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water that had collected in drops in the dip of his belly. ‘Nothing nicer than a lazy afternoon,’ he said. They lay a while in silence. Grace found her mind wandering back to the morning at the church and the thought of Rufus made her feel warm inside.
    ‘Freddie, what are you going to be when you’re a grownup?’ she asked after a while.
    ‘Work on the land. As long as I’m not inside doing a boring desk job like Dad, I don’t really mind. Why?’
    ‘Rufus asked me this morning. He asked me whether I was going to be a beekeeper.’
    Freddie’s mood deflated at the mention of Rufus Melville. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I said yes. I think it’s a nice life looking after bees.’
    ‘It doesn’t really matter what you do, because you’re a girl. With any luck you’ll marry a rich man to keep you,’ he said grudgingly.
    Grace rolled onto her stomach. ‘Chance would be a fine thing! Girls like me don’t marry rich men, Freddie!’ She laughed carelessly and plucked a daisy.
    Freddie sat up. ‘I’ll look after you, Grace,’ he said in a rush of enthusiasm. Grace looked surprised. ‘I know I’m only fifteen. But one day, when we’re older, I’ll look after you.’ She frowned; she had never thought she’d need looking after. At fourteen she hadn’t ever contemplated life beyond the present where she lived very contentedly with her father, and as for being looked after, she would say she cared for her father as much as he cared for her.
    She smiled softly and twirled the daisy between her finger and thumb. ‘You’re adorable, Freddie.’
    ‘I’ll work hard, make lots of money, and buy you anything you like,’ he said, warming to his subject.
    Although Grace was younger than Freddie, she sometimes felt older. Being motherless, she had had to grow up faster than other girls in order to look after her father. She now smiled at Freddie in the indulgent way adults do when children share impossible dreams. ‘That’s nice,’ she replied. ‘I’d like a red dress, then.’
    ‘A red dress? Why red?’
    ‘Because there’s something wild about red, don’t you think? It’s a wicked colour. Nice girls like me don’t wear red.’
    He grinned. ‘Then I’ll buy you a red dress.’
    ‘Good.’ She rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes. ‘You’d better think of doing something other than working on the land, then, because Dad works on the land and he doesn’t earn much.’
    ‘Your father doesn’t care to be rich. Mum says he’s content just to be. But I’m ambitious. I’ll run the entire estate one day, you’ll see.’
    ‘That is ambitious.’
    ‘If you don’t aim high in life you won’t get anywhere.’
    She giggled. ‘Who told you that?’
    ‘Dad.’
    ‘Well, he’s right, I suppose. Anyway, by the time you’re old enough to get a job, Mr Garner might be dead so there’ll be space for you.’
    ‘Old Peg Leg.’ He closed his eyes and thought of Mr Garner who had lost his leg at Ypres. ‘I suspect an old walrus like him will go on for ever.’
    ‘Do you think you’d be brave in war, Freddie?’ she asked, thinking of the war her father had fought in but never spoke of.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    She laughed, remembering his bee sting. She didn’t imagine he’d be brave at all. ‘I suppose it’s hard to tell until you’re there,’ she said tactfully.
    ‘I hope I’d be brave,’ he said.
    ‘God willing, we’ll never know,’ said Grace, and she pushed the talk of Hitler’s menacing manoeuvres that she heard on the wireless and read about in the papers to the back of her mind.
    They ate their sandwiches as the early evening light grew mellow. Grace suggested she’d better be getting home to help her father in the garden. She felt guilty lying about all day like a lady of leisure, even though it was Sunday. They slowly made their way back through the village with their wet bathing suits rolled up in their towels. Grace’s hair had dried into thick curls that tumbled