LITMIR.BIZ

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after all, the guardians and protectors of their men’s emotions, or so it seemed to Luke from witnessing the relationship between his own parents. It was always his mother who did the bending and the coaxing and who was at pains to make sure that her husband and her children were happy. She did that because she loved them, but Katie didn’t seem to want to make sure that he was happy.

      Luke hated it when these dark moods came down over him. This one had started coming on after the lorry driver had been killed. The sight of the man’s crushed body had shocked and nauseated him so much that he had had trouble controlling his reactions, and had been afraid of showing himself up in front of his own men and the Americans.

      That had made him angry with himself. If he was close to crying like a baby because he’d seen one body, what would he be like when the time came for him to go into action? How could he be a proper corporal to his men if deep down inside himself he was worrying that he might be a coward? He had gone through Dunkirk, Luke reminded himself now. But that had been different. They had been running from the enemy then, not fighting them.

      How was it possible for him to feel so alone when he was surrounded by his family and when he had Katie at his side?

      Luke didn’t know. He just knew that he did. He couldn’t explain why quarrelling with Katie gave him that sore scratchy feeling inside, nor could he explain why he found it so hard to trust her and believe her when she told him that she loved him.

      ‘It just doesn’t seem right to me that you’d want to go without me in the first place,’ he told her now, returning to the argument like a child worrying at a scabbed knee, even though it knew that the end result of its messing was going to be pain. ‘Unless there’s something you aren’t telling me?’

      ‘Oh, Luke,’ Katie sighed, pulling her hand from his as the misery inside her grew into despair.

      She hated the thought that she and Luke might end up like her own mother and father. What Katie longed for was a marriage like Jean and Sam’s; a contented and placid marriage based on trust. She didn’t want excitement and drama. She wanted the security of knowing that her husband and her marriage would always be solid, dependable and unchanging. She could never for one minute imagine Sam saying the things to Jean that Luke had just said to her, or provoking a quarrel in the way Luke did between them. She knew that Luke had been treated badly by a previous girlfriend, but he had promised her that he would stop being so unnecessarily jealous, and she had thought he meant it. But now …

      ‘Do you want to try for those jobs at the telephone exchange then?’ Sasha asked Lou.

      Lou dragged her foot, scuffing the side of her shoe, a childhood habit to which she still sometimes reverted, especially when she was feeling on edge.

      ‘I suppose so, only it isn’t very exciting, is it?’ Lou answered as they followed their parents towards the modest church they had attended every Sunday for as long as they could remember.

      Ahead of them their parents had stopped to talk to other members of the congregation, the adults faces wreathed in smiles if they had been fortunate enough not to have lost anyone in the bombing raid, or shadowed by their pain if they had.

      ‘So what do you want to do?’ Sasha demanded impatiently, keeping an eye on their parents as she waited for Lou’s response.

      Lou didn’t know. She only knew that she yearned for something more than working in a telephone exchange. But Sasha didn’t. Sasha wasn’t like her. Panic filled Lou. That wasn’t true. They felt exactly the same; they always had done and they always would do. They had promised one another that nothing would ever come between them now, nothing and no one. The very thought of doing something without Sasha filled Lou with misery and despair.

      ‘I want to do what you want to do,’ she told her twin.

      ‘So we’ll go tomorrow and see if they’ll take us on then,’ Sasha told her.

      Sasha liked the thought of working at the telephone exchange. It was within walking distance of home, and somehow she knew she’d feel safe there. Feeling safe, both emotionally and physically, was important to Sasha. She been so afraid when she’d been trapped in the bomb site, and afraid too when she and Lou had quarrelled over which of them Kieran had liked the best. She never wanted to feel like that again, about anyone or anything.

      Her head held high with pride, her best floral silk frock abloom with bright pinks, yellows, reds and greens, and her Sunday best navy-blue straw hat pushed down firmly on top of her head, Emily beamed with delight in response to the smiles of welcome she and Tommy were receiving from the other churchgoers.

      Whitchurch was only a small town and already in the few days she had been here she had got to know several people, thanks to her chatty neighbour, Ivy Wilson, whose cousin owned a local farm, and who seemed to know everything about everyone.

      ‘What you want,’ she had told Emily when they had surveyed the large uncultivated back garden together over a welcome cup of tea, after she had come round to introduce herself and help Emily to unpack, ‘is a man to come and set this to rights for you. I’ll have a word with Linda, our Ian’s wife. Our Ian farms up at Whiteside Farm and they’ve got some of them prisoners of war sent to help out with the farm work. I dare say Ian won’t mind sparing you one to get you some veggies and that in, especially if you was to offer to feed him. Eatin’ her out of house and home, Linda says they are.’

      Emily had already registered her and Tommy at the doctor’s, and at the local shops with their ration books. She’d had a visit from the vicar to welcome her to his congregation, and a lady from the WVS had been round to invite her to join their local group. Emily had taken Tommy to the library so that they could get tickets, and all in all Emily was extremely pleased with their new home. She certainly hadn’t missed Liverpool, nor her husband, Con, not one little bit.

      All that fresh air and a summer spent playing out of doors would do wonders for Tommy’s thin pale face, especially once he started at school and made some friends.

      Emily had no fears now that Tommy might say or do the wrong thing and accidentally let it slip that they weren’t related. Tommy never spoke about his life before Emily had found him homeless, alone and living on scraps, too afraid even to speak at all, never mind talk about how he had come to be in such a desperate situation. Emily assumed that he had been orphaned by the war. She had claimed to officialdom and her husband that Tommy’s mother had been her own late cousin, and that because of that she was duty bound to take him in. She had organised new papers for him giving him that identity. She loved him as though he was her own child and the only thing that would ever make her give him up to someone else would be Tommy’s wish that she do so. Without it having to be said between them, they simply behaved as though they belonged together. They had not discussed the issue, but somehow Emily knew that Tommy understood and wanted them to be looked on as ‘family’. What need was there for her to go asking him any questions after all, Emily thought comfortably. Poor little scrap, there was no sense in reminding him of things he’d rather not think about. Who knew what he had been through before she’d found him?

      ‘Hang on a minute.’

      Emily turned round to see Ivy, her helpful neighbour, puffing up the slight incline in the road, after them.

      Like Emily she was wearing what was obviously her Sunday best, a navy silk dress with white spots, the fabric stretched tightly across her ample chest.

      ‘Well, you two look smart, I must say,’ she said approvingly when she had caught up with them, her face bright pink beneath the brim of her white straw hat. Older than Emily, and widowed, she was obviously determined to take Emily under her wing.

      Emily drew herself up proudly to her full height. Tommy did look smart in the grey flannel shorts and shirt and the Bluecoat School blazer she had bought for him in Liverpool from a school uniform supplier who was closing down.

      ‘I was just thinking,’ Ivy told Emily, ‘I’ll have to introduce you to Hilda Jones. She’s in charge of the local school and you’ll want to get your Tommy registered with her. Teaches them all herself now, Hilda does, since all the men have

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