Читать книгу The Heart of the Family - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 11

Katie could feel the tension in the Campions’ kitchen as soon as she walked in. She was later getting in from work than normal because they had all had to work over to deal with the extra workload caused by the bombs disrupting the delivery service and the girls who had not come into work.

The first thing she’d done was to go upstairs to wash her hands and face, and change out of her office clothes and into an old summer dress, which she could tuck into her siren suit without spoiling it when the air-raid siren went off. Now, coming back down, she glanced round the table and could see how on edge and anxious Jean looked. That alone was enough to cause Katie’s own tummy to tense up. Jean was the mainstay of her family, a loving wife and mother, with a practical calm streak that always ensured that her home and especially her kitchen was an oasis of reassurance and loving warmth. Tonight, though, Jean was quite obviously not herself.

Katie’s first fear, that there must have been bad news, subsided when she looked at Sam, who was calmly eating his tea. Sam was a good father, who would never have been sitting eating a luncheon meat salad if anything had happened to one of them.

Normally the conversation round the tea table in the Campion household flowed easily, punctuated by the twins’ laughter, but tonight only the wireless was producing conversation.

A quick look at Jean’s plate confirmed what Katie had already suspected: that she had no appetite for her tea. What was wrong? Jean was normally scrupulous about not wasting food. She might have a husband who worked hard on his allotment to keep them all in fresh home-grown food, but she still had to queue along with everyone else for all those things that were now rationed: meat and eggs, cheese and margarine, to name just a few.

As soon as they had all finished eating, Sam stood up.

‘You two can do the washing-up tonight,’ he told the twins firmly. ‘Me and your mum are going for a bit of a walk down to the allotment.’

Nothing was said, but Katie could tell from the way the twins looked at one another that they were also aware that something was happening, and that it was upsetting Jean.

‘You shouldn’t have said what you did to the twins, Sam,’ Jean told her husband in a troubled voice as he opened the gate at the back of the garden for her. A narrow lane ran along behind the houses, separating their back gardens from the allotments, which ran down to the railway embankment. Sam had been cultivating his allotment ever since they had moved into Ash Grove, and had even been able to take over a spare patch of land, which he shared with several other allotment holders and on which they had planted fruit trees. Because nothing could be cultivated beneath their branches they had let the grass grow and put hen runs there, and in summer this area was a favourite place for families to gather and have picnics. Now the grass was just starting to be shaded with the bluebells that grew wild in the grass, and that would soon form a rich blue carpet.

Jean blinked away painful tears. Funny how it was the little things that it hurt to think about when you realised you wouldn’t be able to see them.

‘They’ll be wondering what’s going on, and I don’t want them worrying, not after what’s happened.’

‘Aye, well, it’s because I’m worrying myself that I want to talk to you,’ Sam told her heavily, guiding her through the gate into his own allotment, and to the rustic seat in its sunny spot close to the tool shed, where he grew a few flowers because Jean loved them so much.

Now she looked down at the Russell lupins, already fat with cream and brown buds thanks to the shelter of their spot. A rose smothered the shed itself but it was too soon for it to flower yet. It seemed incredible that something as fragile as these plants could survive when buildings so close at hand were being destroyed.

Her emotions brought a hard lump to Jean’s throat. The evening sunshine slanted across Sam’s hands, strong and lean, tanned from his work both on the allotment and with the Salvage Corps.

It wasn’t usual for them to touch one another in public, but now something made Jean reach out to put her own hand on top of Sam’s as she told him quietly, ‘You’ve always had such good strong hands, Sam. They were one of the first things I noticed about you when you first asked me out. That’s partly why I married you, on account of them hands. With hands like that I knew you’d always keep me and our children safe.’

Sam’s expression was sombre as he moved his body to shield her from the bright glare of the dying sun.

‘I can’t do that any more, Jean. I wish I could, but I can’t. Not with what’s going on and this war.’

His voice sounded as heavy as her heart felt, Jean realised.

‘That’s what I want to talk to you about.’

Jean’s body shook. She could guess what was coming – had already guessed.

