it and said, No, this is me all over, but he still couldn't hear her saying it, couldn't see her doing it, and he couldn't remember what happened next though, of course, he would put a shilling on what it must have been.

   After the war he'd worked his way up, in the end, to farm manager at Cobbs.  Wal, though.  How had Wal come through the whole war, in bloody tanks for goodness' sake, without a scratch?  Plenty of campaign medals, but not a scratch on him.  Wal's luck.  The only harm he'd taken was, as he put it and no surprise, a dose of the clap.  In France.  You could bet Wal wouldn't come back to the farm, and, sure enough, he went into the scrap trade over by Ringwood.  But always came back to Halefoot every Saturday.  Usually in a different car each time it seemed.  Wal called them motors, but he wasn't flash, no camel-hair coats or anything, everybody knew him in the Quarter Moon and it was almost as though he'd never left.    He had a wife but he never brought her.  She belonged to his life over by Ringwood, along with the big house and garden nobody had seen either.

    "What do they call you in Ringwood, then?"  Jim asked him once.   

    "Mr Simes, mostly."

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