The Very White of Love

Part One

ENGLAND & FRANCE

SEPTEMBER 1938 – MAY 1940

19 SEPTEMBER 1938

Whichert House

Dear Aunt D.,

I’ve fallen madly in love with Nancy Claire Whelan. You’ve every right to laugh when you read that, but I’m terribly happy to have found someone so fond of me, who leaves everyone else I’ve met in the cold. I’m sure you’ve seen her riding her bicycle about town. She lives down the road from you at Blythe Cottage. She is an only child – and a redhead! Her father is in the Revenue Department of the civil service. She was at school in Oxford so she knows it well and she has also lived in France and Germany. She speaks the languages, she sings and acts, she’s intelligent, pretty and, a thing I envy her for, has a good and interesting job.

He lifts the pen and looks out of the window. Outside, a soft rain is falling. Just thinking of her makes him want to dance around the room. But he doesn’t want to tell his aunt everything.

Meeting her was a strange and fateful coincidence . . .

Martin opens his eyes. There’s a thudding pain in his head, as though someone has inserted a fist into the back of his skull and is trying to force the knuckles out through his eyeballs. He groans and rolls over. Fragments of the previous evening float to the surface of his alcohol-curdled brain, like bubbles in a pond. They’d started at the Red Lion, across the street from Whichert House, tankard after tankard of warm beer followed by shots of Bell’s. Hugh Saunders, who is also up at Oxford, had driven over from Gerrards Cross, one of a network of friends in south Buckinghamshire Martin got to know while staying with his Aunt Dorothy during the school holidays. As children, they rode bikes together, played golf and tennis, and later courted the same girls. A couple of old friends had also come down from Aylesbury. It’s the holidays. Four weeks away from Oxford University where Martin is about to start his second year. Four weeks with no essays to write or tutorials to attend. Aunt D. and the rest of the family are off fly-fishing in Scotland. He can come and go as he pleases, stay up as late as he wants, drink too much.

From the Red Lion they’d driven to the Royal Standard of England: a cavalcade of cars swerving down darkened lanes. Hugh bet him half a crown that he’d get to the pub first. ‘Nobody beats the Bomb!’ Martin shouted, as he leapt into his racing-green Riley sports car, pulled his goggles down and raced off down the narrow lanes, throwing the Bomb into blind corners at sixty miles an hour, Hugh’s headlights so close to his rear bumper that Martin kept thinking at any second Hugh’s Alvis would come crashing through the back window. On the hill down from Forty Green, the crazy fool had tried to overtake him! Their spoked wheels almost touching, it was all Martin could do to keep the Bomb from mounting the hedgerow.

At the Royal Standard, they’d laughed and told stupid jokes about girls, but mostly they had talked about cricket. At closing time, Martin invited everyone back to Whichert House, where they stayed up most of the night, drinking Irish whiskey until they passed out in the living room. As the birds began to sing, Martin climbed the stairs to the little, yellow-painted room in the eaves where he’d spent much of his childhood.

His eyelids are practically taped together. He squints at the framed painting on the opposite wall. A circus scene. A relic of childhood. During school holidays, he would lie here in bed counting the different animals. The tigers in their cage. The bear. The elephant on its chain. Now, his mouth feels like it has grown fur inside it during the night. His breath smells like a rotten cheese. He groans. Then he remembers. He has to get to the post before it closes.

‘Bugger!’ He leaps out of bed and throws on his clothes. ‘Bugger!’

Splashing cold water on his face, his eyes stare back at him from the mirror, like two piss-holes in the snow. He tries to smooth his tousled hair, to no avail, then races down the stairs, three steps at a time; grabs the parcel and rushes towards the front door. Scamp, Aunt D.’s Jack Russell, races after him, his claws scratching on the flagstones and barking at the slammed door.

Bright sunlight makes Martin’s eyes wince. It’s been crazy weather. Spring, the coldest on record; June, the rainiest; now, England is hotter than Spain. He grabs his bike and pedals down the drive, parcel in one hand, handlebars in the other, shoots out onto the Penn Road, spitting gravel and almost colliding with a furniture van. The driver blasts the horn, shakes his fist. Martin waves a cheeky apology, pedals on. It’s only a mile. If he hurries, he’ll make the post office before it closes.

