Street Song

by Emma Blair

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Susan's parents had wanted a son ... and they did little to hide their disappointment. As soon as was decently possible they packed her off to boarding-school. If only they could have known... For in the tradition-bound Scotland of the 1920s, there was no place for a woman like Susan. But she was determined to find one - even if it meant beating her wealthy parents at their own game...

Release date: May 19, 1994

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 512

Sample

Susan’s eyes were wide with fear and apprehension as she stepped through the door into Miss Buchan’s school. She was flanked on either side by her parents.

‘Captain and Mrs Gibb, how nice to see you again,’ Miss Buchan said, stepping forward to shake their hands. ‘And how are you today, Susan?’

Susan stared at Miss Buchan, not attempting to reply.

‘Are you looking forward to your stay with us? We’re certainly looking forward to having you here.’

Susan’s gaze left Miss Buchan to travel round the wood-panelled entrance hall. She might have been a small animal plucked rudely from its nest.

‘Answer Miss Buchan,’ Jean, her mother, prompted.

But still Susan said nothing.

‘Quite understandable in the circumstances,’ Miss Buchan smiled. ‘She’ll soon come round though. She does know why she’s here, doesn’t she?’

‘Oh yes,’ Jean replied. ‘It’s all been explained to her quite thoroughly. Hasn’t it, my angel?’

Susan moved closer to Jean, reaching out to clutch her mother’s coat.

‘Would you like to help her settle into the dormitory or do you think it best to leave right away?’ Miss Buchan asked.

Jean looked at her husband Keith for an answer.

Keith was hating this, feeling guilty as hell. Ever since learning the regiment was to be posted abroad, and deciding to leave Susan behind, he’d been trying to convince himself he’d have arrived at the same decision if she’d been a boy.

‘I think we should leave right away,’ he said.

Trembling, Jean reached down to kiss Susan on the cheek. ‘Mummy and Daddy will write to you every week and Miss Buchan or one of her staff will read the letters to you. Now be a good girl and do as you’re told and we’ll see you again when we come home on leave.’

Keith opened his wallet and extracted a fiver which he pressed into Susan’s hand. ‘Pocket money,’ he said, ‘which I think Miss Buchan better look after in the meantime.’

‘I’ll see she gets it as she needs it,’ Miss Buchan said, taking the fiver from Susan.

‘Well, that’s it then, I think,’ Keith said. Swinging Susan into his arms he pecked her on the cheek. Having deposited her back on the ground again he cleared his throat.

‘Jenny!’ Miss Buchan called out to a hovering girl. ‘You take Susan’s case up to dormitory C. Bed fourteen will be hers.’

‘Yes, Miss Buchan,’ Jenny said obediently. Lifting Susan’s small case she walked with it towards the staircase at the rear of the entrance hall.

‘Charming girl,’ Miss Buchan said. ‘Parents died tragically so now we look after her.’

Jean clucked sympathy.

‘’Bye ’bye, angel,’ Jean said, her eyes brimming over with tears.

Susan stared up at her mother, a profound betrayal written clearly across her face.

Keith reached down and shook his daughter’s hand. This was even more difficult than he’d anticipated. Taking Jean by the arm he turned her round and marched her to the door. Miss Buchan put her hand on Susan’s shoulder in case she tried to bolt after her parents. But she didn’t. Jean had one last look over her shoulder at the door. Then it closed behind her and Susan was cut off from sight.

‘You and I are going to get on just fine,’ Miss Buchan said. ‘You have my word on that. Now, how about a nice cup of tea and a cake? And while we’re having it you can tell me all about yourself. What you like and dislike, that sort of thing.’

As though in a trance, Susan followed Miss Buchan to her study, where she was told to sit on a chair in front of a cheery fire.

With the cake there were scones, pancakes and crumpets. But Susan ate nothing, mumbling she wasn’t hungry.

Miss Buchan did her best to draw and distract Susan, to no avail. Susan sat staring into the fire as though seeing strange sights in its depths.

That night Miss Buchan personally saw to Susan getting ready for bed.

When all the girls in the dormitory were ready, Miss Buchan led them in prayers, shortly after which the lights were turned out. Susan lay in the darkness listening to the breathing all around her. After a while she pulled the blankets over her head and there, securely muffled in her womb-like cocoon, she broke down and quietly cried her eyes out.

It was a day she’d remember for the rest of her life.

