I won’t name him. That would be wrong. I’m sure if somebody truly wanted to know they could put the pieces together and make sense of it all, but I promised I would not tell, and I am trying to keep that promise. At the same time, I have a vow to keep to Christopher. When he went to war I swore I would keep him informed of life back home. I got into the habit of asking people questions. People started telling me their stories and I would write them down and send them to Christopher. When he died, I didn’t stop. It somehow became more important to keep asking. Keep writing. It helped me to continue to feel his presence. Eventually, I knew I would find the tale that would have inspired him to write the book that would have made him famous. Christopher was destined to matter. He had a gift with words that I cannot replicate. War robbed me of my son but more importantly it robbed the world of a true talent. It is in his memory that I write these words and you will forgive an old man for crying as he writes.

They came to me in early spring. They brought a bottle and a fruit loaf and we talked, as we had so often. Crops. Birds. Plans for the hall and whether the river would flood again this year. We talked as old friends. And then he said it. Told me he had something he wanted to get off his chest. I wince, thinking about the way he said it. That little smile of acknowledgement at his poor choice of words.

He told me that all I knew of him was a lie.

How do I start? Perhaps I should simply repeat it the way he said it to me. His name had been Abel. He was a Frenchman. Was apprentice as a printer in a little town called Les Papillons in the Dordogne. He told me that meant The Butterflies. His home was in a commune of cliffs and caves in a pocket of the world that I will never see. I have looked at the area on maps and seen photographs but I cannot truly imagine how it would be to grow up in that place of fossils and bones. His childhood was simple, his ambitions no different to that of any other young man. He played in the caves. Played football. Drank wine and coffee and sang songs with his friends. Then the Germans came.

It was with disgust that Abel witnessed his government give in to the Nazis. Their collaboration turned his stomach and like so many other brave young men and women, he searched for a way that he could help liberate his country. He became a member of the Resistance. He joined the Maquisards. Brave men and women who refused to surrender to an occupying force.