Monday 12th May, 1941

Having slept for much of the weekend, I’m now mildly embarrassed to read my last entry. Such doleful histrionics are beneath any of us. I sound like some thinly sketched Brontë heroine, struggling across a metaphorically windswept moor.

It’s with shame I’m reminded of the people who are actually dying both at home and overseas. Those vast, faceless legions of soldiers and civilians. And here I am, wallowing in my trivial misery. Well, it just won’t do at all.

I went into work today. Since Agatha died we have been rudderless and we need all hands on deck, as it were. Truth be told, I welcomed the distraction. There was so much to do I honestly haven’t thought about Rick all day.

Even writing his name is painful though. I’m so bruised, but I am now feeling the stab of pain, which I hope means I may one day heal. Just like Glynis said I would.

My friends are being very sweet, indulging my little bereavement. Yesterday Andrew, Doreen and Bess came around with a freshly baked batch of scones and some blackberry jam. I had little appetite but they’d pooled their rations and I forced myself to pick at one out of gratitude.

Bess is angry on my behalf, almost as angry as when Reg was exiled. Andrew seemed sad. Doreen exuded a hint of smugness that her suspicions about soldiers being a bad sort had been proved right. It seemed the only person without an opinion was me.

I wish I was angry. I wish I was sad. Instead I feel entirely flat, like someone’s been over my insides with a rolling pin.

I am no doctor or scientist, but I have often wondered if there’s a delicate chain connecting the head and heart. Some link that enables matters of the head to be warmed with feeling and our heart’s desires to be tempered by reason. Just at present I’m starting to question if the chain has been severed.