“Edie, he was dying. He had gunshot wounds to the chest. We were ordered forward. There was no one to help him. And it was too late. At the time I had absolutely no doubt about that. I wouldn’t have left him, if I had any doubt. It was too late.”

“I’d like to get rather drunk,” she says.

“CAN I DRAW your picture?”

“It’s a very long time since you last asked me that.”

“Isn’t it? Too long. For old times’ sake, then?”

“I’m not a girl of eighteen any longer.”

“And I’m not a boy of seventeen, who only dares to look you in the eye when he’s given permission to draw your portrait.” He looks at her then. “But don’t make me remember that. Please. I’m not sure that it’s manly to blush.”

She smiles, and nods, and he draws her there in the café. She watches Harry’s eyes and his moving hands, as she has done so many times before.

“It’s the sketchbook that I gave you, isn’t it? I thought you’d lost all of that.”

“It’s the only thing I didn’t lose. It was in my pocket at the time, when everything else went.” He looks up and closes the book. “What was it that you said to me—hand it back to me one day full of pictures?”

“I did! And will you? May I?”

He gives her the book and she turns to the first page and sees her own likeness. “Denham Hall?” It’s her, standing in the doorframe of the red gallery. “Four years ago? It seems longer, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Goodness, you always flattered.”

“I never did. Not one bit.”

“‘If I cling on to you, will you help me not to bounce back down?’” She smiles as she recalls his voice. “That’s right, isn’t it? That was your line?”

He stares at her. “You remembered that?”

“I did. Of course I did.”

She pages through the book and her own face flickers at her. Again and again. It’s there so many times. She looks up and catches his eye, and there’s suddenly something difficult in that connection. Why does she feel like she’s overheard him whispering a secret? Like she’s listening in to him making a confession?

“There were no other women to draw,” he says. “I like female faces, and I’d drawn yours so many times before that I could do it from memory.”

“I understand.” She looks at Harry’s face, his obvious embarrassment, and feels like she needs to be cautious about what she says next.

“We were a bloody ugly lot. A real rough bunch. You’ve never seen so many unlovely faces.”