She’d come the long way back from the Buttlands, past the Pilchard on the Holkham Road, to drop off some laundry, when Verity Frost had ridden past her on her horse and off towards Harborough Hall. It occurred to Muriel that she was meeting the American. Muriel had been watching him. Yesterday she’d seen him leave the post office. Mrs Colman, the postmistress, was happy to tell her he sent a letter every week to an address in America. Arizona, she thought it was. He was very chatty, she said. Made her laugh, he did.

He was a right rummen, thought Muriel. She might ask him about who he was writing to when she next saw him.

10.

Afternoon

North-westerly winds north of Scotland, driving
water from the Atlantic towards the North Sea
Gusts of up to 80 mph (Force 12: hurricane) in the Hebrides

Jack was late, so late that soon it would be dark and her absence from home would be noticed. Verity had been waiting an hour. She smoked by the window of the shack, looking out over the empty, brown marsh. Dark grey clouds scudded across the sky, far away the pine trees shook and on the horizon the sea was churning. Tomorrow they were supposed to be going to a dance together, in the village hall. It was just a winter dance that the WI had organised, and all the servicemen from the airbase had been invited. They would be together, in public. But she kept thinking about what Arthur had said about other girls. She had been stupid, naïve. She had told Arthur she knew that Jack had lied about his upbringing, but she knew virtually nothing. Schenectady. She rolled the unfamiliar, foreign word around her mouth. Perhaps Arthur was just saying all of this out of jealousy, but what did he know? Why would Jack have concealed his origins anyway? It made no sense. A sharp pang of doubt stabbed her chest. Jack could be lying about all of it.

It was nearly three o’clock. She would have to go. She stood up and stubbed her cigarette out in the cup they used for an ashtray, but then she heard the creak of the damp, crooked front door and sat down again and lit up another cigarette as if nothing was wrong at all.

‘Hey,’ he said, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’

He just shook his head. She was expecting jokes, apologies, something. ‘Come here,’ he said, and she went to him, out of habit. He put his hand up her leg and unhooked the garter and they had sex quickly, without speaking.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me where you’ve been?’ They lay with the cover over them, smoking his Camels. She hated the throb of doubt in her voice.

‘I can’t tell you and you know it,’ he said.