I wrote to a man who’d known my father: a general, the chap who’d actually signed me up for the regiment in ’39. He very kindly wrote back to me and told me all sorts of things: that my father had been one of the best-loved young officers in his brigade, that he’d been recommended for the DSO but that there had been some sort of mix-up. He’d ended up in India because of the gassing: it helps me to think of him as a racehorse put out to pasture, not as someone running away from responsibility, which was how he always seemed to appear. I’m afraid that was how he felt. How ghastly. I do need help to think about him. It’s awful knowing there are things one will never be able to straighten out. At times I think I’d give what remains of my arm for just one more conversation. At least we had that evening last year. Not enough, but something, at least. While I was in hospital I heard that I’d been promoted to captain, his rank, and I want to tell him, because he’d have been happy, I think. I hope.

Almost as upsetting, in a different way, was my realisation that Mrs Leeds, who I’d always thought of as a mercenary harpy and a gold-digger, actually loved him very much. Where does my poor mother stand in all this? I don’t know. She was still his wife, but she hadn’t talked about him, except briefly and bitterly, for years. Unfortunately, she’s always loved him too. This is all rather typical of Dad, come to think of it. Years of absolute bloody-mindedness, of being horrible to everyone who came close to him, and still we all, in our different ways, loved him. Why? Perhaps that isn’t really the point. Thanks to you, I understand love. I know not to question it.