Later in June, though Bournemouth escaped attack, nearby Southampton suffered a heavy raid involving fifty bombers, which killed thirty-six people and destroyed 160 homes – and the West End of London and Birmingham were also hit, in a series of devastating raids. It had been almost three years, but it still seemed that the war would never end.

One day at the end of June, Audrey was sitting in the backyard having a five-minute break after the shop had closed. She read the headline: ‘Germans murder 700,000 Jews in Poland’ and her heart almost stopped. Forcing herself to read on, she learned that in the greatest massacre in the world’s history, men, women and children had been killed with poison gas in what the newspaper called ‘mobile gas chambers’, shot or deliberately starved to death. All this atrocious and devastating news in a small article, on page six.

‘Dear God,’ she cried, dropping the newspaper on the ground like hot coals. She was so physically revolted and horrified by these cruel and tragic events that she felt hot bile bursting into her throat, and she rushed to the bushes to vomit.

‘Hundreds of thousands of defenceless people,’ she whispered into her hands that she clasped over her mouth in horror, ‘murdered in cold blood, oh heavens no! Why, oh why?’

‘Audrey?’ came Uncle John’s voice from behind her. ‘Are you all right, dear?’

Wild-eyed, Audrey turned to face John and pointed to the newspaper on the ground, its pages lifted by the invisible hand of the breeze. Slowly, John picked up the paper and read the story, shaking his head in stunned disbelief, muttering and cursing ‘monsters’ and ‘lunatics’ under his breath. Walking over to Audrey, he wrapped his arms round her shoulders.

‘It says people – children and babies – were killed outside their street doors, just shot in the street… I can’t— It’s an unimaginable, devastating crime, John.’ Audrey wept until her throat was sore, and though John soothed and comforted her, his cheeks and neck were also wet with tears. John wasn’t one to cry and his obvious distress made Audrey feel even worse. They stood together in an embrace for a long moment, speechless with grief, before being interrupted by Mary rushing into the yard, back from the strawberry fields, where you could pick as many strawberries as you could eat for a bob.

‘Audrey?’ Mary asked, her smile disappearing from her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

Mary was closely followed by Betty, Cyril, Vera and Dora, who had also been to pick strawberries and who had mouths stained with pink juice and cheeks kissed by the sun. Audrey sniffed and quickly wiped her eyes, before blowing her nose on her hanky with trembling hands and plastering a wobbly smile on her lips. She couldn’t tell Mary the truth – how would she explain such a thing? – so instead she wrapped her arms round the little girl and pulled her in for a hug.

‘I’m fine,’ said Audrey. ‘Have you got plenty of strawberries? You smell like one yourself!’

‘We ate hundreds!’ said Mary. ‘And we picked lots too, to make jam. Here you are. Smell them!’

Mary thrust a basket of fresh, ambrosial red berries into Audrey’s hands and, as she sniffed their delectable perfume, Audrey’s vision blurred with more hot tears. The aroma took her abruptly back to peacetime when the growers had gone around with their carts laden with fruit ready to flog, and folk had enjoyed bowls of them for pudding, served with lashings of cream and sugar. The contrast between that memory and what she’d just read in the newspaper made Audrey feel dizzy. How could two such extremes be part of the same lifetime?

‘They look wonderful,’ she said. ‘I will make pots of jam out of these, but for now, I think I should take you for a swim at the river. I’m always promising to and I never have time, but today, I’ll make time. I’ll bring the twins for a breath of fresh air too. Let’s get a blanket and a few things together.’

The children all broke out into cheers and laughter and Audrey exhaled, pleased to be bringing a smile to their lips. They had to live for the moment, for heaven knew what tomorrow might bring.

‘That’s it, Audrey,’ said Uncle John quietly, ‘keep on keeping on. It’s all we can do.’

Inside the house, Audrey tried to pull herself together and take her mind off the dreadful news by carrying out some ordinary tasks. She put the strawberries in the larder alongside the nettles she planned to steam and serve with a knob of butter and a dash of nutmeg for dinner, then fed Marmalade the cat the meat from a cod’s head she’d simmered in milk and mixed with bread. Moving upstairs when she heard the babies stir from their nap, she collected two blankets from the bottom of the wardrobe, picked up Emily and Donald, took them outside and got them comfortable in their pram bassinet. All the while, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help imagining how those frightened and innocent mothers must have felt, knowing their children were going to be— She shook her head to rid her mind of the haunting images.

‘Ready?’ said Mary, appearing by Audrey’s side with a wide grin. She was followed by the other children, who were chattering excitedly – and Betty too.

