‘On that summer’s day, in a field in France, the glorious sun that was Thomas, set for the final time. While there is a Mandeville alive, he will be remembered. But the world in which we must all now live will be a darker place without him; without our boy.’

Each word cut like a razor to Lou’s soul. Pain seeped from Sir Charles’ words and cried out from this shrine a grief-stricken family had created so their boy would not be forgotten. The Mandeville’s pain was her pain. Their boy, her boy.

The words of the obituary formed a border around a black and white photograph of Tom in uniform. It wasn’t the splendid uniform of braid and feathers of his mother’s painting down in the hall, but a studio portrait in which he wore khakis and puttees and a cap. He looked so normal, so like Lou’s Tom.

‘Please take me back to him. Even if just for a minute.’

This house had spoken to her outside in the storm, it had turned on the hot water tap when she was cold, it had taken her back one hundred years. It could do this one thing, couldn’t it? She closed her eyes, picturing Tom sitting in the chair beside the fire, stroking his invisible moustache. When she opened her eyes again, she was back in the cold room. Loneliness stretched out like a road with no end. There was no way back. The door to Tom had closed forever. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. A sob made her chest heave. She took the book in her hands. The spine, broken through use, fell open at a well-thumbed page. A passage had been underlined, a few words written in the margin in grey pencil:

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.

LA,

You are my reason. You are my song.

TM. 22^nd August 1914

Lou’s hands began to tremble. She willed herself back to last night; to Tom’s smile as he had kissed her; to their hands grasping at her corset in their desperation to get to one another; to his lips tracing the curve of her waist and stomach. She could still smell him on her skin, in her hair. They had slept in that bed, kicking away the sheets because the heat of their bodies was the only warmth they needed. That bed would never know them again, it would be forever empty, forever cold.

‘You said you’d find me, Tom. You promised. I can’t face a world without you in it. I just can’t. Why did I let you go?’ Afraid that her tears would spoil the book, she dug in her pocket. Pulling her hand free, she found that she was clutching not a tissue, but a grubby handkerchief, embroidered in the corner with two initials. TM.

She collapsed into the chair beside the fire and muffled her cries with the handkerchief that still smelled of woody cologne. A travel rug draped over the back of the chair slipped down and rested about her shoulders. Behind Lou, the curtains billowed although the window was closed and the air outside was perfectly still.