With Joy fast asleep in her small bed, Lily tried, for the fourth night since he had written, to write a reply to Jacques. With the blackout blind down and just a flickering oil lamp for light, her eyes were watering with strain and tiredness as she tried to find the right words, but she felt she must reply to him before another day passed.

It was almost midnight and though she could hear Uncle John working in the bakehouse, preparing the dough for tomorrow’s bread, she suspected the rest of the bakery was asleep. Tomorrow she would be at the library early, helping to teach a group of refugees to speak English. Tonight was the only opportunity she had to reply to Jacques, but her mind was blank. There was so much to say – too much. After thinking Jacques was dead for over a year, how could she convey the joy she felt on hearing he was alive in just a few words? And how did she confess to him that when they’d met she’d been pregnant, after having an affair with a married man – a socially unacceptable sin other girls had been locked up for in the mental asylum. Lily shivered, counting her blessings that Audrey had taken her in and been so understanding. But would Jacques be as understanding?

Maybe I should make up something more palatable, she thought, before quickly dismissing the idea. It would have to be the truth, or nothing – but perhaps she could buy herself some time.

Sighing deeply, she tried again, this time writing a brief message to say how delighted she was to receive his news. I have a great deal to tell you, she wrote, but it can wait. Signing off and quickly folding up the letter, she tucked it into her book, feeling disappointed in herself. Preparing to blow out the oil lamp and get some sleep, she stopped when there was a gentle knock on the door. She tiptoed across the room and opened it to find Elsie standing there in her long cream nightdress, her hair falling over her shoulders in long black tendrils.

‘I can’t sleep,’ she whispered. ‘Can I come in?’

Lily welcomed her in and both girls sat on the bed, covering their toes with the blanket. Before Elsie had married William, the girls had shared a bedroom and spent many a night talking into the early hours.

‘I can’t tell Jacques about Joy just yet,’ Lily admitted. ‘I can’t blurt out everything in the first letter I send. He says he’s thought about me every day since we met. I’m scared to burst his bubble.’

Elsie smiled in understanding and nodded. ‘How do you feel about him? Have you thought about him too?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘But I thought he was dead, so I deliberately tried not to think about him. Remember that drawing he did of me? I still have it. I’m worried because what if he expects more from me? I suspect he thinks he wants us to be together, one day, but he doesn’t know about Joy and well, even if he did accept her, which he won’t, I don’t know if I want to be married to anyone.’

‘Married?’ said Elsie with a smile, nudging Lily gently with her elbow. ‘Aren’t you getting ahead of things there? He’s only written to you to tell you he’s still alive – don’t worry, he’s not proposing marriage just yet!’

‘I know, I know, but remember the love letter he wrote after we first met?’ Lily said. ‘I think he’s built me up into someone I’m not. I don’t think I’d make anyone a good wife. I don’t think marriage is for me.’

‘Why?’ asked Elsie. ‘Have I put you off?’

‘No.’ Lily laughed. ‘It’s more that I have other plans for Joy and me. I want to be independent and able to provide for Joy myself. I want to have the freedom to work and show her that women don’t have to take the conventional road in life. I don’t see myself as a wife, scrubbing doorsteps and ironing collars. I don’t want that for Joy either.’

Elsie chuckled, leaned her head against the wall and yawned.

‘I don’t think scrubbing steps is what being a wife is about any more, not in wartime,’ she said. ‘It’s about being a friend. It’s about trying to understand what your husband has endured if they’ve been in battle and supporting them through it all. That’s what I think, anyway. Not that I’m doing very well on that front, I have to admit.’

Elsie rubbed her face with her palms and sighed.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Lily. ‘You’ve been awfully quiet lately. Is there a problem you’d like to talk about?’

Elsie shrugged and sighed. ‘Oh, I… yes, it’s William,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, I can’t seem to reach him. I thought he was feeling better, but he’s not, and he won’t tell me what’s troubling him, despite me asking. Sometimes he won’t get out of bed or even speak to me. He was once so full of life.’

Lily smiled sadly at her friend, who she could see was desperately troubled, but she had little advice. She thought about her own father, Victor, who, after losing his wife – Lily’s mother – had completely shut down, as if he’d closed his emotions off like a tap. There had been no way to reach him either.

‘I think some men don’t like to dwell and they need to be left to get on with it, perhaps?’ said Lily. ‘Audrey said that when Charlie came home on leave that time, he didn’t want to talk about what he’d seen on the front line at all. Like it was all a bad dream that he could leave behind him.’

Elsie nodded, but her eyes misted over. ‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But William’s bad dreams are spilling over into his days. They’ve caught up with him and are making him unhappy and I don’t know what to do to help him.’

Lily reached for her friend’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

‘You said it yourself,’ she said. ‘Be his friend.’

