Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Anne Bennett 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014 Cover photograph © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (girl); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (children); Shutterstock.com (aircraft)

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007359257

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007383313

Version: 2017-09-08

Dedication

I am dedicating this book to all the “Novelistas” for the help, support and encouragement they are always ready to give. I appreciate it all a great deal …

Table of Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Part One

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen

Part Two

Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven

Acknowledgments About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

PART ONE

ONE
1937

Meg Hallett would never forget that terrible day. Her mother, Maeve, had been having labour pains since the early hours of the morning. The other children had gone to Mass with their father but, with the new baby obviously on its way, Meg had stayed behind to tend to her mother. The baby was trying to push its way into the world far too soon and Meg wondered if this was due to the fall her mother had had in the yard the day before.

Suddenly Maeve turned anxiously to her fourteen-year-old daughter. ‘Meggie, you will see to the others, won’t you?’ she begged. ‘I know it will be really hard for you … I know I’m asking you to give up all the dreams you have of a future for yourself, the job you had lined up at Lewis’s and everything but you must promise me to keep them together. I’d not rest easy if I thought the family were torn apart.’

‘Mom, please don’t talk this way,’ Meg cried. Beads of sweat were standing out on Maeve’s brow and Meg wiped them away gently with the damp cloth she had ready, noting that her face was as pale as lint and so thin her high cheekbones stood out.

Maeve had always admired those cheekbones. People always said she was a carbon copy of her mother, but though she had inherited her fine bones, luxurious dark hair with a coppery tinge, and deep brown eyes, she doubted her skin was as flawless, or her cheekbones so high. Now, though, her mother’s rosebud mouth looked bruised from where she had chewed it when the pain was bad, her face had lost all vestige of colour, and her hair was lank around her face.

‘Why don’t you lie down, Mom, and try to sleep?’ Meg suggested gently.

Maeve, however, was too perturbed to sleep and she continued as if Meg hadn’t spoken. ‘And you must help your father. Charlie’s a good man and he will be lost. You will manage between the two of you – you would have been leaving school in a fortnight anyway – and Billy will be starting at the school himself in six months. May will be on hand if you need her.’

Meg nodded. Their neighbour had always been very helpful. ‘I know, Mom.’

‘You will do this for me then, sure you will?’ Maeve said, clutching at her eldest daughter’s hand.

‘Mom, you know I would surely take care of the children and the house – and Daddy too – as well as I am able to,’ Meg said in as firm a voice as she could muster. ‘But I hate to hear you talking this way. You’re going to be fine.’

‘No, my dear girl,’ Maeve said. ‘I haven’t much time. My family in Ireland might say you are too young to deal with all the children and they’ll offer to take one or two off your hands but, I beg you, don’t let them go. My father will have them working their fingers to the bone, as he did me and my siblings.’ She stared intently at Meg, reliving her sad memories of home. ‘If he didn’t feel we’d worked hard enough, then we didn’t eat. We were beaten with his belt for the slightest thing. I escaped my life of abuse, thank God, and now I would hate my parents to get their hands on my children.’

Meg’s mouth opened in surprise. Her mother had never spoken about her growing up in Ireland before. She remembered her father warning her not to plague Maeve with questions about her homeland; she hadn’t had a good time of it there. Meg doubted he knew much more than that. He himself had never raised a hand to any of his children – not even Terry – and there was always food on their table. To her knowledge her mother’s family had never written her one line since she left home, and she had never written to them so, Heaven forbid, should anything happen to her mother she doubted they would be involved in any way. So she said confidently, ‘They will never take any of the children, never fear, Mom.’

Maeve sank back on the pillow with a sigh and said, ‘Or the authorities might say they’d be better off in a home.’

‘How could they be?’ Meg asked in genuine puzzlement. ‘Daddy’s in work and a good provider, and I’ve virtually left school and am able and willing to see to them. Terry and Jenny will help, so you needn’t worry about that either. But you are fretting for nothing. You’ll be as right as rain when the baby is born and you have recovered from the birth and all.’

But her mother went steadily downhill after that. When, in trying to make her more comfortable, Meg discovered the blood pumping from her, she stopped only long enough to pack her with a towel before setting off for the doctor, leaving their neighbour May Sanders sitting with her mother.

