‘But you need to know what happened to Charlie to understand why . . . why things went so wrong between me and your Pa.’

I looked at him. His eyes were so like my Pa’s – round and ocean-blue – and full of sad, sad stories. I thought of the wedding photograph and suddenly I understood.

‘Mutti?’ I whispered.

‘Yes. Your mother.’ He looked down at the floor. ‘We couldn’t accept it – your grandmother and I. We couldn’t understand how our son could fall in love with a German girl, not after that war, after Charlie . . . My wife was very ill by then and the news that they were getting married was the end of her. Your Pa and I haven’t spoken since the day of her funeral. I moved away just after.’

I thought of Pa and Mutti’s lonely wedding day; the solemn, haunted faces of the bride and groom. My grandmother, Pa’s mother, had died just before he married Mutti, and Joe had always blamed them for her death.

‘And time goes by, doesn’t it? It’s frightening how quickly time goes by.’ Joe’s eyes were brimming with tears now. His gnarled hand clasped mine.

All those lost years . . .

‘I came back to try to build a bridge with your Pa, but then this war started, and . . . everything just came flooding back again.’

I thought about him calling Mutti ‘Jerry’ in Mrs Rossi’s bakery. Joe had come back to Stonegate to try to put the past behind him, but he had not been able to, and Pa had died before the rift could be mended.

‘I spent so long hating what I thought was the enemy,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘but I was wrong. Time is the greatest enemy of all.’ He looked right into my eyes then, and for a moment it was as if Pa were there with me. ‘Every bit of hate left me the moment I saw that lump blown out of the cliff and you all crumpled up on the ledge below. I thought I’d lost you as well as your Pa.’

He looked terribly lost then, terribly alone.

I wanted to put my arms around him, but I couldn’t sit up.

‘Our Mutti didn’t kill your brother, Grandpa Joe,’ I said. I tried to swallow the rough, painful lump in my throat. ‘Our Mutti is the most gentle person in the whole world.’

Joe sobbed once and tears spilt down his weather-worn cheeks. He squeezed my hand more tightly between his. ‘I’m sure she is, Petra,’ he said.

I heard the faint calls of seagulls from somewhere beyond the window.

‘And she does beautiful paintings – of the sea, and the cliffs and the lighthouse. I think you would like her.’

Joe wiped his eyes. He nodded, trying to smile. ‘I . . . I’ve never actually spoken to her.’