The residents of Bournemouth woke bleary-eyed after spending half the night in air-raid shelters to the sombre news that Southampton had been badly hit by the Luftwaffe. A bakery customer with relatives in Southampton reported that enemy bombers had targeted the military port and the railways, and that swathes of the city had been reduced to rubble.

‘The big bakery plants might be without water and gas,’ Charlie said, sorrowfully shaking his head. ‘They’ll be leaning heavily on the village bakeries.’

Other parts of the country, exact locations unspecified in the local press but alluded to as the east coast, had taken a beating too – with multiple civilian deaths and injuries. With Southampton being just a few miles up the road, the threat of attack felt terrifyingly close.

Audrey’s head was full with worries. She couldn’t get poor little Mary’s reaction to the siren out of her mind. When, finally, she’d taken Mary to her room, the little girl had refused to sleep in the bed, wanting to curl up under it instead. Because she was so exhausted, Audrey had let her have her way, but how could she let a child in her care sleep on the draughty floorboards for more than one night? It wouldn’t do. And when another customer then reported to Audrey that she’d heard from her uncle, who was an ARP warden, that Elsie’s father had been arrested overnight for being an Italian national, Audrey was horrified. To add insult to injury, someone had thrown a brick through their front window. It was all desperately unjust, and Audrey wanted to visit Elsie, but the queue of customers waiting for their daily bread and counter goods spilling out onto the street put paid to that idea.

‘I’ll ask Lily to go on my behalf,’ she said to Maggie. ‘Let me pop upstairs and ask her to run an errand for me.’

Taking the stairs two at a time, Audrey knocked on Lily’s door and opened it to find Lily hastily packing her suitcase, her budgie cage balanced precariously on the bed, her face blotchy and red from crying. The bed had been made up and a note, with Audrey’s name on the front, rested on the pillow.

‘Lily!’ Audrey said, registering the letter, then closing the door behind her. ‘What are you doing?’

Lily turned to face Audrey. With dark circles around her eyes and a bright red nose, she looked exhausted.

‘I’ve been thinking all night that I have to leave,’ she said, her lip quivering. ‘I should never have come. I realise that the reason Charlie didn’t come into the shelter was because of me. I have the address for the Free Church Home for Unmarried Mothers. It’s on St Albans Avenue. I’ll stay there until I’ve had the baby, then it can be adopted and I can go back to London to get a job.’

‘Lily,’ said Audrey ‘I think—’

‘This was a mistake,’ Lily interrupted. ‘You have enough on your hands with Mary being here. I have spent my whole life wishing I could experience more of the world and I’m not going to give up on all of that now. I won’t let this one mistake define the rest of my life.’

Audrey heard Lily’s voice crack as she finished speaking.

‘Don’t go,’ said Audrey imploringly. ‘Those unmarried mothers’ homes are for people whose family won’t help them. I don’t want you to go. And Charlie wanted to stay with the ovens during the raid, it really wasn’t because of you. I promise.’

‘I’m going,’ Lily said, standing straighter. ‘I’m going to make all this go away.’

‘No Lily, please,’ Audrey soothed, taking the suitcase from Lily’s hand and putting it on the floor, then wrapping her arms around her and rubbing her back to calm her trembling. ‘I admire your spirit, Lily, but please, calm down. I have a suggestion to make.’

Audrey moved over to the window and opened it, looking out at the sea, which sparkled in the sunlight. The sea always had a calming effect on her.

‘I was going to pick the right time to talk to you about this,’ she said gently, turning to face Lily. ‘But there never seems to be a right time. Charlie and I have not been able to have a child of our own, despite all the trying over the years, so I’ve told him I will gladly help look after your baby. If you want to consider adoption, I would like you to consider me and Charlie taking the baby on. I would be honoured to care for your child, if that was what you wanted.’

Audrey paused to see how her idea had landed.

‘But the main thing is Lily,’ she continued, ‘we’re family. What are families for if they’re not for helping one another at times like these? You can work in the bakery for as long as you’re able and we can pay you a small wage too.’

'No Audrey, I can’t accept a day more of your help,’ Lily started.

'You would be helping me, really.' Audrey said softly. 'I need you to do something for me. Could you take some provisions to Elsie and her family please? They’ve had a shock overnight and I want Elsie to know we’re thinking of her. Come on, Lily, chin up. As Pat said: “much of life is about putting on a brave face” despite what’s going on inside.’

