‘Oh, you big silly. I did – I hated you like anything. I thought you were a beast. It was awful. And then, after, I realised you were more frightened than me. I could feel you trembling. Oh, Alfie, I do like you.’ He drew her close to him again. ‘I don’t mind, really, so long as I know you feel just the same as me.’

The warmth crept back through Alfie.

‘Oh, Floss dear, I do, I do.’ They kissed. ‘I’ll walk you home.’

‘No, you mustn’t. You’ll miss your bus and get into trouble. I’ll come down to the bus station with you.’

They walked across the common with their arms about each other, leaning heavily, almost drunkenly, on each other. They had no wish to speak; they were deep in each other and the silence was like a warm coverlet. Sometimes as they passed other couples lying like black mounds among the gorse, they laughed together, quietly and knowingly.

They came on to the pavement and the noises of the street closed around them. They walked slowly, listening to the tapping of their shoes on the pavement.

Floss giggled.

‘Oh, Alfie. If mum knew. She’d kill me.’ They walked on for a few paces. ‘The times she’s told me!’

Now, in the street, Alfie felt more confident. He was a soldier, strolling with his girl, for all the world to see.

‘She won’t know. I mean, not about this. She knows about us, though. I told her, Easter, when I was staying round your place. My mum knows too. I wrote to her all about you, sent her a photo. Remember that second one you gave me? I asked you for it, the one with you standing holding the bike. I sent her that one. Next time I get a leave, I’ll take you home with me to see her.’

They walked blindly out into the roadway, came to their senses with jeeps and lorries flying past them, dodged frantically across to the opposite pavement and walked on, laughing and breathless.

‘Alfie, dear.’ Floss was serious again.

‘Uh?’ Alfie was feeling more happy, more lordly, every minute.

‘I might have a baby.’

‘Nah,’ Alfie, his brain suddenly a whirl, heard his own voice distantly, ‘don’t be silly. Don’t you worry about that.’

‘Why not?’ She gripped his arm urgently. ‘That’s how they get babies, isn’t it?’

He felt cold again and sick inside.

He heard his own voice again, ‘Chance in a million.’

‘Why? Why? You don’t have to do it a million times before you get one, do you? Look at the girls who have their babies nine months after they’re married. That’s not one in a million, is it?’

Alfie opened his mouth to reassure her; then the angry heat came surging through him again.