Love & Laughter

by Lilian Harry

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A delightfully warm novel about the rebuilding of lives in Plymouth and Portsmouth after the Second World War. The War is over at last and in Plymouth and Portsmouth, two of Britain's greatest seaports, and the task of rebuilding must begin. But it is not only streets, businesses and homes that have been laid waste. Lives, too, have been devastated. Marriages have been disrupted, family life shattered, and now the inhabitants must find their own way back to normality - if they can remember what that is. Lucy Pengelly is just one woman whose life has been torn apart by the war. What will happen when her husband returns from the POW camp in the Far East? And what of the growing friendship between Lucy and her friend David, who played such an important part in their lives during the Blitz?

Release date: August 19, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 250

Sample

Geoff Pengelly burst in from the street, his red hair standing on end, school tie little more than a knot of coloured string around his neck, blue eyes ablaze. He tore into the narrow hallway, almost colliding with a guest on his way out, skidded on the multi-coloured rug his grand-mother had spent so many evenings making out of old rags, and hurled himself through the kitchen door to where the rest of the family was finishing breakfast.

‘It’s over! The war’s really over! They’ve given in – just like that – the Japs’ve given in!’ He skidded to a halt by the kitchen table, almost knocking his mother over as she started to her feet. ‘Mum, it’s over, we’ve won – Dad’ll be able to come home.’

Lucy Pengelly stared at her son. ‘Where d’you hear that?’

Geoff jigged impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘Everyone’s talking about it. People are coming back from work already – they’ve all got two days off. We’d have heard it ourselves if we’d got the wireless on.’

‘Us’d have had it on too, if you’d got that accumulator charged yesterday like I told you,’ his grandmother said from the end of the table. ‘Always putting things off till tomorrow, that’s your trouble. Why, when I was a liddle maid—’

‘Never mind that now, Mum.’ Lucy sat down as suddenly as she’d jumped up. ‘If it’s true that the Japs have given in …’ She looked at her son again. ‘Why? I thought they’d never surrender. Said they couldn’t lose face. What happened?’

‘I dunno. It’s those big bombs the Yanks dropped, I think. Couldn’t take it.’ Geoffrey spoke with a touch of scorn. ‘They should see what it’s like in Plymouth. We had thousands of bombs and we never gave in.’

‘These were atom bombs, though, weren’t they?’ Arthur Pengelly said. ‘They were bigger than anything that’s ever been used before. Just one of ’em could do more damage than all the bombs we had during the whole of the Blitz.’

Lucy had a brief vision of a Japanese city, laid waste in a few minutes by just one huge bomb, as Plymouth and Portsmouth and other cities had been in weeks or months by thousands. She tried to visualise the kind of explosion it must have been, to wreak even more terrible damage than had happened during those flame-filled weeks of the blitz in 1941 and all the others that had followed. In one night … But her sudden, unexpected flash of compassion for the innocents who had burned in the Japanese pyre was swiftly overtaken by the realisation of what it meant to her, to the family, to the whole of Britain, to the world … The war was over. Over.

And Wilmot would be coming home.

It would be a curious celebration.

In a way, it had all been done already, when the news of Victory in Europe had come at the beginning of May. Then, there’d been some warning and everyone had known in those last few days that the announcement would surely come. Mr Churchill, whose rousing speeches had kept their hearts up through the darkest days of the Battle of Britain, Dunkirk and the Blitz, and who had brought them the great news of D-Day, seemed reluctant to speak too soon of victory. But at last at three o’clock in the afternoon, he had made his historic broadcast and then everyone had gone mad, waving flags, blowing whistles, climbing lamp-posts and dancing all down the streets. Every ship in Devonport and the Sound had let off their hooters, and every church that was still standing and had bells to ring chimed in to join the general cacophony. And Lucy’s mother had written to tell her that it was just the same back in Pompey. Every ship in the harbour, every church bell, every whistle and every wooden rattle, every drum. And for those who had no instrument, every pair of saucepan lids.

The rejoicings seemed to have been going on ever since. Dancing in the streets had extended to organised street parties, and for every ship that came home there was a new parade with bands playing and crowds to greet the returning heroes. And heroes they were, Arthur Pengelly said, every one of them. He’d served in the Great War – the one they were now calling the First World War – and he knew.

However, for all the gladness, there were still some hearts that ached: for the men who would not come home, and for those who were still caught up in the conflict. The war in the Far East had not yet ended and there was still the fear that many would die in action. And still many thousands held prisoner, in conditions that Lucy hardly dared think about.

