‘This won’t do!’ said Audrey later that same evening, crossly throwing down the wooden spoon on the kitchen table. Since Elsie’s news about her and William’s impromptu wedding in a matter of weeks, there was one thing on Audrey’s mind – the wedding cake! With a strong belief in there being no time like the present, she was in the kitchen experimenting. The actual fruit cake itself was no problem. Twice a year she made a batch of fruit cakes ready for celebration cake orders and there were still a few in store. But the icing was another matter. Chastising herself for not keeping back more icing sugar these last few months, she folded her arms and frowned at the hopeless white icing substitute she’d made from water, caster sugar and milk powder. Normally Audrey would make intricate iced toppings for wedding cakes – sugar paste flowers and pearl piping – but this substitute would sink and soak into the cake, unless she put it on minutes before the cake was to be served.

‘I’m going to have to think of something else,’ she muttered.

She wrinkled her nose, going through the alternative ideas for icing, and came to the same conclusion as many other bakers and confectioners. A cardboard or plaster of Paris mould would have to cover the cake, and she would bake some other treats to make the buffet as special as possible. The carrot cake she’d recently tried might be an idea, using honey instead of sugar for sweetness; it had sold well in the shop, everyone taken with the idea that carrots help you see in the dark.

Eat plenty of carrots to help you see in the blackout, Audrey recalled the Ministry of Food leaflet she had read. Fighting the war with carrot cake!

With a bit of imagination there were ways to get around the lack of ingredients the war had presented her with. Ever since she was a small girl, when her grandmother taught her the art of baking in her tiny south London kitchen, she’d loved experimenting with ingredients and tinkering with recipes. If she was completely still and quiet for a moment, which admittedly she wasn’t very often, Audrey could recall a cherished memory of standing barefoot on a polished wooden chair, so she was tall enough to reach her grandmother’s kitchen table, always piled with well-used cookery books and attended to by her grandfather sucking on his pipe, and the sound of her grandmother’s sing-song voice advising her on how best to bake a sponge cake. ‘Do not rush baking; measure, sift and fold with a gentle touch,’ she used to say. ‘And never open the oven during cooking, and remember that a person eats with her eyes and her mouth.’

When – if – she were ever able to have children of her own, Audrey would pass on her grandmother’s baking secrets. Privately envisaging, for the umpteenth time, the kitchen table surrounded by numerous of hers and Charlie’s children, Audrey was struck by a terrible loneliness. ‘It’s no good giving in to melancholy,’ she told herself sternly, shaking her head at her own self-indulgence.

Storing the mock icing in a bowl for using as a filling in a sponge or fairy cakes for the shop, she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to sort through her overcrowded mind. In the background was the sound of Charlie and John working in the bakehouse: the clang of tins and muffled conversation as they worked, debating various military operations.

Gosh, there was so much to do. But William and Elsie’s wedding was the main concern. She smiled to herself and sighed, so utterly relieved that William was safe and excited that he would soon be at home with her again, at the table having tea and cake, and playing his mouth harp. Wanting to make their wedding memorable and not a rushed affair, Audrey vowed to do everything in her power to make it special. She had offered to help Elsie with the special marriage licence, flowers, the venue, invitations and Elsie’s dress… There was all that to think of – and then there was Lily.

Audrey paused to take off her apron, frowning as she tried to iron out her deep concerns about Lily. Hoping she and Jacques were able to enjoy themselves at the dance, she thought of her stepsister unable to eat her pie, the bruises on her face and her tears of regret at something she’d done. Whatever the matter was, Lily needed a friend and, as far as Audrey was concerned, Lily could stay on for as long as she liked, though she must talk it through with Charlie. Thinking of her husband, she remembered his irritable mood earlier and decided she must clear the air. They were a good team and were well used to tackling problems together, even if sometimes lately it felt that their marriage was more a game of tug of war than a union.

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The bakery was a higgledy-piggledy building on the corner of Fisherman’s Road, inherited by Charlie from his Uncle Eric, Pat’s brother, who had opened the shop in 1920. The ground floor was devoted to the business and the upstairs – accessed by a door at the side of the property and a flight of stairs from behind the shop – to family life. Beyond the shopfront was a storeroom and a small cake-making and cooling room, and behind that the brick bakehouse, a split-storey building with the coal-fired ovens at one end and the dough trough and table at the other. On the upper level was the flour loft where the sacks of flour were rigged up to pour down a chute when Charlie needed it. The bakery’s layout was Uncle Eric’s design and there were marks of him everywhere, including up on the wall a sepia photograph of him wearing a white hat and long white apron that almost touched the floor, which Audrey now regarded while Charlie worked. There was another of his wife, Edith, also in a white apron, sitting near the fire with a cup of tea in her hands, glasses balanced on the tip of her nose. Audrey smiled at Charlie’s ancestors, knowing what hard-working people they had been.

‘Charlie?’ she asked gently.

‘Can’t stop now,’ he said, without looking up from his mixing. ‘First twenty minutes are the most important or the mixture will go lumpy.’

‘You know you look just like your Uncle Eric,’ she said, watching him mix the flour, yeast, salt and water, making the dough for tomorrow’s bread. ‘You were cut from the same cloth, or should I say cut from the same dough.’

Audrey watched the muscles in Charlie’s strong arms and shoulders flex as he worked. This was just the first step. After the yeast had done its job, Charlie would heave the dough out of the trough and cut it into pieces, weigh, hand-mould it and finally put it into tins to prove before baking.

‘Brought you some tea,’ she said, placing the cup on the windowsill. ‘Have you got a minute to talk? About William and Elsie’s wedding, and a few other things.’

‘I have,’ he said flatly. ‘Talk away.’

