‘He’s away at some posh boarding school,’ they replied. ‘But he’ll be back at Easter, if not for half-term.’ A pause and then, ‘Oooh, you’re blushing, Molly Goddard. You fancy him, don’t you?’ The twins giggled.

‘I barely know him, for heaven’s sake,’ I said, my cheeks growing hotter.

5

Jimmy and I adapted slowly to country life. The weather that January and February was so cold and wet that, when we weren’t at school, we spent much of our time indoors, helping Mrs D or, in my case, doing homework and trying to write my stories, most of which I tore up in despair. Jimmy was often bored.

‘Keep an eye on your brother for me,’ Pa would say, dashing out of the door, late as usual. That phrase again: Keep an eye on Jimmy. I’d come to dread it.

I missed Mum every day, so much that it actually hurt, a physical pain inside my chest like the stitch you get after running too far. How different it would have been if she’d been here. We would have sorted out the house, baked together, mended old clothes and sewn new ones. Or we’d have taken long walks together, the three of us, learning all about the new sights of the countryside, the wild flowers just starting to bloom in frothy white blossom like bridal veils in the hedgerows, the trees tinged with green as they burst into leaf and the birds that were already chorusing noisily from dawn to dusk.

Now she’d gone and left me to look after Jimmy on my own. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him – perhaps I loved him too much – but he was a big responsibility and I really wasn’t ready for that.

My brother was born right in the middle of the war and, even from his early days, it was clear that he was different from other babies, although no one explained anything at the time. He had funny eyes and a flat head, found it difficult to suckle and cried a lot.

When his call-up papers arrived, Pa felt he could not, in all conscience, stay at home when so many of his congregation were fighting. He was appointed army chaplain, and it was left to me and Mum to look after Jimmy, who seemed to be taking his time about everything: smiling, rolling over, crawling, taking solid food. It felt as though he would be a helpless baby forever. He also suffered permanent colds and coughs, which Mum put down to the poor London air. During one particularly difficult period I overheard Pa saying, ‘Perhaps he would be better off in a home, my darling?’ and my mother shouting back, ‘If you ever dare to say that again, I’ll . . .’ I never heard what she would do, because after that, I heard muffled weeping and Pa apologising: ‘I’m so sorry, my darling, so sorry.’