‘The thing is about my job that you see things others don’t always get to see, and the fact is, Jean, Liverpool can’t hold out much longer. I’ve heard it said by them as should know that another couple of nights like these we’ve been having, three at the most, and there’ll be nothing left to save.’

‘But what about the Government? They must be able to do something. Liverpool has to be saved; there’s the docks and the convoys coming in.’ Jean protested.

Sam shook his head. ‘There’s nowt to be done, lass. I wish there were. The convoys will have to be diverted, or risk being bombed in the water by the Luftwaffe. The city’s a goner, as near as dammit. When the war was first announced I wanted you and the twins to go somewhere where you’d be safe, but you wouldn’t hear of it, and to be honest the last thing I wanted was for us to be separated, but it’s different now. You’ve seen what’s happening and seen the figures in the papers. Jerry isn’t going to stop once he’s destroyed the docks; he’ll be moving inland and dropping more bombs as he does.’ Sam nodded in the direction of the railway embankment. ‘We’ve got the main goods line to Edge Hill right there in front of us. Jerry’s already had one go at destroying it, and he’ll be back to try again. Another couple of nights of bombing and those of us that are still left alive will be lucky if we don’t starve.’

‘That’s silly talk, Sam, with all that you’re growing on your allotment,’ Jean protested.

‘Veggies are all very well but how do you think meat and fish and that are going to get into the city with the roads and the railway lines unusable? There’ll be riots and all sorts.’

Jean wanted to argue that he was wrong but she couldn’t. Only this morning whilst she had been in the local butcher’s where the family was registered with their coupons, the butcher had told her how he’d heard that the bombing had destroyed so many shops and warehouses that those that were left were beginning to run out of supplies. Because the city was a port, receiving goods in and then distributing them to the rest of the country, it hadn’t occurred to Jean before now that they could run out. Feeding her family was the main priority of every housewife in these rationed times, and the thought of her own family going hungry and maybe even starving filled her with fear.

Sam had pulled away from her now and was standing looking towards the embankment, as though he didn’t want to have to face her.

Jean’s heart thudded with misery. She had known that this was coming. Everyone you talked to was saying how much they wanted those they loved to be safe.

‘I want you and the twins to leave Liverpool, Jean. I know the last time we talked about this you persuaded me to change my mind, but I won’t change it this time. I need to know that at least some of my family will be safe. I can’t do owt about Luke. He’s a man now and in the army, and you don’t need me to tell you that I’m as proud of him as it’s possible for any man to be of his son. And as for our Grace …’

He was looking at her now and Jean could see the sheen of his emotions in his eyes.

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t seem that long ago that she was following me round the allotment, chattering away to me, sneaking the raspberries when she thought I wasn’t looking. And now look at her. She’ll soon be a fully qualified nurse. My heart’s in me mouth every night worrying about Luke and Grace, but they’ve got their duty to do, I know that, just as I’ve got mine.’

‘Sam, please, don’t make me and the twins go away,’ Jean begged him. ‘We’re safe enough up here, everyone says so. You say you’re worrying about us but how do you think it’s going to be for me, sitting somewhere safe, not knowing what’s going on here with you and Luke and Grace? We can perhaps send the twins somewhere safer, but I want to stay. I’ve got to stay – there’s Katie to think of, and you. Who’s going to make sure there’s a decent meal on the table for you, and what’s our Luke going to think if poor Katie has to find somewhere else? A fine thing that would be.’

‘Katie was saying only the other night that she’s owed some leave and that she’d like to go and see her parents. And as for me, I can look after meself if I have to. It won’t be for long.’

He was lying, thought Jean in despair. It could be for ever if what he was saying was true. It could mean that if she did what he wanted, when she said goodbye to him tomorrow that she might never ever see him again, and he knew that as well as she did. But she also knew what that set determined expression meant. Sam was a good man, a kind, loving man, but he could also be a stubborn, prideful man who was sometimes a bit too set in his ways, traits that Luke had inherited from him.

There was no point in arguing with him. That would only drive him into sticking to his guns, and besides, he did have a point, at least where the twins were concerned.

