BooksBarbecue
Back When We Meet Again
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  52. POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
  53. When We Meet Again
  54. A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
  55. Discussion Guide
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

Thankfully the ticket office and café had already been open, a window sign announcing, open as usual, mr. hitler. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, and she had realized she was hungry. It was then that her mind had gone blank, unable to remember exactly where she needed to go—Victoria station, or Clapham Junction and a change for Dulwich? She had hidden her distress as she bought a ticket and some breakfast, and then saw to her padding again before boarding what she’d decided was the right train. As it had pulled out of the station she had watched, with bittersweet emotion, the shadows of terraces and open green squares recede; she had been sorry to be leaving Eadie’s birthplace, yet hopeful that she was traveling closer to her.

Now in Dulwich, outwardly she felt calm, strangely disconnected, as she stepped through the doorway and hurriedly explored the downstairs rooms. She used the handrail to help her climb the stairs, already sensing the search was pointless. The rapid thud of her heartbeat echoed a mounting panic that she wasn’t going to find Eadie here.

Alice’s bedroom was empty, and when she rushed into her mother’s room she found immaculately made beds and an icy coldness. Even before she opened the door to her brother’s old room, now Eadie’s nursery in her mind, at least, she knew what she would find: empty cupboards where she’d stored baby clothes.

She buried her head in her hands as frustration, anger and fear rose up inside her, but she couldn’t cry.

Where would Ruth go with Eadie? All Saints in West Dulwich was the most likely answer: the church she’d attended, rarely missing a service, since their move. It was only a ten-minute walk through Dulwich Village, but Alice didn’t have the strength. All she could do was wait for her mother to return.

Her thoughts had taken her on a disturbing journey as she’d imagined all the places Ruth might be and what she might have done with Eadie, but Alice kept coming back to the same notion: in spite of Ruth’s disapproval and deteriorating mind, surely her religious faith would stop her doing anything too bad. She’d been an active church member even through the Blitz, attending services in a blacked-out crypt. It had always made Alice smile to think of the non-worshipping locals’ displeasure at sharing their air-raid shelter with a full choir and congregation, but today all she could think about was how her mother had such kindness for strangers but had shown such cruelty to her.