A Wartime Christmas by Carol Rivers Read Free Book Online Page A

level-headed.’
    As if her thoughts had conjured up Alan himself, Kay caught sight of a tall figure as she looked from the bus window. Alan’s black hair and upright bearing were unmistakeable. He stood
outside a pub called the Pig and Whistle, talking to a man who was carrying a newspaper.
    She lifted her hand slightly as if to wave but then, with her eyes intent on the two figures, she let it drop back to her knee. Alan – her Alan – was in a place he shouldn’t
be, or at least a place he had no reason to visit, not if he was returning to the post as he’d told her. She stared at her husband, briefly obscured by passers-by, and the man, who had his
back to her and was urging Alan forward inside the pub.
    Kay took a deep breath, a slight sweat breaking over her brow as she watched them disappear from sight into the interior of the Pig and Whistle. She felt she had seen a vision, her mind
wrestling with the inconsistencies of the facts she had been given by Alan and what she had just seen with her own eyes. She felt the blood draining from her face, but tried to pull herself
together. There must be an explanation, though at this moment she couldn’t think of one. Alan wasn’t a drinker, certainly not at this time of the day, though he might very occasionally
make an evening visit to the pub with a mate. But she thought she knew all of his friends; the men he worked with, the wardens at his post, their friends and neighbours in and around Slater Street.
The appearance of this well-dressed stranger just didn’t make any sense. More than that, she felt as if Alan had lied to her. The bus moved on and the pub was soon out of sight. Kay thought
again about what Alan had told her. She was certain he had said he was going to the post. So why had he gone to the Pig and Whistle instead?
    ‘All right, flower?’ Vi called to her. ‘You look as white as a sheet. Nothing wrong is there?’
    Kay jumped and smiled quickly. ‘No, I’m fine.’ She wanted to tell Vi what she’d just seen, but somehow she couldn’t. Knowing Vi, she’d wave the incident
aside, saying Alan would tell her why he’d changed his mind in good time, so what was she getting in a state about? But Vi didn’t know just how strangely Alan had been behaving lately.
Or at least, to Vi, Alan was Alan and could do no wrong.
    This last thought made Kay feel guilty. She should feel the same way too. Yet she had this unpleasant feeling inside her, desperate for a rational explanation yet unable to think of one. Kay was
still troubled by these thoughts as the bus drew to a halt at Slater Street.
    Vi had sliced the bread-and-butter pudding that she had made yesterday into tiny pieces and Paul Butt had hurried back from his house with a loaf and a small wedge of cheese.
With this and an onion, Kay had managed to prepare a few decent sandwiches.
    ‘Lovely spread, Kay, considering you wasn’t expecting us,’ said Alice Tyler, who was a tea lady at the local brewery and had provided the tea leaves. She sat beside Jenny and
their husbands Tom and Bert stood by the fireside as if warming their backsides though it was a summer’s day and no fire was lit.
    ‘We couldn’t let the day end on a sad note,’ Kay said as she offered round the last of the sticky bread-and-butter pudding. ‘Madge and Howard deserve to be remembered as
the happy family they were. I don’t want my last thought to be of them in those boxes. It’s good to be able to remember them as friends and neighbours.’ She wanted to say that
they also deserved to have their own space in the graveyard, but as no one had mentioned that, she didn’t.
    ‘Where did Alan disappear to?’ asked Hazel Press as she and Thelma stood together with their teacups balanced daintily on their saucers.
    ‘He had to report to his post,’ Kay told them though she was even more worried about Alan now as it was several hours since she had since him outside the Pig and Whistle.
    Just then, Vi brought