Jean moved closer to him, pretending not to notice when he moved back, indicating that he wasn’t going to let any physical closeness between them change his mind. She put her hand on his arm. There were new lines fanning out from his eyes; he looked tired and determined not to show it, wearied by the nightly bombardment of the city on top of the rigours already imposed on everyone by a war that was ageing them all, including the young. It showed in the stoop of people’s shoulders, and in the anxious frowns that everyone seemed to wear when they thought no one else was looking. Jean had seen it in those poor people who came to the rest centre, and who tried to pull themselves up to their full height and wear a smile when they thought they were being observed. She had seen it too in her own dressing table mirror, but this was the first time she had seen it so plainly in Sam.

‘I agree that the twins should go somewhere safer,’ she told him quietly. ‘But I want to stay, Sam. Luke and Grace are here, after all, as well as you, and I couldn’t bear it if anything was to happen and I couldn’t—’ She had to bite down on her words as the awful thought she didn’t want to voice bubbled inside her head.

‘Don’t you think I feel the same?’ Sam demanded.

‘I’ll be safe enough, Sam. It only takes a minute to get to the shelter.’

‘A minute could be a minute too long and besides, there’s been more than one shelter got hit and them inside never got out. You know that. No, Jean, I mean it: you and the children can’t stay in Liverpool.’

‘Well, we can’t just leave. Where will we go?’

‘I was thinking of your Vi in Wallasey.’

Jean sucked in her breath. ‘You’re never expecting me to go cap in hand to our Vi and ask her to take me and the twins in, Sam Campion?’

‘I’d rather you were somewhere more out in the country, but Wallasey’s a damn sight safer than Liverpool, and your Vi’s honour-bound to take you in, seeing as you’re family.’

His whole manner said that his mind was made up and that he wasn’t going to change it. Sam hated seeing her cry, but Jean just couldn’t stop herself.

‘I never thought I’d see the day when you expected me to go begging to my sister,’ she reproached him. ‘Not after everything you’ve said about her.’

‘Can’t you see that it’s you and the twins I’m thinking of, Jean?’ Sam defended himself. ‘How do you think I would feel if anything were to happen to any of you? How would you feel if something happened to the twins? It was bad enough that to-do on Saturday.’

Jean shuddered. On Saturday night when the twins had gone missing she had been so afraid for them. Sam was right, she would never forgive herself if they ended up being hurt or worse because she had refused to leave Liverpool.

‘If I had my way our Grace would be going with you, an’ all,’ Sam told her, breaking into her thoughts.

‘She can’t do that, Sam. It would mean her giving up her nursing and she wouldn’t do that, not now she’s in her final year.’

She reached into her apron pocket for her handkerchief and felt a surge of fresh tears when Sam pushed his own handkerchief into her hands. The first time he had done that they had been courting and she had started crying over a sad film. How she wished that it was only a sad film she had to cry over now.

‘Come on, love,’ he begged her gruffly. ‘At least I’ll be able to sleep a bit easier for knowing that you and the twins are safe.’

Jean sniffed and blew her nose. ‘And what about me, Sam Campion? How am I supposed to sleep easy from now on? What’s going to happen to us, Sam, if Hitler does bomb Liverpool to bits?’

‘I don’t know, love. All I know now is that I want you and the twins safe. Come on, we’d better get back.’

So that she could tell them what was going to happen, he meant, Jean knew.

She’d been dreading him saying something like this since Saturday night. She’d seen it in his eyes and she’d prayed that the bombing would stop so that they could stay together as a family just as they always had.

‘I suppose Dad’s telling Mum that he isn’t going to eat any more luncheon meat.’

Lou’s weak attempt at a joke barely raised the corners of Sasha’s mouth. Neither of them had stopped watching the back door, which they’d opened ostensibly to let in some fresh evening air but in reality to anticipate the return of their parents, and Katie shared their anxiety.

‘What do you suppose—’ Lou began, only to stop when Sasha gave her a nudge in the ribs with her elbow and warned her, ‘Hush, they’re just opening the gate.’

It was obvious to Katie the minute she saw Jean that she had been crying. Her own heart lurched into her ribs. Was it possible that she had been wrong and there had been bad news? About Luke? Or Grace? Guiltily Katie recognised how much she hoped if one of them had been hurt that it was not Luke.