‘He says they’re being treated well,’ she’d said to her mother-in-law in the early days, holding the scrap of paper that was all Wilmot could send. ‘He says so.’

‘And what else could he say?’ Maud Pengelly demanded, mopping her eyes. ‘They’re not going to let anyone tell the truth, are they? If it’s all true what people say about the way they’re torturing our boys and making them slave—’

‘Mum, don’t,’ Lucy begged. ‘It doesn’t help to torment ourselves. We don’t know that it’s true. And it might not be all the camps, anyway – just one or two.’ She looked again at the scrap of paper, at Wilmot’s name scrawled at the bottom of the few lines. Did it look shaky, as if written with a trembling hand, the hand of a man tortured and sick? ‘We’ve got to keep going,’ she said desperately. ‘We’ve got to look after the children and ourselves and make sure Wilmot’s got a home to come back to.’

She’d known even then that she was fooling herself, trying desperately to keep up a pretence because she could not bear to think of Wilmot, her darling, cheeky-faced sailor husband, being tortured and beaten but, as the time dragged by, she’d had to face it. The stories were too many to be discounted; and she came to understand that it would be wrong to go on pretending. If only I could share it with him, she’d thought then, if only I could help him bear it …

Now, however, on this dull and drizzly August morning, it was over at last, and soon, surely, Wilmot would be coming back. To a home that wouldn’t be just as he remembered it, but a home nevertheless. And even though the house had been damaged – and again she turned her memory away from the thought of that night – it still stood, and they’d even been able to keep the business running. It was still a hotel – or more properly a guest house – of sorts. And already she’d begun to make plans to rebuild, to improve, to look forward.

With Wilmot home again, the plans would leap ahead. For Wilmot would surely come out of the Navy now, and settle down at last in civvy street. He would be at home all the time, a husband who shared her bed every night instead of occasionally, a father who could help bring up his children. And he would be filled with enthusiasm for this new life, full of plans for the future. The war would be behind them and, as the songs all said, there would be love and laughter, and peace ever after.

Tomorrow – when the world was free.

Lucy had been just eighteen when she first met Wilmot Pengelly. It had always been on the cards, of course, that she would marry a sailor. There were so many of them in Portsmouth, stationed on HMS Vernon, or over at Gosport on the submarine base, HMS Dolphin, or serving aboard the many ships that were based in ‘Pompey’. All the same, the Travers family weren’t best pleased that it looked like being a Plymouth chap.

‘I can’t see why she had to pick a Devon boy,’ Emily Travers said to her husband when Lucy went out to the front door to say goodnight to Wilmot, the first time she brought him home. ‘Aren’t there good enough ones in Portsmouth? I don’t want her moving down to Devonshire.’

‘You’re being a bit previous, aren’t you, girl? She’s only known the bloke a week. Anyway, he’ll be off back to sea before they can get too serious about each other, and his ship probably won’t come to Pompey again.’

Lucy, too, dismissed her mother’s fears. ‘Don’t be daft, Mum. You won’t lose track of me. Even if I did move to Devon – and I’m not saying I ever would, mind – I’d still come back and see you. And it’s a smashing place for a holiday.’

Emily sniffed. She and Joe hadn’t had a holiday since they’d been on their honeymoon, back in 1908, and that had just been a weekend spent with her mother’s cousin in London. Holidays were for people who could afford such luxuries, not for the likes of the Travers family. ‘Plain, ordinary folk, that’s what we are,’ she said. ‘It’s all we can do to keep a home for you youngsters, with food on the table and clothes on your backs, never mind gallivanting round the countryside on holidays. But I suppose that chap knows all about such things, what with his mum and dad running a hotel in Plymouth.’

‘I don’t think it’s a very big place,’ Lucy said. ‘Nothing really grand. It’s just a sort of guest house, for commercial travellers and people wanting a bit of a holiday.’

However, any sort of hotel seemed grand to Emily. ‘Don’t you let it go to your head, that’s all. I don’t want you getting serious about a chap you’re hardly ever going to see.’

‘Serious!’ Lucy said, and laughed. ‘Wilmot’s not the serious sort. He’s always laughing and joking – that’s what I like about him.’