The doctor ordered Maeve straight to hospital. Charlie’s brother, Uncle Robert, had been alerted to what was happening, and he and his wife, Rosie, took the younger children home to care for them. Meanwhile Meg would go with her father to the General Hospital.

‘Someone’s got to go with the poor sod,’ Robert said to Rosie. ‘I’ve never seen our Charlie in such a state,’ ‘The others seem totally traumatised by it all, too,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s the suddenness of it, I suppose.’

‘That’s why I thought the nippers would be better with us,’ Uncle Robert said. ‘I mean, neighbours are all well and good, and I know May Sanders to be one of the best, but families should step in at times like these.’

Meg was glad that Uncle Robert and Aunt Rosie had the care of children. It was one less thing for her to worry about. She felt the burden of her father’s distress lodge on her shoulders and was glad that he hadn’t seen just how sick her mother looked. By the time the ambulance came she’d been semi-delirious, her face contorted from the agonising contractions. All he knew was that Maeve had started in labour and had been taken to the General Hospital.

They sat alone on hard chairs in a dismal corridor, white paint flaking off the walls, for what seemed like hours. Eventually Charlie’s head sank into his hands.

‘If she dies it will be my fault,’ he wept. ‘I should never have allowed her to get pregnant again. The doctor warned us both it would be dangerous.’

‘Oh, Dad, stop this,’ Meg said, ‘Whoever’s fault it is, I’d say Mom’s in the best place.’

Charlie got to his feet. ‘Well, I’m away to find out how she is,’ he said. ‘I can’t sit here any longer and know nothing.’

Just at that moment, a harassed-looking young doctor in his white coat, a stethoscope hanging around his neck, came through the double doors at the end of the corridor. As he approached, the look on his face turned the blood in Meg’s veins to ice.

‘Mr Hallett?’ the doctor asked Charlie.

‘Yes, I’m Mr Hallett.’

Meg suddenly didn’t want the doctor to say any more, as if not knowing the news would make it not true. But the doctor went on quietly, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Hallett. Your wife died on the operating table just a few moments ago.’

The terrible words hung in the air. Meg and Charlie stared at the doctor as if they couldn’t quite believe what they had just heard. Despite her mother’s apprehensions about the birth, Meg had comforted herself with the thought that women had babies all the time; once they’d got her to hospital, everything would be all right.

Charlie sank back onto the chair, unsure his legs could hold him up. He just couldn’t take it in. Maeve dead, and through his own selfish fault. He was aware of Meg breaking her heart on the bench beside him, tears coursing rapidly down her cheeks, and he put his arms around her.

The doctor said sincerely, ‘I’m sorry to give you such bad news.’ And then, to give them some vestige of hope: ‘We may be able to save the child, though she is very small.’

Charlie and Meg jolted upright. Neither of them had considered that the baby would have survived.

‘Child? You mean the child is alive?’ Charlie asked, astonished.

The doctor nodded solemnly. ‘When I left the theatre she was alive, yes.’

‘Better if it doesn’t survive,’ Charlie snapped abruptly. ‘Because I don’t want it.’

Meg pulled herself from her father’s embrace and turned to stare at him, utterly shocked. ‘Not want this baby? Dad, what are you saying?’

‘How could we raise such a wee child without its mother?’

‘It has been done before,’ the doctor said, as Meg burst out, ‘I don’t know how you can even think such a thing. This poor wee baby is an important part of our family.’

‘And who will look after it?’

‘I will,’ Meg declared. ‘I promised Mom I would look after them all if anything happened to her. Are you suggesting abandoning the youngest one, the one Mom died giving birth to?’

Charlie already felt ashamed of his initial reaction, and yet he saw the burden the baby would be for his daughter. ‘Meg, you have your life before you,’ he protested.

‘Yes, I have my life before me and I won’t consider it a wasted one rearing my brothers and sisters,’ Meg replied, her eyes sparking angrily. ‘I promised Mom I would do it and I will, and that includes this little one just born, if she should survive.’ And then she turned to the doctor and said, ‘Please, do what you can to help her.’

‘I’d say you have little to concern yourself about with a daughter like that,’ the doctor said to Charlie, and to Meg he said, ‘Try not to worry. I can make no promises, you understand, but I assure you we will do our best.’

