of trees,’ continued Julia. She could see the tide was turning. She brushed his damp forehead with a kiss. ‘Get off to sleep now, love, and we will talk more about it in the morning. You will be able to take your bear,’ she added, tucking him in and smoothing down the fur of the bear that was snuggled next to him, noticing as her heart melted a little the threadbare corner of its ear where Tom rubbed it in order to fall asleep. ‘And all your favourite toys,’ she continued, fighting the quiver in her own voice.
Tom nodded.
She rose and tiptoed to the door and turned off his light, his tiny voice finding her through the darkness.
‘You’ll be okay, won’t you, Mummy, without us?’
He sounded so much older than seven and she fought the truth. ‘Of course I’ll be okay, Tom. I’ll miss you terribly. But I have important war work to do for our prime minister here.’
Even in the darkened room, she could see his eyes widen with the gravity of what she was saying.
‘Then you must do it, Mummy, and I promise to be good. I’m getting good at writing now and I’ll draw pictures of the tractors and send them to you.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ Julia said, now fighting the croak in her voice as the tears started to rise in her chest again. After she closed the door that night, and after Maggie had gone to sleep, she sat at the kitchen table and cried. She cried for a whole hour. For the man that she’d put on the train that morning and for the children she’d be putting on a train at the end of the week. Everybody was leaving her. And she wondered if there would ever be a day when they would be a normal family again.
7
Lizzie woke with a start and sat up in bed, her heart pounding. She had been dreaming about Fergus; she struggled to steady her breathing and quieten herself. As she peered out into the gloomy room, she tried to work out where she was. Where was the sloping ceiling, the daisy-patterned curtains being sucked in and out by the night air? This room was square and had a vaguely antiseptic smell. It was then that she recognized where she was, as she focused on the blackout curtains at the window. It had taken her a moment to acclimatize her vision, but now she could see more clearly. Just a few feet to her right was Diana, her back turned to her as she slept in the large room they shared with the other recruits. She was in West Drayton, just outside London, in the WAAF training barracks.
Clutching at her nightdress she realized sweat was dripping down her chest, and her hair was matted around her face and neck. She needed to get out of bed and go somewhere where there was some cooler air.
Lizzie slid her legs out of bed and into her slippers and, grabbing her dressing gown, stepped into the hallway. Attempting to inhale gulps of the thin, dry air, she ran her hand through her damp hair and tiptoed to the tiny kitchen, which they shared among the four rooms that were her small group. Her hands were still shaking and her palms sweating as she placed the kettle on the stove and, tentatively peeling aside the blackout curtains, she cracked open the window in hope of some fresh air. Outside, the first pink blush of morning was smeared across the blue velvet sky. All was unusually still around the barracks and Lizzie closed her eyes to enjoy it. Somewhere, far off, birds began to welcome the day and just the familiarity of the rise and fall of gentle birdsong took her home to Scotland and calmed her instantly. She took a long slow moment to inhale deep, ragged breaths of the cool morning air until her breath was even, her heart rate returned to normal and the clock in the kitchen, ticking merrily, informed her it was five o’clock. Feeling her equilibrium return she shuffled to the stove and dropped a teaspoon of tea into the pot, and only then did Lizzie consider the dream again.
She had been back in the barn just as it had happened five years before. When the two of them had started kissing, and their heavy petting had shifted into something else, something more sinister. Lizzie remembered with a shiver the sound of his breath roaring in and out