‘That doesn’t mean he can’t be serious about a girl,’ Emily said, and she repeated her fears to Joe later on, as they got ready for bed. The rest of the family were all asleep – Lucy and her sisters in the back bedroom, the two boys in the front room downstairs. ‘There was a look in his eye – he’s proper sweet on her, you can tell he is. It’s not that I don’t like him, Joe – if you want the truth, I think he’s the best of all the boys she’s brought home yet – I just wish he was a Pompey chap.’

‘Well, he’ll be going off to sea soon.’ Joe had been working on Wilmot’s ship, doing repairs as it lay moored against the jetty in the dockyard, and he knew that the job would be over in a few days. ‘I daresay they’ll forget about each other in a couple of weeks. You know what our Lucy’s like. She likes a bit of life – she’s not the sort to stay indoors mooning after a chap.’

Wilmot did go away soon. His ship continued on its journey to Scotland and Scandinavia, and Lucy continued her life as before, setting out each morning to work at the naval outfitters where she was an apprentice, and going to the pictures with her sisters or out to walk along Southsea front with her friends. She didn’t seem bothered about getting a new boyfriend, so when Emily opened the door one evening to find Wilmot standing on the step, a battered kitbag beside him, she wasn’t altogether surprised.

‘Wilmot! What on earth are you doing here?’

His cheeky face, ruddy from weeks at sea, looked anxious. ‘I came to see Lucy, Mrs Travers. Is it all right? Is she in?’

‘But where’ve you come from? I thought your ship was on its way to Scotland.’

‘It is. I mean, it’s there now, but I got a leave pass.’ His eyes went past her, trying to see into the narrow passage-way. ‘I’ve only got tonight – it took me two days to hitch-hike here and I’m due back on Monday morning.’

‘Well, you’d better come in.’ Emily felt disturbed but knew better than to try to resist the inevitable. She looked at his kitbag. ‘I don’t know that we can offer you a bed.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, Mrs Travers. I wouldn’t ask you. I can stop at Aggie Weston’s or somewhere. If I can just put it in the passage –’ He lifted the bag and humped it into the house, following her through to the back room. ‘Is Lucy in? I didn’t have a chance to let her know –’

Only Lucy’s father and brothers were in the room when Wilmot entered it. Joe was sitting in his armchair by the fire, and Vic and Kenny were at the dining-table doing their homework. They looked up, bright eyed, and Joe laid his newspaper on his knees.

‘Well, you’re a surprise.’

‘I just came to see Lucy,’ Wilmot repeated, as if he’d walked round from the next street.

‘Oh, she’s not here,’ Vic said immediately, nudging his brother. ‘She’s out with her new chap. Got a smashing car, he has – they’re out in it all the time, aren’t they, Ken? Something high up in the Navy, isn’t he?’

‘Admiral,’ Kenny confirmed. He was eleven, only a year younger than his brother and almost as like him as a twin, with the same curly, reddish hair and freckles. Wilmot had found it difficult to tell them apart until he noticed that one of Vic’s front teeth was chipped. It had happened in a fight, Lucy had told him. You’d never get Kenny in a fight, he took everything as a big joke.

‘It’s true,’ Vic nodded, grinning at Wilmot’s dismayed glance at Emily. ‘Getting married in the cathedral, they are – Kenny and me’re going to be bridesmaids!’

‘Get off with you,’ Emily told them severely. ‘Don’t you take any notice of them, Wilmot, they’re just being silly like boys their age always are.’ She turned as they heard footsteps coming down the stairs and Kitty appeared at the door. She had just washed her hair and it was screwed into paper curlers, only a few strands of dark auburn showing. All the Travers family had inherited their colouring from their mother, from the blazing carrot of Vic and Kenny’s tousled curls to the rich auburn waves that shone and rippled like a winter sunset around Lucy’s head. Kitty’s and Alice’s came somewhere in between – golden red for Kitty, and the fawny ginger of a biscuit for Alice.

‘Go and tell your sister Wilmot’s here. They’re upstairs, the girls are, doing a bit of sewing. There’s not room down here with the boys’ homework spread out all over the table. As for you two –’ she addressed her sons again – ‘you can pack that lot away and go and help your dad out in the garden. There’s plenty of potatoes to pick up, so he told me.’

‘Dad’s not out in the garden. He’s here reading the paper—’ but Emily gave Joe such a glance that he rose immediately and laid his paper on the arm of his chair, and all three went out, the boys giving Wilmot a wink as they departed.