Instinctively adopting Jean’s own normal manner Katie asked calmly, ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ and received a grateful look from Sam.

‘Aye, lass, if you wouldn’t mind.’

He turned to the twins. ‘Your mother’s got something to tell you.’

Jean bowed her head, waiting for Sam to announce that he was going back to the allotment, but to her surprise he was obviously intending to stay. To support her or to make sure she did what he wanted?

Behind her Katie was waiting for the kettle to boil. Dear Katie, such a lovely girl and so perfect for Luke. Jean worried about her safety as much as if she were one of her own. Hitler was dropping bombs on London, of course, but Katie had already said that it was much safer where her parents were living. If she went to them she’d be safe, and it would only be for a little while. Until the bombing stopped. Until Liverpool had been destroyed.

Jean took a deep breath to try to steady herself. It wouldn’t do to let the girls see how upset she was.

‘Me and your dad have been thinking,’ she began, ‘and we’ve decided that until all this bombing stops you two and me would be better off finding somewhere safer to live outside the city.’

‘But what about Katie?’

That was Sasha, looking quickly past Jean to where Katie was standing pouring the now boiling water onto the tea leaves.

‘There’s no need for anyone to worry about me,’ Katie told them all firmly. ‘In fact I was already thinking of taking my leave and going home to see my parents.’

She caught another approving nod from Sam and a grateful look from Jean. ‘And I think that you and your mum going somewhere safer is exactly the right thing to do,’ she told the twins calmly. ‘In fact, Luke was only saying the same thing the last time I saw him,’ she added, crossing her fingers behind her back. She was sure that Luke would have said that if he had been asked, because he was very much his father’s son and Katie knew instinctively that it was Sam who was insisting on them going rather than Jean.

What a terrible decision that must have been for Jean. She had four children, after all, two of whom would have to remain in Liverpool and face the danger from which Sam obviously wanted to protect her and the twins. Katie could imagine how she would have felt in such circumstances.

‘But how can we leave Liverpool?’ Sasha asked uncertainly. ‘Where will we go?’

‘I know,’ said Lou, as irrepressible as ever. ‘We will have to be trekkers. You know, you go and queue up for the trucks in the evening and then they take you out into the country and you have to find a barn or something to sleep in.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Jean told her. She looked at Sam and then back at the twins. ‘We’ll be going to Wallasey, of course, to stay with your auntie Vi.’

‘What?’

‘No!’

The twins spoke together, their words different but their horrified expressions identical.

‘Mum, you can’t mean that,’ Lou protested. ‘Auntie Vi doesn’t like us and we don’t like her. Well, we’re not going, are we, Sasha?’

‘That’s enough of that,’ Sam told them sternly. ‘You’re going and that’s an end to the matter.’

Katie could tell that the twins knew he meant what he said. They subsided, still exchanging shocked looks.

‘When will we have to go?’ That was Sasha, her voice small and wobbling slightly.

‘Not until tomorrow,’ Jean told them quietly. ‘I’ll have to go over and see Vi tomorrow and … and arrange things with her first.’ She was looking at Sam now as though seeking help, but he wasn’t looking back at her.

Katie had heard all about the relationship between the two families and she knew that it would be hard for Jean to lower her pride and ask her snobbish sister for help.

Jean looked at Sam’s stiff back. The fact that he was prepared to let her go begging Vi for help said how afraid for them he really was. There had never been any love lost between Vi and Sam, and although she had never said so to Sam, in the early days of their courtship Vi had actually tried to persuade her to drop Sam. If she told him that now … But no, she must not do that. Sam was doing this for them, and he had been right when he’d said that she would never forgive herself if they stayed in Liverpool and something happened to the twins.

Just as she would never forgive herself if anything happened to Luke or to Grace or to Sam himself, and she couldn’t get to them.

It was a situation that thousands of families all over the country were facing, especially those living in the cities that Hitler was targeting. And what about the men fighting abroad – how must their mothers and wives feel?

Jean squared her shoulders. ‘It won’t be as bad as you think,’ she told the twins.

