“He never came home from the war. Well, not really. He was in hospital for a time, but then went back to France in October of 1918. I had a letter or two from him, and after that, nothing.” She realized she was chattering on the doorstep and said, “I’m so sorry, please do come in.” She led him to the front room. “You’re from London, you said? That’s a long way to come to bring me word of my brother.”

“As a matter of truth,” he said, “I’ve come to ask you about your brother. You lived in Sussex, when you were young?”

“Yes, and I cried for days when we left, I was so sad. My father had a better position, but I sometimes thought he’d left because of something else. My mother is buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, you see. I thought perhaps he wanted to leave his memories behind.”

“How did your brother like moving across England?”

“He was so excited. I thought, it will be the same, he’ll annoy the other lads, and they’ll play tricks, and then he’ll be unhappy again, and nothing will change.”

“It was his fault that he didn’t get along with the boys in Eastfield?”

She frowned. “He didn’t try. I’m sure he didn’t. Other boys managed it, didn’t they? That one—what was his name?—whose legs were crippled. He was the same way, never trying. A smile would have helped, or a willingness to be friendly. But Tommy surprised all of us, didn’t he? He lost several stone of weight, his face cleared up, and he got along just fine. And I told him, it’s wonderful how you’ve changed. He said the oddest thing then—he said, ‘I had to change. And I hated it.’ You would have thought he’d been forced to do something awful.”

“How did he fare in the war?”

“He was a good soldier. He did everything that was asked of him. He told me he had learned that others wanted to make him over in their image, and so he did it for them, only it was merely on the surface, and they were too stupid to see.”

“And after the war?”