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…’
    â€˜It’s from her new book.’
    â€˜I thought it might be. Quite powerful, if somewhat …’
    â€˜Opinionated,’ Susan suggested.
    â€˜She was always opinionated. I’m rather inclined to be opinionated myself which is why, I suspect, we hit it off so well.’ He paused again. ‘I’m surprised she never married. She does actually
like
men, I suppose?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ said Susan. ‘There’s nothing ambiguous about Vivian.’
    Susan had never really thought of Viv as young or of Mr Willets in the days when he had hair. She could not for the life of her imagine them together.
    â€˜I was at school with her brother, David,’ Mr Willets went on. ‘When war came I enlisted in the East Kent Regiment, the Buffs. Wounded in Salonika, not too seriously. But I fell so ill afterwards that I was sent back to Blighty. David invited me to convalesce on his farm. That’s where I met Vivian.’
    â€˜Who nursed you back to health and strength.’
    â€˜No, Vivian isn’t the nursing type. But it
was
summer and the apple orchards were heavy with fruit – and the rest, I fear, is a terrible cliché. Alas, after the war ended we went our separate ways. I joined the fledgling BBC – it was a company in those days, not a corporation – and broadcasting became my life.’
    â€˜And Vivian?’
    â€˜You would know more about that than I do.’
    â€˜I don’t, really,’ Susan said. ‘Were you never tempted to take up with her again?’
    â€˜No. You see, by that time I had a wife.’
    â€˜I didn’t know you had a wife.’
    â€˜I don’t. We hadn’t been married long when cancer took her away,’ Mr Willets said. ‘After that experience, shall we say, I had little inclination to try again.’ He glanced up at Susan. ‘Well, Miss Hooper, now you know more about me than anyone in this building. I’m depending on you not to gossip. I prefer my private life, such as it is, to remain a closed book to my colleagues.’
    â€˜Of course,’ Susan said. ‘I do have one question I’d like you to answer, though.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜Are we taking Vivian on board?’
    â€˜Now what do you think?’ Mr Willets said with a bashful little giggle that seemed totally at odds with his character.

7
    After consultation with welfare staff the billeting officer who had been responsible for the gaffe in the first place reluctantly agreed that Miss Cottrell might remain lodged with the Pells until a place could be found in one of the ‘all-girl’ farmhouses or a room in town that didn’t have two slavering males in close proximity. Mrs Pell’s willingness to take on the role of moral watchdog had much to do with the decision, added to the fact that more and more ‘foreigners’ were arriving in Evesham every week and congenial accommodation, especially for females, was at a premium.
    In the dog days of February, Griff and Danny saw less of Kate than they’d hoped. Indeed, as Griff glumly pointed out, during her training phase they saw more of Kate’s knickers hanging on the washing line than they did of Kate herself.
    She hadn’t been drawn into any of the little cliques that formed among the foreign-language monitors, however, for the German-speaking group was less tight-knit than most and arguments over entries in the monitor’s logbook and Teutonic debates about points of style proved heated and divisive.
    Even in the relaxed atmosphere of the Greenhill subtle tensions remained and Mrs Pell’s lodgers tended to keep to themselves. On that evening, all together for once, Kate and Danny were seated on a couch in an alcove off the main lounge drinking beer while Griff hovered by the piano in the hope that the present incumbent of the stool, a female, would weary of butchering Rachmaninoff.
    â€˜How long have you