He smiled at her. ‘Trouble? This could be the end of all our troubles.’

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Nottingham Cottage, 5^th June 1948

In the kitchen, Crawfie was making her morning cup of tea. George was sleeping off a late night and she was grateful to have some peace before he woke up – grumpy, more often than not.

She opened the back door onto the garden. The sun was warming up and the early birds were chattering around her bird table.

Wrapping her dressing gown securely around her, Marion picked up her tea, stepped out of her slippers and walked barefoot across her lovingly tended lawn, to say good morning to her flowers.

The purple lavender, pink peony, sweetly scented heliotrope and tall white lupins had become her babies. ‘Good morning, everyone.’ She smiled at them. ‘What a lovely morning.’ She studied them for greenfly and droop, then settled herself on the small bench under a cherry tree. She closed her eyes and focused on what she could hear, smell, feel. This had become part of her daily routine. The garden was sheltered and hard for anyone to see her. She ran her toes on the grass. Her skin on the cool earth felt good. She opened her eyes and studied her hands. Short clean nails, tendons showing clearly, freckled.

‘Happy birthday,’ she said to them.

She heard the telephone ringing inside and knew it would be her mother. She wondered whether George might pick it up or let it ring. She wasn’t in the mood to hear her mother’s opinion on being forty. Marion stood up. If she didn’t answer it, no one would.

‘I was about to hang up. Where were you?’

‘Good morning, Mother. I was making tea for George and me.’

‘How is he?’

‘He’s fine, Mother.’

‘I hope you are looking after him?’

Marion rubbed her forehead in despair. ‘Why do you always ask me that?’

‘Because you work too much and a man needs to know he’s cherished and needed.’

Marion wanted to scream down the telephone that wives need to feel cherished and needed too, but all she said was, ‘Nice of you to ring to me up.’

‘Well, thirty-nine years since I gave birth to you is a big day. One I shall never forget. Sick every day carrying you, I was – even on the delivery table. And you never slept. I remember making your father promise me that we wouldn’t have any more children.’

‘You tell me that every birthday, Mother.’

‘And now you are nearly forty, and there’s little chance of children of your own.’

Marion lifted her gaze, looking out through her kitchen window. She could see the sun on the lawn and a blackbird hopping in the grass, looking for worms – like her mother constantly pecking at her, sucking the life out of her.

‘How’s Dad?’

‘In the garden, of course, picking over his tomato plants. He is even thinking of digging a pond! I said to him, what do we need a pond for? And he said it would be something peaceful to look at. Peaceful, I said? With rats running in and out of it?’