When the doctor left them, Meg could barely look at her father. Her heart felt as if it was breaking at the loss of her mother, a loss she was barely able to comprehend. Yet she couldn’t blame an innocent baby for Maeve’s death, as her father seemed to be doing.

It was a couple of hours later that the doctor came to see them again and told them that the child was holding her own and that the next twenty-four hours would be critical. Meg would have liked to stay at the hospital, willing strength to the sister she hadn’t even seen, who was fighting for her life, but there were the other children to deal with. Sorrow-laden and in silence, she and Charlie headed for home.

Telling her siblings the dreadful news was even worse than Meg had imagined. The children were inconsolable, and Meg felt as if her own heartache had to be put on hold in order for her to deal with the others. She doubted that four-year-old Billy could comprehend the finality of death, or that Sally really understood, as she was only three years older, but they wept anyway. They were missing their mother already, and were frightened because everything was strange. The others were well aware that they would never see their mother again, and their anguish was hard for Meg to cope with. Charlie, too, was beside himself with grief, and she was glad when her uncle, who was stunned and upset himself, took him off to the pub.

‘I’ll call for our Alec too,’ he told Meg, as they were about to leave. ‘He needs to know, and families should be together at times like this.’

Aunt Rosie was very upset as well, for she had loved Maeve. When the men had gone, she said to Meg: ‘Robert’s right and families should do that, but I don’t think there will be much support from Alec’s wife, your aunt Susan. Anyway,’ she added, ‘no one wants help to be given as grudgingly as it would be from her. Trouble is, there’s only one person she really cares about besides herself, and that’s Nicholas, her darling boy.’

Meg nodded. Nicholas was her own age, and an only child, and her aunt had big ambitions for her clever son, who was now at King Edward’s, a posh grammar school on the other side of town.

‘May Sanders is a different person altogether, though,’ Meg said, ‘and she needs to know about Mom, too, for I’d hate her to hear from someone else.’

‘Yes, go straight on and tell her,’ Rosie advised. ‘And I must think about getting all the children fed.’

‘Food would choke me just now.’

‘Me too,’ Rosie said. ‘But growing children have to eat.’

‘Yes,’ Meg agreed, ‘and there could well be another mouth to feed before long.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The baby was alive when I left the hospital.’

‘Heavens,’ Rosie exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t you tell the children?’

‘Because she may not live,’ Meg said. ‘She’s very small, they say, so the next twenty-four hours will be critical. What was the point of telling them all they have a new sister and then tomorrow telling them they have not? It would just be another loss to cope with.’

‘Oh, my dear girl,’ Rosie said sympathetically, ‘what a load you have taken on.’

‘Don’t,’ Meg warned. ‘If you are too nice to me, I will blub.’

‘Well, do,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘Tears will do you no harm. You have been too controlled by half.’

‘Oh, no, Aunt Rosie,’ Meg said. ‘I cried when I heard and I have the feeling that if I allow myself to cry again, I will never stop. Then Dad and the children might feel more adrift than ever.’

Rosie nodded. Meg was the eldest, to whom the others all looked for direction, and would do so even more now their mother was gone.

And then another thing occurred to her. ‘Meg, if the baby is very poorly then she has to be baptised right away.’

‘I don’t know what name was decided,’ Meg said. ‘Mom never would discuss it. Said it was bad luck.’

‘What about your father?’

‘Oh, he always left the decision about names up to Mom.’

‘And she really gave you no inkling?’

Meg thought for a moment or two. ‘Well, there was just one thing. She hardly ever talked about Ireland, but she told me once, many years ago, that she’d had a little sister who died of TB when she was only two years old. Her name was Ruth – maybe she would like this little one named for her?’

‘Ruth Hallett.’ Rosie nodded and smiled. ‘Meg, that’s a fine name, and I’m sure if your dear mother is looking down on us this minute she will be as pleased as punch. When you’ve seen May, go down to the priest as soon as you can. If that wee mite is just hanging on to life it is better to have her baptised as soon as possible. I’ll send word to your dad.’

‘He won’t care,’ Meg said. ‘He doesn’t want the baby.’

‘No, I think you’ve got that wrong,’ Rosie frowned.

‘No I haven’t, Auntie,’ Meg insisted. ‘He even said that to the doctor.’