‘No, it will be much worse,’ Lou muttered gloomily under her breath.

Wallasey and Auntie Vi’s.

Lou flung herself down on her bed with a grimace of disbelief. ‘I never thought Mum would make us go there.’

‘She’s going as well,’ Sasha reminded her. ‘And I’ll bet it’s Dad who has said we have to go. Did you see how red his ears went when Mum was telling us, and how he wouldn’t look at us?’

‘Well, what about Katie?’ Lou demanded. ‘I’ll bet she doesn’t really want to go and see her parents. She loves our Luke.’

‘She was saying the other day that she felt she should go and see them,’ Sasha felt bound to point out, adding firmly, ‘Look, Lou, we aren’t children any more, are we, and after what happened on Saturday, well, I just think that we shouldn’t make things hard for Mum, that’s all.’

Sasha almost sounded as though she disapproved of what Lou had said. But that was impossible. Hadn’t they reassured one another that their closeness, their twinship, was more important than anything else? Once Lou would have known exactly what Sasha was feeling about anything, just as Sasha would have done her, and this feeling that she did not know what her twin was thinking was unfamiliar territory.

‘Sash?’

Sasha looked at her twin.

‘It’s all right with me and you, isn’t it? I mean, I know there was … Well, I just want you to know that I don’t mind if you do still … Well, it was you Kieran liked best really, anyway.’

Sasha jumped off her own bed and went to stand next to Lou’s, her hands on her hips, her round face flushed with angry colour.

‘How dare you say that, Louise Campion? We both said, didn’t we, that we were going to stick together from now on?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘So why are you keeping going on about a certain person who we agreed we’d never talk about again?’

‘There’s no need to get your hair off with me, Sasha. I was just meaning that if you did think about him, then I’d understand and you can say so.’

Lou didn’t know how to say that she was afraid of losing her twin, and afraid too of the way things seemed to be changing, and not just things but they themselves.

‘I’d hate it if you and me was to end up like Mum and Auntie Vi,’ was all she could manage to say.

The anger died out of Sasha’s face. Although traditionally it was always Lou, the younger of the two, who had taken the lead, just lately Sasha had started to feel older than her twin and as though it was up to her to take charge. Somehow, without knowing how, Sasha had started to recognise that for all her bravado Lou was more vulnerable than she was herself.

She sat down next to Lou and told her firmly, ‘That will never happen to us, unless of course you keep going on about Kieran.’

‘But he liked you.’

‘No he didn’t, he just pretended he did so that we’d earn money for him with our dancing.’

‘But if he did really like you …’ Lou persisted.

‘Oh, stop it, Lou. I just want to forget about the whole thing.’ Sasha gave a fierce shudder, reminding Lou of exactly what her twin had been through when she had become trapped and they had both thought that she might die before help arrived.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ Sasha accepted her apology, before telling her, ‘I don’t want to go to Auntie Vi’s either, you know, but we have to think of Mum, Lou. Just think how awful it must be for her.’

‘What, you mean because she and Vi don’t get on?’

‘No, silly, because Luke and Grace and our dad will still be here.’

Nearly midnight. The rhythmic tick of the kitchen clock made Jean’s heart thud with anxiety. When would they come tonight? Sam hadn’t been pleased when she had refused to leave for Wallasey this evening. But like she had told him, she and the twins could hardly descend on Vi without any warning.

‘Why not?’ he had wanted to know. ‘I’m sure she’d rather be a bit put out and see you safe than find out summat’s happened.’

Not our Vi, Jean had thought. Vi didn’t like unplanned visitors, and she certainly wouldn’t put the welcome mat out for them. And besides, although she hadn’t said so to Sam, Jean wasn’t leaving Liverpool without first seeing Grace, even if she might not be able to see Luke. She could give Grace a message for him. And then there was Katie to think of. It was all very well Sam frightening her half to death by warning her about what might happen but arrangements still had to be made.

It was no good, she couldn’t sit still any longer.

‘Katie, love, I think I’ll put the kettle on.’

