Largely he was alone, and he liked it. He wasn’t sure if Vivian Owens had assigned him to the furthest fields from the village out of spite or consideration. He often had to walk five or six miles before he could begin work, but at least then he was left to it. It was true that whilst he was buoyant about being back in Blackwell, not many of the villagers were pleased to see him. Besides his brother, six of their boys were dead already, and two left with no legs. Of course they hated him, with his principles, limbs and life. He inadvertently taunted the grieving mothers and fathers, the wives and children. His strength and vitality were torture to many, so he didn’t assume people would want to pass the time of day with him in the street or the store, he didn’t expect to get served in the pub and he got used to the children interrupting their games to throw stones or dried manure at him.

Today she’d sent word via his mother that she’d like him to walk around the boundaries, patching up the fences where he could, identifying the gaping gaps that really demanded the highly coveted wood and expensive wire. Some might think it humiliating that he received his orders from a woman and via his mother, like a schoolboy earning a penny or two for doing odd jobs, but Howard had no debilitating hubris about this matter. Yes, he was a proud and ethical man, but he picked his battles. He didn’t know if agreeing to come back to Blackwell was wrong or right. He didn’t know if it mattered either way. The thing was done. There was no point in making it more awkward than it had to be by finding fault in how it was here. After all, the army had been relieved to get him out of sight; ultimately the Powers That Be thought that this war couldn’t afford objectors to be either shot or tolerated; they were in an impossible, tenuous position. They were sick with the whole business and ready for someone to offer a quiet solution.

It turned out that Vivian Owens really was his mother’s friend, perhaps the closest friend his mother had ever had in Blackwell, a village she and his father had adopted after they married but not one that either had been born to. In all his life he’d never known his mother visit another woman every day. He supposed that when he and Michael were young she simply hadn’t had the time for such intimacy, even if it was ever offered, and he wasn’t sure it had been.

His mother, an abandoned woman and artist, had always operated on the fringes of Blackwell village. She wasn’t ostracised as such, but she wasn’t welcomed either. She was always asked to donate cakes to fund-raisers, but hers were the last to be purchased and then usually by the vicar. The women were polite enough and nodded to her in the street and church, but he couldn’t remember her being invited in for a brew or anyone saving a space for her in a pew. It was only now, when he saw how enthusiastically she took up her friendship, that he wondered whether she had ever hankered after female company, or had her boys, her painting and her washing been enough to keep her from feeling lonely? He wasn’t sure. He felt protective of her, and wary; this Vivian Owens seemed too good to be true. She was young, elevated in society. Beautiful. Surely she could befriend anyone she chose. Then again, maybe she didn’t want just anyone. His mother was special. Someone different and valuable. He knew that; it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that Vivian Owens might have worked out the same. Nonetheless, it niggled him that whilst his mother visited Vivian Owens nearly every day, notably she didn’t come to them.