He is almost in tears. As he puts down his glass he notices that his hand is shaking.

‘Oh Kath, I’m so sorry you had to go through all that alone. For what I put you through. For what I’ve missed.’ He stands and goes to her, reaches to pull her up into his arms. She doesn’t resist. It feels just as it once did, thirty years ago. She even smells the same. They hold each other for long minutes.

Her words are muffled into his chest. ‘What a sorry mess we got ourselves into.’

He pulls away, hands on her shoulders, and looks into her face. ‘If only I could turn back the clock to make amends, believe me, I would. But after what you’ve told me, how can I be unhappy? I’ve spent my life longing to have a child.’

A shadow crosses her face and he realises, too late, that in the joy of this extraordinary discovery, he’s assumed too much. ‘Will you tell her?’

‘I’m not sure, Vic.’ She sits down again, and he’s left standing. ‘Do you want me to?’

‘My goodness, of course. There is nothing I would like more.’

‘I’ll ask her if she wants to know,’ she says.

That night he sleeps in what was once his daughter’s bedroom and his dreams are filled with what might have been: Vicky as a baby in his arms, as a small child being pushed on a swing, as a teenager who looks just like Kath when they first met. He wakes several times and listens to the silence of the house, this house in which this girl, his daughter, has grown up surrounded by her family, her mother and her grandparents, and he grieves for a life he has lived without them.

Finally he sleeps soundly and then, waking late, he goes downstairs. Breakfast is laid and there is a note: Help yourself. Back in a few minutes. He is about to tuck in when he hears voices, the front door opens and Kath enters with her daughter – their daughter – following behind.

They are both smiling.

A note on the history that inspired Under A Wartime Sky

Although Under a Wartime Sky is entirely fictional, it was inspired by real-life events, people and places, especially Bawdsey Manor itself.

My father was a keen dinghy sailor and as children we spent many anxious hours watching him from the shingle at Felixstowe Ferry. Across the river, we could see fairy-tale towers peeping enticingly above the pines, and when the tides were right we would pack buckets and spades and take the ferry over to the small sandy beach at Bawdsey Quay. But the Manor itself, at that time still in the hands of the Ministry of Defence, remained firmly out of bounds, with soldiers at the gatehouse and Keep Out signs posted all around the fences.

Several decades later, our friend Niels Toettcher was sailing on the River Deben when he spied a For Sale sign. The Ministry of Defence was selling Bawdsey Manor and all its grounds and cottages. He landed, visited the place and fell in love with it, and for the next twenty-five years he and his wife Ann lived and ran a successful English language school there. Of course we visited often and fell in love with it, too. How could you not? The mansion is remarkable in itself, but with the addition of its extraordinary military role, its masts (since taken down) and curious outbuildings, it is irresistible.