tion id="u1051b7fe-a730-53e0-a315-09e50976ac1a">
First published in Great Britain by
William Collins Sons & Co Ltd in 1978
First published in Lions in 1993 and
reprinted by Collins in 1995
This edition 2017
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1978, 1989
Cover illustration and design © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 2017
Judith Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.
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Source ISBN: 9780007137626
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007385508
Version: 2017-08-23
For my husband
Contents
The rug was exactly the right red – not too orange and not too purple, but that lovely glowing shade between the two which was so difficult to find. It would look marvellous in the dining room.
“I’d like it, please,” said Anna. Clearly it was her lucky day.
She glanced at her reflection in a glass-fronted showcase full of table linen as the assistant led her to his desk. Her green coat – not passed on to her by friends but bought by herself – hung easily from her shoulders. The printed silk scarf, the well-cut dark hair and the reasonably confident expression were all in keeping with the status of the store around her. A well-heeled young Englishwoman out shopping. Well, she thought, nowadays I suppose that’s what I am.
While she wrote out a cheque and the assistant copied her name and address for the rug’s delivery, she imagined telling Richard about it. It would make their flat almost complete. All that was needed now were little things like cushions and lampshades, and perhaps, if Richard finished his script soon, they would be able to choose those together.
She became aware of the assistant hesitating over her name on the cheque.
“Excuse me asking, madam,” he said, “but is that any relation to the gentleman who writes for television?”
“My husband,” she said and felt the usual fatuous, self-congratulatory grin spread over her face as she said it. Ridiculous, she thought. I should be used to it by now.
“Really?” The assistant’s face was pink with pleasure. “I must tell the wife. We watch all his plays, you know. Wherever does he get his ideas from, madam? Do you help him at all with his writing?”
Anna laughed. “No,” she said. “He helps me.”
“Really? Do you write as well then?”
Why did I ever start on this? she thought. “I work in television,” she said. “But mostly I just rewrite little bits of other people’s plays. And if I get stuck, I ask my husband when I get home.”
The assistant, after considering this, rightly dismissed it. “When that big serial of his was on last year,” he said, “the wife and I stayed home for it every Saturday night. So did just about everyone else our way. It was so exciting – not like anything we’d ever seen.”
Anna nodded and smiled. It had been Richard’s first great success.
“We got married on the strength of that,” she said.
She remembered the register office in Chelsea, next to the foot clinic. Richard’s parents down from the north of England, Mama over from Berlin, their own friends from the BBC, cousin Otto passing out at the reception and saying it was the heat, but
