Ruth climbed up and sat on the step beside me, taking me in her arms. When I looked at her face she seemed to have aged and shrunk.

‘It says he’s missing.’ She held out the telegram to me. ‘There may be hope. It could just be . . .’

‘What?’ I couldn’t think at all, or make sense of anything.

‘Perhaps he landed somewhere – or parachuted, and they haven’t found him yet. We can make inquiries. There’s a special section of the Red Cross . . .’

I only half heard what she said, but I knew then already like a doom drum beating in my mind and I could only think, Angus is dead, Angus is dead. Ruth Harvey had shiny black buttons on her cardigan and leaves stuck to her shoes. My mother stood very still, hand on the banisters, looking up at us.

‘Katie?’ Ruth gripped my shoulders powerfully with her arm. ‘We’ve got to be strong – for him. We can’t give up hope. He could be making contact with them even now.’

I thought Ruth was not a woman to spin me false optimism. I turned and looked up into her eyes. ‘D’you really think so?’

‘I have to. I can’t do anything else for now.’ Only then did she begin to sob, her body jerking, though no tears fell from her eyes. Her mouth pulled to one side. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear it.’

I put my arms round her, noticing how much grey there was among her brown hairs. My mother disappeared along the hall to the kitchen and I heard her rattling cups and saucers.

We drank our cups of tea almost in silence before Ruth left, folding her arms tightly across her chest. I saw her rally herself.

‘I’ll go and take this off,’ she said, touching the black cardigan. ‘It seems to indicate a lack of faith, doesn’t it?’

If it had not been for Ruth and Peter Harvey I would have despaired during those months. There was no one else I could turn to. We all tried to get on with the business of our lives as the war reached its gloomiest. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the Battle of the Atlantic, people demonstrating on the streets for a second front to be opened in Europe. The Harveys spent months in correspondence with the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Relatives Department.

‘I just feel sure there must be hope,’ Ruth said to me one day after another ICRC missive had arrived saying that they had so far drawn a blank but would try to pursue inquiries further. ‘He could be in hospital. Or lost in the countryside. If your plane lands in the middle of nowhere, how are you supposed to find your way out? It could be months, couldn’t it?’ Her voice rose high, full of tears. Peter came and put his arm round her, his gnarled hand stroking her shoulder. He had lost weight since the news about Angus, and his cheeks were gaunt, showing deeper shadows. He had not been a fleshy man before.