The first holidays to come up were the Christmas ones. The girls, with the exception of seven, either went home or to friends and relatives whom they’d spend the break with.

Susan was one of the seven.

Miss Buchan did her best by those with nowhere else to go. She bought them individual presents and there was a goose and crackers. After Christmas dinner they all sat round in a circle drinking lemonade and singing carols. Then they played charades and blind man’s bluff.

By far and away the youngest of the seven, Susan received extra special attention from Miss Buchan. Several of the older girls made a fuss of her and generally mothered her.

Susan said little, as was her wont, her large doe eyes drinking everything in.

Before coming to the school she’d been a happy, vivacious, extroverted child. Now she was withdrawn and painfully shy, forever trying to blend into the background as though she didn’t want anyone to notice she was there. Naturally, neither Miss Buchan nor any of the staff knew there’d been such a big change in her as they hadn’t known what she was like beforehand.

When the small party had subsided somewhat Miss Buchan took Susan to one side.

‘Would you like me to read the letter that came with your Christmas card now?’ she asked.

Susan’s eyes lit up. The letter readings were the highlight of her week, Jean having kept her word and written regularly. Susan sat with her hands cupping her chin as she avidly listened to her mother’s words.

Mummy and Daddy were missing her. Daddy was frightfully busy while there never seemed enough hours in the day for all the things Mummy had to do. The letter ended with the promise, as it always did, that Mummy and Daddy would see her during the summer when they’d be returning home on leave.

When she fell asleep that night Susan dreamed the same dream she’d been having regularly since arriving at the school. Mummy and Daddy were arriving home – home being the house they’d all lived in before Mummy and Daddy went abroad – and Mummy was saying they were never ever going to leave their daughter again and when Mummy and Daddy went overseas at the end of Daddy’s leave they’d be taking their darling Susan with them.

Miss Buchan laid the letter down and sighed. There were times she hated running a school and this was one of them.

She passed a hand wearily over her face. Well, she thought, she may as well get this over and done with. That was always the easiest way in the long run, she’d learned. She opened the door to her study and hailed a passing girl.

‘Find Susan Gibb and bring her to me right away,’ she said.

‘Yes, Miss Buchan,’ the girl replied and scuttled off.

She settled herself back behind her desk again and folded her hands in front of her. She was still in that position when there was a timid knock on the door.

‘Come in!’ she called out.

Susan entered, closing the door behind her as she’d been taught to do.

‘You wanted to see me, Miss Buchan?’

‘Sit down, child. There’s another letter from your parents which is addressed to me as well as yourself.’

‘Has Daddy been hurt?’ Susan asked quickly.

‘No. Nothing like that.’

Miss Buchan spread the letter in front of her and smoothed it with her hand.

Susan sat expectant, waiting.

Slowly Miss Buchan said, ‘Due to circumstances beyond their control your parents won’t be coming home to Scotland this summer, after all.’

To Susan it was the end of the world. Since entering the school her entire life had become geared to the forthcoming summer and the reappearance of her parents from abroad.

Miss Buchan lifted up two white fivers which she showed Susan. ‘The Captain has sent this as pocket money. I, of course, shall be looking after it for you. Would you like some now?’

Susan shook her head.

Miss Buchan came round from behind her desk to kneel beside Susan. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said. ‘We all know how much you were looking forward to their coming back.’

Biting back tears, Susan came to her feet. ‘May I go now, Miss, please?’ she asked.

‘Wouldn’t you like me to read the letter to you?’

Susan shook her head. At the door she paused. ‘Did they say when they’ll be coming home?’ she asked.

‘No, they didn’t.’

Susan closed the door quietly behind her.

Miss Buchan stood at her study window gazing out into the garden. She was watching Susan who was standing by a tree apart from the other girls.

What a sad and lonely little creature, Miss Buchan thought. There were times when she wanted to take Susan in her arms and hug her, but of course she couldn’t do that. That would have been showing favouritism, which she strictly disciplined herself against.

She watched Susan pick up the wild hedgehog that often came to that part of the garden and which Susan had made friends with. The girl stroked the hedgehog and whispered endearments to it, talking to it as though it was a person rather than an animal.

So much love to give, Miss Buchan thought. So much love.

‘I saw Blackie yesterday,’ Susan said to the hedgehog, whom she had christened Spike. ‘He came and sat in the tree and sang to me. He told me his wife has had three little blackbirds and when they’re old enough he’s going to bring them over and show them to us. Isn’t that marvellous?’

