‘Didn’t they leave you any?’ he asked.

She grimaced. ‘They rather put me off my food.’ She was a snob. He was right. ‘I can’t imagine being that ravenous, so eating after I’ve witnessed their hunger always makes me feel quite gluttonous.’ Not a snob, then. Charitable. Sensitive. ‘It’s astounding to think they are all from one family.’ She shook her head. ‘I think there are two or three more. Seven children under the age of ten.’

‘You disapprove?’ Her own baby stirred. He leaned over to take a proper look. Instinctively he stretched out and ran his finger along her cheek; it was warm and as soft as cream. He pulled his hand back. Part of him still wasn’t able to understand how both things could be on this earth: a plump, sleeping baby with apples in her cheeks, and putrid, blasted flesh hanging off corpses.

‘Did you see, only the big one wore any boots at all, and they had clearly once belonged to his father. They flapped about like castanets when he ran. It is awful. Awful to think about. Awful to look at. The village has so many families with five, six, seven children. It all seems so excessive. There aren’t enough boots or food to go around. Not enough water either by the look of them.’

‘I don’t know what to make of you.’ He said it before he thought about it.

‘Have you been spending time trying to understand me, Mr Henderson?’

He had, but telling her seemed improper. ‘Bringing them lunch was a kind thing to do.’

‘Well, their bellies won’t rumble this afternoon, true, but it’s all rather pointless. I can’t fix the bigger problem.’

‘The bigger problem?’

‘There are so many of them. Why do the poor carry on so when proper families see the virtue in two or three children and abstaining from . . . well, you know.’ She flushed and looked bad-tempered. It was clear she wished she hadn’t made the observation that was leading down such a mortifying path.

‘Abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh?’ He purposely picked an archaic saying to highlight her prudery. He was teasing her to punish her for her ingrained condescension.

‘Yes.’ She wouldn’t look at him.

‘Maybe the posh people don’t find it quite so pleasurable.’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘Yes, you are right, it is. Maybe they don’t find it quite so necessary, so urgent, because they have other things, don’t they? Like balls, dresses, hunting. All that. And they’ve caused a war now; that’s a good distraction.’

She didn’t respond; instead, she carefully scooped up her daughter, hurriedly picked up the basket and turned on her heel. He watched her walk away at some speed, her buttocks bouncing satisfyingly in the trousers. He wondered how many siblings she had. He didn’t know much about her.

That night Howard commented to his mother, ‘I don’t understand Vivian Owens’ marriage. I remember old Aubrey.’ In public he had to refer to them as Mr and Mrs Owens; in his head she was Vivian Owens, sometimes just Vivian, and he was always old Aubrey, even though he was still a young man and Howard hadn’t seen him since he was thirteen or fourteen, a child.