Bessie nodded, trying not to think of the dip in the mattress of her childhood bed, that comfortable crawl space where she had succumbed to sleep nearly every night of her life, knowing she was safe, with her parents and brother just along the landing. The smell, feel and weight of the blankets were all the more familiar and comforting because of it. But not tonight.

‘I’m scared, Philip,’ she said in a small voice.

And there it was, the phrase that encompassed all of her feelings.

‘I know.’ He tried out a weak smile. ‘Why don’t you write one of your postcards? Take your mind off things?’

She watched as he unbuckled his satchel and pulled out the small pack of white postcards, bought from the post office on the high street. He clicked the end of his ballpoint and pushed that across the table too.

Bessie gripped the pen and turned the card to the angle at which she was most comfortable writing – in physical terms at least, because it was mental torture to scribble these lies to the people she loved.

Dear Mum and Dad,

How are you both? How is Nanny Pat’s cat? Still hanging on, I hope.

She paused and looked out of the window.

The weather is cold, but lovely. The sky is clear and blue and, if it wasn’t for the frost and the chill, it could be summer, it has the same colour. The sky . . . where in just a few weeks I will be flying. Can you believe it? I am so excited. Me, an air hostess. All my dreams come true . . .

‘Tickets, please! All tickets, please!’ the conductor shouted, slamming the carriage door behind him. Bessie put down the pen. The old man opposite started and sat up abruptly, blinking.

‘I don’t know what’s going on!’ he chuckled, as much to himself as to his fellow travellers.

I know how you feel . . . Bessie turned again to the world rushing by beyond the window. I know exactly how you feel . . .

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

August 20th 1984

The vicar had told the whole RE class that prayers were not meant for personal greed or the fulfilment of desires, and this Bessie adhered to, mostly. Often her requests were for famine relief in Ethiopia, Nanny Pat’s cat, Tiki, who was clinging on to life by a whisker, and her best friend Michelle’s dad, who was out of work and had been for the last two years on account of his dicky back.

But today was a special day. Bessie woke a second or two before her alarm, as she always did, and with her eyes clamped shut, she broke the rules, fairly confident that one selfish prayer, slotted in among the many for the masses, was probably allowed on her sixteenth birthday.