CHAPTER 1
Amy
The minute Amy heard his key turn in the front door her heart started beating faster. She lay very still listening to muffled voices in the hall. He said something to Mrs Scott, probably something like, ‘Are the girls all right?’ Her reply was short. ‘Fine, no problems.’
He thanked her and after a short pause, probably while he helped Mrs Scott into her coat, she heard him say, ‘Thank you,’ and the door clicked shut.
Amy knew then that there were no other adults in the house.
She was already beginning to tremble. How long before he came up the stairs? How long before he came into her room? How long before …?
She whimpered and held her breath. It was hard to hear over the thudding of her own blood in her ears. When she’d calmed a little and he still hadn’t come, she heard him moving around downstairs. Getting himself a whiskey, perhaps? He sometimes smelled of whiskey when he leaned over her. She hated that smell. Oh please don’t let him smell of whiskey tonight.
It seemed like an age before she heard his footstep on the stairs. He went to her sister’s room first. Lillian must be asleep because she didn’t say anything, not even when the door squeaked as he pulled it firmly shut.
Amy stared at the knob on her own bedroom door. It began to slowly turn, the light from the hallway flooding over the rosebud wallpaper. Horrible, horrible rosebud wallpaper. How could she have been so deceived?
When Meryl left home, Amy had been so excited when he’d suggested that she move into her older sister’s room.
‘You can choose new wallpaper,’ he’d said. ‘This is your room now. Your very own bedroom.’
She remembered how she’d pored over the wallpaper books until she’d found the perfect design. Pretty pink rosebuds draped over small wooden trellises. She’d wondered if he would let her have it. It was so different from the one her older sister, Meryl, had chosen when she’d been in this room.
‘We’ll put it up together,’ he’d said, and she’d hugged him delightedly.
Until now, Amy had never really wondered why Meryl had gone. One day she was there and the next she wasn’t. She hadn’t come home from school and Daddy had said she had got a ‘live-in’ situation and wouldn’t be coming back. Amy was a bit peeved that she hadn’t even said goodbye. It was a bit odd because Meryl and Daddy had been so close. Amy could see how sad he was and she’d wanted to make him happy again. Maybe, he’d suggested when the room was almost done, maybe Amy would be his special little girl now? She’d agreed of course, and he’d given her a kiss, but it wasn’t the usual sort of kiss and she didn’t like it.
As his head came round the door, she pulled the sheet up to her face. Her stomach was in knots and she could hardly breathe. She felt sick. She knew what was coming.
‘Hello, sweetheart. Daddy’s home. Now where’s my special kiss?’
CHAPTER 2
Norah
Worthing, Christmas Day, 1938
‘And if you care to hear “The Swanee River”
Played in ragtime
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander’s Ragtime Band …’
Humming to the music on the radio, Norah Kirkwood slid the roasting pan back into the oven and closed the door with her hip.
The kitchen door squeaked open. ‘Can I do anything to help?’
Norah switched off the radio and turned to grin as her younger sister Rene walked in. ‘Nearly finished,’ she said, ‘but you can help me dish up, if you like.’
Rene took an apron from the hook on the back of the door and came towards her. ‘Smells good.’
She was a pretty girl, twenty-two, mousy blonde and with a cheeky smile. On the other hand, Norah, almost four years her senior, had dark hair and a mass of curls, the envy of both her sister and Elsie, their mother.
Norah speared the carrots in a pan on the top of the stove. ‘They’re done,’ she said, leaning back so that Rene could take the pan to the sink and drain it. ‘What are they all doing in there?’
‘The usual,’ said Rene, hot steam billowing around her as she tipped the carrots into a colander. ‘Dad’s looking at yesterday’s paper, Jim is cracking the nuts and Mum is listening to all Mrs Kirkwood’s woes.’
Norah grimaced. ‘Oh dear, poor Mum.’
‘Honestly, sis,’ Rene said, ‘I don’t know how you put up with her.’
‘Neither do I,’ Norah quipped as she heaved the chicken out of the roasting pan and laid it on the carving plate. ‘I must be a ruddy saint.’
As her sister laughed, Norah glanced across to the window. Two woodpigeons were shouldering each other off the bird table in the garden. Silly things. There was plenty there for all, but there they were squabbling over a few seeds while their companion on the ground underneath the table was gobbling up everything in sight. Norah smiled. How she loved it here; a bit of the country in the middle of the town. She and her husband, Jim, came to Worthing when they got married in 1933 and they’d lived in The Lilacs ever since. It came with a long garden which, in Victorian times, had been converted into a market garden. She planned to continue the work and perhaps expand. The gardening was enjoyable but it didn’t yield enough to be a commercial concern. The space was quite simply too small to give them both a good living, so while Norah carried on with the market garden, Jim stayed in the police force.
Rene still lived with their parents and worked in London where their father was a bus driver. Ambitious, she had just been promoted to senior salesgirl in a department store, but never one to rest on her laurels, she was also taking night classes in shorthand and typing.
Norah set about making the gravy in the empty roasting tin now resting on the hob, while Rene dished up the home-grown Brussels sprouts and cabbage.
They worked together in silence for the next few minutes. Norah put the roast potatoes onto a serving dish and placed the chicken at the head of the table for Jim to carve while Rene arranged the vegetable dishes before she went to call the rest of the family to the table. Norah smiled to herself as she heard the family coming. She loved this time of year.
