George releases Ellie’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie,’ he says, pressing his fingertips against his forehead. ‘I love you. I’ve always loved you.’
‘You never said it, George. I waited for it. I waited for it for years. Now, it’s too late. Love is a hungry thing. If you don’t feed it, it withers and dies. Ours died.’
Chapter 27
Tippy’s Tickle – 15 September 2001
Sophie raises the collar of Florie’s yellow raincoat and pulls it close around her neck. The rain pelts steadily onto the umbrella she’s pulled out of Ellie’s umbrella stand, the printed scene of Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge a feeble barrier against the downpour. She strains to listen for voices, or footsteps, anything, from her vigil on Ellie’s porch.
Then, a dog’s bark, and Rupert’s dark bulk emerges from the black night. Then Sam, and, in his arms, Becca.
Sam climbs the steps with the sleeping girl, the dog pounding up the steps behind him. He stops before Sophie. ‘You waited.’
‘Yes, of course. Is she okay?’
‘She’s fine. I found her hiding under a rock outcrop at the bottom of the cliff. Rupert brought me to her. She was about a half mile away from the clearing.’
Sophie opens the screen door and follows Sam and the dog into the kitchen. ‘A half mile away? How did she get there?’
‘Fairies.’
‘What?’
‘She said she followed a beautiful fairy on a red pony.’
‘She has a lively imagination.’
Sam grunts. ‘Emmett’s been feeding her nonsense. I’m going to put a stop to it tomorrow.’
‘She’s okay otherwise?’
‘Yes, she’s fine. But all she could tell me about were fairies.’
‘Sam, it might be my fault.’
Sam stops in the doorway to the hall, Becca curled against his leather jacket. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I read her a fairy story from an old Enid Blyton book I found in the living room the other day. She … she seemed to love it. The Fairy Queen especially.’
Sam shakes his head and smiles. ‘Thanks for reading her the story, Princess Grace. You’re obviously a good storyteller. She said the fairy looked like you.’
Sophie grunts. ‘You said she followed a beautiful fairy.’
Sam grins, his dark eyes warm. ‘Like I said, Princess Grace. She said the fairy looked just like you.’
***
Sam brushes the hair from Becca’s forehead and leans over the bed to give the sleeping girl a kiss. So much like her mother. So much like Winny.
You gave me a real fright tonight, Becca-bug. There was a moment there when I thought … No, he isn’t going to go there. He can’t go there again.
He sits on the end of the bed and closes his eyes. Weariness drags at his body. Pressing his fingers against his eyes, he yawns. I wish you were here, Winny. This would never have happened if you’d been here.
Another face floats into his mind. Sophie. She’s nothing like Winny. Nothing like Winny at all. But, she makes him laugh with her odd, uptight ways. That only irritates her more. Which amuses him even more. It’s like being on a carousel. She keeps him on his toes.
He rubs his head. Why’d you have to go, Winny? And now there’s Sophie, and I just don’t know. I just don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He looks down at his sleeping daughter. I’m sorry Winny. I’m so sorry.
Chapter 28
Norwich, England – 27 April 1942
The sound took her by surprise. It’d been so quiet since August, almost like the war had decided to pass them by. Now, the roar of the plane, like a zipper through the sky, coming on suddenly, then, in an instant, so loud it’s shaking the bed. Her mirror falls off the wall over her dresser and crashes onto the Persian rug, imbedding slivers of glass into the faded tufts.
The siren screams awake, and another plane thunders over the house. Heading west. They’re ours. Something’s coming.
She drops her new Daphne du Maurier novel onto the bedcovers and jumps out of the bed. Throwing back the blackout curtain, she sees the sky ablaze with searchlights. The ack-ack guns come to life, throwing black flak into the moonlit sky. Then she sees them, the silhouettes like insects in the angry sky. Growing larger, louder. Then the whistling and the explosions as the bombs fall over the unsuspecting city.
‘Dottie!’ Stumbling over her discarded pumps, she pulls open her door. ‘Dottie!’
Dottie stands, pale and shaking in the doorway of the old nursery that she’d reclaimed as her bedroom the previous year. She hugs the struggling cat against her flannel nightgown. ‘Where’s Poppy?’
‘He has his Red Cross meeting tonight. He was meant to be back by ten. He’ll find a shelter, don’t worry.’
A bomb screams through the air nearby then goes silent. The sisters freeze. Then, an enormous explosion as the bomb ploughs into the back garden, shaking the house and blowing out the fanlight over the staircase. Glass showers the carpeted steps like silver confetti. A second bomb whistles through the air. A dull thud as it lands in the garden. Silence.
‘It didn’t explode, Ellie.’
Ellie grabs her sister’s arm. ‘Hurry, Dottie. We’ve got to get to the cellar.’
***
The sisters huddle together on one of the cots in the cellar. The cat is curled up beside them, seemingly oblivious to the devastation raining down on the city. The room is narrow, with a brick ceiling only just high enough for them to stand under. A faint mustiness sits in the cool, damp air, tinged with the tang of drying onions. Ellie draws the grey blanket around them, tugging the folds around their heads to muffle the cacophony of the aerial battles being waged overhead.
‘It’s dark, Ellie.’
Ellie squeezes her sister’s quivering body. ‘I know. But we can’t put on the light till this is over.’
‘I wish Poppy were here.’
‘He’ll be fine. He got through the last war in one piece, didn’t he? He’s indestructible.’
‘Do you suppose George is on one of the ack-ack guns tonight?’
‘I expect so. Helping at least. They won’t let him be a gunner because of his eye.’
‘How did he hurt his eye, Ellie? It doesn’t look any different from his good one.’
‘Conkers.’
‘What?’
‘He was playing conkers with Joey Fisher at school recess when he was nine. George’s conker was a six-er so he was pretty confident. But when it hit Joey’s conker it smashed apart and a long splinter flew into George’s eye. Nurse got the splinter out and wrapped a bandage around his head. The next day half his eye jelly had leaked out. They patched him up at the hospital but his eye was blind after that.’
‘Poor George.’
‘They found out Joey had baked his conker. It was hard as a rock.’
‘That’s cheating.’
‘People cheat sometimes, Dottie. They do it to get ahead, I suppose. Life isn’t always fair.’
‘You mean sometimes cheaters win?’
Ellie shrugs. ‘Sometimes they do.’