Night hung heavy the curtain hung thick and sticky behind you could not lift know savez-vous was what Mme Adorée the bunch of shiny cherries that she picked and then she said les Boches it was all up with les petits enfants was the Kaiser from the Illustrated London News walking in the field the shells flowered soundlessly to run the mud clung the feet the mud Ell-yott can no longer run your feet are mud and the bump at the bottom it will burst flow like candlelight behind the hatbox that the cherry trimmed must reach must shout the sewn mouth so many stitches did not move sewn to the carpet like the feet.

He was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

You’ve been walking in your sleep, Mother said.

Above him the candlelight she held. She floated. Her nightgown and her hair were streaming out by candlelight. She wore the dressing-gown with mignonette, a field of greeny yellow sprigs.

But the Germans, he said.

Give me your hand, said Mother. It’s a dream.

As if it wasn’t still, standing near the stairs, your eyes swelled, were no longer yours.

We’ll soon be asleep, she said, walking.

It was too much trouble to explain, to explain what. He let her lead him up the stairs, a long way back.

It was in the basement, you said, shivered. And Mme Adorée.

Yes, she said. Here we are. Jump into bed. There.

It was a dream.

Of course, she said.

You looked at a field of mignonette, the eyes closed, behind the eyes, under your chin the sheet felt safe.

The War depended largely on Mother, she read the battles out of the papers, or she made it recede, she came upstairs while you were having tea, and said you would leave for the country in a few days’ time.

You will go to Somerset with Julia, Mother said.

Will there be cows? you asked.

Yes, I expect there’ll be cows, she sighed.

Then she told Julia in another voice about the tickets, about the Macarthys. You were going to live with the Macarthys, she said.

So the War gave way to the currant bushes in the Macarthys’ back garden, there was one currant bush that had strayed round in front, was in with the marigolds and phlox, and the delphiniums, the butterfly delphiniums, Mrs Macarthy said, it made her spit through a gap in her teeth. Currant bushes in leaf had a green glare that was always afternoon. You walked down the brick step, hollowed by feet, into the green glare, and the big white patches of the cloths they laid on the currant bushes, like big white cotton flowers. At the corner of the house there was a smell of kitchen water. It lay against the red brick. But farther, you came to the smell of grass, and in late summer, pears that the wasps had opened. The back garden was a continual humming, your own, or the girls’ voices from the kitchen, or the wasps and bees, if you lay with your face amongst the grass the whole world was a world of humming, in a green, afternoon glare.