Spike’s little brown eyes gazed up at Susan. She was the only girl in the school whom he uncurled for.

Susan gently stroked his snout. If Spike had been a cat he would have purred.

‘When are you going to meet a nice lady hedgehog and have a family, Spike? I think it’s high time, don’t you? And when you have your family will you bring them to show to me just like Blackie has promised to do? We could sit round in a circle and have a pretend tea party, which I think would be ever so much fun. Perhaps squirrel would come if we asked him nicely. You like squirrel, don’t you? Yes, of course you do, even if he is a bit crotchety at times.’

The squirrel referred to was an old red one who often came to the tree in the garden. All the other girls were scared of the squirrel because of its sharp teeth, but not Susan, who on a number of occasions had actually hand-fed the rodent.

The idea that Blackie had a family, far less that he was going to bring them to show to her, was pure fiction on her part. When it came to animals Susan had an extremely vivid imagination.

One of the teachers, called Miss Cairncross, came out of the school and rang the handbell to announce the resumption of classes.

‘I’ll have to go now, Spike,’ Susan said. ‘I’d much rather stay and talk to you but I’m afraid I have to go and do my lessons. Will you be here tomorrow? Well I’ll be here looking for you hoping you’ve been able to make it. Goodbye now and make sure you look after yourself.’

She stroked the hedgehog’s snout one last time before very carefully setting him back on the ground.

‘’Bye Spike. Be a good boy now!’ Actually she didn’t know for certain that Spike was a male. She just assumed he was.

She retreated a few steps before turning and breaking into a run. She felt happy as she always did when she’d been with her friends the animals.

‘Yes, Susan?’ Miss Buchan asked. Susan was in her study having requested an interview.

‘Please, Miss. The money my Daddy sent me.’

‘Yes?’

‘Could I use some of it to buy a pet with? A dog or a cat? I’d look after it all by myself so it would be no trouble to anyone else.’ Susan looked expectantly at Miss Buchan, her face radiant with hope.

Miss Buchan knew her reply was going to hurt Susan but for the moment she couldn’t see how she could do otherwise.

‘I’m afraid a personal pet is out of the question,’ she said.

Susan’s face dropped.

Her heart went out to the little girl. She continued softly, ‘You see if I allow one personal pet in the school then lots of the girls might want one. And then where would we be? We’d be a menagerie instead of a school. If I could make an exception I would, Susan, but you must understand there can never be exceptions. It just isn’t fair on the others.’

Susan’s lower lip trembled.

‘I appreciate only too well what a pet would mean to you but you must see my position. I’m sorry Susan.’

Susan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The animals in the garden were all very well but her time with them was extremely limited. Depending on when she could get into the garden and when they would put in an appearance. Sometimes a whole week could go by without her seeing Spike or Blackie or squirrel.

A pet of her own would have been totally different, however. She would have been able to be with it every evening and all weekend when there were no lessons.

After Susan had gone Miss Buchan twiddled her pencil, which she finally threw on to the desk in front of her.

‘Damn!’

She was a woman who rarely swore.

Miss Buchan marched into the assembly room with a box under her arm and the assembly room fell silent.

She placed the box on the table at the end of the room and then turned to face the girls.

‘A mouse was seen last week and another yesterday!’ she said.

Some of the girls gasped while others giggled.

‘I will not have mice in my school!’ Miss Buchan said sternly. ‘They are unhygienic. What are they, girls?’

‘Unhygienic!’ the girls chorused in unison.

‘What does that mean, Agnes McDonald?’

‘Unclean, Miss.’

‘Quite correct. Unclean. And I will have nothing in my school which is that. So ... we have a problem: mice. What’s the solution to the problem?’

Several hands shot in the air.

‘Mary Geddes?’

‘Traps, Miss. Baited with cheese.’

‘Very good, Mary. But I think we might do even better than that.’

Her gaze swept over the room. ‘Helen Moyes?’

‘A cat, Miss.’

‘The solution I favour myself, Helen. A good mouser.’

Turning to the table she lifted the top off the box and reached inside.

‘Oh!’ the girls said, when they saw the kitten Miss Buchan held.

‘Now Mr Samson, the janitor, says he hasn’t time to look after a cat, which leaves it up to us. I myself would undertake the task of maintaining this kitten but unfortunately I spend so much time looking after you girls I have absolutely none left over for the training of an animal. This being the case I’m hoping one of you will volunteer to look after and train our little friend here. Someone who is good with animals and knows how to handle them. Now, any volunteers?’

