As winter drew on and turned into spring, the news became ever more depressing and Kath felt increasingly frustrated. Mark was out there doing something really important, and she was working in a kitchen. She’d been promoted to pastry chef, but catering for so many hungry mouths was a daily slog and everyone had to muck in. The scientists, engineers, RAF officers and administrative teams based at the Manor consumed twenty loaves of bread, six Victoria sponges, five trays of carrot cake – and more than a hundred biscuits every day. She was good at her job and well respected by the other kitchen staff, but every day was much the same as the last.

Yet each day as she stood on the beach waiting for the ferry, she felt grateful to work in such beautiful surroundings. To her left, upriver, yachts and fishing boats rested peacefully on their moorings, switching direction with each turn of the tide. To her right, the calm waters of the river met the sea in a tumble of white horses. And straight ahead were the dark pines through which it was just possible to see, on the bluff rising behind them, the fairy-tale towers of the Manor. However grumpy she might have felt about the thought of another day’s slog in the kitchens, the sight nearly always lifted her spirits.

Charlie the ferryman was never short of a cheerful quip, even in the worst of weather: ‘Cheer up, girl, it might never happen,’ or ‘How’s the boyfriend?’ Or he might whistle the tune of a popular song, ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’, or ‘The Biggest Aspidistra in the World’.

But on this bright, windy April day she struggled to find a smile even for Charlie. She was miserable and confused. Billy Bishop was back in town, his training course completed, waiting for his first posting as an RAF mechanic. They’d met in the pub one evening, and he’d invited her to the cinema. She had nothing better to do, so she agreed. When the lights went down he’d started kissing her and after resisting at first, she thought, what the hell, and kissed him back. It was lovely, just like old times. But then it had all gone horribly wrong: he’d wanted more, and kept running his hand up her leg.

‘Stop it, Billy. You’re not even my boyfriend,’ she whispered, pushing him away. But each time they’d gone back to kissing, she’d feel his hand creeping back. ‘I said no, Billy,’ she said again, to which he’d grumpily retorted, ‘Stop leading me on, then, you little minx.’ He ignored her for the rest of the film, and then left the cinema without a word.

She felt furious with herself for agreeing to go with him in the first place. Why was she drawn back, each time, when she knew it would never lead to anything? He was a snappy dresser, sophisticated, and a show-off. He was a fund of good jokes. But beyond that they had absolutely nothing in common.