‘I’m sure that was just the effect of the shock he had,’ Rosie said. ‘Charlie is a good father. Why ever would he say a thing like that, unless he wasn’t in his right mind?’

‘He said he was thinking that I would have another child to bring up before I can have any sort of life.’

‘Well, there you are then,’ Rosie said, obviously relieved. ‘He was thinking of you and he phrased it badly, that was all. I’m sure he wants the child to live as much as anyone else does.’

Meg wasn’t convinced, though, and she thought her new little sister had had a poor welcome into the world so far. She vowed that if she lived, she would never ever let her feel in any way responsible for her mother’s death.

When she had sat with Maeve while Meg went for the doctor, May had been worried sick as she watched her good friend’s condition worsen. At eleven o’clock Mass she’d prayed earnestly for Maeve’s recovery.

However, she had only to look at Meg’s face as she opened the door that afternoon to see that her prayers had not been answered. In fact, Meg didn’t speak at all at first. Overburdened with sadness, she went straight into May’s outstretched arms and cried her eyes out. It was some time before Meg was able to tell May what had happened.

May agreed with Rosie that the baby had to be baptised immediately to ensure her immortal soul was safe.

May went with Meg to see the priest, Father Hugh. When Meg explained how premature and small the baby was, he said that the hospital should be his immediate port of call, as the baby’s life hung in the balance.

‘Where’s your father, Margaret?’ he asked Meg. ‘Why isn’t he here?’

Meg knew better than to say that her father was at the Swan, so she said instead, ‘He’s with my uncle Robert, Father. He is ever so upset.’

‘Doubtless he is,’ the priest said. ‘But it should be the child he is thinking about now. He must come to the hospital.’

‘I’ll fetch him, Father,’ May offered.

‘Good,’ Father Hugh said. ‘I think no time should be lost. Come along with me, Margaret.’

Meg was glad to go with the priest; she’d rather not be the one to prise her father from the pub.

Little Ruth was in a room of her own and swaddled so well that only her face was visible. Meg was immensely moved to see that tiny face. She wasn’t wrinkled as Meg had half expected her to be, just very beautiful and vulnerable-looking. Her eyes were closed so that her lashes lay like perfect crescents on her cheeks, which were slightly plump and even had colour in them, though the nurse tending her said that that was a sign of jaundice. Meg had no idea what her hair was like because it was covered, like her hands, to keep her warm. Her crib was lined with cotton wool and there was a light bulb shining above it.

‘How ill is she?’ Meg asked, looking down on the child she was told not to touch because of the risk of infection.

‘She is holding her own so far,’ the nurse answered. ‘And each hour that passes increases her chances. Jaundice is not a good sign, but many newborn babies have that, and if it gets no worse it won’t harm her.’

That was good news, but she was not well enough to be taken from her cot and have cold water poured on her head, the doctor was adamant about that, despite the priest’s protestations. When Charlie turned up with Robert he fully supported the doctor.

‘Give over, Father,’ he said. ‘The doctor knows what he is doing.’

‘I am worried about her immortal soul,’ the priest maintained.

‘Well, I’m more worried about keeping her alive,’ the doctor countered. ‘Can’t you put water on her forehead with your thumb or something?’

The priest shook his head. ‘The water should be flowing,’ he said.

‘Well,’ remarked the doctor drily, ‘I’m sure a loving God will understand, in the circumstances. And may I suggest that you scrub your hands first?’

Father Hugh was annoyed but sensed that the doctor was inflexible. ‘Have you a name for her?’ he asked Charlie as he washed his hands thoroughly in the basin the nurse brought for him.

Charlie was nonplussed. ‘No, we never talked about names.’

‘She discussed it with me once,’ Meg said, thinking the small lie justified. ‘She said she would like a girl to be called Ruth, after her sister who died of TB.’

‘Did she?’ Charlie asked. He gave a slight shrug. ‘I suppose Ruth is as good a name as any other.’

And so with Robert as godfather and May as godmother, little Ruth Hallett was baptised. They each held one of her mittened hands, and the priest prayed for little Ruth’s recovery as they stood round the crib.

Later, however, as they all walked back towards the Halletts’ house, Meg’s father turned sadly towards Father Hugh. ‘Maybe it’s better that she doesn’t recover, Father,’ he said.

