’s awfully good,’ Nancy said. ‘But Pam, don’t overdo it. Don’t strain your vocal cords.’

Maggie smothered a giggle and reached for a ripe blackberry, which came away easily in her fingers. She tossed it into her bowl and was immediately reminded of home. There were plenty of blackberries down by the canal at this time of year, among the buddleia and weeds on the towpath. In blackberry season, she and Vi would pick them and before the war, as a special treat, Mutti would make Black Forest gateau, using blackberries instead of cherries.

Pam was standing a few feet away. ‘I think picking blackberries is rather like choosing a chap,’ she declared.

Charity pulled a face at Maggie, who tried not to laugh. Oh, it was fun to be out here in the fresh air, forgetting all her worries for a while.

‘Do you mean,’ Charity asked, ‘because there are an awful lot of pr—’

‘Problems!’ Gillian yelled.

Pam and Nancy were staring at them in confusion.

Maggie turned away to hide her smile. Charity was such a breath of fresh air. She looked like an angel but she had the vocabulary of a navvy. As Maggie watched, her friend picked a blackberry – a big juicy-looking one, as big as her thumb – and popped it into her mouth.

‘Oh … shhh … sugar,’ she said as she bit into it. Her face contorted like a gargoyle.

‘Tart?’ Nancy asked.

Charity nodded, still wincing. ‘I’ve been called worse.’

Finally, she managed to swallow the fruit. She exhaled with relief. Her smooth skin and wrinkle-free face reappeared. There, she was beautiful again.

Pam was still musing on how choosing a chap was like blackberry-picking.

‘There seem to be so many to choose from,’ she said, ‘when you first look. But there’s something wrong with lots of them. For instance, this one here is too red and that one’s damaged goods – it’s been eaten by birds or flies.’

‘Yuck!’ Nancy said, nodding at Pam encouragingly.

‘Or you can’t reach them because they’re too high—’ Pam said.

‘You need an umbrella!’ Ray said.