Lily nodded and stood straighter. ‘Thank you Audrey,’ she said, her eyes misting over. ‘I’ll think about what you said. Thank you.’

Audrey smiled at Lily, but felt a wave of fury at Henry Bateman for his careless ways, and a pang of guilt for having not given Lily Jacques’ impassioned letter. But with the girl in such a tizzy, would it help? She had enough to contend with, which reminded Audrey of another problem.

‘We will have to speak to your father and my mother at some point about you staying on here,’ said Audrey, grimacing. Lily’s face went two shades paler at the thought. ‘But you can leave that to me.’

---

The feeling that she was being watched never left Lily. With every man she caught in her peripheral vision on her route to Elsie’s house wearing a dark hat or coat, her heartbeat quickened. Rationally she knew it was all in her imagination, but if she let her mind run free, she thought that perhaps Henry was following her, or had sent one of his cronies to follow her. After the letter she’d sent him before leaving London, he would surely despise her and probably want rid of her from the face of the earth. Her stomach turned over at the thought of the letter she’d written to Henry: You have lied and cheated, but there’s one truth you can’t run away from. I am with child and you are the father. She’d scribbled the words down in the heat of the moment, in a fit of indignation at the injustice of the situation, wanting to shock and hurt Henry and his bride-to-be, without thinking through the consequences, but she was quickly learning that this impetuousness led her into awful trouble. In fact it was becoming a bit of a theme running through her life. Perhaps that was why her father had always been so protective and controlling of her. He had often said: ‘You’re your mother’s daughter,’ and for all Lily knew, her mother might have had a reckless streak. Lily had only a hazy memory of her mother, who had died when Lily was four, in childbirth. The baby, Lily’s brother, also died. No matter how hard she strained to remember her features, her mother’s face was horribly indistinct, but she missed her, or the thought of her, dreadfully.

Passing the imposing St Katherine’s Church on Church Road, Lily’s eyes rested on an exhausted-looking woman who was sitting on the bench outside the church, giving her baby a bottle of milk. Two small boys and a girl, presumably her other children, sat beside her.

‘Sleepless night with the siren an’ all so the baby’s cried all morning,’ the woman said to Lily. ‘If I want a bit of peace I have to feed him! Shame Hitler ain’t so easy to please!’

‘Yes…’ muttered Lily with a smile, trying desperately to avert her eyes from the tiny baby, but it was as if her eyes were being magnetised by the baby’s fingers and chubby, creased little wrists, its eyes scrunched closed and its little lips sucking at nothing, now the bottle was finished. Hot and cold flushes of terror passed through her, as she tried to contemplate the unbelievable fact that a baby was growing inside her own body – a baby she feared she didn’t want and couldn’t love.

Continuing, she passed a group of servicemen on a training exercise and was abruptly reminded of the bigger picture. While everyone else was worrying about war, she was worrying about her own problems. She was going to have to be matter-of-fact about it and give the baby up for adoption, to Audrey, if she was definitely willing. There would be nobody better than Audrey to look after a newborn, Lily knew that, and she was incredibly grateful for her offer.

One thing was for sure and though she was aware of how uncaring and cold it sounded, Lily knew she wasn’t ready to be a mother, especially when society would treat her like an outcast for being unmarried. So far she was making a proper mess of her own life – how could she be entrusted with the life of another?

With a heavy sigh, she followed the directions to Elsie’s home, glancing over her shoulder more than once, again imagining a man trailing behind her, only to discover there was nobody there at all.

---

Lily knocked on Elsie’s front door, which was already ajar. A net curtain had blown through the smashed front window and caught on jagged shards of glass. Must have made an awful mess inside too. Cowards, thought Lily. How – and why – could anyone do such a thing?

‘Hello, it’s Lily,’ she called, entering the dark hallway. ‘Elsie? Can I come in?’

‘I’m in the front room,’ shouted Elsie.

Lily found Elsie on her knees next to a pile of broken glass, scrubbing at the floor rug where the brick, covered in something sticky and black, had crashed through the window, knocking over a side table and taking a lamp with it. With sleeves rolled up and soapy forearms, Elsie pushed her hair out of her eyes to smile up at Lily.

‘Can’t get this black mark out of the rug,’ she said, resuming her scrubbing. ‘Goodness knows what it is. Tar or paint or something. It’s so sticky.’

‘Why would someone throw that through your window?’ Lily asked.

