David looked deep into Kathy’s glorious eyes for one last time, committing every feature of her face to memory. ‘I love you more than you’ll ever know,’ he said throatily, then lifting his kitbag he slung it across his shoulder and strode away before he broke down. At the door he paused just once to tell her, ‘And when I get home after this bloody war is over, we’ll be married as soon as possible. All right?’

She nodded numbly and wept as the door closed softly behind him. She had been such a fool. But I’ll make it up to him, she promised herself. And then she prayed with all her being that he would come home safely. It would be just too cruel if he didn’t.

‘Well it certainly took you long enough to realise what a lovely chap David is,’ Sunday remarked when they had tucked the children into bed later that evening. ‘But at least you saw sense in the end.’

Kathy grinned. She hadn’t felt so happy for a long time. ‘We’re going to be married as soon as the war is over,’ she informed her mother and Sunday’s face lit up.

‘I’m delighted to hear it. At least that’s one of you I won’t have to worry about. Now I just have to make Livvy see the light.’

Kathy cocked her eyebrow as she carried the children’s dirty clothes to the wash basket. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I should think it’s obvious.’ Sunday grinned as she poured some milk into a saucepan for their cocoa. ‘She and Giles are mad about each other, it’s as clear as the noses on their faces, but the stupid pair are too stubborn to admit their feelings for each other.’

Kathy frowned. She had never really thought about it before but now, as she pictured them together, she supposed that her mother could be right.

‘Ah well, what will be will be,’ she said, and Sunday nodded in agreement.

‘You’re quite right. I just hope they make it soon.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

May 1941

‘Kathy, wake up! The sirens are wailing,’ Sunday urged as she hurried into her daughter’s room and urgently shook her arm. ‘We need to get the children downstairs into the shelter.’

‘Wh-what?’ Kathy mumbled groggily as she knuckled sleep from her eyes, and then hearing the sirens she was instantly awake. Scrambling out of bed she rushed into the twins’ room and as she lifted Daisy, who didn’t even stir, Sunday crossed to Thomas’s bed and lifted him. They made their way downstairs in darkness with the children clutched tightly in their arms and struggling towards the shelter in the kitchen they knelt down and gently laid them on the blankets that they always kept there. This was not the first raid that Nuneaton had suffered, and they had got into a routine now.