Fred, Mum and Dad were all in the kitchen when we got there, Fred and Dad drinking beer from the bottle. They all stood, even Fred, and shook hands with Roy. I threw my arms around Fred, surprised by how much older he looked. He had a pair of crutches leaning up against the wall and a bandage around his knee but otherwise he didn’t appear crook. He patted the top of my head and slapped Roy on the back—maybe a little too hard—and said something about how he’d warned me about those Yanks, hadn’t he?

The place smelled the same—like it didn’t get enough air—and I was glad it wasn’t a hot day and we weren’t all stuck sweating in there with the oven on and the cooker going full blast. Mum had combed her hair and put her lippie on, and though she wore her tatty apron, underneath it was her nicest Sunday dress.

Dad looked as though he’d had a few bottles already—despite its being only noon—and I hoped that the food would steady his keel. Fred led the men out to the lounge and I stayed to help Mum; she was making gravy, so I finished shelling the peas. Pulling the thread from the pod and then snapping it open to find those perfect, springy green pearls was a favourite job of mine since girlhood, and with the water nearly boiled and the peas beside an empty bowl I knew Mum had saved it for me.

‘How is he?’ I asked, once I was seated in the familiar old chair. I tilted my chin towards Fred’s crutches, which he’d left in the kitchen, leaning instead on Dad as he walk-hopped to the lounge.

‘Seems alright,’ Mum said. ‘Full of stories, of course. Been at the pub with Dad telling them yesterday.’

I hmm’d, having just popped three crunchy peas in my mouth.

‘Save some for the pot, will you?’ Mum said. She bent over to pull the lamb from the oven and the smell was so good it made my stomach ache with hunger, the dark roasted skin sizzling in the fat at the bottom of the pan.

‘He wants to go back, but I hope they won’t let him. The surgeon who pulled out the bullet said we’ll have to wait and see how it heals.’

‘And how’s Dad?’

‘See for yourself.’ Mum poured the gravy from the pan into a jug and sat beside me, pulling the bowl of unshelled peas between us. She was twice as fast as me; as she stripped the peas her fingers flew, and the pale green orbs were scraped with a fingertip and the pod discarded while I was still finding a string. ‘You’d think it was him who was over there, the way he tells the story.’

‘And what about Jack?’