On the high street, stockbrokers with bellies that hang down like aprons waddle along proudly beside large, pink-skinned women with piano-stool calves. Shop girls in pencil skirts sashay arm in arm towards the Wycombe End – cheeky, giggling, up for it, as boys in boots and braces catcall after them.

Martin throws the bike against a lamppost, sprints towards the entrance of the post office, put his shoulder to the door . . . and falls through empty air, across the floor. What he sees, when he looks up, seems a hallucination caused by a malfunction of the nervous system due to his overly enthusiastic intake of alcohol. A Fata Morgana. A phantom, dressed in a loose, blue and white cotton dress, cinched at the waist with a crocodile skin belt. Slender neck. A dusting of freckles. Kissable lips. Very kissable lips. What he notices most, though, in those brief seconds, is the cascade of chestnut-coloured hair tumbling over her shoulders. And those eyes. Clear, blue and full of hidden depths, like a cove he once swam in off Cornwall.

‘I’m so sorry!’ He struggles to his feet, clutching the parcel to his chest. Flicks his hair out of his eyes. Gawps.

‘I think that’s what’s called a dramatic entrance.’

Her voice is bright, musical. Like a bell, or a harp.

‘I didn’t want to miss . . . ’ His furred tongue tries to form the next word, twists about in his mouth, like a worm doused with petrol.

‘The post?’ She tilts her head to where the line snakes back from the window.

He flounders, tries to look tough, manly. Like the matinée idol, Douglas Fairbanks.

‘Well, if you hurry, you’ll still catch it.’ The girl pushes open the door and flounces out.

Martin stares after her, noting the sway of her hips inside the blue and white summer dress; the proud, haughty bearing. He wants to dash after her.

‘Martin? Dorothy Preston’s nephew?’ A diminutive, white-haired woman comes through the door.

‘Hallo.’ He opens the door for her, stares over her shoulder. ‘Mrs Heal, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. How’s your aunt?’

‘Fly-fishing in Scotland.’ He holds up the parcel. ‘Sorry. Got to get this off to her.’

‘Do give her our regards . . . ’

He joins the queue. Seconds turn into minutes. It’s one of the fixed laws of the universe. When you enter a post office, no matter where it is, in what country, time moves at a different speed. Post office time. He checks his watch. The queue shuffles forward. If he hurries, she might still be out on the street. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. His head is going to explode.

‘Parcel to Scotland, please.’ Martin drums on the counter with his fingertips.

The counter assistant takes the parcel and weighs it. ‘That’ll be one shilling and five pence, please.’

Martin pulls the money from his trouser pocket, pushes it under the window and runs out. The postmistress calls after him.

‘You’ve given me two pence too much!’

But Martin is already out on the street. He looks left, looks right, grabs his bike and pedals off, scanning the crowds for that blue and white dress. Vanished. At the top of London End, he turns around and cycles back towards the post office, mutters to himself. This is really stupid, you know. You nearly knocked her over! She’s not going to talk to you. Don’t make a fool of yourself.

He turns and begins to cycle slowly back towards Knotty Green. A gleam of chestnut hair. A blue and white dress. He whips round and pedals furiously back down the street, almost knocking over a small boy in a school blazer. She disappears cycling down an alleyway. Martin follows, at breakneck speed.

‘Hey! Watch where you’re going!’ A heavy-set man in a trilby shakes his stick in the air. ‘Bloody idiot!’

‘Sorry!’ Martin waves an apology, charges on between high brick walls. She is there now. Up ahead of him, just twenty yards away. A couple comes out of a jewellery shop. Martin swerves to avoid them, tips over, crashes into the opposite wall. The bike falls to the ground, wheels spinning. The couple snicker and walk on. Martin leaps back in the saddle, pedals furiously on.

‘Hallo again!’ he says, as he draws level with the girl. She stares through him. ‘The post office? I was the person . . . ’

‘Who almost knocked me unconscious?’ She pedals on.

‘I know. I’m so sorry, I . . . ’ Martin races after her. ‘Could I buy you a cup of tea?’

‘Not today.’ The girl increases her speed.

