‘And there’s a bomb store, Ver. Think about it. What if there was a crash? Boom!’ His eyes were wild. ‘Do you know how far the radiation zone goes out? Most people have no idea, but I did a day’s training with the Civil Defence Corps – I mean they’re cranks if they think we can defend ourselves against it – but it was illuminating I can tell you – the effects would be monstrous—’

‘Stop.’ She put her hands to her face. ‘It’s terrifying.’

She thought of Jack, dropping bombs over Russia, the mushroom cloud blooming up and engulfing him and the hydrogen bomb billowing out on the other side of the world. She curled her left hand into a tight fist and dug her nails into her palm to stop herself from saying the wrong thing. She should be horrified – and she was – but something like a thrilling fear flushed through her as well. What if he got shot down and never came back? It felt unbelievable.

‘It is terrifying, but that’s why I want to do something useful,’ Arthur was saying. ‘Write about what’s happening right now in Russia, Korea, America. Things far away from here but right here too.’

‘You should do it,’ she said. It was like Arthur to do the right thing and a terrible part of her wished he could be worse so she wouldn’t feel so wretched about her deception.

‘And I think that to do anything useful, I need to go to London. If I can get this article accepted, I’ll have something to take to the papers in the city. There’s a new world coming, Ver, and I want to be a part of it. Not watching. Not on the sidelines.’ He stopped and looked away and she thought he must be embarrassed for blurting out all his dreams. But he spoke again, much more quietly.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask but I’ve not seen you.’ He paused and she wished he wouldn’t go on, aware, in a sudden wave of shivers, what he was going to say. He inhaled. ‘I thought that you could come to London. With me.’

‘Oh.’ She tried to imagine marrying him, having children, at home forever, like her mother. And on the other side of the divide, the musty, damp marsh shack, Jack’s body and hers, and risks she didn’t even know. The silence of unspoken promises stretched.

‘Why not? You’re not going to Oxford and there’s nothing here for you.’

‘No, that’s true,’ she said, and she almost laughed. ‘I don’t know, Arthur.’ Her voice sounded very cold. ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do now.’ This was at least some sort of truth. She felt his figure shrink beside her.

‘I’m going to go anyway,’ he said.

Go then, she wanted to say. But instead she said, ‘Where? Where will you live?’