let to small companies which were producing consumer goods like bicycles, wireless sets and vacuum cleaners. And those in good jobs were looking for houses. On the more affluent side of town, two streets of new dwellings were being put up for four or five hundred pounds freehold or ten shillings a week, all with bathrooms and small gardens, and it went without saying that George was building them.
Nick disappointed Barbara by not passing the entrance exam to go to the grammar school with Alison, but George said it didn’t matter because he would be working in the business with him. ‘It will be Kennett and Son,’ he told her.
‘Don’t you mean sons?’ Barbara queried. ‘Don’t forget Jay-Jay.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten him, but he has only just started school, it will be a long time before he can join the firm, won’t it? And to be honest I’m not sure he’s got what it takes. He’s more like you, artistic, not practical.’
He did have a point and, besides, she really didn’t want either of her sons being taught George’s idea of good business practice. Reminded that her younger son ought to be in bed, she rose and went upstairs to his room.
He was sitting at the desk George had bought him the year before, his red-gold head bent over a sheet of paper. When her shadow fell over him he quickly covered the paper with his arm. She smiled. ‘What are you drawing? Can I see?’
Slowly he slid his arm out of the way to reveal a surprisingly good caricature of George, with beetling black brows and an oversize mouth. On his barrel-like chest was a huge blue rosette. He grinned sheepishly. ‘You won’t tell Dad, will you?’
She laughed in delighted surprise. ‘No, I don’t think he’d appreciate it. Now, it’s time you were in bed.’
She told herself she didn’t have favourites, that she loved all her children equally, but she was especially close to Jay-Jay and, as he grew, she imagined she could see something of Simon in him, the cheerful countenance, the desire to please, the affectionate nature. She hoped he would grow up with Simon’s sensitivity and not be like George. Nowadays she rarely thought of Jay-Jay as anything but George’s child, but if the truth came out, what would she do? Deny it with her last breath, she supposed, though how convincing she would be under pressure she had no idea and prayed she would never be put to the test. She kissed him goodnight and went back to the sitting room. George had gone out again, Nick was building something with his Meccano and Alison was doing her homework.
Barbara sat up in bed, wondering what had woken her. She lay listening to the wind howling round the house, rattling the windows and making a door bang. She heard something crash outside and went to open the window. As soon as she loosened the catch, the casement was whipped out of her hand. She wrestled with it a moment before forcing it shut, then stood and watched the trees at the end of the garden, swaying to and fro in a kind of frenzied dance against a sky where the clouds scudded like huge black galleons on a storm-lashed sea. One of the trees must have come down because she could see the chimneys of the manor, never visible before. It was that which had woken her.
‘George, wake up.’ She went back to the bed and shook him. ‘George, there’s a tree down in the garden.’
He groaned and stirred. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘There’s a tree down. I heard it go. Just listen to the wind. Your mother will be terrified.’
He got up and padded in his pyjamas to look out of the window, just as another tree creaked ominously and then thudded to the ground, flattening the fence they had built between The Chestnuts and the manor grounds.
He grabbed his trousers and pulled them on over his pyjamas. By the time he was halfway down the stairs, the children were awake and crowding at the landing window which gave them a good view of the garden. Sheet lightning illuminated a scene of destruction: trees down, branches broken, fences flattened. The sound of breaking glass told them the greenhouse had gone. As they watched they saw their father crouching against the wind as he battled his way to his mother’s bungalow.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Barbara said.
By the time she had made cocoa for them all, George was back