‘What’s your name?’ He draws level with her bicycle.

She eyes him warily.

‘I’m Martin. Martin Preston.’ He holds out his hand.

‘Pleased to meet you, Martin Preston.’ She increases her speed. ‘I’m Nancy.’

‘Have you got a surname?’

‘Everyone has a surname!’ She pedals off, with her beautiful, freckled nose in the air.

Martin starts to follow but is blocked by a lorry. When he looks again, she has disappeared.

Back at the house, Martin wanders around the garden, distracted. Scamp follows, sniffing, digging, peeing. The vegetable patch is bursting with fruit and vegetables. Martin stops by a tomato cane and pulls a fruit from the stalk. Raises it to his nose, smells it, then bites into it. The juice spurts into his mouth. ‘Nancy.’ He rolls the name around on his tongue, goes back into the house and picks up the phone, then dials his friend Hugh Saunders’ number.

‘Hugh? Yes. Martin.’ He pauses, unsure whether to proceed. ‘Look, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I just met this girl in the Old Town.’

‘Another one?’ Hugh chuckles.

‘Yes, another one.’ Martin laughs. ‘But this one, well, made quite an impression.’

‘That’s what you said about the last one, dear boy.’

‘I know.’ Martin laughs. ‘Thing is, Hugh, I didn’t get her name. Or at least, not her surname.’

‘So, what’s she called?’

‘Nancy.’ Martin sighs. ‘That’s all I know. Auburn hair. Blue eyes. Pretty. Very pretty.’

‘So how can I help?’ Hugh asks.

‘You know everyone around here . . . ’

‘I wish. But, sadly, I don’t know any Nancys.’

‘No?’

‘Sorry I can’t help.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m just being foolish.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ Hugh chuckles. ‘How about a game of tennis to distract you?’

‘Tennis would be great.’

‘Tomorrow at eleven?’

‘Perfect.’ Martin puts down the receiver and stares out into the garden, thinking of the girl with the auburn hair.

That night, he dreams he’s back in Egypt, in the Khan el-Khalili souk, in Cairo, where his father was posted for many years as a high court judge. The air smells of spice and sweat. Crowds throng the narrow passageways. He’s jostled from side to side. Up ahead of him, he spots the girl from the post office, pushes his way through the crowds. He can see her chestnut hair up ahead of him. He starts to run. But his feet won’t move. It’s like running in quicksand.

Martin is an orphan of the Empire. His father, Arthur Sansome Preston, was a tall, flamboyant man with a long, angular face, silver moustache, and a taste for expensive clothes. He died a year ago. But even when he was alive, he was mostly absent from Martin’s life. Apart from trips together with his parents in the summer, usually to hotels in the Swiss Alps, they spent little time in each other’s company. His father’s life revolved around his work as a judge in Cairo, his racehorses, and the never-ending round of diplomatic parties. On the rare occasions they were together, they didn’t get along.

Since he was a schoolboy, Whichert House and Aunt Dorothy, his father’s sister-in-law and as unlike him in her warmth and cosy domesticity as it is possible to be, have been the fixed points of his childhood: the only place in the world he thinks of as ‘home’. Tucked away down a shady lane, with gable ends and brick chimneys, it’s a family house in the true meaning of the word, built around the turn of the century, by Aunt D.’s husband, Charles Preston, a successful lawyer with a practice in London.

Whichert – ‘white earth’ — is the name for the mixture of lime and straw used in the construction of the outer walls, a method unique to Buckinghamshire, which gives it the feeling of being, literally, part of the landscape. In the summer, the garden is a riot of flowers as bees drunk on pollen move among the blooms and the cries of ‘Roquet!’ mix with the clink of crystal goblets filled with champagne or Aunt D.’s legendary elderflower cordial.

Martin is roused from his dream by a scratching at the door. He opens his eyes, looks at his watch, then clambers out of bed, pulls on his shorts and shirt, slides his toes into the sandals then opens his bedroom door. Scamp hurls himself across the room. ‘No jumping, Scamp! Down!’

