I know who’s getting sleepy. Julia, it’s time they went upstairs.

In the morning a car came to take them to Bridgton.

Good-bye, darlings, Mother said, just before her veil dropped. We’ll hope, we’ll hope it’ll soon be over.

It had begun to rain again.

Soon it will be over, she said, you said, or the wind from the Atlantic, or the wind from the coast of Wales, or Sunday bells, or the frozen, frilled mouth of the speaking shell. It began to happen like this, in spite of newspapers. It began to be a ticking in the house. Julia cried. She was crying for the Boys. But it went on quietly, the ticking in the house, a pressure in the bay, a seeping in the earth when the sun got through.

It was nothing and everything to do with Elyot Standish. Doing the things they told him to, it was a matter of overcoats and dynasties, of toothpaste and broccoli. This was what he amounted to, a recipient of food or learning or the rules of hygiene. But this did not account for the sensations that went on inside him apart from the Macarthys and Julia. There was something that fumbled out of his own body, as he walked against the sky, becoming as much wind as body, or when he lay on the shore, and the sound of the water lapped across the chest, a blaze of sun shone between the bones. Later he began to wonder about this. Now he only accepted it in surprise. At night he would wake for a moment, to wonder, before he found it was too late, he was sinking in the sea of turned faces, just before or after the event.

Soon it will be over, she said.

It happened driving into Bridgton. Blossom had a little star on her rump that you watched, through the voice of Mrs Macarthy, you could get quite dizzy at times if you stared both long and hard enough at the star on Blossom’s rump. The journey to Bridgton was a long blur. There were the hedges and the same cottages, it was always the same, nothing ever happened on the road to Bridgton. Not before the old man ran out, his beard blowing in the wind, that old man looked a little bit mad.

He’s most certainly off his head, Mrs Macarthy said.

She clucked at the horse to get her past. But the old man shouted, he stood in the road, till Mrs Macarthy grew quite red.

There’s been an Armistice! the old man shouted.

An Armistice? said Mrs Macarthy, going now from red to pale.

I been heard it in Bridgton, the old man said. Yes. The Huns are beat. There’s no more fightin’.

What’s an Armistice? Eden asked.

Mrs Macarthy was very quiet. She sat with the whip upright in her hand. Her black moustache had begun to quiver.

You’ll remember this, young man, the old man said.

His trousers were gathered at the knees with cord.