‘Here she is,’ Emily said as they heard a light patter of footsteps on the stairs, and in the next moment Lucy stood at the door, her face flushed, violet eyes brilliant. She took a step towards him.

‘Wilmot –’

Emily slipped through the door to the kitchen and closed it behind her. Wilmot and Lucy stared at each other for a moment, and then with a swift, stumbling movement were in each other’s arms. Wilmot held her close and she felt the rough blue serge of his tunic against her cheek before she lifted her face for his kiss.

‘Wilmot – oh, Wilmot – I’ve missed you so much.’

‘I’ve missed you too, Lucy. I’ve hated being away from you.’

‘It’s been like having a huge hole inside me – part of me’s been taken away.’

‘I know. I know. It’s like that for me too.’

They stood for a few minutes wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing in each other’s warmth. In the tiny kitchen on the other side of the door, they could hear Emily filling the kettle and getting out cups and saucers. They couldn’t keep the family out for long. In a few moments the door would open again. Alice and Kitty would be wanting to come downstairs, Joe and the boys back in from the garden.

‘We’ll go for a walk,’ Lucy said. ‘As soon as you’ve had some tea. You must be starving.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. I just wanted to see you again – I wanted to make sure –’

‘Make sure of what? Didn’t you get my letters? I’ve told you, over and over again.’

‘I know,’ he said, kissing her. ‘I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining it all. I wanted to make sure you were real.’

They didn’t get engaged that weekend – not officially, anyway. Joe would never have allowed it. But before Wilmot set out on the long journey back to Scotland, they had promised to stay faithful to each other and considered themselves as engaged as if Lucy wore a ring on her finger. And to mark their promise, Wilmot bought her a tiny brooch which formed his own initial.

‘You don’t need to wear it so everyone can see it,’ he said. ‘Just so long as you’ve got it, that’s all I want.’

‘Oh, I’ll wear it.’ She pinned it on her blouse. ‘I don’t mind people knowing that you’re my boy. I want them to know.’

Wilmot went back to sea. After that, the Travers family became accustomed to finding him on their doorstep, sometimes expected, often unannounced, his kitbag beside him. It became quite apparent that it was only a matter of time before the engagement was made official, and Lucy was just twenty-one when, with Wilmot’s tiny diamond sparkling on her finger, she walked up the aisle of St Mary’s church, Portsea, to join him at the altar.

‘It’s a shame there aren’t more people on the groom’s side,’ Emily murmured to her husband when he stepped back from giving the bride away. There was quite a crowd behind them – Vic and Kenny now growing youths of fourteen and fifteen, and all Joe and Emily’s own brothers and sisters and their families from all over Portsmouth and even ‘over the water’ in Gosport. On Wilmot’s side, however, there were only his parents, Arthur and Maud Pengelly, and an uncle and aunt from Torpoint – a place nobody else had ever heard of. ‘He’s an only child and there’s nothing to be done about that, but I’m surprised there aren’t any other relatives. Mr Pengelly’s got another brother, from what I remember.’

‘It’s a long way to come from Devon for a wedding,’ Joe muttered back. ‘And they couldn’t close the hotel – had to leave someone in charge of things.’

Wilmot was wearing his naval uniform, the square collar pressed till there wasn’t even the tiniest of creases, and his lanyards shining white. His brown hair, usually tousled and hard to keep tidy, was brushed flat and shone with hair cream, and his fresh, ruddy complexion looked as if it had been polished as hard as the black shoes that gleamed on his feet. He laid his round, white-topped cap down on the seat as he stepped forward to wait for his bride, and when he turned to watch her walk up the aisle nobody could doubt the love that shone from his face. His blue eyes glittered brightly and he looked, Emily thought with sudden tenderness, almost ready to cry.

Lucy stood beside her bridegroom, tall and slender in the billowing white wedding dress she’d made herself. Her hair rippled down her back like a lion’s mane, glowing through the white lace of her veil. She had wanted to draw it up at the back of her neck and pile it on top of her head in a mass of curls, but it had made her look taller than ever and when she’d tried on her head-dress the little white diamante coronet had been almost lost amongst the rich auburn, and the veil had hung awkwardly. So she had brushed it out instead and it added a splash of warm, shimmering colour to the cool white of her bridal gown.

