‘You can’t come to that,’ said Peter. ‘You’re a girl and you’re not shooting!’

‘I shall be there. You can’t stop me. Bye, Arthur!’

Outside, Peter grumbled on about the rules and whether he’d beat his father’s tally this year. All Arthur could think about was feeling along the line of Verity’s chest and down to the bottom of her sweater, lifting it up and touching the skin beneath. He was imagining her interest in Jack; she hadn’t looked at all bothered about whether he was coming. If she failed to get in to Oxford – and of course he didn’t want that, he was just imagining another scenario – then he would take her to London. They would marry in secret, find digs, he would get a job as a cub reporter on a paper… but it was hard to keep this narrative going with the thin mist of a sea-fret in his face. God, how he wished himself back in the house with her rather than out in the dreary drizzle of the autumn morning, wearing a preposterous outfit cobbled together from Peter’s cast-offs. Peter was well over six feet tall, rangy and thin. He, on the other hand, was significantly shorter and stockier. The cap was fine, but the bloody trousers had had to be turned up by his mother and she’d gone too high. They looked all wrong: tight round the thighs, flapping around his ankles. His shoes were wrong too. They were his black work shoes, polished to a high shine, whereas everyone else had old brown brogues.

They walked out into the stubble, and as they did, the weak morning sun broke through the cloud cover and cast the fields and woods in a sudden golden light, sparkling slightly where it met the sea mist. You could see the sea from up here, a silver streak in the distance.

‘Peter?’ Mr Frost’s deep growl rang out across the quiet fields. He was in charge of the shoot and wouldn’t want his son racing ahead to nab the best positions. He had always been competitive about Peter. Perhaps it didn’t help that Peter had been a bit of a dunce at school, while his little sister had flourished. Once upon a time, Mr Frost had taunted Peter with Arthur’s aptitude for numbers and word-puzzles, and when Arthur had passed his eleven plus and gone to the grammar, Mr Frost had presented him with a Boys’ Compendium of Useful Facts. ‘Keep it up, old boy,’ he’d said, but it was rather like a sending off abroad – an exile from which he wouldn’t return. You’re on your own now, he seemed to say.