Elsie crept back into her bedroom, trying not to disturb William. He would have to get up soon to join John in the bakehouse but was having a few hours of sleep while he could. Their bedroom, the attic room, was always warm and cosy, being at the top of the bakery – even the floorboards were warm underfoot – and it smelled faintly of the apples that Audrey had kept in the room in crates to dry out over the winter. She tiptoed across the dark room, the warm boards creaking as she moved, and lifted up the sheet to climb in next to her husband. In the darkness, she gently brushed her fingers across his scarred face.

‘Darling William,’ she whispered as she lay down next to him and rested her head on the pillow and her hand on his chest. Trying to empty her head of her worries, she closed her eyes and was allowing her tired body to relax when—

‘GET OFF ME!’ William bellowed at the top of his lungs, sitting bolt upright in bed and forcefully shoving Elsie off. ‘GET AWAY FROM ME! LET ME OUT! I CAN’T BREATHE!’

‘William!’ cried Elsie, half-crying and with her heart racing as she landed in a tangle of sheets on the floor, banging her arm and hip on the side of the bed. ‘William, stop!’

‘GET AWAY!’ he continued to shout. ‘I CAN’T SEE! I CAN’T BREATHE! I’M SUFFOCATING!’

Because of the blackout the room was pitch-black, and, her hands groping desperately in the darkness for the top of the bedside table where she kept her small hand torch, she quickly clicked it on, turning its glow towards William. Violently shaking and clutching the edge of the sheet in his hands, her handsome, lovely husband looked like a feral animal, glistening with sweat and with tears running from wild eyes and down his cheeks. On his face, for a split second, she saw darkness and death and red skies and violence and pure terror. It was an awful sight and it took her breath away. What depths of human depravity had he witnessed? Shaking her head in a mixture of pity and fear, she turned the torchlight away from him, sat on the mattress beside him and grabbed hold of his hand. He was panting now, as if he’d just run ten miles. Gently rubbing the top of his hand, she made soothing noises until he seemed calmer.

‘William?’ she said quietly when he was finally calm. ‘Are you awake now?’

He nodded, looking ashamed. His shoulders were hunched and his knees drawn up to his chin.

‘It’s my heart,’ he whimpered. ‘It’s racing. It’s not feeling right.’

Elsie gulped, determined not to cry. It was a test of her will, but she had to remain strong for both of them. Though she felt like curling up into a ball herself, William had nothing to offer in the way of comfort right now, she knew.

‘You had a nightmare,’ she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice. ‘You’ve had so many nightmares. Can you tell me why?’

Running his hands through his hair, William sighed deeply as if preparing to speak, but then the air raid siren began its haunting call, interrupting the delicate moment. Instead he just blinked, now fully awake and collecting himself together.

‘You’d better get to the shelter with the others,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to the bakehouse to help John and keep an eye on the ovens. We can use the baking table for cover if we need to. Come on, there’s no time to lose.’

The moment was lost. Elsie felt the fight drain out of her. Quickly, she pulled on her coat over her nightdress and pushed her feet into her shoes, forcing herself to focus on preparing to go down to the Anderson shelter in the backyard. She knew that William had been about to talk to her about what was tormenting him and was desperate to hear what he had to say, but for now, she said nothing more. As William grabbed his crutches and before they parted on the stairs, Elsie quickly kissed his cheek and squeezed his hand. ‘I will help you,’ she said bravely, and he gave her a small, sad smile before disappearing into the heart of the bakery to help ensure the bread was ready for the next day.

Elsie met Audrey, Mary and Lily with Joy in her arms at the bottom of the stairs and the women hurried out into the backyard, where the Anderson shelter, topped with soil where they were growing leeks and onions, was lit by the moon. Just before closing the door behind them, with the rattle of gunfire in the distance, Elsie saw a red glow in the sky along the coast to the east. Her heart sank. The war was unrelenting.

‘Looks like Southampton’s getting it,’ she said quietly, fastening the door behind them and perching on the bench, staring down at her shoes. Mary and Joy lay in the little bunk Charlie had made and immediately fell back to sleep, while the women huddled up on the bench, covering their legs with a blanket.

‘At least it’s dry now,’ said Audrey, referring to the damp nights they’d endured earlier in the year when, because of heavy rain, many Anderson shelters had flooded. ‘Are you all right, Elsie love? You look pale.’

Elsie rubbed her eyes and nodded.

‘I’ve decided I’m going to ask William to tell me everything,’ she said. ‘Something is tormenting him, something bad. I need to know the truth.’

Audrey squeezed her hand. ‘All I can say is that it’s complicated, but that he thought he was doing the right thing,’ she muttered, her face clouding over. ‘He thinks he failed, but as someone clever once said – and I remind myself of this often – there is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.’

Elsie smiled, leaned her head on Audrey’s shoulder and closed her eyes, listening to the terrifying sounds of war playing out overhead.