He flicked open his newspaper. The light was fading and the print was hard to read. He heard Geoffrey’s breath, rasping a little, as if his lungs had got rusty after all the years.

‘Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?’ Geoffrey’s features were in the shade, out of sight. Perhaps, Joe thought, it was easier like that.

‘I wanted to,’ Joe said. ‘But could never find the words or the right moment. But it roiled me. It did that. All this while.’

The clock in the hall whirred and chimed. Joe had got it going again when he came back in 1945, and it had never stopped since. It ran a little slow, these days, but didn’t they all?

‘Nobody wanted to talk about the war,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It was a painful time. People wanted to forget. Nobody wanted to listen.’

Joe and Geoffrey never spoke, so why should they expect differently? Who wanted to hear, anyway? What would be the point? The history of the occupation was written. Why stir things up? People wanted the past to be forgotten.

‘Our war was different,’ Geoffrey said.

Joe supposed it was, come to think of it. At least, from the rest of Britain. France and Holland knew what it was like to live under the Germans.

‘It’s never been brought to book,’ Geoffrey continued. ‘Our war.’

Why should it? Joe thought. What more could be said?

‘Some people did well out of the war,’ Geoffrey went on, his thoughts rolling free now. ‘Our friend, Pierre, for a start. Got off scot-free.’

He’s right, Joe thought, there was no accounting, not for what went on. Pierre had spent some time in Britain, after the war. Never said why. Had slunk back some years later, none the poorer.

‘But they’ll pick on some wretch of a woman fast enough,’ Geoffrey was saying. ‘Shame her for sleeping with the enemy. Shave her.’

Joe creased his forehead. Perhaps Geoffrey was thinking of Margaret. He was shaking his head, his eyes rheumy and watery. Hadn’t she gone with a German? Now, it wasn’t right to sell your body, Joe knew that, but what wouldn’t a man – or woman, come to think of it – do to survive? Oh no, Joe wouldn’t condemn a soul for that. He’d been there himself, right enough.

‘Still,’ Joe said. ‘It was tough.’ He’d admit that, though he wasn’t sure where this conversation was leading.

‘Tougher for some more than others,’ Geoffrey said.

You and me. Joe stared through the open window at the darkening sky. This time of a June evening, it folded around them like an indigo scarf. The silence was broken by the chirring of a nightjar, his soft hum rising and falling. It was a difficult bird to spot. Bad enough by day, impossible by night unless you caught it flying. But you could hear it. Listen and look.