Still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Martin goes downstairs to the kitchen and fishes a stale loaf out of the bread bin in the pantry. He is home alone. Even Aunt D.’s termagant cook, Frances, is on holiday. He takes a knife and scrapes off a spot of blue mould, cuts a slice of bread, makes coffee. Black. Lots of sugar. Then he grills the bread on the Rayburn, slathers it with butter and Aunt D.’s home-made damson jam, then switches on the wireless.

The Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, is talking about the Sudetenland. Chamberlain has just agreed to Hitler’s demand for a union with all regions in Czechoslovakia with more than a fifty per cent German population. But many people believe the crisis won’t end there. Martin listens attentively, then downs his coffee, fishes a packet of Senior Service cigarettes out of his shorts’ pocket, taps it with his finger, turns it upside down, peers into it, pulls a face.

‘Fancy a walk, old boy?’ Martin asks the dog.

Scamp races along beside the bicycle, his stubby legs working frantically to keep up. At the tobacconist, Martin buys three packs of cigarettes and the Sunday paper. He puts the paper in the basket on the front of the bicycle, unties the Jack Russell and prepares to get in the saddle. But the dog stops abruptly, spreads his back legs and squats. Martin drags him onto the street. ‘Good boy.’

A bicycle passes. Martin swivels. It’s the girl with the chestnut hair. Serene in the saddle as a paddling swan. Martin yanks Scamp’s leash, starts to run after her, but the dog is still doing his business. The girl smirks. Martin sets off in pursuit, dragging the long-suffering pooch along on his backside. Up ahead, he watches as she dismounts in front of a bookshop.

Martin sprints along the pavement and stops beside her, panting. ‘Hallo . . . ’

She turns round. Fixes him with those limpid, blue eyes. ‘Oh. It’s you.’

‘Che bella fortuna di coincidenza. What a wonderful—’

‘I know what it means.’ She looks back into the window of the bookshop.

‘It’s Petrarch.’

‘Really?’ Her voice is mocking, mischievous. ‘So you speak Italian, Martin Preston?’

She remembers his name! But he pulls his face back from the brink of a far too excited smile, points into the shop window. ‘Poetry? Or prose?’

‘Poetry.’ She starts to go inside the bookshop. ‘And prose.’

‘Do you like Robert Graves?’ His voice is almost pleading.

‘He’s one of our finest.’

‘He’s my uncle.’

Her eyes flicker with curiosity. ‘Do you write, too?’

‘Badly.’ He grins. ‘Mostly overdue essays. You?’

‘Notebooks full, I’m afraid.’ She laughs self-consciously and holds out her hand. ‘Nancy. Nancy Claire Whelan.’

‘Can I, er, buy you that cup of tea, Nancy Claire Whelan?’ he stammers.

She studies him for a moment. ‘I think I’d like that.’ She smiles. ‘The books can wait.’

They find a tearoom in the Old Town, packed with elderly matrons eating scones and cucumber sandwiches. Martin and Nancy install themselves at a table by the window, so Martin can keep an eye on Scamp, who he has tied up outside. They order a pot of tea.

‘Shall we have some scones as well?’

‘Tea is fine.’ Nancy unties her hair and lets it fall over her shoulders. Martin watches, mesmerized. ‘Thank you.’

A waitress in a black and white pinafore sets the tea on the table. Martin pours.

‘It’s so amazing . . . ’ He checks himself, tries to sound less jejune. ‘Meeting you like this. Again.’

Nancy takes some milk. ‘Was it a coincidence?’

‘Well, sort of.’ Martin blushes. ‘I suppose I was . . . looking for you.’

Nancy smiles. ‘How old are you?’

Martin is caught off-guard by her directness. ‘Nineteen,’ he says, flustered. ‘Almost twenty.’

Nancy sips her tea. He notices how she talks with her eyes almost as much as her lips. If she is amused, her eyes narrow, like a cat’s. Surprise is communicated by a subtle raising of her eyebrows. When she laughs, her eyes flicker with pleasure. Each mood, the tiniest oscillation of emotion, is registered in those eyes, an entire semaphore of signals and reactions, which he is learning to decode.

‘How old are . . . ?’ Martin checks himself. Never ask a woman her age.

She glances over the top of her cup. ‘Twenty-two.’

‘Do you live here?’