Alice and Kitty waited behind her, each in robin’s egg blue. It had seemed to Joe and the boys sometimes that the whole house had been a froth of shimmering fabrics, spreading everywhere so that there was barely room to have a bit of dinner, let alone sit down and read the paper or for Vic and Kenny to do a bit of Meccano. And then there’d been the wedding presents, arriving daily: saucepans, cups and saucers, tablecloths, bedlinen – you name it, those two seemed to be getting it. More than he and Emily had ever got at their wedding, Joe was sure. But it took a lot to set up home, and even though they were starting off in two nice furnished rooms down in Plymouth they needed some of their own stuff.

Still, it would seem empty after they’d gone. For the last few months the whole household had revolved around this wedding, and in a few hours they’d be gone and it would be all over bar the shouting, as the saying went. He listened to Lucy’s voice, soft but firm as she made her vows, and was surprised to feel a sudden ache in his throat and a sting of moisture in his eye. He rubbed it surreptitiously with his finger and hoped nobody had noticed.

The neighbours had turned out to see Lucy leave the house, and they were there again when she came back on the arm of her new husband, followed by the guests.

As well as needlework there had been cooking and cleaning going on for the past week, and the two downstairs rooms had been made ready for the reception, with a table borrowed from next door and chairs all around the walls. Even then, it would have been a squash if the weather hadn’t been fine and most of the guests able to spill out on to the pavement or in the back garden.

They were still there when Lucy and Wilmot left to catch their train to Plymouth, and it looked as if they were settled in for the evening when probably someone would drag a piano out into the street and everyone, neighbours and all, join in the party. Wilmot’s parents and his uncle and aunt were catching the same train at the town station. Lucy giggled, feeling slightly embarrassed, as Wilmot hustled her into an empty compartment, making sure it was a no-corridor carriage. It seemed rude to be so pointedly making it clear they wanted to be on their own, but Wilmot ignored her protests, tossed his cap on to the seat and kissed her soundly.

‘I’ve been waiting for this moment. Just getting you to myself-that’s the trouble with weddings, there’s too many people about. I shan’t have another one.’

Lucy gave a little squeal. ‘I should hope not! What a thing to say to your wife on her wedding day.’

‘It’s my wedding day as well.’ He tilted his head back to look at her more seriously. ‘Well, Mrs Pengelly, how does it feel to be a married woman?’

‘How does it feel to be a married man?’ she parried, and he gave her a wicked wink.

‘Tell you that later. Or maybe –’ He glanced out of the window. They were trundling along beside the top of the harbour, with the shimmering expanse of water on their left and Portsdown Hill on their right. ‘I was thinking we might have time to do something about it now.’ He cuddled her close against him and nuzzled her neck.

Lucy gave a little cry of alarm. ‘Wilmot! Don’t be so daft – we’ll be in Fareham any minute. And someone might get in.’

‘They won’t dare. I’ll do my famous imitation of Frankenstein’s monster.’ He pulled a terrifying face and then laughed. ‘It’s all right, maid – I can wait. I’ve waited long enough already. I want it to be special, tonight. As special as I can make it.’

Lucy blushed. Such things weren’t a topic of conversation in the Travers household, but Wilmot had a breezily frank approach. It came of being a sailor, he told her, and it was why all the nice girls loved them.

‘Go on. I’m the only nice girl you know.’

‘You’re the nicest, I’ll say that.’ But she knew that he was as innocent as she. Whatever his mates got up to when they were in port, Wilmot had saved himself for her. She had no fear at all that he would ever be unfaithful, any more than she would.

Feeling inexplicably and rather pleasantly older, secure in the knowledge of their love, she settled back into her husband’s arms and gazed contentedly out of the window. This was the start of their new life together, and it was going to be good.

The sun beamed down from an almost cloudless sky, but as the train rumbled on into the west, a tiny cloud appeared as if from nowhere. It travelled slowly across the sky, small and dark, with no more than a rim of white. And when it passed across the sun, it cast a chill shadow on Lucy’s face.

But, by that time, suddenly exhausted by the excitement of the day, she was sound asleep in the arms of the man she had vowed to love, honour and obey until parted by death.

Lucy settled in quickly enough to being a sailor’s wife. She liked Plymouth, though it seemed odd not to be able to see the ships in the harbour, like you could at Portsmouth; you felt more a part of things there, she thought. But she liked going up on the Hoe and looking out at Plymouth Sound. You could see the ships coming in and out, and it was lovely on the wide expanse where Drake had played bowls and even today people walked and played games and had picnics.