Meg saw the priest’s shocked expression as he said, ‘I can’t understand you talking that way, Charlie. All I can say is that grief for your wife has coloured your outlook.’

‘What chance has she, growing up without a mother’s love?’

‘The same chance as the rest of us,’ Meg burst out. ‘I can do nothing about the lack of a mother’s love, but I have sisterly love in abundance for little Ruth, as well as the others, and that’s better than nothing, surely?’

‘Come on, man,’ Robert said encouragingly. ‘Won’t we all be on hand to give the little one a good start in life?’

‘And count me in on that,’ May added. ‘As Meg said, she can do nothing to bring Maeve back, but I know that she will do her best to slip into her place.’

Meg could have told her father that the two red spots in May’s cheeks were a bad sign; it showed she was in a temper and she proved this as she rounded on him. ‘Little Ruth, if she should survive, deserves the same care as your other children. She is not like a parcel left at the hospital because it is not convenient to have at home. She is a child, your child, and every child should ideally be with their family.’

Charlie looked morose and sighed heavily while May leaned forward and squeezed Meg’s hand. ‘You are a grand girl, Meg, but only a girl yet. If you want anything, anything at all, you know where I am.’

‘I know,’ Meg said in a low voice. ‘And I am grateful. You were a good friend to my mother.’

‘I was very fond of her,’ May said with a slight catch in her voice. ‘It was no hardship.’

‘Even so,’ Meg said. ‘If only Dad …’

‘He’ll come round,’ May said in little more than a whisper. ‘You’ll see. Time is a great healer and meanwhile you have something to tell the others that might cheer them a little.’

Meg nodded and they parted at the Halletts’ door. Once inside, Father Hugh said Maeve’s parents must be informed of their daughter’s death and the birth of Ruth, and advised Meg to send them a telegram the following morning.

‘But Mom didn’t really get on with her parents,’ Meg told him.

‘And how do you know that they are not sorry for that now?’ the priest asked. ‘Maybe they regret any harsh words spoken.’

‘Whether they are sorry or not,’ Charlie said, ‘her parents must be told about Maeve’s death. I would be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell them. Isn’t that right, Father?’

‘Yes, Charlie,’ the priest said. ‘And Maeve was once telling me that she had family in America.’

‘Yes, three brothers and a sister,’ Charlie said. ‘Better send telegrams to them too, Meg.’

Meg nodded. She didn’t mind sending telegrams to those in the States, for her mother used to write to them regularly and the letters they sent back often made her smile. She would read snippets out to them all. Meg knew much more about them than she did about her maternal grandparents. Still, if they had to be told, then that was that.

Now she put it out of her mind and concentrated instead on what she was to tell the children about their little sister. They were a sad little bunch, and Meg’s heart went out to them all. When she told them of their tiny wee sister fighting for her life in the hospital, they made no sign that they had even heard her. A small, frail baby was little consolation for their mother, who had been taken from them so suddenly. Meg, dealing with this loss herself, felt suddenly dispirited.

When a knock came on the door a while later, she wondered who it could be; for few neighbours knocked in that area.

‘Miss Carmichael,’ she exclaimed with all the eagerness she could muster. Miss Carmichael had been Meg’s teacher at school; Meg had loved her with a passion and worked hard to please, so achieving higher marks than anyone in her leaving exams. Meg knew Miss Carmichael had visited her parents to ask them if she could stay on at school longer, but she knew her father, like many, regarded education for women as worthless, and that her parents would expect her to earn wages as soon as possible.

Kate Carmichael noticed that the wan smile did not reach Meg’s large, dark eyes, which were glazed with misery. Normally teachers were excluded from the inner circle of gossip, but news that Maeve Hallett was very ill and about to give birth prematurely had filtered through. When Meg told her what had happened since, she was shocked to the core.

She knew that Meg would have to step into her mother’s place and the thought that her life would be stunted before it had really begun saddened the young teacher. She sensed that now Meg needed time to mourn her mother: grief was etched all over her face. In fact, so moved was she by Meg’s obvious distress that she put her arms around her and held her as Meg began to sob afresh.

