They fell silent again. The clock ticked and birds whistled to one another. The evening sun was still cascading into the room through the open window; Vivian had not pulled the shutters. The warmth seemed to block out the air. It was not pleasing; it was cloying and sticky.

He turned to her. ‘Why have you asked me here tonight, Vivian?’

She glanced at the tray of food on the side table but didn’t bother to pretend she’d invited him for supper. She was almost certain that he knew why. She wanted him near her. She wanted him. There wasn’t a plan as such. She simply had to be with him. As often as she could. There were all sorts of women being free with their favours when young men – sometimes virtual strangers – came home in uniform. Not just the loose women, but the nice girls too. It was patriotic. It was kind. That sort of thing was happening. She was in a different place. She couldn’t understand why she wanted to touch a man who wouldn’t fight. Wouldn’t stand up. But she did. She wanted to touch him more than anything. She ached to touch him. It was insufferable, and yet it seemed the only credible, real thing that she might achieve. She didn’t know how to answer his question, so she asked one of her own. ‘Why did you come?’

He looked around the room. ‘I’ve been wondering about the man you were with before Aubrey.’ Everything had shifted. Aubrey, not Mr Owens, and they were talking about her ex-lover. There was no going back. No pretending. ‘What was he called?’

‘Nathaniel Thorpe.’

‘Do you still love him?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’ He stared at her. The look was exposed. Pathetic. Unadorned confusion. The look was fierce. Irresistible. Bald longing. Her answer mattered.

‘Looking back, being in love with him was unreal. Rather like a school lesson learnt by heart but not understood or genuinely believed in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I know the names of the planets and have heard that Mercury is closest to the sun and that Jupiter is simply enormous, but what do I really know of them? Being in love with Nathaniel was rather like that.’ She wondered now how she could ever have been so emphatically unaware, romantically optimistic and wholly naive, but she couldn’t say that to him. Look where all that had landed her. Still, it wasn’t all her fault. Young women didn’t get much of a say; the vast majority of them were quite pleased with stupid and superficial men. She’d had no idea what a real man ought to be. What she might really need in a life partner. Now that she knew, it was too late. She sighed and admitted, ‘I thought he was the ultimate crowning to my season.’

‘What is this season you talk about? Bitches on heat are in season; vegetables have seasons, not women,’ Howard snapped. He took a large slug of his whisky.