‘All the women and children. Imagine it.’ She had a relish in the horror of it. It had been the same in all her letters throughout the war. A running tally of the dead, as if in cataloguing all the deaths she was remembering – or memorialising – every single one of those lost. Every lost child was one of hers. All the babies she’d never had; all the names of people he never knew from his father’s side, killed in the camps; his father as good as dead. Only he and her left now. Arthur said nothing.

‘Listen,’ she said, and turned the radio up.

‘The full force of the gales is being felt in the extreme north of Scotland.’

Her face was rapt. ‘All sea and air services there are at a standstill, and from all parts of the islands there are reports of small boats sunk, roofs blown from houses, and trees uprooted.’ It went on for some minutes, detailing all the effects of the gales in Scotland and Northern England, but eventually it moved on to other news items and she turned it back down.

*

Strong north-westerly winds veering to northerly Gales 120 mph

The hallway was dark, only the small orange glow of a single lamp by the telephone table providing any light. Verity was about to open the front door to slip out when she heard a hacking cough from behind her and the heavy footsteps of her father.

‘Verity? Where are you going?’

She stiffened, but plastered on a smile and turned to face him. ‘There’s a dance in town, Father. I’m meeting some friends there.’

‘Friends?’ He spat this out as if he’d never heard of anything so ridiculous.

‘Yes, school pals, that’s all.’

‘Your mother—’ He stopped and seemed to sway as if a strong wind was battering him. Verity almost ran forward to save him, but he pulled himself up tall. ‘Your mother would be worried about you if she was here. These dances, these parties. You need to meet the right sort of chap.’

Her fists closed, opened and closed.

‘I could get a job,’ she said. ‘I could teach.’ The words had blurted out. She sounded desperate, not even believing it herself, but there had to be some alternative to helping out at the farm until she married a member of the farming gentry, which is all she had to look forward to. She wanted to say more, to ask him to help her find a place in the world, to plead for him to understand, to tell him she missed the way he used to talk to her as if she was worthy of educated discussion. But he was far away at the other end of the hallway, wreathed in shadow, the circle of lamplight not reaching him.