‘All right. You tell me how old you are, and I’ll tell you how old I am.’

‘I shall be seventeen in about three weeks.’

‘And I’ll be twenty-one in August.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I’m sorry if it’s a disappointment. I’m not the wise, old, elder statesman you imagined.’

‘It’s not a disappointment. I’m glad.’ She reached for his hand. ‘I like to see you like this.’

‘Good.’ He glanced round quickly to see if anyone was watching and swept her into his arms to kiss her.

The next Sunday they took the train further, to Freshfields, and walked through pine woods where tiny red squirrels scampered through the branches above their heads. Following that they took the ferry to the recently established resort of New Brighton, at the tip of the Wirral peninsula, where, in the woods that ran down almost to the edge of the sea, May saw wild primroses and bluebells for the first time.

At the edge of a little stream, daffodils flaunted their gold, and James said, ‘Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’

‘What?’

‘You know, Wordsworth’s “Daffodils”. You don’t know it?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Don’t you like poetry?’

‘I … don’t know many poems.’ How could she tell him that the only poetry she had ever heard was nursery rhymes?

‘I love poetry. Not what you’d expect from a lawyer, perhaps, but I’m a romantic at heart. I was lucky. At school we had a teacher who was very keen on Wordsworth and Tennyson and Shelley. He made us learn whole chunks by heart. Some of the fellows were put off poetry for good but I found it easy. I still remember a lot of it.’

‘Where did you go to school?’

‘The Royal Institution Grammar School. It’s a good school.’

‘Yes, it must be.’

She was afraid he might ask her the same question, but he did not. She guessed that he assumed that, like most girls, she had been educated at home. He did not brag about his education, taking it for granted that most men in his position had had roughly the same; but as they got to know each other better she discovered that he knew Latin and Greek and history and geography as well as poetry.

James had to work on Wednesdays, so she had the afternoons to herself. Patty was now walking out with a young man from the stores department, so she was not available, and May found herself at a loose end.