She had taken over the Christmas celebrations from her mother the year she got married and it never varied. Pete Carson, her dad, would drive all the way down from London early on Christmas morning with Mum and Rene in the car and a boot full of presents. This year he had brought their dog, Max, as well. ‘Mrs Reynolds next door says she’ll feed the budgie,’ Dad had said as they arrived. ‘The bird is quite happy on his own but I can’t leave the dog all day.’
Rene always complained about the early start but Dad said that with the Christmas rush over, the traffic was a lot less on the day and he preferred it that way. As she watched her family assemble around the kitchen table, Norah wondered if this would be the last Christmas they would share. Times were uncertain. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had come back in September with the Munich Agreement, but despite the piece of paper on which the British people conceded that the German-speaking Sudetenland was now part of Germany, talk of war hadn’t gone away. If anything, her occasional work with the Women’s Voluntary Service of the Air Raid Precaution, now known as the WVS, had convinced her that the government was saying one thing while preparing for quite another.
‘This looks good enough to eat,’ said Dad as he lowered himself onto a chair. Nobody laughed. They’d heard the same joke every Christmas for years.
‘Can I do anything, dear?’ said Elsie as her daughter filled the gravy boat and lobbed the dirty roasting pan into the sink.
‘It’s all in hand, Mum,’ said Rene. ‘You sit down next to Dad and enjoy yourself.’
Norah’s husband, Jim, came into the room with Mrs Kirkwood on his arm. ‘Here we are, Mother,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You sit here.’
Norah’s mother-in-law looked around disapprovingly and sniffed. ‘I can’t sit with my back to the window,’ she declared. ‘The draught will play havoc with my rheumatism.’
‘The window isn’t even open,’ Rene pointed out.
‘I don’t mind moving,’ Elsie said.
Rene pursed her lips as her mother moved to the other side of the table and Mrs Kirkwood – with a great deal of huffing and puffing – sat in the vacant chair.
Jim came over to the stove to collect the plates from the rack above the hob where they were keeping warm. It was a real treat to have him home for most of the day. He usually had to be on duty on Christmas Day, but this year he had been lucky enough to be given the evening shift. That meant he didn’t have to go to the station until six o’clock. He bent to kiss Norah’s cheek. ‘Thanks, love. Looks like you’ve done us proud.’ Taking the plates to the head of the table he began to carve the golden chicken. Max, who had been curled up on the mat in front of the fire, came to the table and looked up at him with a hopeful expression.
‘Max, go to your bed,’ Dad said sharply.
The dog slunk miserably away and lay on a blanket they had put by the door.
‘Not too much for me, dear,’ said Mrs Kirkwood. ‘I’ve the appetite of a bird.’
For the next few minutes everyone occupied themselves with filling their plates. It was followed by a silence as they savoured their first few mouthfuls.
‘This is delicious.’
‘The chicken is lovely and tender.’
‘Really? My bit is gristly.’
‘Shall I give you another slice, Mother?’
Mrs Kirkwood put her hand up. ‘It’s all right, James. I’m not one to make a fuss.’ As she lowered her head towards her plate again, Rene rolled her eyes and pulled a face, Norah and her mother struggled not to giggle. Jim gave his mother another slice of chicken anyway.
‘Oh, I forgot me Brussels sprouts,’ said Dad. ‘Pass me the dish, would you, love?’
‘I hear you’ve joined the WVS,’ said Elsie, passing the dish.
‘I haven’t actually joined,’ said Norah. ‘I just help out occasionally. It’s a bit difficult to commit myself to anything more permanent as there’s always so much to do, but when I can go I quite enjoy it.’
When she wasn’t working in the garden, Norah was making preserves. Her kitchen dresser positively groaned with jars of jam; strawberry, raspberry, plum and blackcurrant. And if she wasn’t making jams, it was chutney and pickles; marrow, beetroot, pickled red cabbage, onions and cucumbers, the list went on and on.
‘Do you get a uniform?’ Rene asked.
Norah chuckled and made her eyes go bigger. ‘Oh I do, I do.’
‘What’s it like?’ asked Rene.
The dog sneaked his way back under the table.
‘Actually, not too bad as uniforms go,’ said Norah. ‘At least I’ll be nice and warm in winter. It’s a green tweed jacket and skirt with a red blouse. They’ve just issued a badge to go on the jacket, but I haven’t got round to sewing mine on yet.’
‘I’m sure you’ll look very smart, dear,’ said Elsie.
‘And what exactly does the WVS do?’ asked Pete, sneaking the dog a bit of chicken skin.
‘Apparently we’ll be doing all sorts,’ said Norah. ‘Right now, I’ve been paired up with a girl called Penny Draycot and as soon as Christmas is over, we have to go all around Worthing to collect the names of anyone who would be willing to give children from London a home.’
Elsie looked puzzled. ‘What, adopt them?’
‘No, Mum,’ said Norah, ‘but if we do go to war, they reckon Hitler will bomb London first, so the plan is to move all the children to places of safety before it happens.’
‘But there won’t be a war,’ Mrs Kirkwood said crossly. ‘Mr Chamberlain said so.’
‘Let’s hope he’s right, Mrs Kirkwood,’ said Pete, ‘but I’m not so sure myself.’
Mrs Kirkwood harrumphed.
‘If there is a war,’ said Rene, ‘I shall join one of the women’s services.’
‘Oh,’ sai...
