After two hours of queuing, she managed it. She only had enough coupons for one piece. She’d go without and make do with veg. She didn’t mind, she didn’t have much of an appetite these days; her stomach was continually churned up with worry. Besides, if Violet knew she’d eaten horse meat, she’d never forgive her.

Now, she put Dad’s dinner on the table in front of him.

‘Did you slam that plate down?’

She had. She was cross with him.

‘No, Dad. It slipped out me ’and.’

He didn’t like her to talk properly (‘putting on airs and graces’), so she dropped her aitches when she was with him and tried to remember to speak like the other women in the street.

He grunted, as though not quite believing her and then stabbed the cutlet with his fork. ‘What’s this, then?’

‘Steak, Dad. Got it specially. Had to queue for bloomin’ hours for that, I did. Eat up, before it gets cold.’

As they sat across the table from one another, Maggie remembered something she’d overheard at the bank today. She tried to make her tone conversational and casual.

‘You know the fella who owns the bank, Dad? Lord Ashford?’

He looked up from his dinner, chewing vigorously. ‘What bank? What you talkin’ about?’

‘Rosman’s Bank. The place where I’m working now.’

He held his fork aloft and let a piece of potato fall onto the plate. ‘Rosman’s? What kind of a name is that?’

‘I dunno. They’re Jewish, I think.’

‘Well, what about him?’ He started eating again.

‘He served, last time. He was a captain, in the Great War.’

That took the wind out of his sails. She knew it would. Dad had fought last time and he always thought well of anyone who’d done the same.

He frowned. ‘What regiment?’

Fiddlesticks. She should have found out. ‘I don’t know.’

He scoured the tabletop, frowning. ‘Any salt?’

It was usually Violet’s job to lay the table. Maggie’s stomach lurched; it did that every time she remembered that Violet wasn’t here.

Maggie pushed her chair back from the table and fetched the salt from the press behind her. Tabby was slinking back in from the yard and Maggie bent and gave her a reassuring stroke. Mutti and Vi loved that cat. If she did nothing else, she’d make sure Tabby was safe and well, waiting for them both when they finally came home.

Dad let his knife fall onto the plate with a clatter that made Maggie jump. Tabby streaked off again, towards the front room. Maggie placed the salt cellar down in the middle of the table, careful not to slam it.

He grunted his thanks. ‘You still ain’t going, mind,’ he said.

Chapter 3

Where the bloody hell was she?