In the flickering light from the candles, Ella’s mind drifted back to the very first moment she had met her grandmother. What was it she had said? Oh, yes, she remembered now the harsh words between her mother and grandmother.

‘I told you ten years ago I didn’t want you here, or ya bastard, and I still don’t. Nothing’s changed.’

And then Kate’s forlorn words, ‘Can’t you ever forget anything or forgive anyone, Mam?’

Remembering the moment vividly now, Ella could hear their voices in her mind. At last she understood all the resentment and bitterness that lay behind the words. Her mother had not only been referring to the continuing feud between Esther and Beth Eland, but to the unforgiving treatment she herself had received from Esther.

Beneath the letters there were two or three photographs of her mother in uniform. One intrigued Ella; it was of her mother standing beside a huge car with bulbous headlamps covered over and leaving only a slit for the light to shine through. She was holding open the back door of the car and beside her stood a tall man in an officer’s uniform. Holding it close to the uncertain light from the candle, Ella strained to see the man in the picture. Her heart began to beat rapidly as she realized that this just might be the first time she had ever seen her father.

Twenty-Five

There was, of course, only one person she could talk to about the things she had found.

All through the following day as she went about the jobs her grandmother had set her, Ella turned over in her mind everything she wanted to ask Uncle Danny and how she should put it to be tactful. But by the time she was free to squeeze through the hole in the hedge and run across the newly cut fields, the sharp stubble crunching under her feet, towards Rookery Farm, all her carefully formed plans were blown away in her eagerness.

Clasped in her hand was something she wanted to show him. As she climbed over the stile and jumped down into the lane near the farm, she heard the familiar roar of the engine of Rob’s motorbike revving up in the yard. Her heart gave a leap in her chest and she began to run. The bike came sweeping out of the yard, banking over to the left and as it gathered speed past Ella, he raised his hand in greeting but made no attempt to slow down. Ella stared after him as the bike reached the end of the lane.

Off to see the summer girls, she thought bitterly. Now he won’t even stop to speak to me.

But at the junction, Rob turned his motorcycle full circle and came back towards her, pulling up beside her and, cutting the engine, he balanced the machine with his toes touching the ground on either side.