The three of them walk down the lane, the evening sun warm on their backs, the scent from the flower-laden hawthorn hedges sickly sweet in the air. Tom skips between them, imbued with Nora’s mounting excitement. Gwen’s lack of enthusiasm for the outing appears to go unnoticed.

The pub garden rolls out to greet them as they reach the outskirts of the village and Gwen sees at once that Nora’s prediction is right. Villagers spill from the pub’s open doorway, covering the lawn in convivial clusters, their incessant chatter like the hubbub of a boiling pot.

Tom races forward to reach the picket gate first. He plunges through but pulls up abruptly, daunted by the throng before him. She is not surprised when he falls back, his sticky fingers finding hers, his hesitancy mirroring her own.

‘What a turn-out!’ Nora crows, nudging past them, showing none of their reticence. ‘I should think the entire village is here. Come on, you two, let’s get a drink.’

Gwen envies the Land Girl her easy confidence as she barges through the crowd, raising a hand and hallo-ing to familiar faces who call out in greeting. Gwen follows demurely in her wake, tugging Tom with her as she ducks beneath the door’s blackened lintel.

Inside the pub is a crush. They can barely move; every inch of quarry-tiled floor is occupied and a yellow smog of tobacco smoke hovers amongst the thick beams that line the ceiling, the horse brasses tacked to their sides barely visible. The clamour is deafening and Gwen’s ears ring, as beads of sweat begin to decorate her brow. The atmosphere is stifling.

‘This is the most life I’ve seen in this place in four years,’ Nora shouts back to Gwen. ‘I’ll get the drinks in.’

She is clearly in her element. A displaced Londoner, she is used to the dazzling lights of the city and the chaotic revelry of a Piccadilly pub. She has been a fish out of water in the placid shallows that Gwen has been content to bask in all her life, safe and familiar. Since her arrival, Nora has been like a salmon battling the current, determined to swim upstream to where wild torrents replace the still calms, and frenetic activity awaits. Gwen watches her now at the bar as she throws back her head and laughs at some raucous comment made by one of the local farm labourers, uncaring of the bold hand that snakes around her waist, or the press of the other lad standing beside her.

Gwen looks away. All she wants is to escape outside with half a pint, and maybe sit on the stone wall and smoke a celebratory cigarette.