‘Yes. My father is a civil servant. Inland Revenue.’ She puts her cup down. ‘How about you?’

‘My father . . . ’ He hesitates. ‘Died.’ Through the window Martin sees a lorry full of soldiers. ‘Last year.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Nancy looks out of the window and registers the soldiers. ‘What about your mother?’

‘She lives in Wiltshire.’ Martin butters a scone. ‘In a nursing home.’

‘So what brings you here?’

‘My aunt lives in Knotty Green. I’m staying with her for a couple of weeks before term starts again.’ He looks across at her, proudly. ‘Oxford.’

‘What are you studying?’

‘Law and Modern Languages. Teddy Hall.’ He grins sheepishly. ‘A minor in partying.’

‘First year?’ Nancy smiles.

‘Second!’ Martin insists.

Nancy stares out of the window, with a dreamy expression on her face. ‘I used to live in Oxford.’

‘Where?’ Martin’s face lights up.

‘Cowley.’ She pulls a face. ‘Not exactly the dreaming spires.’ Pauses. ‘By the Morris factory, actually.’

‘That almost rhymes.’

‘What does?’

‘Factory. Actually.’

Nancy laughs. ‘It’s a very nice factory. Actually.’

They laugh together, eyes meeting, then withdrawing, touching again, withdrawing. Like shy molluscs.

‘Where in Knotty Green?’

‘Whichert House?’

‘That Arts and Crafts house? Opposite the Red Lion?’ Nancy’s voice is animated.

‘You know it?’

‘I cycle past it all the time. I love that house!’

‘It belongs to my uncle, Charles, and my aunt.’ He arches an eyebrow. ‘Dorothy Preston?’

‘That’s your aunt?’ Nancy reacts with surprise.

‘Yes. Do you know her?’

‘My mother does.’ Nancy pauses. ‘From church.’

‘Small world!’ Martin smiles at the coincidence. One more connecting thread linking them together.

Nancy lifts the teapot and refills their cups. Martin watches the golden liquid flow from the spout. Looks up into her eyes. Holds them. Like a magnet.

They meet at the same tearoom every day for the next week or go for long walks around Penn. They are creating a story together, a narrative of interconnected threads and confessions, and each meeting adds a new chapter to the story. In between their meetings, Martin mopes about like a lovesick spaniel. He can’t concentrate. The books he is meant to be reading for the new term are left unread. His face takes on a distant, faraway look, as though he’s been smoking opium. But he is under the influence of drug far more powerful than opium: a drug called love.

One day, they take the footpath towards Church Path Wood.

Conversation has progressed beyond the mere exchange of biographies. Today, they are on parents. His mother’s ill health and depression since the death of his father. Her mother’s asthma. His special affection for his sister, Roseen. And how his parents farmed them out to boarding school when they were living in Egypt.

‘That must have been so hard on you.’ She squeezes his hand.

‘Aunt D. was more like a mother than my real mother,’ he says as they stop at a kissing gate. Nancy steps inside, Martin leans against the wooden rail. ‘Sent me socks and marmalade. Posted my books when I forgot them. Spoiled me rotten in the hols.’

‘And your father?’

‘He was the black sheep of the family: a bounder, I suppose you’d say.’

‘Why?’ Nancy’s eyes widen.

‘Not sure.’ Martin chews on a grass stalk. ‘Gambling? Drink? Whatever it was, he was barred from joining the family law firm.’

‘Which is why he ended up in Egypt?’

‘That’s it. High court judge. President of the Jockey Club.’ Martin pauses. ‘My father basically preferred his racehorses to his children.’ He pulls an ironic grin, which can’t quite disguise the residual hurt.

One of the few things Martin’s father did teach him, ironically, was to hate snobbery. Colonial life in Egypt was driven by it: that insidious, British snobbery that judges people by where they grew up and the school they went to. One of the reasons Martin is so fond of Nancy is that she judges people for what they are, not their social rank.

She points across the field: a shimmering band of colour stretches across the eastern sky.

‘A rainbow!’ Martin says. ‘It must be a sign.’

She turns, and he’s there. Her lips and his. Sudden and electric. Their first kiss. The kind you get lost in. Like exploring a labyrinth in a blindfold. A labyrinth of feeling and touch and passion.