TWO

The following day, Meg pushed her brothers and sisters off to school. Though they might not want to go, she felt it was best that they should keep to their usual routine, and in any case she had plenty to do that would be best done without the young ones getting under her feet. Rosie offered to look after Billy as he wasn’t yet at school and Meg accepted gratefully for she had the telegrams to send first, and then there was a pile of washing needing attention, and sometime during the day she had to squeeze in time to visit her wee sister in the hospital.

When she eventually got there the doctor told Meg that she should be proud of the baby’s tenacity, that after everything she’d been through, she was going to make it.

Meg let her breath out in relief. To her it made some sort of sense to her mother’s death that the baby she had been carrying had survived.

‘When can I take her home?’ she asked.

‘Oh, that’s a little way off yet,’ the doctor said. ‘She must weigh at least five pounds, and that might take a week, possibly two.’

‘Can I come and see her?’

‘Of course,’ the doctor assured her. ‘She is still in the special care baby unit and when she is a little stronger you may be able to give her a bottle. You will have to get used to doing that anyway.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Meg. ‘I would love to . .’

Afternoon was turning into evening as Meg scurried home, collecting Billy on the way, knowing the children would all be sitting there with their tongues hanging out; her father, too, because he hadn’t gone to work that day. However, if Meg had thought he might be some support for her, then she was disappointed. She’d known he had taken himself off to the Swan after the meal she had put before them all, but the children told her that while she had been at the hospital he had staggered home at closing time and was in bed sleeping it off . .

‘It’s how many men deal with things,’ May told her when they met in the yard as Meg was bringing in the washing. ‘I often think that it is women who are the copers in this world. A man loses his wife and goes to pieces, and yet if a woman loses her man she will roll up her sleeves and work to feed and clothe her children and get on with it without moaning much. Now your father has lost the love of his life, so don’t expect him to just get over it as you will have to.’

In the light of May’s words, Meg was patient with her father when she woke him to have his dinner, and she bit her lip when he sat at the table bleary-eyed and complaining that the food wasn’t a patch on what Maeve would put before him. Meg had been too busy to make anything more than a scratch meal using the meat and vegetables intended for the previous day, and was stung by the criticism.

However, to prevent herself either flying into a rage or dissolving in tears, Meg told her father about her visit to see the baby.

‘Ruth is definitely going to make it now,’ she said. ‘So that’s good news.’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, Dad, of course it is.’ Meg insisted. ‘She will be able to come home when she is over five pounds in weight. I can’t wait for that.’

‘Don’t see why,’ Sally said.

‘Why do you say that, Sally?’ Meg said. ‘I thought you liked babies.’

‘I do,’ Sally maintained. ‘But not this one, not Ruth.’

‘Why on earth don’t you like our own baby?’

‘’Cos if she hadn’t been born, our mommy would still be alive,’ Sally said.

Meg was astounded. Sally was only seven years old and Meg wondered if she had overheard the others talking about it. ‘Is this how you all feel?’ she asked, glaring at them all around the table; she knew by the uncomfortable glances they exchanged with one another that they did.

‘You can count me in as well,’ Charlie said. ‘Don’t expect me to get excited over a baby that robbed me of my wife.’

‘How can you blame one small helpless baby for Mom’s death?’ Meg cried, patience with her father gone. ‘The truth is, Mom shouldn’t have been expecting at all, and the fact that she was can’t be laid at little Ruth’s door. I take it you won’t be going to see her?’

She was met by a wall of silence. ‘All right then,’ she screamed. ‘Have it your way, but I will visit every day until the time I can bring Ruth home. And when that time comes, she is never to feel any sign of this resentment. And that goes for you all,’ she added, looking at each one of the children in turn.

The children looked aghast, waiting for their father’s reaction, but he didn’t respond. Meanwhile Meg felt such misery envelop her that she knew if she stayed in the house a minute longer, she would burst into floods of tears. She strode purposefully to the door, stepped into the street and shut it behind her with a resounding and very satisfying slam.

She had no plan of where she wanted to go. She felt all churned up inside and so she set off for Calthorpe Park, where she walked alongside the Heath, passing the bandstand where the brass bands played on Sundays. She could see boys having a kick-about with a football on the far side, and a couple of families packing up after a picnic. It was a peaceful scene and began to soothe Meg’s bruised soul.

