‘Kath, please. We have to talk.’

‘I have nothing to say to you.’ She walked faster and more resolutely this time. Just before they reached the part where the path narrowed, Nancy ran ahead, blocking her way. Stone walls bordering the flowerbeds on either side now hemmed her in.

‘Let me by, please.’

‘I thought we were friends, Kath. I only told you what I’d seen because I was concerned for your own reputation. And now you seem to be punishing me for it.’ Nancy’s usually perfect hair was straggling in the wind and her make-up was smeared.

‘You expect me to be friends with someone who’s been spreading a pack of lies?’

‘Lies? You think I made it up?’ She looked genuinely shocked.

‘You only did it to get back at Captain Burrows because he wasn’t returning your letters.’

‘Yes, I’ll admit that I was upset at first. But it soon became damned obvious why, after I saw him with your brother.’

Kath barged past and did not look back. The next day she handed in her notice at the Alexandra Cafe. The manager was certainly surprised, but he did not question her, and wrote her a glowing ‘To Whom It May Concern’ reference there and then.

‘It’s one of the other waitresses. I can’t work with her any more,’ she explained to Ma.

‘Surely you can talk to her, Kath? These things can usually be sorted out with a sensible conversation.’

‘No amount of talking will sort out this one. She’s such a bitch.’

‘Language, Kathleen!’

‘I don’t care. It’s the truth.’

Each time she ventured into the town centre she dreaded seeing Nancy, or one of her gang of close friends. She kept away from the Alexandra Cafe, and after a few weeks she began to relax. The whole unpleasant episode receded in her memory, and neither she nor Mark ever mentioned it until long afterwards.

They’d celebrated New Year’s Eve in the White Lion. Captain Burrows, returned from spending Christmas with his own family, brought along some of his pilot mates, who became rather riotous and very nearly drank the place dry. Although she watched like a hawk, she could detect no sign of anything unusual between him and Mark, and after several glasses of port and lemonade she didn’t care anyway.

Billy Bishop was there, and they had a cuddle and few kisses behind the toilets. ‘For old times’ sake,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Tha’s what Auld Lang Syne means, don’t it?’ But she knew neither he nor she really had their heart in it. He would be off again before long with scarcely a backward glance.

It was time to find a new job, but they were few and far between. She scoured the local newspapers and post office noticeboards without success, and did a few evenings of babysitting for the posh family at the end of their road. Joan was always either ‘too tired’ after work, or busy with her boyfriend at weekends. ‘I’d come to the cinema with you, honest, but I’ve promised Sam,’ she’d say.