Several dozen hands were lifted.

‘Hmm ...’ said Miss Buchan, pretending to consider each eager face in turn.

Finally she gestured at Susan. ‘Stand up, Susan Gibb.’

Susan stood, a tiny figure almost lost amongst some of the taller girls.

‘Do you think you’d be able to train this kitten, Susan?’

‘Oh yes, Miss!’

‘You’d have to spend a great deal of time with him you understand?’

Susan’s eyes shone. ‘Yes, Miss.’

‘And he’s to be a working cat. Not a pet.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

Miss Buchan pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as though deep in cogitation. Finally she said, ‘Members of the staff have noticed how good you are with the animals out in the garden, Susan, so I think you might well be the right person to look after the school cat.’

There was a pause and then she went on, ‘Well, come along girl, don’t just stand there gawping. Come and collect the beast.’

Later, when she was back in the privacy of her study, Miss Buchan smiled. She hummed gaily as she set about marking some papers.

*

That night, Susan installed Tiddles, as she’d decided to call the kitten, in a cardboard box by the side of her bed.

‘Goodnight, Tiddles,’ she said, kissing the kitten on the head. ‘Sleep tight and don’t let the bugs bite.’

‘He’d better not have bugs,’ the girl in the next bed said. Several other girls tittered. Susan patted Tiddles, soothing him to lie still. The kitten mewed contentedly.

Susan slipped into bed feeling the happiest she’d been since her parents had gone abroad. She wasn’t alone any more. She had something to care for which would care for her in return. Something to help fill the huge aching hole her parents’ departure had created in her.

Keith and Jean Gibb did manage to take leave in Scotland the second summer after they’d enrolled Susan as a boarder in Miss Buchan’s School for Young Ladies.

As they were home for four weeks, and rather than stay in a hotel, Keith rented a house, which came complete with servants.

Susan hated the house on sight, thinking it dark and gloomy. A cheerless, friendless place with echoing corridors and high vaulted ceilings which often as not were hidden in shadow.

However, that didn’t really matter. All that did was that her Mummy and Daddy were home and the three of them were together again.

She was so excited that for the first few days she hardly stopped talking and followed Jean nearly everywhere she went. To begin with, Jean found this charming but after a little while it began to grate on her nerves. It seemed to her she could hardly turn round without falling over Susan, who was continually under her feet.

Keith too became irritated with Susan. Her constant questions seemed to go on without end.

‘What was it like there, Daddy? Why did you do this, Daddy? Why did you do that? How does this work, Daddy? How does that ...?’

‘For God’s sake, stop bothering me!’ he exclaimed angrily one night as she’d innocently asked him yet another question while he was in the middle of knotting his black tie.

Tears sprang into Susan’s eyes as she backed away a little from him.

‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he said irritably.

‘Sorry, Daddy.’

‘And don’t snivel. I can’t stand children who snivel!’

‘Sorry, Daddy.’

‘And do stop saying sorry Daddy.’

‘Sor ... yes, Daddy.’ Head bowed, she left the room.

With a sigh of exasperation Keith left his tie. His concentration was broken, he’d never do it now. He’d get Jean to knot it for him when she came through. She always made a better job of it than he did, anyway.

A little later, when Jean appeared, he told her what had happened.

Jean pulled a face. ‘I think we’ve just become unused to having a child around,’ she said. ‘One of the drawbacks of having her at boarding school.’

‘And another thing,’ Keith went on, ‘she’s forever wanting to be picked up and cuddled. It’s positively unnatural.’

‘It’s no such thing! If anything, it’s the contrary. She hasn’t seen us for two years, after all!’

‘Well, I still don’t like it,’ he grumbled. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

‘Stop being such an army stuffed shirt! It’s a little girl of six we’re talking about, not some hulking lad of sixteen or seventeen.’

‘I am not a stuffed shirt!’ he exclaimed.

‘You are sometimes. And pompous with it.’

Keith spluttered with indignation, his deep tan turning pink in places.

Jean laughed and kissed him which mollified him somewhat. ‘You don’t mind me cuddling you,’ she teased.

‘That’s different. You’re a woman. My wife.’

‘And she’s your daughter.’

He looked thoughtful and his eyes took on a faraway look as he poured them both sherries.

‘I’m sorry she wasn’t the boy you really wanted,’ Jean said softly. ‘But if a boy wasn’t to be, then he wasn’t to be.’

