THE MIST IS LIFTING. HARRY WATCHES IT PEEL BACK AND HALF EXPECTS to see tents and horses and howitzers, but all that it reveals is wet green grass and silence. It is this silence, this stillness, that is strangest. It is not peaceful, this absence of noise. He ought to breathe it in slowly, but instead he finds himself holding his breath. It is like it has stalled—the film reel has jammed and any second shells will roar their return. A dog howls somewhere in the distance. A pheasant flutters from a hedge. A gramophone starts up somewhere in the house behind. Harry throws his cigarette away.

“Do you want some tea?” asks Cassie from the door. “It’s English tea. The proper stuff. Product of Yorkshire’s finest tea plantations.”

“You’re making a garden,” he says. He nods at the borders.

“Ralph talks to his seedlings. And knows all their names in Latin. I could get quite jealous.” She smiles. “It’s in the pot. Come in when you’re ready.”

He steps into the kitchen. She is leaning against the stove, looking thoughtful, with a slice of toast in her hand. “His mother still sends him food parcels,” she says, waving the toast. “Marmalade, gingerbread, tea leaves, the Times crossword. I half suspect that no one has told her that the war’s over. She used to send him boxes of Craster kippers, only the postal service isn’t what it once was.”

“My mother used to send us fruitcakes. She worked in a bakery, so we got a lot of just slightly stale cake. What with there being three of us and all, our parcels were the envy of the battalion.”

Cassie licks marmalade from her fingers and stirs the teapot. “I talked too much last night. Ralph told me off for it this morning. I’d probably had too much to drink as well. I apologize if I said anything that I shouldn’t.”

“Not at all.” He nods for her to pour the tea. “I enjoyed your company.”

Her fingers tap on the table in time with the music that’s coming from the floor above. “Thomas Tallis,” she says. “He likes a bit of English Renaissance while he shaves. Did I see you with a cigarette? I’m not meant to, but while the cat’s away.”

Harry lights Cassie’s cigarette and she gives him a wink. They drink tea together, listening to the secondhand chorals. Her portrait is propped against the kitchen dresser. She looks toward it from time to time. “You’re wasted as a photographer,” she says.

“My boss might agree with you.”

“How many do you have to take?”

“Twelve, for the present. I have a piece of paper with twelve names on it. I have to cross them off.”

“Thirteen,” corrects Cassie.

He looks up at her.

“Thirteen including your Francis, I presume?”

“Yes. Of course.”