Saturday 10th May, 1941

I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I had to tell Glynis why Rick hadn’t called on me this week. ‘Margot, is Rick well?’ she asked me as we tidied up after supper tonight. The lambs are getting a bit bigger now. The children were out helping Ivor with them, so it was just the two of us.

I retrieved the letter from my pocket. I don’t know why I’ve been carrying the cursed thing around with me, but it’s all I have of him now. Without a sound I handed it to her. She read it quickly and her eyes dimmed with pity. ‘Oh, Margot, sweetheart. I’m so sorry, like.’

‘Thank you,’ I said in the absence of any original thoughts.

Glynis sat me down at the kitchen table. ‘You poor thing. This is absolutely awful. And to tell you in a letter – what sort of a man does that?’

I said nothing.

‘Ah, Margot. I thought he was one of the good ones too.’ She took my hand. ‘It feels awful, doesn’t it? This won’t make you feel any better just now, but we’ve all had our hearts broken at some point, you know? For me it was Gryff Owen. We were twelve and I thought he was the most spiffin’ chap in all of Wales. Only he said I was big as a heifer. Can you imagine? Although I was a bit podgier back then, mind you.’ I must have glazed over. ‘Margot? I know it feels like a catastrophe, but it will get better, I promise. Hearts heal, just like broken bones, so they do.’

I looked inside myself before looking up at her. I dug around in search of an ember in the ashes, some glimmer of warmth. ‘I think it’s beyond healing,’ I whispered.

‘Aw, sweet girl, don’t say that, pet. I just know some other man is going to sweep you off your feet, and on that day you won’t even remember Rick Sawyer’s name.’

I did not believe her. I still don’t. I am so cold and so numb like I’m pumped full of morphine. I have to think out and orchestrate every laboured moment and force my body to comply. Left to its own devices, I think it would find a dark, hollowed tree trunk in which to lay down and die.