Just managing to control myself, I said, ‘And if I was not now about to marry someone else, when exactly do you think the right moment might have been?’

She turned her face away from me and looked beyond, out to the garden. ‘I hoped I should never have to give it to you.’

It was all I could do to prevent myself running at her, tearing my nails across her face.

‘How dare you keep it from me?’ I shrieked at her. ‘How could you? How dare you decide when I could read it?’ I flailed my arms helplessly. ‘Give it to me!’

I went to take it but she held the letter clutched to her chest. ‘You gave up on him.’

‘And if you carry on like this you’ll be giving up on John and Mary. Now give it to me.’

‘Whatever’s going on?’ My mother’s shocked face appeared in the doorway.

I held my hand out, my eyes fixed on Ruth’s. Finally she laid the envelope in my palm. I pushed past Mummy, beyond thinking of anything, and ran to my room, shaking, bewildered at the violence I had felt towards Ruth. We who had been such a comfort to one another in the early days of Angus’s disappearance had grown sharply apart when I had moved forward, able to grieve, to find the beginnings of acceptance.

Before I opened the letter I let the tears come, months’ worth of grief still raw in me, compounded by my rage with Ruth. I even half suspected she had chosen this moment to give me the letter in order to blight my marriage to Douglas. What a comfort it could have been having this letter when I first knew I might not see Angus again. To have his voice through these words at a time when he still felt close and recent. I sat holding the envelope, weeping and shaking.

Only when I was spent did I open it. Seeing his writing on the paper brought a new ache. He had headed the letter Christmas 1940.

Dear Katie,

I’m sitting on my bunk writing this, only just able to see as the sky is so heavy with rain outside, and I must admit to feeling as weighed down myself by what I have to say to you.

I suppose like anyone writing a letter such as this I am praying above all that you will never come to read it. The thought of you having to do so is unbearable but I know I must write. I can’t assume that I shall come through all this unscathed. Unlike some of the other chaps I don’t have a supreme confidence that I am indestructible.

All I know is that with every fibre of my being I want to stay alive. I love life, and above all my darling, I love you. I am only thankful that I shall not be leaving you widowed, perhaps with our young children to bring up alone and unsupported. That would be an enormous sadness and shame to me. Sometimes I dream of our having a family together, but not now – not in the middle of all this. When I am low I think of your smile and the feel of you close to me. I want to live and live, and to be back sharing this life with you.