Pat Barker

Rivers looked round the room, which seemed cold and bleak in spite of the small fire. ‘Do you hear from Owen at all?’

‘Constantly. He… er… writes distinctly effusive letters. You know…’ He hesitated. ‘I knew about the hero-worship, but I’m beginning to think it was rather more than that.’

Rivers watched the firelight flicker on Sassoon’s hair and face. He said, ‘It happens.’

‘I just hope I was kind enough.’

‘I’m sure you were.’

For once, women with sons envied those with daughters, because girls would be allowed to live. Boys, if anywhere near fighting age, were routinely slaughtered. Even pregnant women were sometimes killed, speared through the belly on the off chance their child would be a boy. I noticed Ismene, who was four months pregnant with my husband’s child, pressing her hands hard into her stomach, trying to convince herself the pregnancy didn’t show.

His idea of female beauty was a woman so fat if you slapped her backside in the morning she’d still be jiggling when you got back home for dinner.