Alice took another bite of her sandwich, trying desperately to hide her watery eyes as she fixed her gaze on a robin that tapped its beak on the frozen water of the nearby birdbath. Ursula watched too as the bird persevered, but she cast sneaky glances at her friend. Alice wanted to tell her the truth, but for every reason she found to share her secret, another swooped down like a magpie to steal the thought. Still, she couldn’t silence the tiny voice that whispered, A trouble shared is a trouble spared, or the avalanche of other old sayings that sprang to mind. She looked up at Ursula and forced a smile. It hurt to keep the truth from her, but it could hurt more not to. And Alice knew that her friend was keeping a secret of her own, one she might not be inclined to share even if Alice revealed hers.

She forced herself to finish her sandwich, then got up to explore the small courtyard, crunching across the slippery gravel as she examined the ropes of ivy that twisted over the gray flint walls and trailed down the other side. This compact space felt like a safe haven, but soon Alice would only be able to dream about it.

“Anyway,” she said with a sigh as she turned around, “Mum says bullets are more important than books.”

“Christ, your mother really is a drain and not a radiator!” Ursula said with a roll of her eyes. “Anyway, books have a great deal of power.”

“That’s what I told her.”

Smoke curled through Ursula’s lips. “Don’t you love earning a decent wage?”

“Of course I do. But you know Mum, she says it’s our ‘God-given role’ to look after family first and foremost. You have no idea how many times she’s quoted verse at me.”

Alice rolled her eyes, and Ursula smiled. “Go on, which one this time?”

Ursula was always amused by stories of her mother’s piety, and the unspoken tension dissolved as the rhythm of their friendship returned.

“The First Epistle to Timothy,” Alice replied quickly. “ ‘But if any provide not for his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.’ ”

It surprised Alice that she still remembered the verse although there had been years of forced churchgoing for her and her brother, William.

“Oh, dear, you don’t want to risk going to hell,” Ursula said in a dramatic voice, then smirked. “Well, some of us would never go back to how things were before the war,” she added, exhaling heavily.

“Of course I like earning money, but if it’s a choice between having three pounds in my pocket and not having a war, I know which one I’d take!” Alice said as she sat back down, gathering her coat around her and shivering.

“You know that’s not what I meant. It’s just that it’s not all bad.”