As for Fred, he was growing more like our father every day. Between the two of them they kept the delivery business going, but only just; they spent more time quenching their never-ending thirst. While Mum was broken by Jack being missing, and Dad blundered on as though nothing had happened, Fred became angry. He was angry at the Japs, angry at the Yanks, angry at the women who turned him down and the kids who mimicked his limp on the street. He was angry at me for looking after Mum—saying she didn’t need to be coddled—and angry at the doctors who told him he couldn’t go back and fight because of his knee. He was most angry at himself, at his body, at how it no longer worked in the way it should. At the pain that came unexpectedly, keeping him awake some nights.

Meanwhile, I tried to lose myself in the past. I fossicked through Jack’s trunk, slept with his old shirts, smelled his jars of hair pomade. But then I realised the past wasn’t going to bring him home. It was down to luck, to hope, and I would be better off following my own path—where not every lanky man with light hair, dark eyes and a sweet smile caused my heart to skip and then sink.

I dreaded telling them all that I had signed up to go on the list for America. I dreaded Dad’s silence and Fred’s anger, but most of all I dreaded Mum’s sorrow.

I finally told them at dinner one night. Mum was cooking again most nights—because no one could bear my attempts—and afterwards I would clean up while she returned to bed. This night it was a rabbit stew with dumplings and we ate as we usually did, in silence, just the sound of chewing, cutlery clinking, the legs of Dad’s chair creaking as he shifted in his seat.

‘I got a letter from Roy,’ I said, staring down at my plate.

‘He’s safe then?’ Mum said. ‘Thank God.’

‘Don’t worry, the Yanks are good at saving their own skins,’ Fred said sourly.

‘That’s not fair,’ I protested. ‘Plenty of them have died as well.’

Mum’s face had begun to crumple and Dad gave me and Fred a hard look.

I continued, ‘It looks like after he finishes this tour, they’ll be sending him straight back to America, so he reckons it’s a good idea for me to get on one of the bride ships—you know, the ones which will take all the wives and fiancées over.’

‘Huh,’ Dad grunted, still chewing his mouthful of food. He swallowed and took a sip of beer. ‘How do you get on one of them ships, then?’