‘Because they’re thick,’ said Elsie, putting down the brush and leaning back on her hands. ‘My father is Italian so because Mussolini has jumped into bed with Germany, Italian nationals are now social pariahs, or aliens as the policeman called us. He’s been arrested and will be interned.’

‘That’s terrible!’ said Lily, horrified. ‘You must be in shock.’

‘I can’t keep up with this war,’ said Elsie, shaking her head. ‘And now the neighbours will be talking about us like we’ve done something wrong, like we should be ashamed of our father. It’s already started hasn’t it, with this brick? I feel like I want to run away this morning!’

‘Oh I sympathise with you,’ Lily said. ‘I know that feeling well.’

‘Did you run away from London?’ said Elsie, her interest piqued. ‘Audrey said she hadn’t seen you for six years. I’ve been dying to ask why you turned up out of the blue like that.’

Elsie smiled at Lily, but Lily blushed furiously, subconsciously touching her pregnant stomach. Elsie’s eyes widened into perfect circles.

‘You’re not…’ said Elsie. ‘You’re not in a fix, are you, Lily?’

‘I am,’ said Lily quietly.

‘Do you have a sweetheart?’ asked Elsie.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Lily, her words barely audible. ‘It’s a mess.’

‘Oh yes I do!’ said Elsie. ‘Does Audrey know about this?’

Lily nodded slowly, desperately hoping that Elsie wouldn’t judge her too harshly.

‘I know what you’ll think of me,’ said Lily, standing straighter as if to face an onslaught. ‘I fell under the spell of an unavailable man. Are you shocked?’

Elsie shook her head. ‘This war is turning lives upside down,’ she said, gently. ‘There’s nobody who knows that more than me. What will you do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Lily, her shoulders sagging. ‘I think the baby will have to be adopted.’

‘Oh,’ Elsie said sadly. ‘Well if it’s going to have a better future with another couple then I suppose that’s wise. You could lie though, couldn’t you? There are so many girls expecting whose men won’t come home from the war. You could pretend to be a war widow.’ At the mention of the word ‘widow’, sadness settled on Elsie’s face.

Eager to steer the subject away from adoption and widows, Lily’s eyes flew to Elsie’s wedding dress, draped over the back of a chair. It was marked with black paint where the brick had brushed against it. ‘Is that your dress?’ Lily asked.

Elsie nodded, scratching her forehead. Her thumb – that she’d obviously cut on the broken glass – was bleeding through a makeshift bandage.

Lily frowned and picked up the dress, inspecting the damage. ‘We can get that off,’ she said. ‘Audrey’s whites gleam. I’ll ask her what her secret is.’

Elsie shrugged, taking the dress and throwing it on the table. ‘How can I get married anyway, without my father here?’ she asked, her expression hopeless. ‘I’ve been told he’ll be interned to a prisoner-of-war camp on the Isle of Man. I had a look on the map and it’s so far away! Right up in the Irish Sea, on the west coast of all places!’ Elsie lowered her voice and gestured towards the downstairs bedroom. ‘My mother is in bits, acting like she’s been widowed. She poured Papa a cup of tea this morning before she remembered where he was,’ Elsie went on. ‘She’s having a rest now. I’m supposed to be at work this afternoon. There’s a display I have to put together of sample garments that need knitting for the Forces, but how can I leave her?’ Elsie resumed her scrubbing.

Lily didn’t know what to say. She was horrified that the government could treat people this way and lock up innocent men whose families depended on them. It seemed a knee-jerk reaction to a complex issue. She crouched down next to Elsie on the floor and briefly rested her hand on her back, feeling her muscles stiffen under her touch. From the little she knew of Elsie, she’d gleaned that she was a girl with fire in her belly and wouldn’t take kindly to pity or moping about.

‘Why don’t I make us a cup of tea and a sandwich?’ Lily said, resolutely. ‘Audrey sent some fresh bread and you must be hungry. I’ll help you get this sorted out. We could board this hole up until you can replace the glass? When you pull the nets over you’ll never know from the inside. Look on the bright side, you won’t need to bother with the blackout blind, will you, and we can sort out the dress, replace the lace if necessary.’

Elsie sighed deeply, tucked her hair behind her ears and gave Lily a weary smile. Extending her hand to Elsie, Lily helped pull her to her feet. ‘Thank you,’ said Elsie. ‘You’re a pal.’