‘Misunderstanding!’ Peter snorted. ‘There’s a gaping hole in them but he pleads ignorance. Horses probably. It’s dire. He’d already splurged on the bloody combine and, frankly, we need actual workers on the farm. He can’t afford Ver to be knocking about at the farm any more, not pulling her weight.’

A flare of something like happiness went through Arthur and he felt immediately guilty. But this changed everything. She’d need him now. He wouldn’t let her be sold off to some toff who didn’t love her. It was like a reprieve. It wasn’t fair, but her misfortune would be good for them both in the end.

6.

December

When Verity first went back to the saltmarsh shack she told herself it was from curiosity. On the back of Jack’s bike, gripping onto his waist, she was another person, someone she only recognised from the glimpses she had in magazines, like the ones in Picturegoer. She wore her mother’s red lipstick and tied a scarf round her head and imagined herself in Rome or Cannes or Paris. Or New York.

The wind scoured her legs and pulled back the skin on her face so it felt like it was coming off. The speed was intoxicating. As was the sense that she shouldn’t do this and be this. Most exhilarating of all was the physical presence of the man she was holding onto – the buttery feel of the leather jacket, the slight scent of his cologne, even in the wind, and her legs, jammed up close to him. The idea of the two of them speeding through time and space to something completely new.

Hiding out in what she imagined was a dead man’s house was like a secret door onto another life. It was the home of a poacher or a crabber, judging by the rusted traps and dusty nets – alone on an empty marsh away from the eyes of others. She was amazed at herself, at her ability to shut off her doubts and disgust to create a kind of glamour out of such grime. It was funny how easy it was to put Arthur into a little box in the back of her mind, how when she saw Jack she could forget everything else.