So that’s the story, Aunt D. I can’t wait for you to meet her. All’s well here. I just got back from taking Mother down to her new nursing home, in Wiltshire. She is still walking rather poorly after the fall, though when I hid her stick for a few minutes she found she could walk surprisingly well without it. The nursing home is really pleasant. Views of the Quantocks, a fire burning in the grate. A large, cheery lady named Mrs Dodds runs it.

How is Scotland? I hope you won’t get fly-fishing elbow again, even though you must keep up your fame as a fisherwoman.

Yours, Martin.

He lights a cigarette and sits staring out of the window into the garden. A soft, autumn rain is falling. Scamp lies sleeping by the fire. It’s only sixteen days since they met. But it feels like a lifetime. His world has been split in two, like a tree struck by lightning. There is before NC and after NC. Everything he sees, everything he tastes or touches or hears, he wants to share with her. When she is not there, his world feels bleak and empty.

Sixteen days. And everything has changed.

14 OCTOBER 1938

Oxford

‘Forties, Cromarty, Forth.’ The shipping forecast crackles on the wireless. ‘Easterly or northeasterly 5 to 7, decreasing 4 at times . . . ’

Martin has fled his room at Teddy Hall to escape the drunken heartbreak of one of his friends, a hapless English student called James Montcrieff, who has broken up with his girlfriend. Martin offered him the sofa for a few nights. He’s been there two weeks. Drunk most of the time. So Martin has decamped to his friend Jon Fraser’s flat, in Wellington Square. Jon is a gangly second year student with a shock of red hair. Outside in the square, the last autumn leaves on the chestnut trees shine in the gaslight. Coals glow in the grate.

‘Could you turn that down, old man?’ Jon’s voice calls from the other side of the room. ‘I have to get this bloody essay finished by tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Sorry, Jon!’ Martin gets up and switches off the wireless. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Slowly.’ His friend leans back from his desk and stretches. ‘Have you ever read Valmouth?’

‘Is that the one about a group of centenarians in a health resort?’

Jon laughs. ‘Some of them are even older!’

Martin should be studying, too. Exams loom. But as Jon hunches back over his desk, he takes out her latest letter, lies down on the floor, his head cradled on a pillow, and lights a cigarette.

Dear Martin . . .

He has seen his name written by countless other people, on birthday cards or school reports; in letters from his mother; his sister Roseen or Aunt Dorothy. But seeing it written by her still makes his heart turn somersaults. The fluent, blue line of her cursive script is a river pulling him towards her. He already has a drawer full of her letters, each letter adding a chapter to the story they are creating. She has told him about her Dorset childhood and the books she loves; her favourite music; and her work in London; the places she dreams of seeing. No one has ever written to him like that. It’s not what she says; it’s how she says it. Her words ring off the page, as though she is right there, next to him, talking in that high, bright voice.

He gets up and pours a glass of vermouth, lights a fresh cigarette, takes out a sheet of writing paper embossed with the college’s coat of arms: a red cross surrounded by four Cornish choughs. Then lies back down on his stomach, smoothing the sheet down on the back of a coffee-stained copy of Illustrated London News. The cover photo shows German troops marching into the Sudetenland two weeks ago.

The talk at meals is all of war. But tonight he has only one thing on his mind. Unscrewing the top of his pen, he holds the gold nib in mid-air, searching for the right words. A ring of blue smoke hovers around his head, like a halo. He lays the burning cigarette in an ashtray, breathes in, then puts pen to paper.

Dearest Nancy,

I’m writing this on the floor of Jon’s little room in No. 11, Wellington Square. My own room has gradually become its old self of two years ago – a meeting place for many. My cigarettes disappear; the level of my vermouth drops and the table is covered with other people’s books. What I need is a hostess, a beautiful aide-de-salon.

He tells her what he’s been doing since their last tryst: hockey matches and motor cross trials; auditions for a play; parties he has been to; a film by a new director called Alfred Hitchcock; the latest college gossip. If only he had the eloquence of his famous uncle. But she’s stuck with him. He takes a drag of his cigarette, chucks back the vermouth.

