They had to walk as far as Kent Street for a cab. The roads were calm and traffic sparse. He sat with her on the back seat, her hand enclosed in his. The street lamps yellowed her complexion, slid away. She had such open, active eyes. Those minutes, going southwards, seemed to pass by in a blink. The cab rolled on to Ullet Street and found the kerb outside her residence. He asked the driver to hang on until he’d walked her to the door. ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘The warden never sleeps. She’ll get the wrong impression, and I’ll get my marching orders.’ He sighed too heavily. ‘But thank you, Arthur, for today. Tonight. For all of it. I’ll not forget it in a hurry.’ Her smile was a brief cinching of her lips, apologetic. He was going to mutter back some platitude – the pleasure was all mine, you’re welcome, till we meet again – but she leaned her forehead on his temple and he felt the soft bulb of her nose against his ear. Then, with a conviction that elated him, she kissed his cheek and slipped away, towards the porch light.

Part Two

THE SAVIGEARS

October 1952

Joyce was staggered by how fast the rye came through. Already the north field was flecked with little purple shoots, and the soil had a chalky, sprouting look that made her think back to the one and only time she’d visited the make-up counter at the big department store in Maidstone (they’d given her a magnifying mirror and let her see the damage that her two-bit soap had wreaked on her poor skin). It had only been a fortnight since the seeds were sown, and having never grown a thing before except a pot of cress at infant school, she’d thought it would be months before they noticed any signs of life emerging. But from the window of her room, she had a perfect view over the field, and it surprised her how invested she’d become in its success.

Maybe it was stupid to get so attached – the rye would never know how much she thought about it, after all – and yet she couldn’t stop herself from fretting over it each morning, going out to kneel in the dirt sometimes and touch it with the soft part of her hand. She supposed it was a consequence of how things were now. Mr Hollis had been gone for weeks, and this was what remained of him: a field of shoots that would eventually be mown and ploughed again and sown with something else. If she couldn’t change what had been done to him, or speak of it, then she could take care of the things he’d left behind.

She didn’t know for sure that he was dead – not yet – and she was clinging on to that uncertainty. Until she got the say-so, there was nothing else to do but carry on her normal ways of being. If she took each day a minute at a time, she could stop the fright from leaking out of her in conversations. That was how she’d managed it before, when things had started spoiling. First, she would convince herself that she was fine and then she could persuade the world.