Courting couples arm in arm were strolling along the banks of the river Rea, which were overhung with weeping willows, or walking under the canopy of trees by Pershore Road. And the bees taking in the last of the sun busily buzzed amongst the flowerbeds, which were a riot of colour. Meg gave a sigh that was almost one of contentment.

She strolled all over the park, drinking in the peace and tranquillity, taking her time, so that the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when she turned for home. It was quiet when she went in and all the pots and pans, she saw, had been washed, dried and put away. Only Terry was up, reading a comic.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Jenny, Sally and Billy are in bed.’

‘And Daddy?’

Terry’s eyes met Meg’s and she burst out, ‘He has gone back to the Swan, hasn’t he?’

Terry shrugged. ‘S’pose. He said he was going to see Uncle Robert.’

‘And that’s where the two of them will make for,’ Meg said grimly. ‘May said men often deal with loss by drinking too much, though I can’t for the life of me see what good it does. I hope Dad gets a grip on himself soon.’

‘And me,’ Terry said gloomily.

‘Did you just stay up to wait for me?’

‘And to say sorry,’ Terry said. ‘Maybe Mom shouldn’t have had this baby, but I know a bit of how babies are made and once you are having one, it’s too late then to wish you weren’t. But I got to thinking that the baby hasn’t had any say in it either, has she?’

‘No,’ Meg said. ‘And that was the point I was trying to make.’

‘I know,’ Terry said. ‘I should have had more sense, and I will try and make the others feel the same before she comes home.’

‘Oh, Terry, that’s great,’ Meg cried, for she was very fond of her twelve-year-old brother and had been disappointed with his initial reaction. ‘It will be a poor welcome for Ruth to come to a house where no one wants her.’

‘I got to thinking that too after you left,’ Terry said. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry for upsetting you.’

‘None of us is thinking straight since Mom died,’ Meg said. ‘Concentrating on the baby helps me, because it’s something positive.’

‘Here’s something else positive,’ Terry said. ‘Though maybe not so pleasant.’

‘What?’

‘A telegram was delivered while you were out,’ Terry told Meg. ‘Mom’s parents are coming for the funeral.’

When she finally met them, Meg didn’t care for either of her maternal grandparents one bit. Sarah Mulligan was a small woman, but a stout one. Her face was the colour of putty, and so creased and wrinkled it reminded Meg of a dried-up old prune. The wrinkles didn’t hide her thin tight lips, though, or her blue eyes that looked so cold that shivers ran down Meg’s back.

Conversely, everything about Maeve’s father, Liam Mulligan, was oversize. He was a tall man, and beefy, with enormous shoulders, a very large stomach and hands twice the size of her own father’s. He had an exceedingly red face with rheumy brown eyes and slack, bulbous lips.

However, it wasn’t just how they looked that Meg found off-putting, it was also their manner. They expressed no sorrow at the loss of a daughter, nor any sympathy for the family. They gave the children scant attention and little affection, but they were very quick to find fault and Meg found them very unwelcome guests.

On the morning of the funeral, all the Halletts – even Billy – were dressed in black. Meg’s long dark brown hair was up in a chignon, which Miss Carmichael had shown her how to do when she was going to the interview at Lewis’s and it had immediately had made her appear older and given her confidence – she thought she needed both qualities that day. The sun shone from cornflower-blue skies, though it seemed a mockery for the day to be such a bright one when their spirits were so low. The children’s aunts and uncles and grandparents had already gone to the church, and it was just the Hallett family left to walk together, Meg leading the way and her father bringing up the rear, as they walked along Bell Barn Road and down Bristol Passage on to Bristol Street, where St Catherine’s Church stood. All those not attending the Requiem Mass stood at their doorways in respectful silence and watched them pass.

The church was packed and Meg told herself she shouldn’t be so surprised, for her mother had been very popular, but it still warmed her heart to see so many there, including Miss Carmichael and the doctor standing at the back.

The Requiem Mass was a long one, but none of the children fidgeted or whispered together. Even Billy seemed awed by the solemnity of it all. And after it, as they began the short walk to Key Hill Cemetery in Hockley, where Maeve was to be buried, Meg caught hold of Billy’s hand. His very shiny eyes grew bigger when, after the murmured prayers around the graveside, the coffin that Meg had told him housed his mother was gently lowered into the prepared hole. The lump in his throat threatened to choke him as his father stepped forward and threw a clod of earth on top of the coffin. Thud. That seemed to Billy to bring home the fact that his mother really was dead. One by one the family threw a handful of earth onto the coffin.

