‘Well – I’ve never seen the sea,’ said Freddie, captivated by the way Kate talked with such fluency.

‘Haven’t you? Oh I expect you will one day – and you’ll love it. It SPARKLES like DIAMONDS.’

‘Sparkles like diamonds!’ repeated Freddie, and he found himself smiling at the thought. ‘I’d like to see that.’

He lifted the truckle of cheese onto his shoulder, and crooked his arm around it.

‘You are strong,’ said Kate. She took the trolley and walked beside him, talking all the time in her chirruping voice. ‘Perhaps you can help me unload something from the train as well. If you wouldn’t mind. It’s a huge salmon and it’s in a box filled with ice.’

‘A salmon!’

‘Yes. My Uncle Don has got a set of putchers on the River Severn. It’s tidal, you see. And the fish swim up with the tide and they get stuck in the putchers which are like long pointed baskets and when the tide goes down you can paddle out there and get them. Every year my mother makes a massive cheese and we swap it for a salmon. We send the cheese up on the train and they send the salmon down in a box. Have you ever tasted salmon? It’s PINK inside and it’s delicious with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.’

Freddie carried the truckle of cheese to the far end of the platform with Kate bustling beside him, talking non-stop. The train was now due in ten minutes. Ten blissful minutes, he thought, to sit in the May sunshine with the girl he secretly loved. Why hide it? Why not tell her? he thought impulsively, and immediately a word shone large and bright in his head. ‘WAIT.’

He put the huge cheese down on a brown bench, and made an attempt at a joke. ‘The mice will be after me now,’ he said brushing his shoulder, ‘I smell of cheese.’

‘So do I!’ said Kate and went off into a volley of laughter, her eyes gleaming. It was such a bubbly, inviting laugh that Freddie found himself laughing too.

‘You’re like my granny,’ he said.

‘Well, thanks very much. There’s a nice compliment!’ Kate went into another peal of laughter that rang all over the station.

‘Sorry,’ said Freddie, but the word didn’t feel right. Kate was so full of joy and confidence that an abject apology slunk past her and escaped into the gutter.

A small silence followed, like an undiscovered jewel, both of them looking attentively at each other’s faces.

‘I should have asked your name,’ said Kate warmly.

‘Freddie Barcussy, and I know your name,’ he said. ‘Oriole Kate Loxley.’

She looked surprised. ‘How did you know? Not many people know my first name.’

‘I saw it once, on your suitcase,’ said Freddie, ‘when you were a little girl. I was there when you had the accident, and I stayed with you when you were lying unconscious in the road.’

Kate gasped. For the first time she looked serious, and he saw her eyes settle into stillness, like a rippling pool becoming a tranquil mirror.

‘It was you!’ she said. ‘Fancy you remembering that.’

‘You had plaits, with red ribbons,’ said Freddie.

Kate looked at him searchingly.

‘I remember – I dreamed you were an angel,’ she said.

‘Angels don’t smell of cheese,’ said Freddie, and was rewarded with another peal of laughter.

‘The train’s coming.’ Shouts and movement stirred all along the platform as the freight train came puffing slowly in, and squealed to a halt. Immediately, two of the station workers in dark blue sooty clothes jumped down onto the rails and walked along tapping the metal wheels, a routine inspection. The ramps were lowered onto the platform and the unloading and loading began.

‘Big box here for Loxley, Hilbegut Farm,’ shouted Charlie.

‘I’ll help you, Kate,’ said Freddie. ‘I can collect my load in a minute.’

He took the cold wooden box in both hands.

‘You mustn’t tip it over,’ laughed Kate. ‘You’ll bruise its nose.’

‘What’s in there then, Kate?’ asked Charlie who obviously knew her.

‘A SALMON!’ she whispered dramatically.

‘Cor. Can I come to dinner then?’ he joked.

‘I’ll ask my mother,’ said Kate mischievously. ‘And if she says no, I’ll bring you down a slice – with a knife and fork.’

Freddie was fascinated by the camaraderie she seemed to have with everyone on the station. He felt proud to be carrying the salmon in its box, proud to be walking beside her down the platform. She swanned along beside him, pausing once to make a fuss of a collie dog that ran to her squirming and wagging its tail.

‘No, you can’t have that,’ she said as it sniffed hopefully at the salmon. ‘That’s not for dogs.’

‘So now I smell of fish as well,’ said Freddie, smiling at her. She smiled back and his heart almost stopped when her eyes looked up at him. He pointed at his Scammell lorry. ‘That’s my lorry over there. I’ve got a haulage business.’

‘What – your own?’ she asked.

‘That’s right,’ said Freddie.

‘It’s a beauty!’ She paused to admire the lorry. ‘I’ll tell everyone, if you like, and get some business for you, Freddie. Where are you based?’

‘Barcussy’s Bakery – top of the hill. My mother runs it, and I help her, since Dad died. I saved up for years to buy the lorry, and the day I was sixteen I took it all to the bank, and bought the lorry.’

‘Well, good for you, and good luck!’ said Kate brightly, and Polly raised her head from the hay net and whinnied at the sound of her voice. ‘Here we are, this is our cart.’

Freddie slid the box into the back and went to stroke the pony’s head.

‘Hello, Polly. Remember me?’

‘She likes you,’ said Kate, seeing Polly give Freddie a push with her soft nose.

‘I like her. I took her home, that day,’ said Freddie, ‘and it was the first time I’d ever led a pony. She’s lovely.’

‘Ethie’s coming,’ said Kate, and her expression changed a little. ‘She’s my sister. So we’d better say goodbye now, Freddie.’

Ethie was still some distance away, the laden basket on her stout arm.

Freddie felt himself go cold all over. He didn’t want his time with Kate to end so soon. There was so much he hadn’t asked her, so much he hadn’t said.

‘Well – not goodbye, Kate. I hope I’ll see you again,’ he said, and looked deeply into her brown eyes as she stood gazing up at him.

‘Thank you, Freddie, for your help. I couldn’t have managed without you,’ Kate said warmly, and hesitated as if a thought from very deep within was surfacing. ‘And thank you – for staying with me and holding my hand that day.’

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him in the hollow of his cheek, very softly, like the butterfly. He smelled her hair, and a whiff of lavender from her clothes, and her skirt brushed against his knees. Freddie was so stunned that he felt he could float away in a beautiful bubble. His body felt weightless and his mind bathed in her sweetness.

Ethie was bearing down on them with her basket.

‘Cheerio for now – Oriole Kate.’ Freddie doffed his cap, took a last look into her eyes, and strode off without looking back, the feel of her kiss embossed on his cheek forever.

Chapter Thirteen

THE ‘BEE-LOUD GLADE’

‘He’s only a lorry driver, Kate,’ said Ethie spitefully, ‘I don’t see why you’ve got to have the best picnic set for HIM.’

She slammed the light brown pigskin case on the kitchen table after Kate had persuaded her to reach it down from the top shelf.

‘Thank you.’ Kate smiled disarmingly at her sister. ‘Wait ’til you’ve got a young man, Ethie. You won’t care what job he does as long as he’s kind and handsome like Freddie.’

‘Well, I shan’t fuss over any boy like you do.’

‘You’ll never get a husband with that attitude, my girl,’ said her mother, who was busy wringing sheets through an old wooden mangle, the water streaming out across the flagstone floor and into the yard.