It was his bedtime when they arrived. Roe did not go up, once he had been put to bed, to say goodnight and, when he was asleep, did not bother to help fill his stocking.

The next day Richard gave a bike Dy had bought for him. Many months later, at the height of the first blitz, Roe could not remember how the child was given this present. It was certain, clear in his memory, that Christopher had come into the bedroom quite late in the morning, because he could still see the boy’s face stiff with excitement. He knew Christopher had called him because he was so thankful that he had not been called earlier. In times of peace, when staying a week-end in that house, the boy had often woken him with a stammered good-morning at what had then seemed unearthly hours. So he knew he had seen his son first thing on the birthday morning because he remembered how glad he had been to have a long lie in bed, but he did not recollect how much pleasure the bicycle had given. He could see only that face, solemn at the opening of the day, at the present to be received. Further, he realised he could not, at that length of time, distinguish between the bike or the tricycle they had given the year before. He could remember some trouble over tearing wrapping paper away by how afraid he had been that Christopher might burst into tears at being helped or, alternatively, that he might cry on not seeing the thing soon enough revealed in all its glory. But he could not tell which, before the war or after, bicycle or tricycle.

So the father, trying, during the blitz, while he was being bombed on twenty-four hours’ leave, to make himself believe that the war was an interlude, found his memory at fault. But the rest he thought he remembered very well.

The boy had been good all that day. When he got over his first excitement at the presents he said several times how much he was looking forward to having Rosemary, who was staying nearby, to tea.

In the morning he constructed battleships with his bricks, using the strong light which made all the rooms sharp, and which was reflected, beaten in by the still wings of snow on window ledges. He used shadows cast by these bricks to build up substance; thus he set three bricks a little apart and the shadows between gave two guns.