When they all looked back on that time, it was as though he had come into their lives like the wind off the sea. It was as if, without realising it, he had determined to draw their thoughts away from the dreary toil of their days, from the heartache caused by relationships for ever stilled, from the destruction that still sat around in awful witness to the past conflict.
As the winter wind moaned around their houses and cottages, and they sighed at their memories, staring into smouldering fires and looking back to happier times, he seemed somehow to have strolled into their lives, bringing with him not just the promise of spring, but the certainty of summer warmth.
With his arrival they started looking up to that far distant line known as the horizon, looking towards a future which, although it might be stormy, would be far from grey. Naturally – and there can be no guilt attached to them because we are all the same – no-one thought of the effect they might be having on him, as people don’t when someone fascinates them.
Nor did anyone fall to wondering why he was there, what ghost he might have come to lay, or what mystery might be strong enough to have drawn him back to the beautiful old harbourside village that faced the English Channel.