Jean got up. They were all ready in their shelter clothes, the twins and Katie in siren suits that Jean had made from some material that she and Katie had bought from a shop that sold off-cuts.

Jean was making do with an old pair of Sam’s pyjamas that she had cut down.

Kate wondered if she would manage to see Luke before she left. They’d sort of made plans to see one another on Saturday if Luke could snatch a couple of hours of compassionate leave. The CO at the barracks at Seacombe was good like that. Katie felt sorry for those men who did not live close enough for them to get home quickly to check that their families were safe, but Luke had told her that the commander was giving those men with the longest distances to travel twenty-four- and even sometimes forty-eight-hour passes in lieu of the unofficial couple of hours here and there those with families living closer were getting.

‘He’s a decent chap – all the lads say so – but he knows how to make everyone toe the line as well,’ Luke had told her, and Katie had known from his tone of voice that he respected his commanding officer. Luke was someone who saw things in black and white, good and bad, with no shades of grey. Sometime that worried her, especially when he was getting on his high horse about something – or someone he thought had done something wrong. He wasn’t always ready to see that there might be extenuating circumstances or to make allowances for other people’s vulnerabilities and the fact that they might not be as morally strong as he was himself.

She did love him though – so very much. Katie’s expression softened.

Jean looked at the clock. Ten past midnight. It had been gone half-past when they had come last night. They did it deliberately, she was sure, letting people think that they were safe and then coming. Sam was on fire-watch duty, of course. He’d volunteered to stand in for someone else down near the docks. Jean’s hands trembled. The docks were the worst place of all to be.

Quarter-past midnight. Luke shifted his weight against the thin hard mattress of his bed. It wasn’t comfortable at the best of times, but tonight when, like everyone else, he was straining to catch the first sound of incoming aircraft, and with his muscles aching still from earlier in the day – but no, he mustn’t think about that and the horror of removing the debris from the lorry driver’s body to find – but he wasn’t going to think about that, was he? Those ruddy Americans. Showing off like they had and then three of them puking their guts up when they had seen what was left of poor old Ronnie. Some soldiers they were, for all their fancy uniforms and boastful words.

‘I ain’t seen no one dead before,’ one of them had whimpered.

Luke swallowed the bile gathering in his throat.

He tried to think about Katie. She’d be waiting like they all were for the air-raid warning, ready to go into the shelter with his mother and the twins. Katie didn’t always understand how he felt or why he felt the way he did. She didn’t understand what being a man meant and how it was up to him to take care of her. That was a responsibility he took very seriously, just as his father did. Luke’s first thoughts as he listened to the all clear were the same as they had been every morning since the blitz had begun, and were for the safety of those he loved, his family, and Katie, his girl.

Just thinking about Katie brought him a confusing mix of emotions: fear for her safety, coupled with a fierce male urge to protect her, delight because she loved him, pride in her because of the important war work she was doing, and yet at that same time that pride was shadowed by a certain fear and hostility to that work in case it somehow took her from him.

Did Katie wish he was more like Seb, Grace’s fiancé? Seb was an easy-going sort, protective of Grace, of course, but Grace wasn’t the kind who would give a chap any cause to worry about her. Did that mean that Katie was? Luke frowned. He trusted Katie – of course he did, and he knew he could – but she didn’t always realise how she might come across to other men; how they might see her smiling at them and think that her smile meant more than it did. He’d tried to tell her about that, but he couldn’t seem to make her understand. Luke didn’t like it when things weren’t straightforward and clear cut. Life had rules and Luke preferred it when people stuck to those rules. Katie was his girl and that meant that he didn’t want to lose her to another man. He wasn’t keen on that job of hers either. Not really, although he’d tried to pretend that he didn’t mind because he’d been able to see that that was what she wanted. And he did want to please her, of course he did, but it made him feel so frustrated when she wouldn’t understand the danger she was putting herself in.

If they were to get engaged then maybe he’d be able to have more say in what she did. He’d certainly not have her working doing what she did once they were married.

Come on if you’re coming, Lena thought irritably, as she scratched absently at a flea bite on her ankle and waited for the sound of the air-raid siren to start up. She didn’t own a watch and there was no clock in the room she shared with Doris. Doris wasn’t here tonight, though. She’d gone out to her boyfriend’s for tea, and his mother had apparently invited her to stay over in case there was an attack.

