‘Who was that?’ Trude said.

‘I don’t know her name,’ Joe said. ‘But I see her here every Wednesday.’

‘Why does she come here?’

They had reached level ground and rode side by side. Geoffrey was the only one who lived at the end of that lane.

‘How would I know? Perhaps she has a sweetheart at the farm.’

Just like old Aiden Docherty at home. Not even the matchmaker could find him a wife, until the nurse came visiting. She was young, too. And a redhead, if he wasn’t mistaken.

He looked over at Trude and smiled, but she didn’t see him glance. She was focused on the road ahead, as pretty as a posy in her soft poppy-print dress.

Joe opened the gate to the field and they filed in, propping the bikes against the hedge. They walked along the rows of waist-high oats, swathes of soft, dark-green fronds, through which the tips of pale golden heads could be glimpsed. But Geoffrey had not sown the dell with oats and it was neglected. Cowbane and ragwort were pushing up through the rough grass and a small oak had self-seeded. It took years to build a pasture, Joe knew. It must have broken Geoffrey’s heart to plough it up for oats. German orders. Geoffrey would have his time cut out returning this to grazing land. He felt a spit of anger at the waste of a good meadow, as he observed Trude shaking a blanket free of its folds. She has nothing to do with this, he told himself. The blanket billowed to the ground, grey regulation-issue, borrowed from the German hospital. Had she asked permission? He liked the thought that she had smuggled it out.

She sat down, pulling her skirt over her knees, and patted the space next to her.

‘If we sit,’ Joe said, ‘we won’t be able to see.’

‘Perhaps we can look at the voles and mouses.’

‘Mice,’ Joe said. He crossed his legs, pivoted and sat in a single movement.

‘That’s clever,’ she said. She lay back, stretched out with her left arm above her head. Her skirt had risen up her leg and fell in folds over her knees, and through the opening in her sleeve Joe could see a faint tangle of brown hair under her arm. He looked away.

‘Lie beside me,’ she said.

Joe blushed, coughed. ‘I’m not sure that would be right,’ he said.

‘What harm does it do?’

What harm indeed? Was it wrong to lie down next to a woman? Father Ciarán had railed against the temptations of Eve. But what right did Father Ciarán have to say such things?