He knew that many of the men found their leaves disappointing. No one spoke of it, God forbid, but he’d observed it in their eyes when they came back to the trenches, in the set of their jaws. The reminder was uncomfortable for some, unbearable for others. They all hoped for too much from their visits. They all thought going home might mean they could turn back time; make the war disappear, at least help them to forget about it for a few days. Leave didn’t do that; it couldn’t, and they blamed the people they loved the most for the shortfall between expectation and reality. Their wives and sweethearts seemed silly, inconsequential, exasperating. They had no idea.

He felt grubby and different. It was hard to look at her. Her duty was to comfort him, to keep the home fires burning and all that, and in truth she gave it a shot. She had Cook make decent suppers, she dressed up, she fussed over him when his headache and fever developed into a cold, she kept placing the baby on his knee, but somehow her efforts seemed to hit a false note. True, it felt wonderful to have his uniform cleaned and aired, because whilst the officers had it better than the men over there, there was no hot water and such. He appreciated the new socks and underwear, but it was apparent she could offer him nothing more than her best Sunday manners. She treated him like an esteemed guest. No intimacy. Her efforts only highlighted the gulf between them. He’d been an idiot to imagine it could be any other way. They had not been close before the war; how could he have thought that separation might bring them together? It was illogical. He was angry with himself for being irrational and starry-eyed. He told himself that he ought to be grateful. The men who adored their wives and were worshipped back must feel worse than he did. Few of them would be able to bring themselves to actually say what it was like, even assuming the women wanted to hear. Losing tender confidence would be worse. Perhaps he was better off after all. Nothing to lose.

31

HE CAME BACK from the war not a hero, as she’d hoped, but distant and full of cold. She tried to be a good wife, the sort he’d think best. Attentive, considerate, dutiful. She bathed his feet. He sat, trousers rolled up, fat, swollen feet plunged into a basin that she’d fetched herself, the smell of Lysol drifting through the rooms. She encouraged him to drink honey and lemon and to inhale eucalyptus. He kept insisting he wasn’t all that ill, and truthfully, before the war she might not have made as much of his symptoms, but she wanted to fuss. It was good that she could do something to ease him. She was glad his cold flourished during his leave and not over there, but somehow his masculinity seemed to leach out of him, and she’d been depending so heavily on admiring his bravery. She had hoped it would be an adequate substitute for love. She seemed to need this more than ever, but he was reduced, insubstantial.