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‘We’d better go back,’ she said ‘If we go on we’ll have too far to walk I don’t have a repair kit’

‘O faithless one,’ Queenie said, pointing to the entrance to a farm lane about twenty yards further on ‘This is e a ly, nose raised into the wind ‘A provincial farmhouse lies less than a hundred yards away, and I smell meat stew and fruit pie –’ She took her wounded bicycle by the handlebars and set off up the lane at a deteres in the adjoining field – no time off for thes with string and ground sheets with holes in the uised Nazi spy ell-equipped by comparison in their RAF an to bark as they approached Maddie looked round anxiously

‘Don’t worry, that’s just noise They’ll be tied up or they’d bother the Land Girls Is the sign up?’

‘What sign?’

‘A jar of rowan berries in the– if there’s no rowan in the on’t be welco

‘You are daft!’

‘Is there?’

Maddie was taller than her companion She stood on tiptoe to see over the barnyard wall, and her mouth dropped open

‘There is,’ she said, and turned to gape at Queenie ‘How –?’

Queenie leaned her bicycle against the wall, looking very sarden wall They’ve just been trimmed It’s all very tidy and pretty in a wifely way, but she’ll have dug up her geraniums to plant tatties for the War Effort So if she has so nice to decorate her kitchen with, like fresh-cut rowan berries, she’s likely to do it, and –’

Queenie settled her hair into shape beneath the plastic rain bonnet ‘And she’s the sort of person ill feed us’

She let herself in boldly at the kitchen door of the strange farm

‘Ah’ve nae wish tae disturb ye, Missus –’ Her well-bred, educated accent suddenly developed an irresistible Scottish burr ‘We’ve come frae RAF Maidsend and Ah’ve had this wee spot o’ bother wi’ me bike Ah wondered –’

‘Oh, no trouble at all, love!’ the far withus Mavis and Grace’ll be in the fields just now, but if you wait a oodness sake come in and warm yourselves first!’

Queenie produced, as if by reatcoat Maddie realised suddenly that this infinite supply of cigarettes was carefully hoarded – realised that she’d scarcely ever seen Queenie sifts or as payment in kind in place of cash – for tips and poker chips and, now, bicycle patches and lunch

Only once, Maddie rearette she hadn’t lit for so to interview the Gerarettes

‘Oh, goodness no, that’s far too much!’

‘Aye, take theift o’ thanks But would ye no gie us a loan o’ your hob to heat our wee tin o’ beans before we go?’

The far WAAF officers take to the roads like gypsies, are they, buying a boil of your tea can in exchange for a smoke? There’s shepherd’s pie and apple crumble left over from our own dinner, you can help yourselves to that! Just a minute while I find you a patch for your tube –’

They were soon tucking into a stea hot meal considerably better than any they’d eaten at Maidsend for the past threeThe only inconvenience was that they had to eat it standing up as there was so h the kitchen – the chairs had been ree of fars (no children; they’d been evacuated, away from the front line of the Battle of Britain)

‘You owe ht She thought about hosts, dark, getting se porter They were almost childish fears, easily bottled You could knock thenore the the slavering hounds on the way in ‘And Not Getting the Unifor, you’re not allowed to alter the coat so it’s always too big, things like that And: Southerners laughing at reed It could not be a problem she ever encountered, with her educated, upper-crust vowels, but being a Scot she sylish ‘You’ve only onedeep She ca a little at the simplicity and nakedness of the confession, then ad people down’

Her friend did not roll her eyes or laugh She listened, nodding, stirring the warm cream into the baked apples She didn’t look at Maddie

‘Not doingto live up to expectations’

‘A bit likesomeone,’ Queenie said, ‘but less specific’

‘It could include killing someone,’ said Maddie

‘It could’ Queenie was sober now ‘Unless you were doing the them Then you’d let thereat-uncle had horrible cancers in his throat and he’d been to America twice to have the tu back, and finally he asked his wife to kill hi – it was recorded as a shooting accident, believe it or not, but she was randmother’s sister and we all know the truth’