I THOUGHT YOU’D STOPPED DRAWING,” SAID WILL. THE WIND WHIPPED his hair around his face. He squinted into the low sun. “I haven’t seen you painting for ages. I thought you’d given all of that up.”

“So did I. I tried.” Harry smiled up at his brother. “I haven’t done this for months.”

It had been odd to open the sketchbook again. For nine months he had told himself to leave it closed. After he’d made the difficult decision not to take up the place at the art college, he’d told himself that he must put all of that behind him; he’d chosen to be here with his brothers instead, and he must now look forward, not back. But today the wind whisked and whistled across the dry sand ahead, planes were scribbling over the sea, and Boulogne-sur-Mer was oyster-gray, umbers, and rose. How could he not test that on paper?

“I’m glad,” Will said. “You were miserable when you weren’t painting.”

“Was I? Did you notice that?”

“You kept looking at the sky moodily and glowering at trees. Francis said that you were pining for your paint box, and we had to cheer you up, or else you might artistically top yourself.”

Harry laughed.

The blue-green of the sea pooled on the enamel of his palette, curling into paint approximations of sand and sky. He tilted his paper and breathed steadily as he let the colors run. Harry wasn’t sure about glowering at trees, but he did admit that today he felt like himself again. Fully himself. Calm. Whole. He sat back, smiled at Will, and lit a cigarette.

“I was collecting seashells.”

Will sat down next to him. His fingers uncurled to show a handful of cockleshells. He spilled them out and then busied himself planting them in a neat line in the sand. A squad was drilling up on the promenade. Harry could hear the rhythm of boots and barked orders.

“Can I?”

“Of course.”

Harry watched his brother’s sandy fingers turning through his sketchbook. The wind flickered through studies of his own mirror features, his brothers’ eyes and smiles, and Edie’s face there, over and over. He felt conscious of that suddenly, watching Will’s fingers turn the pages.

“They haven’t told us where we’re going yet.” Will skimmed a shell down the beach.

“Do you want to be going anywhere? How about we just stay here?”

Will laughed and then frowned. Harry watched his younger brother consider the question. In the bright beach light he was just a boy.

“No,” he replied at length. “You know, I don’t think I would mind too much. I like playing football on the sand and going in the cafés for ice creams. Francis has found one that does chips and gravy. It’s like someone else’s war, isn’t it?”

Harry nodded and smiled.