‘Why aren’t you at work?’ countered Noel, walking rapidly away, the money crackling in his pocket. Vee would be tickled pink.

He arrived home to find a lorry parked outside the house – an American Army truck, grey-green, the cab empty, the engine still ticking. A tarpaulin was stretched and roped over a large and irregular load, and across the tailgate someone had painted a life-sized reclining blonde woman in a very short skirt, her stocking tops fully visible. The words ‘IDLIN’ IVY’ were written beneath her.

The driver was sitting in the kitchen.

‘Oh, Noel!’ said Vee, turning as he came in through the scullery door. ‘This is Corporal O’Mahoney.’ She looked strange, her mouth relaxed, almost as if she’d just been laughing, her face flushed. It was a moment before Noel could pull his gaze away from her, and look instead at the baggy Hercules on the other side of the table.

‘Hey there!’ said the American, holding up a hand as if he were a traffic policeman, and then, in the same breath, continuing with an anecdote, his speech rapid and slightly hoarse: ‘—so that’s when they heard footsteps outside the storeroom and then the major opened the door and there’s Lonnie standing on a chair, holding the two-pound can of corned beef, and he snaps a salute with the same hand, and knocks himself out cold!’

Vee gasped, her expression that of a child at a pantomime.

‘Call me Mario,’ said the American, reaching over to Noel, hand outstretched. He was forty or thereabouts, with a large nose that someone had hit at some point, curly dark hair and eyes the colour of prunes. ‘Good to meet you. This lady says you’re in charge of the cookhouse.’

‘Look what Corporal O’Mahoney brought us,’ said Vee.

‘Mario,’ corrected the corporal.

‘Mario,’ repeated Vee. She swept a hand towards what looked like a shrine on the dresser – a carton of cigarettes topped by a bunch of bananas and flanked by two tins of golden syrup. ‘And this,’ added Vee, gesturing towards a brown paper bag on the table. ‘You’ll never guess what’s in it. Dried cherries! Take one!’

The cherry looked like something you’d prise off the sole of a shoe, and tasted like manna. Noel took two more.

‘Good?’ asked Mario.

Noel nodded.

‘Those cherries were picked, dried and sent across the ocean by my own mother, who is afraid that I will starve to death unless she can personally cook for me three times a day. In fact, it would come as no surprise to me if she volunteered and I found her serving my oatmeal tomorrow morning, and forcing me to take a third scoop. “The army’s letting my little Mario fade away!”’ he added, in a voice like Chico Marx, checking his watch as he did so. ‘Heck, I’d better head off.’ He stood up and banged his head on the lampshade, just as Miss Appleby entered the room. She performed a little skip of surprise and Mario gave a shrill whistle – ‘How many good-lookers can one house contain?’ – winked at Noel, said, ‘So long, see you Thursday’ to Vee, and left the room. The kitchen seemed suddenly dimmer and shabbier, the silence as noticeable as if somebody had just switched off a fairground ride. There was a long pause. Noel heard the gate slam shut.