Strange to think of their first innocent kiss in the midst of war. There had been the noise of German bombers overhead, but empty of bombs. The girl and the boy in the pine wood knew the Luftwaffe would have dropped the remaining ones on Norwich if they had any left after London or Coventry. They had grown used to the bombless planes, heading back to Germany, so they weren’t afraid. Sometimes she waved at them, though she felt a prickle of fear. And sometimes, looking up at the black lines flying past on their way to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, she imagined with a delicious shiver the terrifying dark woods and endless snowy wastes of unknown, dangerous lands.

They met by the hollowed-out tree, where the sand met the pines, past the beach huts, beyond Pinewoods caravan site and the brackish lake, Abraham’s Bosun. The two of them – eleven and thirteen in her memory – were crouched, heads together. They were inspecting each other’s hands. A trickle of blood was crawling down Verity’s left hand from where Arthur had cut her.

‘Your turn now,’ she said, and took the penknife from him. He kneeled, eyes open, fixed on the knife, and she held the penknife aloft. It caught the light from the morning sun. Her right arm, holding the knife, trembled a little but she stilled it. This was all her idea and she was exultant at it coming to pass. They had decided the words together.

‘Here in this sacred wood on the 24th April 1945, we hereby…’ She was pleased with the hereby, that was one of hers. It made it sound official and important. ‘… hereby make a pact of undying friendship and unity in all things. Unto death do us part.’

‘Until,’ Arthur said. His eyes were still fixed on her hand and the knife.

‘Yes, until,’ she said, slightly annoyed at the interruption. ‘And with this mark I do unite us.’

She glanced at him, but his eyes seemed to say yes so she looked down at his hand held out. It was darker than hers, and bigger now with a hardness that was new. He had only recently found out that his father was missing. Missing presumed dead, they said. He’d not said anything about it. With a sudden, quick movement she cut into the flesh below his left thumb. It was tougher than she thought it would be. The skin didn’t yield much and she realised belatedly that there was muscle there. She thought she might have to cut it again and blanched at the idea but there was no need for more. Blood was already beading up along the cut. Quickly, it became a line and the line lengthened, grew and began to drip down on the sandy floor. The two of them knelt, suspended, both watching the red blood mingle with the dusty sand and dirt of the woodland ground.