‘Anywhere that wants to take me. Thank you. I’m so grateful to you both.’

‘We’re glad to help,’ she said. ‘You know that.’ In her mind, she was already picturing the enterprise: the letters they could write on his behalf, the calls they could put in with the instructors, all the meetings they could organize for him in town. They could help to put his work in a portfolio and run mock interviews and entrance tests in preparation.

While they ate their sandwiches, they talked it through together. Arthur said the students at the two best London schools were now the most politically engaged; in their day, the AA crowd were unconcerned with public housing schemes, but ever since the war they been more in the vanguard of the issue. Social service was their interest now, which pleased him. ‘I used to work with someone on the staff at the AA. We’re not exactly best of pals, but, then again, he’s never been the type to hold a grudge. I’ll phone him in the morning. I’ve a feeling you might like it there.’ She didn’t doubt that this was true. But she believed that Charlie was more suited to a formalist approach, a Beaux Arts training like they’d had themselves in Liverpool. No matter where he went, she knew that he could thrive. He had resilience and talent. If she could raise her son or daughter to possess the first of those, she’d never have to be concerned about the other.

‘How about overseas? Would you consider that?’ her husband asked.

‘Of course. I read they have some decent schools in Canada. McGill – is that the place?’

‘Yes, one of them. How good’s your French?’

‘Pathetic.’

‘Mine as well. But I was thinking of the States.’

‘As long as it’s not Borough Green, I’m interested.’

‘You leave it with me. There’s a person I can write to over there. He might not answer back, but I can try.’ She hadn’t seen her husband energized about the thought of architecture for the longest time and now the brightness she determined in his voice was so consoling. She took their plates to wash them in the sink and, like the old days, Charlie stood beside her with the tea towel. In the window, birds were circling the east field, ignoring the limp scarecrow that her husband had put up between the sunflowers. She’d told him that it looked too cheerful and her instincts had been right.

What had made her parents settle on this patch of land, she couldn’t say precisely. They’d bought the farm soon after she was born, taking on the dentist’s surgery in the village and moving from their home in Croydon. She’d always thought it came down to a simple choice to raise her in a place of safety – somewhere she could climb a tree that didn’t give a view of twenty other gardens on the street. But it was more than that. It was a choice for everyone who followed after them. Her children and their children and so on, for ever. She’d inherited a way of life and she was thankful to bestow it.