She busied over the photos placing them in rows like dominoes on the grand piano, rearranging them here and there in front of a giant bowl of dried plants and seed heads she had gathered, a mass of twisted tendrils parched and bleached to a pale beige. The portraits ranged through all the ages of man: gurgling baby to grizzled senility. In one ornate silver frame was a chap a little older than she was. He was standing in front of the War Office building in London, flaunting a conspicuous moustache and a pipe that matched those of his five colleagues beside him. In a wavy art nouveau sweep was the same man, though much younger, wearing a dark suit and a carnation in his buttonhole. Helen peered closer, noting how the couple smiled at each other so confidently through the wispy veil, the bou
