expected her new surroundings to feel alien and a little bit frightening but Tilly and her mother had made her feel so welcome. It felt funny not to be in the large orphanage kitchen, washing up or helping cook. Tilly’s mother had stopped her when she had gone to wash their teacups earlier, saying that there would be time enough for that another day and that anyway, she was a paying lodger and not here to work.
Olive nodded as she listened to Sally whilst inwardly thinking that she would have a word with Tilly and see what she thought about passing on a couple of the dresses she was growing out of on to Agnes. Matron had more or less admitted to Olive before she had left that it was difficult getting second-hand clothes for Agnes because she was so much older than the other girls, and the clothes that people passed on to the orphanage were for younger children. Olive had decided there and then that she would do her utmost to make sure that poor Agnes had a few better things. She would see if she could get a decent bit of material from one of the markets, Petticoat Lane perhaps, to have something new made up for both Tilly and Agnes. She could afford it now that she was getting three lots of rent money in, even if she had reduced what Agnes had to pay because she was having to share with Tilly.
The news had finished. Rick got to his feet, having assured himself that his sister had indeed found somewhere comfortable. It had been daft of him secretly to worry about her. Trust Dulcie to fall on her feet. Not that he liked what she had done. Families should stay together – that was how people like them lived – but Dulcie had always been awkward, wanting to make things difficult for herself and for others.
Dulcie saw Rick to the front door.
‘And don’t you forget about going home on Sunday to go to church?’ he reiterated yet again.
‘Will you stop going on about that?’ she complained. ‘I’ve said I’ll come, haven’t I?’
‘Well, you just make sure you do,’ Rick warned her, as he set off in the direction of Stepney with the now empty case.
It was gone eleven o’clock, she could see from the tiny illuminated hands of her alarm clock, but Sally still couldn’t sleep. Being back in a proper bedroom in a proper house had brought back too many memories.
Memories of before the betrayal, when Morag had been invited home by her mother and had stayed overnight with them; memories of the laughter and happiness that had filled the kitchen as Morag easily and naturally fell into the household routine, helping with the chores; memories of the Christmas before her mother had fallen ill that they had all spent together, Morag, Callum, her parents and her. She could see herself now pulling a cracker with Callum and then wearing the silly hat he had put on her head before reading out the equally silly riddle that had been inside the cracker along with a plastic heart charm, which he had given to her with the words, ‘Here’s my heart, Sally. I want you to look after it for me.’ Silly words, and yet to her at the time they had had such meaning. It was pointless thinking about that now, she told herself, rolling over and punching her pillow as she reminded herself that she was on duty in the morning at eight o’clock, and that the ENT surgeon had a full list of tonsil-lectomies to get through, the final batch before the majority of the operating staff were evacuated. These urgent operations were now to be carried out in the basement theatres the hospital had organised, the top-floor theatres closed down because of the threat of war.
Liverpool . . . She would always miss her home city, Sally knew, but she would not miss the pain she hoped she had left behind there. A pain she was determined should not follow her into her new life.
Chapter Six
‘Come on and sit down, Mum. I’ve got the kettle on.’
Olive gave Tilly a grateful look as she sank down into the most comfortable of the kitchen chairs – the one that originally belonged to her father-in-law, and which had arms and a couple of cushions, and which she had re-covered in the spring at the same time as she and Tilly had run up the pretty kitchen curtains.
It was Friday afternoon and Tilly had been sent home early because the hospital was completing its evacuation programme ahead of the war that everyone was now not just dreading but also expecting. As Tilly was remaining in London, she would continue to work as part of the skeleton staff in the Lady Almoner’s office.
‘My feet,’ Olive complained as she eased off her shoes and surveyed what looked like the beginnings of a blister. ‘Although I shouldn’t complain, not when I think of those poor children and their mothers.’
In her role as a member of the WVS, Olive had been on duty all day today and the previous day, helping to get small children onto the evacuation trains organised to take them away from danger and into the country.
Newspapers were full of photographs of lines of children being marched away from their homes and their parents, many of them escorted by their teachers, ready to be handed over to waiting groups of volunteers once they reached their destinations. Only mothers with very young children and babies were being evacuated with their children. As Agnes had said the previous evening, after going straight from work to the orphanage to help with the evacuation, it really broke your heart to see the children’s tears as they were taken away from everything and everyone they loved, unable to understand that it was for their own sakes and their own safety.
Olive watched her daughter as she made the tea, worried about her safety.
As though Tilly had guessed her thoughts she said quietly and in a very grown-up voice, I’m glad we’re staying here, Mum. It would be awful if we all deserted London, and those who can’t get away were left on their own. And besides, if anything does happen, if Hitler does bomb us, then I want to be with you, because you’re the best mum in the world. When I listen to poor Agnes talking about growing up in the orphanage and being left on its doorstep, I try to think how I would feel if that was me; if I hadn’t been lucky enough to have you as my mother.’ Her voice broke slightly, causing Olive to blink away her own emotion.
‘Oh, sweetheart, we mustn’t blame Agnes’s mother too much. We don’t know what she might have gone through, poor girl. No mother gives up her baby willingly, I can promise you that, and as for us staying here in London, well, I hope I am doing the right thing, Tilly, and that I’m not just being selfish wanting to be here in this house. A home means a lot to a woman but it never means more than her children and those she loves.’
‘We’ll be all right, Mum, I’m sure of it. Besides, how could Hitler bomb London when we’ve got all those barrage balloons and anti-aircraft batteries, never mind everything else, and the RAF?’
Sally, coming into the kitchen in time to catch Tilly’s fiercely patriotic words, exchanged a brief look over her head with Olive, before agreeing firmly, ‘That’s right, Tilly. This city, and this country, are well defended and we’ll stand firm when the time comes, no matter what Hitler might try to do.’
‘Has everyone gone now?’ Tilly asked her as she removed an extra cup from the cupboard to pour Sally a cup of tea. ‘It seemed so strange when I left earlier, coming through the main hall and it almost being empty. It felt funny, sort of ghostly, making me think how old the hospital really is. I’d never felt it before today.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Sally agreed, ‘and yes, everyone who’s going has mostly gone now, and we’ve sorted out the operating theatres in the basement.’ She didn’t add that she’d heard that orders had been given for thousands of cardboard coffins to be made for the dead the authorities were anticipating should the city come under attack from Hitler.
‘I almost don’t want to do this,’ Olive announced as she switched on the wireless for the six o’clock news bulletin.
‘Come
