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I don’t think of him every moment of every day. The only time I don’t think of him is when I’m fast asleep—then every morning I wake up and I have to learn it again. So let’s just get on with it. . . .
    â€œI want to keep Johnnie close,” she says now.
    I put my hand on her wrist.
    â€œOf course you do,” I say. “Of course you wouldn’t want him to go.”
    Perhaps I’m lucky that both my children are girls. When I was younger, I felt I’d love to have a son as well; but war changes everything. Even the things you hope for.
    Mrs. du Barry brings our tea. The quilted tea cozy is shaped like a thatched cottage, and the milk jug has a crochet cover held in place by beads. There are cakes on a silver cakestand—Battenberg, cream slices, luxurious chocolate eclairs. I take a slice of Battenberg. We sip our tea and eat our cake, and watch as the sun sinks down in the sky and spreads its gold on the sea.
    Gwen sighs.
    â€œJohnnie’s such a worry—what he might get up to,” she says. “He’s been a bit wild since it happened. It’s not really anything he’s done, just what I feel he could do. . . .”
    â€œIt’s such a short time,” I tell her.
    â€œHe worshipped his brother,” she says.
    â€œYes.”
    I remember Brian’s memorial service—how Johnnie didn’t cry, how he stood at attention, his face white as wax, his body so rigid, controlled. He made me think of a cello string stretched too tight, that might suddenly break. He troubled me. I know just why Gwen worries so about him.
    â€œHe longs to do what Brian did,” she tells me. “He wears Brian’s army jumper. And he’s got a box of Brian’s things—his binoculars, and his shotgun that he used for shooting rabbits, and his famous collection of Dinky cars that he kept from when he was small. The box is Johnnie’s most precious possession, he keeps it under his bed.”
    I feel a tug of sadness for Johnnie.
    We’re quiet for a moment. It’s getting late, and Mrs. du Barry hangs the CLOSED sign on her door. My hands are sticky with marzipan from the Battenberg cake, and I wipe them on my handkerchief. The spicy scent of the marigolds is all around us.
    And then I ask the question that looms at the front of my mind—vivid as neon, inescapable.
    â€œGwen. What will happen?”
    She leans a little toward me.
    â€œThey’ll overlook us,” she says, too definitely. “Don’t you think? Like in the Great War.”
    â€œDo you really think so?”
    â€œNobody bothered with us, during the Great War,” she says.
    â€œThat’s true enough. But that was then . . .”
    â€œI mean, what difference do we make to anything? What use could these little islands possibly be to Hitler?” There’s a note of pleading in her voice; perhaps it’s herself as much as me that she’s trying to persuade. “Maybe he won’t think of us. That’s what I hope, anyway. You’ve got to hope, haven’t you?”
    But her hand holding the teacup is shaking very slightly, so the tea shivers all across its surface.
    She clears her throat, which seems suddenly thick.
    â€œAnyway, Vivienne—tell me more about all of you,” she says. Moving on to safer things.
    â€œBlanche is unhappy,” I tell her. “She terribly wanted to go.”
    â€œWell, she would, of course,” says Gwen. “There isn’t much here for young people, you can see how she’d long for London. And Millie?”
    â€œShe’s being ever so brave, though she doesn’t really understand.”
    â€œShe’s a poppet,” says Gwen.
    â€œAnd Evelyn—well, I’m not sure she’s quite right in her mind anymore. Half the time she seems to forget that Eugene joined up. . . .” I see the shadow that rapidly moves across Gwen’s face, at the mention of