‘Yes,’ said Audrey, then, glancing at Betty with a smile, ‘Looks like we’ve got our hands full!’

---

Betty almost had to run to keep up with Audrey, who, deep in thought, was marching along the bank of the Stour to find a nice spot for them to sit down and for the children to play in the water. With the sea out of bounds with barbed wire, railings in the water and other defences, the locals had turned to the river for swimming and it was busy with children playing, with their worried mothers on the edge warning them not to go in too deep. Even though the locals had begged the council to cordon off a safe area of the river for bathing, so far they hadn’t taken that step and there had been numerous stories of accidents and near-drownings. But, children needed to play in the sunshine and learn to swim in the summer months, and this was their best option.

‘How about here?’ called Betty, finding a flattened area of grass where a family had obviously previously been.

‘Hmm?’ said Audrey, who had seemed thoroughly distracted ever since they left the bakery.

‘I said how about here?’ said Betty again.

‘Okay yes, we’ll go here,’ said Audrey, throwing down the blanket over the grass, near a shallow incline into the water. ‘And children, you must only paddle, unless you’re a good swimmer. Who can swim?’ She addressed the line of children, who were all racing to get off their shoes and socks. Nobody raised their hand.

‘Oh dear,’ Audrey said. ‘Well, then it’s paddling only, and you have two fishing nets between you, so you can catch some tiddlers too. I bought a jar with me, for your catch. Off you go! Dora, you can help me with Emily and Donald. I think we’ll lie them on their backs on the blanket, so they can kick their legs around and look up at the sky. You’ll like that, won’t you, my little darlings?’

While Audrey sorted out the twins, Betty sat down on the blanket with Dora crawling across her lap, and watched the children splash, paddle and laugh in the river. Her head was crowded with thoughts: of Sam, Robert and the nursery she was working with Pat to set up. Pat’s house had a coal-serviced copper in which they could boil the nappies; they’d give the kiddies cod liver oil and iron tablets, and a teatime snack of bread and jam. They’d play out in the garden and sing and they’d put games and books in the Anderson shelter, to preclude boredom if they had to go in.

‘Can I ask you a question, Audrey?’ asked Betty.

‘Hmm?’ said Audrey, who was staring off into the middle distance and frowning. ‘Yes, what is it?’

‘It’s about the nursery that Pat and I are opening next week,’ she said. ‘We’re only looking after the children and babies we know at the moment, but Pat thinks other mothers with wartime jobs might want us to help them. If they do, we’ll probably apply for assistance from the government. Anyway, for now, on the days when I’m at the bakery, Pat will be looking after the children on her own. Do you think that it’s too much for her? She could potentially be looking after Joy, Cyril, Vera, Dora and the twins all at once and she seems to get awfully tired sometimes.’

‘Pat? Tired?’ scoffed Audrey. ‘Never! That woman has more energy and drive in her than two women half her age put together. Don’t you worry about her. She’ll cope with that number of children, no problem. And it’s not as if it’s an official nursery, open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. like the nursery that’s opened in Bournemouth for the munitions workers – it’ll just be now and then, won’t it, for our family and friends?’

Betty smiled and nodded but couldn’t help thinking about the previous day when she’d been creating a play area in Pat’s garden. Pat had been sitting on the deckchair for only a minute before she was in a deep sleep with her mouth wide open. What if she did that when she was in charge of the children?

‘You’re doing a commendable thing, you and Pat,’ said Audrey in a serious voice. ‘Enabling women to get on with their jobs will hopefully put an end to this war sooner rather than later.’

‘It’s nothing really,’ said Betty. ‘As you said, it’s just now and then at the moment, to give you and Lily a break – and me help with Robert’s children.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Audrey. ‘There’s so much wrong in the world that when someone does something good it should be celebrated.’

Betty thought that Audrey was in a strangely emotional mood and wasn’t sure why. She hoped she hadn’t had any bad news but she didn’t want to pry.

‘Talking of celebrations,’ said Audrey, ‘why don’t I make a cake for you to have on the first day you have the children at Pat’s? I’m sure all the kiddies will want a slice. It might be fatless, eggless and sugarless, but I’ll see what I can do. It will be a way of saying thank you.’

Betty blushed at Audrey making such a fuss, but before she could argue, she realised that perhaps Audrey needed a reason to bake a celebration cake. Maybe she was searching for the good, and right now this was as good as it got, just as she had said that day on the Overcliff.

‘Yes,’ said Betty, watching Audrey stand up, balance Emily and Donald one on each hip and walk them to the water’s edge to point out a dragonfly hovering over the surface of the water. ‘A cake would be perfect. Never mind about the fat, eggs or sugar, it’s the thought that counts.’