‘No you’re not. You’re thinking about yourself,’ Tommy exclaimed. ‘You and your posh new job. Well, I don’t care if you don’t have time for me, I can look after myself.’

‘Now look here, Tom …’ Danny began, hands outstretched, coming towards his little brother who suddenly didn’t seem so little after all.

‘I don’t want to live here only because you’re here,’ Tommy went on. ‘I want to do my bit and help the war effort.’ He paused, almost as if he wanted them to agree there and then to his joining up. When there was no such response his brow creased. ‘You can’t stop me. I can leave school at the end of the summer term and I’m bloody well going to.’

‘Tommy!’ Kitty had never heard her little brother swear before, and was taken aback both by that and the sudden turn of events.

‘I hate you!’ Tommy burst out. ‘I’m not even going to speak to you again. I won’t walk to the church with you; I’m going across the road. I’d rather walk with Auntie Dolly and Pop. So there.’ He flung himself out into the hallway and there was a loud bang as the front door slammed shut.

For a moment there was silence as Danny and Kitty absorbed this new, older Tommy.

‘Well,’ Kitty said at last. ‘We’d better let him calm down. Looks as if we have some serious thinking to do, Danny.’

Danny nodded, fiddling with his collar once more and brushing his jacket sleeves. ‘Come on, we’d better get going. Can’t have one half of the godparents holding up the ceremony, can we, even if our little brother’s suddenly developed a temper.’

Kitty nodded and quickly glanced in the little mirror, patting back one of her unruly dark curls. Here we go, she thought. She’d wanted to be calm for the ceremony, because it was a solemn moment and she took her godmotherly duties seriously, but also because she knew Frank would be there with Sylvia. She would have to stand near him for the ceremony itself, wouldn’t she? The last thing she needed was to have a seething mass of emotion going on. But Tommy’s interruption had stirred it all up good and proper. She closed her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t undo the past few minutes. She would just have to get on with things and make the best of it. Frank was nothing more than a family friend to her.

‘Come on then,’ she said to Danny, who stood waiting for her by the kitchen door. ‘Let’s go.’

CHAPTER NINE