‘Perhaps we could have our picnic here? It seems very nice,’ she pronounced in a clear, cut-glass voice.

‘Mabel!’ Vivian’s response was a hissed whisper, powdered with embarrassment that anyone else might have overheard, rather than genuine distress or discomfort at the suggestion. Mabel was right. The cemetery had been consecrated almost as soon as the armistice was announced, and was well kept. Pretty. Peaceful. A perfect place for a picnic except for the other mourners milling around. Vivian didn’t want to be disrespectful. She bent down to place the wreath on Aubrey’s grave, her blooming belly in the way.

‘It’s not an awful suggestion,’ said Howard. He had tight hold of Freddie’s hand; at three years old, the boy was able to vanish within a moment. The headstones would prove an irresistible place to play hide and seek. Personally Howard would have liked to see his son run amok through the graves. He thought the dead lads might like to know that children played and laughed. Still. That life had gone on after all. Even though there had been a point when they’d doubted it would. Doubted it could.

Vivian bit her lip, unsure. She glanced around and noted that other visitors had unfolded deckchairs; they sat above their husbands, sons and brothers and talked to them as though they were around the kitchen table, in the parlour or on the back step. The earth that had once been rank, wet and glistening was now dried hard, unchangeable. She looked to Enid for guidance, who settled the matter. ‘I think Mabel should be able to share a sarnie with her father if she fancies it.’ She pointed to a patch of grass not actually on the dead, but close by.

Vivian was carrying the tartan rug – Howard wouldn’t let her carry anything more; she shook it out and he jumped into action, smoothing out the corners. Enid reached inside the wicker hamper. It was a simple basket, with napkins rather than plates; she started to carefully, quietly unpack. The children bundled down, legs and arms joyously splayed. Mabel bossed her little brother and then pulled him into a clumsy hug; he accepted both things from her with an equanimity that could have been mistaken for indifference if you failed to notice his chubby hand resting on her leg. The siblings adored one another.

Howard had thought the timing of the whole trip was somewhat inadvisable. The new baby was due in four weeks, but Vivian had laughingly pointed out that once they had three children, she’d probably never find the energy to leave the house again, let alone travel to France. This was something they had to do. Not lay it to rest exactly. He didn’t think that could ever happen. Nor should it. He thought of the war when he tied a knot in his tie, when he drank a glass of beer, when he put groceries in the pantry. It was always there and always would be now. Man had passed a point of no return. All he could do was pound on his typewriter and tell it as it was. As it had been. For him. For them all. He could not make sense of it, defend it or condemn it. Too late for any of that. Too late. Sometimes that thought made him wake in the night shrieking, shivering, pissing. They’d sacrificed peaceful sleeps for evermore, the war-hungry land-grabbers.