Parade's End and Cubism

Somehow as the friend from somewhere, with the weirdly British surname of Port Stratho, or something like that, visits Chris and Sylvia Tietjens as T. is about to leave for the front after a short home leave (medical leave?) their conversation after circling around quite a bit begins to focus on the issue of divorce - S. is a Catholic and opposed, who knows what T. thinks? - he wanted to hang on to his marriage, though, for some reason, even after she ditched him for someone named Perowne (I think I have that one right) and even though they have no affection for each other and their child is completely ignored -and they begin talking about T. best friend, Macmaster, his counterweight over the course of this novel, so far - Macmaster now married to someone still referred to as Mrs. Ducharme (or something like that) - her husband, obviously mentally unbalanced, had attacked her and was sent to a lunatic asylum (where he dies?); Macmaster has been spending a lot of time with her and now so it took a long to actually declare his love but now that he has they are free to marry - and he's still hitting Tietjens up for money, which T. gladly pays though he's doing M. no favors by bailing him out. How is the war affecting Macmaster if at all? Why isn't he in service? And how did T. end up going to the front in the first place? There are huge gaps in this story, as it jumps around in time - but I expect that they will be filled in over the course of the 4 volumes. As noted yesterday, the narrative structure seems indebted to cubism, with an overlay of jumbled angles only gradually assuming the shape of a sketch or drawing - when the canvas is full, and when we step back and see it from a distance - 600 pages or so down the line. Sigh.