‘I know that,’ Keith replied, staring into the deep brown of his drink.

‘Let’s just be thankful we’ve been blessed with a child at all.’

‘If only she wouldn’t ask so many questions and keep pestering me all the time.’

‘I’ll speak to her about it,’ Jean said.

Jean knew then she was right. They had become totally unused to having a child around. Not only that, they’d become set and selfish in their ways.

‘What!’ exclaimed Gerald, Keith’s older brother. ‘You mean the child’s been in Glasgow all this time without us knowing about it? What were you thinking of, man?’

Keith knew fine well what he’d been thinking of. Drat Susan for coming out with the fact she’d been spending all her holidays at school.

‘I don’t see why you should be inconvenienced. After all,’ and Keith relished saying this bit, ‘you’re both getting on a bit now. Hardly up to active young children, I wouldn’t have thought.’

‘We might be old but we’re hardly decrepit yet,’ Emmaline, Gerald’s wife, retorted.

Keith put the hint of a knowing smile on his face calculated to convey to his sister-in-law that he thought otherwise. He knew it would infuriate her. Like many once beautiful people he knew, Emmaline hated the thought of the ravages of time.

Susan sat very still, aware she’d somehow angered her father – although for the life of her she couldn’t think how.

‘Next Christmas Susan must come and stay with us,’ Emmaline said firmly. ‘And I won’t hear otherwise.’

‘That’s not fair on you,’ Keith said.

‘Nonsense!’ Gerald replied. ‘We’d love to have her. Would do us both the world of good to have someone young around the house again. She’d be the one doing us a favour, I can tell you.’

‘Would you like to come and stay with us at Christmas, Susan?’ Emmaline asked.

Susan hung her head and nodded.

‘Imagine her spending Christmas at school! How ridiculous!’ Gerald said.

Keith remembered then the stories he’d heard from the dead Michael and James about what a good father Gerald had been. Both his boys had positively doted on him. His own guilt at being irritable and snappy with Susan rose up in him. And this guilt he somehow transformed in his mind into being Gerald’s fault. He glowered at his brother, all the old feelings of inadequacy and being second best coming crowding back.

Everything Gerald touched or was connected with turned to gold. Women, business, conversation. Whereas he ... ‘We’ll sort something out before Jean and I go back abroad,’ he said, thinking, like hell he would! They hadn’t found out the name of Susan’s school yet and that’s the way he’d try and keep it.

‘What beautiful pearls those are,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘They caught my eye the moment I saw them.’

‘They were a present from Gerald,’ Emmaline replied smugly.

The topic of Susan and Christmas was gradually forgotten.

Susan was playing with Tiddles in the garden when one of the girls came rushing up to say she was wanted right away in Miss Buchan’s study.

‘Come in!’ Miss Buchan’s voice called out when she knocked on the door.

For a moment she failed to recognise the figure sitting across from Miss Buchan. Then the penny dropped.

‘Mummy!’ she squealed and rushed into her mother’s arms. It was only the second time her mother had been home during the five years she’d been at school.

‘My, how tall you’ve grown!’ Jean said, a catch in her voice. ‘Here, let me have a look at you.’

She held Susan at arm’s length and shook her head wonderingly. ‘I wouldn’t have known you. You’re a young lady now, not a child any more.’

‘Is Daddy with you?’ Susan asked excitedly.

‘He’s had to stay on in London for a few days. Army work. I’ve come on ahead as we felt one of us should be at Aunt Emmaline’s funeral. She died unexpectedly a few days ago.’

‘Oh!’ said Susan, not knowing what else to say. She’d thought of her Aunt Em and Uncle Gerald several times in the intervening years, having been expecting them to contact her as they’d promised they would, but they never had.

‘How long are you and Daddy home for this time?’ she asked.

A worried frown settled on Jean’s deeply tanned face, a face that had begun to wither from too much exposure to tropical sun.

‘Times being what they are, Daddy thinks it best I stay on in Glasgow for a while, at least until we see what’s what.’

‘Very sensible in the circumstances,’ Miss Buchan said.

Jean turned to Miss Buchan. ‘That man Hitler, you understand. The Army are extremely worried about him and what he might do.’

‘I think we all are,’ Miss Buchan said.

‘So,’ Jean said turning her attention back to Susan. ‘That means I’ll be renting a house for six months at least. Now what do you want to do? You can either live with me and attend here during the day or else remain on as a boarder, coming home at weekends. The choice is up to you.’

