In answer, George fired up the engine again and yelled, ‘Stand by!’ He revved the engine. ‘Push!’

The car moved back just enough for her to get some purchase on the radiator grill. ‘I’m pushing.’

‘Puuush!’

‘I am!’ She put her shoulder to the metal, and with her limited weight behind her, pushed and pushed, until the little car shot out from the hedge and she fell flat on her hands and knees. Fresh pain shot through her throbbing knees and hands.

‘Good girl!’ George shouted. ‘In you jump.’

In the light of the headlamps she got to her feet and examined herself. She was cold and muddy and she could see faint bruises above her wrists and on her palms. She limped towards her side of the car.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ George yelled. ‘Get in.’

She climbed in and for the rest of the journey she said not a word, but her inner dialogue was at full volume. Drink had brought out another side to George and she was frightened by it. This wasn’t the man she knew at all.

And what had Evie meant about not trusting him? Could it really be true that Christopher Bailey, George’s best friend, had been in trouble with the police? Marion didn’t want to believe Evie. There might be another explanation, of course – jealousy could make women say terrible things.

She would have to ask him about all of this tomorrow – if they got home in one piece, that was.

He dropped her off just after midnight. Whether he had forgotten what he wanted to talk to her about or whether he was too angry and out of sorts to discuss it, she didn’t know, because he drove off as soon as she had closed the car door.

She walked up the front path, miserable and confused, and her mother scared her by throwing open the front door before she reached it. ‘You’re early. Did you have a good time? Happy New Year, Marion. Where’s George? Your dad’s waiting up with a lump of coal hoping George would be our first footer …’ The light from the hallway had fallen on Marion and her mother saw the bruises and holed stockings. ‘Whatever has happened to you? Your knees are bleeding.’

It had all been very embarrassing. Robert thought George must have assaulted her, and wanted to call the police.

She had to explain the car accident, but she did not mention that George had had too much to drink, or that the whole evening had not been what she had hoped. George had not been his usual charming self at all, and she worried about this other side to him.

George turned up mid-morning the next day to check on Marion’s bruises and apologize profusely to her parents.

‘It was the deer running across the road,’ he told them. ‘A young buck. I didn’t want to hurt him, so we ended up in the hedge. You saw him, didn’t you, Marion?’ Sitting next to her on her parents’ sofa, drinking tea, he nudged her with an elbow, smiling his usual charming smile. ‘If you could drive, I would have pushed the car out myself, but …’ He fixed his soulful eyes on her stepfather. ‘I wanted to get her home safely, Robert. I knew you’d be worrying. If we had stayed out until midnight there would have been a few people driving their cars in no fit state and I didn’t want that.’