I don’t know how to feel when you’re around. You turn me so inside out – no one has ever done it before. What is it about you? You are unparalleled. You leave me breathless. You are the most exciting thing in the world. I’m a little ashamed of writing what I needn’t mention really but occasionally my heart overflows with drops of ink for a letter to you. And I must write before the term begins in earnest. It is like offering up a prayer before going into battle. Though my prayer to you is only that you will understand how much I love you. When you are around, everything feels right. Your love is like a crown. If I could be with you right now I would frighten you with my passion. I can’t say more – you must feel it.

In the distance, the clock of St Giles strikes midnight. A group of drunken students pass under the window, shouting and laughing.

It’s terribly late now. I’ve wearied my right hand writing letters about hockey matches and things like that. Jon is writing furiously at his desk about ‘Ronald Firbank’. Not the actor. He has to deliver the essay tomorrow evening. Oxford is depressingly cold. Everyone else seems hearty and too pleased to be back here. Poor things, they can’t have anyone to make their homecoming so desirable. I suppose we shall have the usual – muddy games, the usual tiresome duties, and work which one must settle to and then enjoy.

It’s strange and wonderful to know you so perfectly. I imagine myself with you the whole time. Feel your lips against mine. My hand touching yours. I can’t wait to see you again next weekend.

So very much in love and kisses in adoration, Martin.

22 OCTOBER 1938

Whichert House

The grandfather clock chimes eleven thirty on the landing. Martin looks at his watch, leaps out of bed, splashes water on his face from the jug and basin in the corner, then stands in his underwear, debating what to wear. Green and white check gingham shirt? Too old-fashioned. White dress shirt? Too formal. He throws both on the chair, rummages through the wardrobe.

It’s almost three weeks since he last saw Nancy. College work and organising hockey matches have consumed all his time. Today, he is back from Oxford and finally going to meet her parents. He can’t remember ever feeling so nervous. His stomach flutters like it used to when he had to get ready to go back to boarding school.

‘Don’t be such a girl,’ he chides himself, settling on a well-worn, blue cotton shirt; khaki twill trousers; an Irish tweed jacket; brogues from Church’s of Northampton. He studies himself in the mirror. Nancy once told him that, with his angular features, deep-set, dark eyes, sensual lips, and square jaw, he reminded her of a young Laurence Olivier. Not today. His hair is mussed up, his eyelids are heavy with sleep, his chin is shadowed with stubble.

He glances at his watch, takes his jacket off and covers his shoulders with a towel, then refills the basin with water, grabs his razor and some shaving soap, quickly shaves and splashes some eau de cologne on his cheeks. Then he lifts up his left arm, sniffs his armpit, and grimaces. With rapid movements, he unbuttons his shirt, sprays some cologne onto his right hand, rubs it into his armpit, repeats the process with his left hand, sniffs, then stands back from the mirror. He’ll have to do.

He finds Aunt Dorothy deadheading roses in the garden. She is dressed in a simple, but elegant, blue and white check dress, with a blue apron outside it. Her close-set, blue eyes twinkle like amethysts. Her face is tanned from gardening. ‘He’s missed you,’ she says, as Scamp races across the lawn to greet him, barking furiously.

‘I’ve missed him, too.’ Martin pets the dog then puts his arms around his aunt. ‘But not as much as I’ve missed you.’

‘How was the drive from Oxford?’

‘Twenty-seven minutes, door to door.’ He grins. ‘A new record.’

‘Does Teddy Hall have a course on racing driving these days?’ says a voice behind him.

Martin turns round to see his elder sister, Roseen, advancing across the lawn with a cup of tea in her hand. She’s a tall, rail-thin, self-contained woman with hazel-brown eyes that take in everything but give little away. She is perfectly dressed for the season: tweed jacket, woollen skirt, leather boots, a scarf wrapped turban-style around her head.

‘Sis!’ Martin hugs her. ‘I thought you had already left for London again.’

‘The weather’s so beautiful.’ She sips her tea. ‘I thought I’d take an evening train.’

Martin grins at her. ‘Well?’

‘Well, what?’ Roseen bends down and scratches Scamp’s back.

‘What did you think of her?’ Martin’s face brims with anticipation.

‘She’s