John had the address but no phone number. They sent each other Christmas cards, but John wasn’t one for saying much. What can you write in a card? There was so little space and he had no news. Still teaching at same school. Still living at this address. Still single. Arthur didn’t share stuff either. Just signed his Arthur. He hadn’t seen him for years. It had been unfair to embroil him, John recognised now. He wouldn’t want to be involved again, and John had to respect that. Still, he needed reassurance.

He opened the carriage window to let in more breeze and lit a cigarette. There were two other people with him, a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves and paint-splattered trousers, a tool bag at his feet. He was reading the Daily Sketch, and opposite him was an elderly woman who had got on at London Bridge and sat knitting, needles clacking faster than a loom. She looked up, smiled, as if she knew him.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re not related to Jimmy Braithwaite, are you? You look just like him. You could be his brother.’

‘No,’ John said. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted silence, space to think what he was going to say to Arthur.

‘Only he died in the war,’ she went on. ‘Tobruk. Shocking thing that. Only twenty-one. He was my neighbour’s nephew.’ She paused, counted her stitches, and John hoped that was the end of it. He nodded in sympathy. ‘She said her sister never got over it. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Were you in the war, son?’

John looked out of the window. He shouldn’t be rude, and the woman needed to talk.

‘No,’ he said, matter-of-fact, hoping it would put her off. ‘My call-up papers came after the war.’

‘Well, you were lucky,’ she said. ‘Lots weren’t. My husband fought in the last war. Well, the war before the last war, so he wasn’t needed again. He would have gone, but they said he was too old. We only had daughters, so that was all right, though one of them was a WRN. She did look lovely in her uniform. The WRNs’ uniform was lovely, don’t you think? Such a pretty blue, and so flattering. Where are we?’

‘Coming into Eltham,’ John said.

‘Goodness me, I get off here.’ She stuck the needles in the ball of wool, wrapped the half-knitted garment around them and shoved it all in her bag.

‘Nice to meet you,’ she said. ‘I could have sworn you were Jimmy’s brother.’