The buxom young bride was wearing a tight, pink frock. Molly carefully avoided her eye. If they looked at each other, she was done for. All she could do was to get through this somehow. She’d hardly ever felt such a fool in her life before, standing with this overbearing, fanatical man. Mr Lester swivelled his head and looked meaningfully at her and Molly, using the words that Mrs Lester had taught her, said, ‘We will now sing hymn number twenty-two.’

Mr Lester was off almost before she’d got the words out of her mouth and she had to tune in with him: ‘Christ is thy strength and Christ thy right!’ She found a surprisingly strong voice coming out of her mouth and, to her surprise, quite enjoyed it, apart from the sheer embarrassment of it all. Mr Lester insisted on reading the prayer, which was a scrambled agony, though Molly realized that if you tuned in hard enough, you could just about make out what he was saying.

At last Molly was freed to serve the breakfast.

‘You’ve got a very nice voice,’ the young husband said to her. Though his wife was smirking a bit, she was not in anything like the state she had been the day before. Molly wondered if her kindly looking husband had told her that she should behave better.

‘Oh – thanks!’ Molly said, surprised. ‘I’ve never done this sort of thing before.’ She was anxious for them to know that.

‘I don’t s’pose you have,’ the woman said, exposing her teeth in a big grin. She looked a handful, Molly thought, and not just in the curves department.

‘Where’ve you come from?’ Molly asked, trying to change the subject.

‘Wandsworth. We’re on our honeymoon,’ the young man said eagerly.

‘Can we have a cuppa tea now?’ the girl asked abruptly.

‘I’ll get it straight away,’ Molly said, tempted to wish the young man luck.

‘Mr Lester told me that it all went very well!’ Mrs Lester told Molly later. She appeared by eleven o’clock, seeming more rested and with the faintest hint of colour in her cheeks. Molly had been clearing breakfast and then cleaning in the house, vacuuming the stairs and cleaning the two bathrooms. Mrs Lester found her cleaning the bath on the middle floor. ‘I’m very grateful to you – and he said your voice is a treat!’

‘Oh!’ Molly stood up. All these compliments in one morning! ‘Well – thanks.’

‘Now, I’d like to send you out with a list,’ Mrs Lester said.

It was a nice day and Molly was more than happy to go out shopping, away from the dark house. She set off with a basket over each arm, the list, money and ration books. As soon as she was out of the house she felt more cheerful. The combination of Mr Lester’s oppressive presence and the poorly Mrs Lester tiptoeing round him was already beginning to get her down.

Clacton felt very bare compared to how she remembered it. All the wartime obstructions to holidaymaking had taken up a lot of room. The beach had been wired off then, and all the roads leading off Marine Parade had been blocked by more wire and concrete pyramids across the roads, known as ‘pimples’, to discourage invaders. The town had been bustling full of forces personnel, especially army. Now they were all gone and, though there were people going about their business, they were each in their own little world, not like all the group endeavours of the war – no army lorries roaring up to collect a gaggle of them for the practice camp at Jaywick. Life felt quiet and shapeless. What was the point in anything now that the war was over?