She wished she was anywhere else.

Neither mother nor son said a word; they stared at one another until it became too much for him to stand, and then he looked at the wall just above her left ear. Enid didn’t have any small talk to retreat into either. She couldn’t ask how he was keeping, or how they were treating him. It was all too bleak and obvious.

‘Your court martial is this Friday.’

‘I see.’

‘Haven’t they told you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you understand what this means?’ He finally met his mother’s eyes. Vivian noticed that his were blue, like Enid’s, but a shade more intense, youthful and vivid. Enid’s were watery and full of pain. Concern.

‘Yes.’

For the avoidance of all doubt, to shock him or because she was traumatised, Enid added, ‘They will execute you.’ Her voice sounded unnaturally high and more officious than usual. It was an impossible thing for a mother to have to say to a son.

‘Possibly.’ She glared at him and he conceded, ‘Probably.’

‘Don’t pretend it is anything other than horrifying,’ she snapped, the concern in her eyes instantly drowned by fear and frustration. ‘They will take you into that courtyard out there . . .’ She pointed randomly to her right. None of them really knew where the courtyard was, but they didn’t doubt its existence. Her hand was trembling. ‘They will blindfold you and shoot you. You might be dead by Saturday.’

‘If they shoot me for my beliefs, I haven’t lost much. If I go to war, I’ll be shot for their beliefs. I know which I prefer.’

Enid gasped and pushed her fist into her mouth. ‘I can’t talk to you.’ She stood up with such haste that the chair fell backwards; Vivian caught it and righted it before it clattered to the floor. Enid turned to the guard. ‘I need some air.’ She must have noticed at the same time as Vivian did that the guard looked even younger than her son; despite the chill, there was sweat on his upper lip, no hair. As an afterthought she added, ‘Please.’

Enid glanced at Vivian as she left the room. No one had ever looked at her that way: desperate terror, her only hope. Pity surged through Vivian’s veins. She knew what Enid wanted her to deliver, but now that she was in front of this strangely composed, fearsomely determined man, she wondered whether she could. He seemed so sure. Set on a path that was hurtling him towards self-destruction. The door banged.

Vivian took Enid’s seat and smiled politely. As she wondered how to open the necessary conversation, he demanded briskly, ‘Can I ask why you are here, Mrs Owens?’

‘To keep your mother company. I didn’t think she should have to make the journey on her own and we didn’t know what to expect.’ She glanced around the wretched room. He knew they could not have expected this. This sort of bleak purgatory was put beyond women’s imagination. Men built prisons, fought wars.