‘As soon as term ends I’ll be down to see you,’ she wrote. ‘I do hope that’s all right? I can come and stay in your guesthouse and we can go on the beach. How funny it will be to be in Clacton again. I suppose you’ve got used to it in peacetime now, but I can only think of it with all those guns going off all the time and the beach closed off. Actually I remember Clacton awfully fondly.’

‘Awfully fondly,’ Molly murmured, grinning affectionately as she slipped the letter back in the envelope and laid it with her other letters from Ruth. They felt like something to hold onto, because the truth was, soon after her excitement at escaping Birmingham and arriving back in Clacton, her spirits had plummeted.

She had in fact got used quite quickly to the routine at The Laurels. They had their evening ‘praise meeting’, as they called it, in the house, which the guests could join in or not as they pleased. Ten or eleven people would start to appear at eight o’clock, all of them drably dressed and wearing expressions of anxious enthusiasm. Molly longed to wrap colourful feather boas round each of their necks and paint the women with lipstick. The sounds of hymn-singing interspersed with silences sometimes filtered up to the attic. And every Sunday evening the Lesters attended church.

And, of course, there were the mornings. Molly had gained some respect for Mr Lester, even though he was clearly a fanatic. She appreciated his courage and felt almost protective of him. She had also realized that she had a good strong singing voice, so she belted out the hymns and, she thought, if people laughed, they laughed – that was up to them. Most people just joined in the hymns and were polite; there was just the odd one now and again who would collapse into incredulous laughter. Molly had thought about leaving and moving on, but to what? She’d only have to find some other boarding house. And she knew Mrs Lester would find it hard to cope without her.

It also would not make any difference. She felt herself sinking, day after day. The army had given her life a structure: the day organized for her, the orders, the tasks, the ready-made company and chances of approval and promotion. It had contained her and made her feel safe and purposeful. Ever since she had taken off her uniform, with her Corporal’s chevrons worn proudly on the sleeves, it was as if she had lost a part of herself – her better self, who had a place to be in the world. It was a world that had a shape. Now, though, she felt as if she had been let out into a wide, bleak plain and did not know where she belonged, or which way to turn. She could keep on forever with the drudgery of The Laurels. That at least was a routine. But, all the time, all that kept coming to her was the hurt and grief of the past, dragging her further and further down.