‘Tell them to bugger off, if you’ll excuse my language,’ Arthur said. ‘Say you can’t do it anymore. Just walk off the bloody job and take the consequences. I doubt anything will happen. Have a change. Good as a rest and all that.’

John looked out of the windows of the booth, at the buses passing by.

‘I have told them,’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for the repercussions.’

‘What can they do?’ Arthur said. ‘Move on.’

‘Actually,’ John said, ‘this is why I’m ringing. There’s a job come up.’ He wound the telephone cord round his hand. ‘Head of Department, Rhayader Grammar School.’

‘That’d do it,’ Arthur said. ‘Throw them off the scent. Settle your nerves. What have you got to lose? When’s the deadline?’

‘End of the week,’ John said. ‘They want a January start, so they need to get a move on with the appointment.’

‘And Betty?’

‘It’s over,’ John said. This was the first time he’d admitted it, and the words stuck in his throat.

‘Well, there’ll be a Gwyneth or an Angharad in Wales,’ Arthur said. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea. Or sheep on the hills.’ John could hear him chuckle.

John shook his head. He had waited a lifetime for Betty, lost her in a moment.

‘Apply anyway,’ Arthur said. ‘See what happens.’

‘Do you think I stand a chance?’

‘You won’t know till you try,’ Arthur said. ‘But if I were a governor, I’d snap you up. Listen, I have to go now. Let me know how you get on.’

John sauntered back to his rooms. He’d write his application tonight, post it first thing. Goronwy Davies – he already saw him as his predecessor – had been at the same school for nearly forty years. That was a good recommendation, though the department was probably stuck in its ways. It wouldn’t be easy, bringing in modern teaching practices, but it would get his mind off things, be a challenge in its way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Berlin: August – December 1945

The jeep stopped at a tall house, one of a short row that had survived the bombing. The sergeant left the engine running as the UNRRA nurse rang the bell. She turned to Bette, smiled to reassure her.

‘Sie kommt,’ she said in her primitive German. ‘Jetzt.’

Bolts slid back and a woman opened the door. Another nurse, older, plumper.

‘Willkommen,’ she said without smiling. ‘Ich heiße Fräulein Schneider.’

The nurse handed over a file to the Fräulein and leaned close to Bette, her breath sweet with lipstick, the same that Mutti used, and for a moment Bette held the scent inside, willing it to stay in her nose, filter into her lungs and heart.

‘Fräulein Schneider will look after you for now,’ she said. ‘Until we get you sorted. So goodbye. And be good. Gut sein.’