‘Had a ailing man on her hands to keep and look after for the best part of twenty years. He had a good job, and she was all set to leave school when she married, and then he got ill. There weren’t so much talk about polio in them days as there is now, but I reckon that was what got him. Never walked again. He could just feed hisself and he could just do his Pools, and bless my soul if back in last November he didn’t go and win sixty thousand pounds. They say thass sweetened his temper, too, which ain’t to be wondered at. Can’t be much of a joke seeing your wife go out and keep you, can it?’

Miss Mayfield remembered Canon Thorby saying that Mrs Westleton was leaving ‘for the happiest of reasons’.

The road ran on, perfectly flat, between wide green fields. It was good agricultural land; where the soil showed, it was black and rich-looking, but it was not pretty; there were few trees and no hedges. Ditches, shining with water, or fences of posts and wire divided field from field.

‘One time,’ Ed said, as though answering her thought, ‘this was all fen. That grow good crops – beet and celery and potatoes – and thass good pasture, too. But it ain’t pretty. Not like Walwyk. Walwyk is as different as can be. Prettiest little place you ever saw.’

‘What is your connection with Walwyk?’

‘Well, nothing you could call a connection, rightly. Only once, when I was a nipper, we had a outing, Sunday-school outing, there. They don’t hev that sort any more, more’s the pity. Day at Southend on the Dodgems is more their mark. But in the owd days we used to go out in wagonettes and the ride itself was a treat. And one time we went to Walwyk. We had games and tea in a medder. That was in the owd Rector’s time, but Mr Harold – him thass Canon now – was home, in a lovely blue blazer. Funny how a thing like that’ll stick in your mind while what happened last week is all of a jumble. Strawberries and cream we had for tea that time, and I don’t care what anybody say, they tasted better than they do today – like a lot of other things.’

‘They say that the change is in us; that our palates grow dull as we grow older.’