Cordelia giggled. ‘It’s a good thing I have another book to read,’ she said. ‘But I won’t tell him that. It’ll serve him right to have to buy me a new copy.’

Peggy chuckled. It seemed that Ron’s shopping trip was going to turn out to be rather expensive.

2

Rita and Ivy had so many things to catch up on and discuss in their excitement for the coming day, and being together again, that they’d still been chattering long after the rest of the household had settled down for the night. Ivy had fallen quiet and hadn’t responded to Rita’s latest enquiry, and Rita realised that her friend had gone to sleep, curled like a child beneath the covers of the other single bed.

As the Town Hall clock struck one, Rita lay there staring at the ceiling, and wondering if Peter was doing the same in his boarding house billet along the coast. Restless and still unable to sleep, she eventually drew back the covers and tiptoed barefoot to the window in her soft, faded pyjamas.

Opening the curtain just enough to peek through, she leaned on the sill and gazed out over the rooftops to the moon which was almost full, and reflected in the small sliver of sea visible between the chimneypots, and then looked up to the dark sky to watch the stars twinkling. She wondered if they were the same configuration of stars on the other side of the world, for it would be reassuring to have something familiar to look at so far from home.

She tucked her curly dark hair behind her ears and gave a soft sigh. She had an inkling now of what Ruby must have gone through before her marriage to Mike and subsequent migration to Canada, for she was nervously excited about tomorrow and all the hullabaloo it would entail. Although she’d never been one to take centre stage, she could hardly wait to dress up in her beautiful gown to share her wedding vows with Peter.

Yet throughout all the plans they’d made for their big day – and the even bigger adventure they were about to embark upon – there ran a thread of fear which she couldn’t quell. She would be going into the unknown once they boarded the ship for Australia, and even though she’d have Peter at her side, and he’d described so well what awaited them there, it was clearly very different from all she’d ever known.

As she looked out of the window and the bedside clock quietly ticked away the seconds, Rita thought again of all she’d be leaving behind. Beach View had been her refuge after her own home had been fire-bombed, and Peggy had been a constant, loving presence in her life even before her mother had died too young. Rita knew that if it hadn’t been for Peggy’s love and care, her father would never have coped with the trials of bringing up his six-year-old daughter while he struggled to grieve and support them.