Lena laughed to herself. What a lie that was. Lena knew for a fact that Doris’s fella’s mother would be spending the evening in the pub where she worked and that she’d use the pub shelter if the siren went off, and Lena knew that because she’d been in the salon in the morning getting her hair done and she’d said so.

No, Lena reckoned, Doris knew perfectly well that she and Brian would have the house to themselves and Lena thought too that Doris wanted to make the most of the opportunity to tie Brian to her. Well, good luck to the pair of them.

When was that siren going to go off? She heard a sound from the room next door – her uncle breaking wind. He didn’t half make a noise when he farted and he was a stinker with it, an’ all.

Bodily functions and the earthy humour surrounding them were part and parcel of life in the city’s slums. How could they not be with several families sharing the same outside lav, and everyone knowing everyone else’s business, right down to when a person opened their bowels?

Lena had been shocked at first to see half a dozen lads peering over the half-door of one of the lavvies whilst, she learned soon after, the girl inside delicately removed her knickers and then bent over to show them her bare bum, but then she hadn’t been able to help laughing when the girl had insisted that all the boys were to pay her a halfpenny each for the treat.

Of course, Doris denied that she had ever done such a thing. Lena knew that she never could have done. Oh, she hid how she felt from everyone because she knew it would make her a target to be tormented and bullied, but she had been brought up better than that, and when her Charlie came for her he’d take her away somewhere decent; somewhere in Wallasey. Her heart began to beat faster. Should she write to him at his barracks and surprise him? She wanted to, but was held back by a memory of her mother telling her that decent girls didn’t go running after boys. Anyway, she didn’t need to write to him. When she’d put her arms round him and asked him when she’d see him again, he’d said, ‘Soon as I can.’

If she closed her eyes she could picture him now. She could always go over to Wallasey, of course, and introduce herself to his family. She’d got their address, after all. She could say something about him leaving his papers with her and her wanting to get them back to him. Her heart jumped a couple of beats. What were they like, his man and dad? Had he got brothers and sisters at home? Well, she’d have to wait and see, wouldn’t she, because she wasn’t going to go pushing herself in on his family until he was there to introduce her to them proper like, as his girl.

How proud she’d be when he took her home on his arm to meet them. Lena gave a blissful sigh, ignoring the hungry rumble of her stomach. Her auntie had been in one of her bad moods and had hardly spoken to her when Lena had come in for her tea. She’d not given Lena much to eat either, claiming that she couldn’t afford to, even though she’d made Lena hand over her ration book – well, not hand it over exactly. She’d taken it from Lena’s drawer when Lena was out at work, as well as making her tip up most of the money she earned to go into the family pot.

Lena had managed to keep her tips back for herself, though. She’d even opened a Post Office account to pay them into. Simone had shown her how, and Lena kept the book hidden in her handbag. Twenty pounds ten shillings she’d saved in it now, Lena thought with pride.

One o’clock. Seb frowned. They were normally here by now. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. What kind of cat-and-mouse game was Hitler playing with Liverpool now? He’d all but destroyed the city. Another heavy raid, certainly two, would be the fatal blow that would mean that Liverpool was done for. The port would no longer be a safe haven for the Atlantic convoys, bringing in desperately needed food and raw materials, as well as equipment under the recently signed Lend Lease agreement with America, which meant that the neutral Americans, not in the war, could provide much-needed military equipment to the financially hard-pressed Allies, with payment being deferred until a later date. The agreement was very complicated, with many of its terms still kept from the general public in the interests of national security. Its existence, though, had had to be acknowledged to account for the sudden influx to the country of American personnel and equipment to help with the war effort.

Seb stretched again and tried to suppress a yawn.

Grace would be lying in her bed in the nurses’ home waiting for the sound of the siren. Seb knew how much nursing meant to her, but increasingly he worried about her safety. The hospital had already been bombed once, and some of the medical staff killed.