‘You don’t have to do it, Billy,’ Meg told him kindly.

‘I want to.’ Billy shook his head emphatically and, dropping Meg’s hand, he stepped forward boldly. People started to cry afresh as the small boy took a handful of earth, but Billy didn’t cry till the clod hit the coffin. Then the enormity of it all seemed to get to him, the realisation that his mother was dead and gone, and he ran back to Meg and buried his face in her skirt as tears threatened to overwhelm him.

Charlie, too, felt stricken as he watched his children step forward one by one. Unbeknownst to Meg, the Mulligans had offered to take Billy and Sally back with them to what they said was a much better life in Irish countryside, and he had been very tempted,. They painted a powerful picture of the idyllic life the children would have and Liam Mulligan promised that Billy would inherit the farm one day if he took to the work. Charlie felt he couldn’t just dismiss the offer out of hand, but looking at the kids now, they were so lost and vulnerable. They were his children, he realised; they only had the one parent now. The children needed time to grieve for their mother; surely they could do that better in familiar surroundings with people that loved them.

He suddenly peeled Billy from Meg, lifted him into his arms and, carrying him like that, led the way to the Swan, where Paddy Larkin had given him the use of the back room. Rosie and her daughters had worked very hard to put on a good spread for the mourners, and Meg was immensely grateful to them as she took her place beside her father.

As tea and beer flowed, and neighbours got chatting, Charlie drew Meg into the corridor and closed the door against the noise.

‘Are you all right, Dad?’

‘Child, it will be many years before I am all right,’ Charlie told his daughter. ‘Indeed it might never happen.’ He gave a sigh and went on, ‘But I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Talk away then,’ Meg said.

‘It’s about the children,’ Charlie said, and he told her what Liam and Sally Mulligan had suggested, Meg gasped for it was just the very thing her mother said to guard against. Charlie hadn’t noticed her reaction and went on. ‘I know you don’t like Maeve’s parents and you want to keep us all together, but would it be selfish of us to keep Billy and Sally here when they can offer them a much better life in Ireland?’

Meg took a deep breath. She knew she had to remain calm and rational. He was clearly genuinely asking her opinion, so she had to push down her desire to tell him that she could see cruel malevolence in her grandmother’s gimlet eyes, and how much she hated her grandfather’s coarseness and belligerence, particularly when he had a drink in him. The thought of either Billy or Sally being beaten by that hulk didn’t bear thinking about. And there was also the promise she had made to her mother. But it was more than that: she knew the only way for them all to get over their loss was to stay together, so that they could offer support to one another.

She chose her words with care. ‘If I had to choose between health and happiness, I think I would choose happiness every time,’ she said. ‘Mom said she was desperately unhappy at home.’

Charlie nodded. ‘I remember. But I suppose people can change.’

‘Not those two,’ Meg declared determinedly.

‘So you don’t think they should be given this chance?’ Charlie asked her seriously.

Meg shook her head. ‘If you send them away I won’t be able to keep the promise I made to Mom and that will distress me greatly. But, more importantly, I think both Billy and Sally will be desperately sad.’

Charlie still looked hesitant and Meg took his arm. ‘Come on, Dad. Their place, the place for all of us, is in the bosom of the family where we are loved and understood.’

Meg saw with a measure of relief that her words had hit home as her father nodded his head. ‘You’re right. I think you are right.’ The image of his young ones standing by their mother’s coffin came into his mind again. ‘I don’t want to send the two young children away like that, however healthy it is. Their place is here – and more especially now, but have you no qualms at all about how you will cope?’

Meg put her hand on his arm. ‘Dad, I’ll never be another Mom, but I will do my best, and when I make mistakes I’ll learn from them. I know this is what Mom wanted above anything else, and that helps.’

‘Right,’ Charlie said, squaring his shoulders. ‘I am away back into the room and will tell Maeve’s parents that the children won’t be going with them.’

‘That’s the spirit, Daddy,’ Meg said, and she smiled with relief as she followed her father.

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