Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift

very quickly, in person. There were what he called ‘army families’. Jack understood that he and Ellie, if they were a family at all, were not an ‘army family’. In other cases, Major Richards had explained, it was only wise to avoid what might be a wasted or impractical initial journey. As to his own journey right now (since Ellie had kindly enquired), it had actually been quite short—not that shortness mattered: Wiltshire, not so far from Salisbury, to the Isle of Wight.
    And not such an unpleasant one, Major Richards might have added, if the circumstances had been different. He might have said something complimentary about the really remarkably pleasant situation they had here. The fineview, even on a grey day like today. As he’d parked the car he’d noticed the caravans, in their neat rows, down below.
    He’d looked at Jack and Ellie attentively, as if silently confirming permission to proceed, then had unzipped his leather wallet. He’d said that Corporal Luxton had been killed, as stated in the letter, on the fourth of November and at approximately three p.m., local time. It was not possible for him to give many details at this point—he was obviously just a home-based officer—but he could confirm that Corporal Luxton would have died instantly, on active, front-line duty, and that his record was such that he would undoubtedly have been promoted soon to sergeant. He’d been trained as a sniper—had himself been a trainer of snipers—but had been killed when the armoured vehicle he was in had triggered an exceptionally lethal roadside bomb. Two other members of his section had been killed and two wounded, one seriously. It was a very grave incident and a very great loss. These were things, nonetheless, that soldiers in Iraq risked every day.
    Major Richards had left a little measured pause, though he did not actually say, ‘Do you have any questions?’ Then, taking out a pen and one of the documents from his wallet, but with an air of being ready to reverse or modify these simple actions if necessary, he’d said that he was sorry to have to ask for such information at such a time, but there were certain matters he needed to confirm.
    That Corporal Luxton was never married.
    ‘No,’ Jack said, though he wouldn’t have known.
    Had no children?
    ‘No,’ Jack said again, though he might have said, ‘Not that I know of.’
    Or other dependants?
    ‘No,’ Jack said.
    Parents?
    It seemed to Jack that Major Richards had somehow delayed this question and that he might have done so in some knowing or meaningful way. That it might even be a trick question.
    ‘Dead,’ Jack had said. It was surely the correct and the quickest answer, but the word came oddly and echoingly from his lips, as if Vera and Michael might have died, too, in an armoured vehicle in Iraq.
    ‘There are no other relatives,’ Major Richards had then asked, ‘or persons close to Corporal Luxton whom you feel should be informed—I mean, officially informed, other than by yourself?’
    ‘No,’ Jack had said.
    ‘You are, in fact, the only living relative?’
    ‘Yes,’ Jack said, huskily, as if this might be another trick question, an even trickier question. He felt quite clearly now that he was under suspicion, if not under interrogation or on trial. So he was surprised when Major Richards suddenly said, using words he’d used before, but looking at him directly, in a different, softer way, ‘Let me offer you my personal condolences.’ He said it as if he, Major Richards, might have suddenly become a relative of the kind just denied, some sort of temporary father, and might have wished even to reach out and grasp Jack’s arm, so conveying that he understood that Jack was of the same stuff as the dead man being referredto, that he, Jack, and Tom were interchangeable. The Luxton brothers.
    And Jack would never forget it. As he’d never forget that moment, looking from this window, when after the black saloon had stopped in the