Audrey sighed inwardly. Charlie was still smarting from earlier. Sometimes she wished he’d just rage and shout and get his bad mood off his chest rather than stringing it out for days on end.

‘Sorry if I said the wrong thing at dinner,’ she began. ‘I wanted Jacques to feel he could have a bit of fun while he’s here. He’s only a young lad, and goodness knows what he’s seen in battle. Thought he could do with enjoying a band, or having a dance. Something simple. That’s all.’

Charlie stopped to take a drink, looking at her over the rim of his cup, his eyes alert and his face glistening with sweat.

‘Nothing for you to get your knickers in a twist about, love,’ she said, with a mischievous glint in her eye. He gave a gentle laugh.

‘I know,’ he said kindly, leaning against a flour sack, his apron dusted over with flour. ‘I’m a grumpy sod, I know that. It’s this war. I can’t get my head around it. Earlier today I read an eyewitness account in the paper about the Nazi bombs in Paris. There were weeping mothers searching the streets for their sons and daughters, picking through the debris, trying to find their babies who had been buried under rubble. Babies! Will that Nazi bully stop at nothing? I wish I could get my hands on him. I’d wring his evil neck with my bare hands.’

‘Oh Charlie, that’s devastating,’ Audrey said, shaking her head. ‘The poor children are the innocents, and what’ll they grow up thinking about the world? That it’s a cruel place where lives don’t matter.’

Charlie nodded in agreement and sipped his tea.

‘I can’t help feeling that I should be doing more,’ Charlie said, putting down his cup and rolling down his sleeves. ‘Not leaving the awful battle to William, Jacques and the rest of the poor young beggars who are out there facing heaven knows what. I know they’re the youngest and the fittest, but they’ve hardly lived, those lads. I was polishing my father’s medals earlier and I felt I should be honouring him by doing active service just as he did in the Great War – and what am I doing? You can’t fight a war with bread and cakes.’

‘But you can fight hunger,’ Audrey replied. ‘That’s what we’re doing. People depend on our bread. Do you not feel proud of that? I know I do.’

‘I am incredibly proud of this bakery,’ he said, his voice deep and serious. ‘It’s everything to me and I strive to be the best baker I can be and serve our customers well, just as my uncle did. But when I read what’s going on, I’m torn, Audrey. I’m torn in half.’

Audrey heard the catch in Charlie’s voice and ached with concern and love. He rarely opened up like this. She stood close to Charlie and rested her hand on his strong back, which emanated heat. When he turned, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest, silently cursing the war. For a moment, his tense body relaxed and he held her close and they enjoyed a few seconds of complete, warm togetherness.

‘Not interrupting anything am I?’ asked John, appearing with the coal for the ovens, his face streaked with black. ‘If you want me gone, just say so. I can do a good disappearing trick.’

‘No, John, we’ve a lot to do, the hotel’s weekend order needs sorting,’ said Charlie, releasing Audrey and pecking her on the cheek, then frowning. ‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about, love?’

Audrey collected her thoughts and paused, comparing what was on her mind to those poor mothers in Paris hysterically searching and digging for their treasured, innocent babies in the bricks and rubble. It was beyond belief.

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ she said resolutely.

Weary now, after a day on her feet and with a head full of jobs that needed doing and days not long enough to do them all in, Audrey retired to bed, where, in the dark room, she pulled up a tiny corner of the blackout blind and peered out of the window, from which she could see the sea, shimmering with silver moonlight. The street below was deserted, apart from the neighbourhood fox slinking through the streets, and the ARP warden patrolling for chinks of light escaping from the neighbourhood’s curtains. Though the blackout beginning and end times were published in the Echo every day, there were still a lot of people who forgot to pull down their blinds. ‘Put that light out!’ was a regular cry from the wardens late at night and there was a one-pound fine for ignoring him.

Audrey stared at the ocean and strained to see the piers in the distance. Both of the beautifully ornate piers at Bournemouth and Boscombe Beach, which held so many memories for the townspeople and holidaymakers, would be partially blown up in a few days’ time to avoid night-time enemy landings. A shiver ran down her spine at the prospect.

Yawning, Audrey was about to turn in when she saw Lily and Jacques walking towards the bakery, returning from their evening out. Jacques walked straight and tall, cutting a slim, smart figure, while Lily seemed bird-like and even younger than her years by his side. Their expressions were serious, as if they were deep in conversation and, Audrey noticed, their hands brushed against each other as they moved along the pavement.

Feeling guilty for spying on them, she tried and failed to tear her eyes away when Jacques stopped near a cherry blossom tree with branches laden with pink flowers that resembled giant powder-puffs, and picked a bloom. Jacques gave Lily the flowers and took her hand. They faced one another, and for a long moment, Lily left her hand in his. Audrey suspected, by her posture, that Lily was apologising, but then Jacques lifted his finger to her lips to silence her and, lowering his head slightly, he gently kissed her. Lily, clearly finding it impossible to move, kissed him back before suddenly pulling away, lifting her hands to her cheeks, in confusion or embarrassment, and turning towards the bakery with Jacques following close behind.

Aware that she was holding her breath, Audrey let go of the blind and stepped away from the window, blinking in the darkness, her heart pounding. She heard the door of the bakery open and close, the muffled voices of Jacques and Lily, then footsteps up the stairs, one after the other, to each of their separate bedrooms. One hand on the bedroom doorknob, Audrey listened intently, feeling sure she could hear the sound of crying coming from Lily’s room, which was next to her own. Jacques was in the attic room above and she could hear the sound of his footsteps pacing the floorboards.

Lighting a candle and carrying it out into the hallway, she knocked gently on Lily’s door. ‘It’s Audrey,’ she whispered. ‘Can I come in?’