Actually, when we did reach the sea, we found we were standing on a road carved into a cliff edge. It seemed at first there was a sheer drop down to the sands, but once you leant over the rail, you could see zigzagging footpaths leading you down the cliff-face to the seafront.

We were starving by now and went into a little café perched on the cliff just where one of the footpaths began. When we went in, the only people inside were the two chubby women in aprons who worked there. They were smoking cigarettes at one of the tables, but they quickly got up and disappeared into the kitchen, so then we had the place to ourselves.

We took the table right at the back—which meant the one stuck out closest to the cliff edge—and when we sat down it felt like we were virtually suspended over the sea. I didn’t have anything to compare it with at the time, but I realise now the café was tiny, with just three or four little tables. They’d left a window open—probably to stop the place filling up with frying smells—so that every now and then a gust would pass through the room making all the signs advertising their good deals flutter about. There was one cardboard notice pinned over the counter that had been done in coloured felt-tips, and at the top of it was the word “look” with a staring eye drawn inside each “o.” I see the same thing so often these days I don’t even register it, but back then I hadn’t seen it before. So I was looking at it admiringly, then caught Ruth’s eye, and realised she too was looking at it amazed, and we both burst out laughing. That was a cosy little moment, when it felt like we’d left behind the bad feeling that had grown between us in the car. As it turned out, though, it was just about the last moment like that between me and Ruth for the rest of that outing.

We hadn’t mentioned the “possible” at all since arriving in the town, and I’d assumed when we sat down we’d finally discuss the matter properly. But once we’d started on our sandwiches, Rodney began talking about their old friend, Martin, who’d left the Cottages the year before and was now living somewhere in the town. Chrissie eagerly took up the subject and soon both veterans were coming out with anecdotes about all the hilarious things Martin had got up to. We couldn’t follow much of it, but Chrissie and Rodney were really enjoying themselves. They kept exchanging glances and laughing, and although they pretended it was for our benefit, it was clear they were remembering for each other. Thinking about it now, it occurs to me the near-taboo at the Cottages surrounding people who’d left might well have stopped them talking about their friend even to each other, and it was only once we’d come away they’d felt able to indulge themselves in this way.

Whenever they laughed, I laughed too just to be polite. Tommy seemed to be understanding things even less than me and was letting out hesitant little half-laughs that lagged some way behind. Ruth, though, was laughing and laughing, and kept nodding to everything being said about Martin just like she too was remembering them. Then once, when Chrissie made a really obscure reference—she’d said something like: “Oh, yes, the time he put out his jeans!”—Ruth gave a big laugh and signalled in our direction, as though to say to Chrissie: “Go on, explain it to them so they can enjoy it too.” I let this all go, but when Chrissie and Rodney started discussing whether we should go round to Martin’s flat, I finally said, maybe a bit coldly:

“What exactly is he doing here? Why’s he got a flat?”

There was a silence, then I heard Ruth let out an exasperated sigh. Chrissie leaned over the table towards me and said quietly, like she was explaining to a child: “He’s being a carer. What else do you think he’d be doing here? He’s a proper carer now.”

There was a bit of shifting, and I said: “That’s what I mean. We can’t just go and visit him.”

Chrissie sighed. “Okay. We’re not supposed to visit carers. Absolutely strictly speaking. Certainly not encouraged.”

Rodney chuckled and added: “Definitely not encouraged. Naughty naughty to go and visit him.”

“Very naughty,” Chrissie said and made a tutting noise.

Then Ruth joined in, saying: “Kathy hates to be naughty. So we’d better not go and visit him.”

Tommy was looking at Ruth, clearly puzzled about whose side she’d taken, and I wasn’t sure either. It occurred to me she didn’t want the expedition side-tracked and was reluctantly siding with me, so I smiled at her, but she didn’t return my look. Then Tommy asked suddenly:

“Whereabouts was it you saw Ruth’s possible, Rodney?”

“Oh…” Rodney didn’t seem nearly so interested in the possible now we were in the town, and I could see anxiety cross Ruth’s face. Finally Rodney said: “It was a turning off the High Street, somewhere up the other end. Of course, it might be her day off.” Then when no one said anything, he added: “They do have days off, you know. They’re not always at their work.”

For a moment, as he said this, the fear passed through me that we’d misjudged things badly; that for all we knew, veterans often used talk of possibles just as a pretext to go on trips, and didn’t really expect to take it any further. Ruth might well have been thinking along the same lines, because she was now looking definitely worried, but in the end she did a little laugh, like Rodney had made a joke.

Then Chrissie said in a new voice: “You know, Ruth, we might be coming here in a few years’ time to visit you. Working in a nice office. I don’t see how anyone could stop us visiting you then.”

“That’s right,” Ruth said quickly. “You can all come and see me.”

“I suppose,” Rodney said, “there aren’t any rules about visiting people if they’re working in an office.” He laughed suddenly. “We don’t know. It hasn’t really happened with us before.”

“It’ll be all right,” Ruth said. “They let you do it. You can all come and visit me. Except Tommy, that is.”

Tommy looked shocked. “Why can’t I come?”

“Because you’ll already be with me, stupid,” Ruth said. “I’m keeping you.”

We all laughed, Tommy again a little behind the rest of us.

“I heard about this girl up in Wales,” Chrissie said. “She was Hailsham, maybe a few years before you lot. Apparently she’s working in this clothes shop right now. A really smart one.”

There were murmurs of approval and for a while we all looked dreamily out at the clouds.

“That’s Hailsham for you,” Rodney said eventually, and shook his head as though in amazement.

“And then there was that other person”—Chrissie had turned to Ruth—“that boy you were telling us about the other day. The one a couple of years above you who’s a park keeper now.”

Ruth was nodding thoughtfully. It occurred to me that I should shoot Tommy a warning glance, but by the time I’d turned to him, he’d already started to speak.

“Who was that?” he asked in a bewildered voice.

“You know who it is, Tommy,” I said quickly. It was too risky to kick him, or even to make my voice wink-wink: Chrissie would have picked it up in a flash. So I said it dead straight, with a bit of weariness, like we were all fed up with Tommy forgetting all the time. But this just meant Tommy still didn’t twig.

“Someone we knew?”

“Tommy, let’s not go through this again,” I said. “You’ll have to have your brains tested.”

At last the penny seemed to drop, and Tommy shut up.

Chrissie said: “I know how lucky I am, getting to be at the Cottages. But you Hailsham lot, you’re really lucky. You know…” She lowered her voice and leaned forward again. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you lot about. It’s just that back there, at the Cottages, it’s impossible. Everyone always listening in.”