The Heart of the Family by Annie Groves Read Free Book Online Page A

hat-pin, then taking off her hat and putting it on the shelf above her coat, Jean reached for her apron, ready to relieve the WVS volunteer who was manning the tea urn.
    After the first and even the second night of bombing the mood of those who had come to the rest centres had been defiant and determinedly cheerful. Jokes had been cracked and heads had been held high, but now that had all changed, Jean acknowledged as she poured a cup of tea for an exhausted-looking young woman with three small children clinging to her side.
    ‘’Ere, get a move on wi’ them kids, will yer?’ the woman next to her grumbled, impatient for her own cup of tea, and moving up before the young woman could get out of the way properly, accidentally jarring her arm so that her precious cup of tea was spilled.
    Tears filled the young woman’s eyes.
    ‘Don’t worry, love,’ Jean tried to comfort her, pouring her a fresh cup of tea. ‘The billeting officer will be here soon and get you sorted out.’
    The young woman gave a hiccuping sob and shook her head. ‘He’ll be lucky if he can do that.’ She was shaking now.
    Catching Noreen’s eye, Jean murmured, ‘Stand in for me for a few minutes, will you, Noreen love, whilst I see what’s to do?’
    It was recognised amongst their group that Jean, with her motherly manner, had a way of dealing with situations like this one so Noreen nodded, allowingJean to leave her post to usher the young woman and her children into the back room, where she offered her a seat on one of its battered hard wooden chairs.
    The young woman shook her head again. ‘I darsen’t ’cos if I sit down I reckon I’ll never want to get up again. It’s bin three nights now since we had any proper sleep. Me and the kids were living with my hubby’s mam, but she got fed up, what wi’ the little one crying, and then me and her had words, and she said we had to leave. She’s never liked me. Then we went and stayed with my mam but she’s got our nan and me sisters there with her, and then when I tried to go back to my Ian’s mam’s I found out she’d been bombed. Half the street had gone.’
    ‘Our nan got killed by a bomb,’ the eldest child announced. ‘Served her right, it did, for throwing us out.’
    He was too young to understand, of course, but his mother had gone bright red.
    ‘I wouldn’t really have wished her any harm, only she didn’t half wind me up and sometimes you say things you shouldn’t. My Ian will have something to say when he finds out. He’s bound to blame me, ’cos she was bad on her legs, you see, and she wouldn’t have gone to the shelter.’
    Poor girl. How awful to have to carry that kind of burden of guilt, Jean thought sympathetically.
    ‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she told her. ‘And as for your husband having something to say, well, I reckon he’ll be too relieved to see that you and his kiddies are safe, to do anything but give you a big hug. That’s better,’ Jean smiled approvingly when the young woman took a deep breath and stopped crying.‘You go and wait for the billeting officer, and no more tears.’
    The girl – because she was only a girl really, Jean thought – was, plainly relieved to have got her guilt off her chest. Poor thing, Jean thought sympathetically as she ushered her back to the main hall.
    But even though she had been listening to what the girl had had to say, Jean had still been thinking about what Sam had said to her this morning about wanting to have a talk with her.
    The small knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened. She was pretty sure she knew what it was Sam wanted to say, but she hoped that she was wrong.
    ‘Charles’s release papers arrived this morning,’ Vi told Bella in a pleased voice, indicating in the direction of the front-room, where an official-looking buff envelope was propped up on the mantelpiece, against the clock. ‘And about time too, with less than a month to go to the wedding. Your poor father hasn’t been