He’d sensed her growing fear and desperation when he’d walked her back to the nurses’ home on Sunday. When he’d taken advantage of the privacy afforded by a shadowy doorway, she’d clung to him and kissed him, trembling so much in his arms with her passion that he had started to tremble himself.

If they’d been anywhere half decently suitable, he’d have been tempted to answer the need he had seen in her eyes and truly make her his, whilst they were still both alive to share that special loving intimacy.

It had been Grace who had insisted that she wanted to finish her training and that meant that they couldn’t marry until she had, but he had respected that decision. These last few days, though, with the knowledge that each bombing raid could take Grace from him, Seb had burned with a fierce urge to make her truly his and to know that they had shared something that could never be taken from them. And Grace had wanted that too – he had sensed it in her even before she had told him so, clinging to him, her eyes wet with her tears as she told him how afraid she was of dying without knowing his love.

Bella couldn’t sleep. They’d been promised twenty cot mattresses, and only ten had been delivered. The driver had feigned ignorance but Bella knew she was right to suspect that the other ten would end up on the black market. She moved restlessly beneath her immaculately ironed sheets. Laura had simply shrugged and looked impatient when Bella had complained to her.

‘What do you expect with all this rationing?’ she had demanded sharply. ‘After all, those doing the black market selling aren’t the only ones making money from this war, are they?’

Bella had known that Laura was referring to Bella’s own father whose business supplying and fitting pipes to merchant and naval vessels had become so profitable thanks to the war that Edwin had had to treble his work force. Her father liked a gin and tonic, and after the third glass was inclined to start bragging about the fortune he was making. Not that he shared it with his family, Bella thought sourly, or at least not with her. He was showering money on Charlie, buying him a new car, because his small sports car had been stolen, giving him a job, and her house.

She looked at her alarm clock.

Two o’clock. The bombers were normally here by now, dropping their bombs over Liverpool. Bella moved irritably, frowning as she remembered the knowing look Ralph Fleming had given her when he’d come to collect his children from the crèche earlier in the day, her face starting to burn with angry pride. Did he really think that she would be interested in him now that she knew he was married man, and that he’d lied to her?

What kind of girl did he think she was? Her heart started to thump angrily. Well, she wasn’t that sort, no matter what he might think. Why were people so horrid and mean to her? Especially men. Bella thought of her father, with his impatience and irritable manner; her husband, who had never loved her as surely she deserved to be loved; Jan Polanski, whose mother and sister were her billetees, and who was getting married in two weeks’ time, making out that she had wanted him to kiss her just because he was good-looking, when she hadn’t at all; and now Ralph Fleming, pretending he was free to ask her out and then actually having the cheek to laugh at her and look at her as though he knew something about her that meant she didn’t care that he was married. Well, she did. She cared a lot. She was tired of other people – other women – treating her the way they did. It wasn’t fair that other girls like her cousin Grace ended up with good-looking men and had lots of friends, whilst she, who surely deserved better, was treated so unkindly.

Tears of self-pity welled in Bella’s eyes.

It just wasn’t fair.

That surely couldn’t be dawn, could it, edging slowly and warily up under the darkness, hesitating as though fearing what it might reveal?

Sam rubbed his eyes in case he had got it wrong and he was imagining things. He was tired from being on fire-watch duty. Even though tonight there were no new fires, the acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air and stung the eyes, but no, that was definitely dawn lightening the sky on the horizon.

As he watched, the band of light grew wider, revealing the tired buildings that still remained standing sharply etched against the skyline, black against the dawn sky.

Something – relief, disbelief, gratitude, Sam couldn’t pin down exactly what it was – dampened his eyes and made him want to shout his discovery from the rooftops.

The German bombers hadn’t come. Incredibly, unbelievably, the final death blow had not been delivered.

On other buildings Sam could see other fire watchers now. Like him they were stretching, and looking around, shedding the burden of the night watch, straightening up and standing tall, and it seemed to Sam that the city itself was doing the same thing, that he could feel in the air its pride in its survival through a night when everyone had thought that all must be lost.

It was a miracle, that’s what it was, Harry Fitch, who had shared the watch with Sam, announced, and Sam didn’t argue.