Below, the cliff fell away in terraces of white rock, and there were little bathing pools cut into the stone, and diving boards perched over the sea. There was a big swimming-pool, too, that had only just been built, and it was full of people at weekends and during the holidays. Lucy and Wilmot went down there quite a lot in the first few weeks of their marriage. Lucy had always enjoyed swimming and the whole family had spent a lot of time on the beach at Southsea, going there every fine Sunday during the summer. She was surprised to find that Wilmot wasn’t so keen, but with her encouragement his awkward splashing turned into a passable crawl and they raced each other across the semicircular pool.

‘I thought all sailors’d be able to swim,’ she said as they climbed out and sat drying themselves in the sun. ‘What would you do if the ship sank?’

‘Since we’d probably be about a thousand miles from land, I don’t think being able to swim would be much help,’ he said. ‘Anyway, why should we sink?’

‘They said that about the Titanic,’ said Lucy, who had been two years old when that disaster had happened, so couldn’t remember it but had heard enough about it since. ‘I’d feel funny, going to sea if I couldn’t swim.’

‘Well, I can now,’ Wilmot said, getting bored with the subject. ‘So if ever the ship does go down, you’ll know it’s because of you that I don’t drown.’ Lucy shuddered and begged him not to talk like that.

Their carefree days didn’t last for long, however. Very soon after that, Lucy began to feel sick in the mornings and it wasn’t long before her doctor confirmed that she was expecting a baby. Geoffrey Edward was born exactly eleven months after their wedding, weighing eight and half pounds despite the fact that Lucy had been sick almost continuously throughout the pregnancy. Wilmot wasn’t there to welcome his son into the world, though: his ship went to sea the day before Geoffrey was born, and didn’t come back for a year.

They had better luck with the second baby, Patricia Ann. This time, Wilmot’s ship was in refit in Devonport for the last three months of the pregnancy and he didn’t go away until Patsy was three months old. This time, he could wonder with Lucy at the tiny fingernails and the first smile, but he missed the first tooth and the day when she began to crawl. However, he was back again for her first birthday and he was there two months later when she let go of the armchair she was standing beside and took her first unsteady steps across the room. By this time, Geoffrey was just over two years old and starting to put sentences together, and when Wilmot went back to sea he told Lucy it had never been so hard to leave.

‘They’re both so interesting now,’ he said. ‘I mean, you can almost hold a conversation with Geoff, and Patsy’s not going to be so long before she’s chattering away like a magpie. By the time I come home again they’re going to be different all over again.’

‘I know.’ Lucy leant her head on his shoulder. ‘Sometimes, I wish you could come out of the Navy, Wilmot. I know I went into it with my eyes open – I knew you’d be away a lot – but I didn’t realise just how bad it would be and how lonely I’d feel without you. And it does seem so hard, the little ones growing up without you. They need their daddy.’

‘Well, I’ve signed on till I’m thirty. There’s nothing I can do about that. I reckon we’ll think about it then, eh? I know Mum and Dad have always hoped I’d go into the hotel with them. It’s only another five years.’

Five years. That made it 1940. It seemed a lifetime. Geoffrey would be eight and Patsy six. But it was something to look forward to.

‘Would you mind coming out? You love the Navy, and going to sea.’

‘I did when I was single. I don’t love it so much now, I can tell you.’ He grinned wryly. ‘I reckon that’s why they make us sign on, because they know blokes will all want to come out the minute they get wed.’ He gave her a kiss. ‘Anyway, maid, it’s not so bad this time – I’ll be back in six months’ time. We’ll have Christmas together.’

They had agreed they would like to have three or four children. Wilmot envied Lucy her family life and said he didn’t want his nippers to be ‘only’ children, as he had been. It was all right in some ways, but children needed company.

‘We’ll just give ourselves this break,’ Lucy said, ‘and then we’ll have another one. It won’t be too far behind the others, and if it is, we’ll just have to have two, for company.’

‘Twins’d be nice, if you could arrange it,’ Wilmot said.

But it wasn’t twins. Instead, when Patsy was three and Geoffrey just starting at infants’ school, Zannah came along.

They didn’t call her Zannah at first. Susannah was her name, too long by half, Maud Pengelly said critically, and if they were going to shorten it to Susie or Sue, why not call her Susan in the first place? But Lucy stood firm. She liked the name Susannah and the child could shorten it herself when she got old enough, if she wanted to. None of them had thought of ‘Zannah’ – that wa