They trudged back to the house, where four whiskery old men in tweeds were gathered on the patio at the back of the dining room, their guns crooked under their arms, dogs snuffling at their feet. One of them was De Vere, a portly man with startling, bushy eyebrows. Peter had pointed him out as ‘Ver’s future father-in-law’, which made Arthur want to trip him up and see him sprawled on the stone. A local man, Skitmore, with a wide, pink face in a lop-sided black hat, was acting as gamekeeper. He usually worked for Lord Crake of Harborough, but Mr Frost had a long-standing arrangement with the lord to borrow Skitmore for his little shoots. When Arthur had first seen one of these shoots at the farm, he had felt himself entirely out of place, and although he was used to it now – the language of ‘guns’ and ‘coveys’ and ‘brace’, the outlandish outfits and, inevitably, however bad the day’s shoot, the death – he still didn’t quite fit.

Verity was by the back door, smoking. Mr Frost bore down on them with a black look.

‘What are your plans now then, young man, now you’ve done your National Service?’

Arthur thought he detected the tell-tale ochre-yellow of liver failure in the man’s eyes, something his mother always liked to note in her customers. My mother needs me in the shop at the moment, Sir, but I don’t want to stay there forever.’

‘No, I should think not. No man should hang around his mother for too long. Seen a bit of the world now, haven’t you?’

‘Not really, sir. Just Yorkshire and Scotland.’

Mr Frost snorted loudly and a few specks of wine and food sprayed Arthur. ‘Same thing. Like a bloody foreign country up there, what?’

Arthur laughed politely. ‘But I’d like to. See the world I mean. I thought…’ He hesitated. He didn’t want to divulge his plans to Mr Frost, but he needed to say something. Verity was watching him closely from under her eyelashes, a possible hint of pink in her cheeks.

‘Army,’ said Mr Frost.

‘What?’

‘The Army. Or the Air Force. I heard you were with the RAF in service? Fine way to see the world. They need good men.’

‘Keep the Empire going, eh, Father?’ said Peter.

Arthur and Peter exchanged the smallest of smiles. This was a favourite hobby-horse of Mr Frost’s.