Susan thought that an odd question to ask. How could there be any doubt but that she’d want to live with her mother? Anything other would have been unthinkable. Didn’t her mother understand that?

‘I’ll stay with you, Mummy,’ she said excitedly. ‘Starting tonight if you like.’

Jean laughed. ‘Hey, hold on a minute! Let me find a house to rent first.’

Susan suddenly thought of Tiddles and her face fell. Officially Tiddles was the school cat which would mean she’d have to leave him behind.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jean asked.

In a rush of words Susan explained about the cat.

‘Hmm!’ said Miss Buchan.

‘I’m sure we can buy you another cat,’ Jean said, thinking that would resolve the problem. But it didn’t.

‘It wouldn’t be the same, Mummy. Tiddles is Tiddles.’

‘I think I have the solution,’ Miss Buchan said. ‘Tiddles hasn’t been a great success as a mouser despite your valiant efforts to teach him, Susan. So I think it best I retire him and we’ll buy another school cat.’

Susan beamed. ‘Oh thank you, Miss Buchan!’

‘We’ll gave to find a good home for him of course. Any suggestions?’

Susan whirled on Jean. ‘Please Mummy?’

‘You bring Tiddles with you when you come home.’

Susan’s day was complete.

‘I’m sorry about Em,’ Keith said to Gerald. ‘I did my best to make the funeral but it was just impossible.’

Gerald nodded. He looked gaunt and haggard and there were dark circles under his eyes. He’d taken the loss of his wife badly.

‘At least it was quick,’ he said. ‘That was a blessing.’

Keith tried to look sympathetic. In reality Emmaline’s death meant nothing at all to him.

Gerald poured two very large whiskies. He’d been drinking heavily since his wife’s death. As he and Keith drank his eyes misted over in introspection. He was thinking about his two sons, Michael and James, who’d been killed at Ypres. He’d been thinking a lot about them lately.

‘Is there going to be another war?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Some people in the Army think so but I personally don’t believe it’ll come about. It would be insanity on Herr Hitler’s part.’

‘There are a lot of people say he is insane.’

Keith snorted. ‘About as insane as you or I. Cunning is the word I’d use. And devious.’

‘And yet you’re insisting Jean stays home for a while?’

‘There’s no harm being on the safe side. Just in case I’m wrong.’

‘You were always the cautious one,’ Gerald said smiling. ‘Even as a little boy.’

They drank for a little while in silence and then Gerald said, ‘You know what Em’s death means, don’t you?’

‘No?’

‘When I go everything will come to you. My half of the brewery, our house, my entire estate. All yours, Keith.’

Keith couldn’t meet his brother’s steady gaze. ‘Let’s hope it’s a long time before it comes to that,’ he said.

‘What’ll you do with the brewery? Sell?’

Keith pondered that. It wasn’t something he’d given a lot of thought to. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied eventually.

‘It’s not as easy to run as you once thought. I hope you realise that.’

Keith bridled. ‘Are you saying I couldn’t do it?’

‘I’m saying no such thing. All I’m doing is warning you that if you do decide to take over my seat, do so with your eyes wide open.’

Keith made up his mind there and then. When the time came he would take over the brewery and what’s more he’d make an even better job of running it than Gerald had!

Gerald smiled inwardly. He could see from the expression on Keith’s face that he’d succeeded. He’d grown very fond of the brewery over the years. It was only right and proper it stay on in the family for as long as that was possible.

Three months later Hitler invaded Poland.

Susan hated the house her parents had rented. If anything, it was even gloomier than the previous one.

She clutched Tiddles to her as she stared in dismay at what was to be her bedroom. It was small and pokey and there was a funny smell in the air which she later identified as damp.

‘Oh, Tiddles!’ she said, clutching the cat to her. ‘This place is horrid.’

Tiddles mewed his agreement.

The one bright spot was the garden, which was an overgrown jungle perfect for keeping pets in. She wondered if her parents would allow her to keep rabbits and a tortoise. That thought cheered her a little.

At the beginning of the war, Keith was seconded from his regiment and posted on to the General Staff in London. He was promoted to the rank of Major and given a desk. He was back in admin again. Nothing more than a bloody glorified filing clerk, was how he described himself.

He and Jean debated whether or not she should join him in London. But for various reasons, including the fact he steadily maintained it would be a short conflict, it was decided best for h