‘Home!’ she called, letting herself into the kitchen at the side of the house. No sign of anyone. It was cold in the dim, echoing room, but the kettle still hissed on the range: the tea must be made already. No one was in the dining room but she poked her head around the drawing room door and saw that Mrs Timms had laid it all out there on the occasional table, by the window. Father was in his chair with a pipe and Peter was tucking into a bun with his feet up on the table. They had held the funeral tea in this room, with the doors open to the garden and its verdant green spilling in. No one had mentioned the manner of her mother’s death, but people didn’t, did they? Everyone knew she’d drowned but no one said how or why.

‘You’re late,’ said Peter, his mouth full. ‘Where’ve you been? You look like you’ve sat in a hedge.’

‘That’s because I have,’ she said, amused by the ease of lying. Or rather, the use of little truths to hide the larger lies.

Her father blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Whatever gallivanting you’ve been up to, the least you could do is be here for Mrs Timms. After all she does for you.’

Verity bit her lip. ‘Shall I get the tea then?’

Outside, the light glittered like broken glass but the drawing room faced east and none penetrated inside at this time of day.

‘I saw a plane,’ she said, to break the silence. They had an unspoken agreement not to mention the significance of the day and it occurred to Verity again that Mrs Timms was very clever in planning the tea for this particular afternoon. It was not usual to have a good-luck tea, and certainly not on the anniversary of a death. But they were all deliberately averting their gaze, determined to keep her mother and her shocking death submerged. ‘Not like the RAF, not one of ours.’

‘Americans,’ said Peter, who had helped himself to another bun. No amount of gorging ever made any difference to him. He remained gangly whatever he ate. It was so unfair. He had inherited their father’s height but their mother’s slenderness, whereas she had only received the height. Too tall and ungainly for a woman, her father said once.

‘What?’ her father said. ‘Haven’t we had enough of them? Not got enough to do meddling in Korea?’

‘I heard they’re taking over the RAF base at Holkham. Rumours all round the town.’

‘How do you know this, Peter?’ she asked, passing him a cup of tea.

He tapped the side of his nose and grinned at her.

‘Bloody all we need. An invasion. Already had one in the war.’ Their father puffed a jet of smoke from the side of his mouth, as if he could blow it into the invaders’ faces.