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

home for the last four nights and it will be a relief to him once Charles is out of the army and back here in Wallasey working for him. You’re going to have to get your skates on, Bella, about getting your things moved back here and the house left nice for Daphne and Charles.’
    Bella’s mouth compressed. She wasn’t at all pleased about being forced to give up her home to her brother and his wife-to-be.
    ‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ she to her mother. ‘I’ve got refugees billeted on me, remember.’
    ‘Haven’t you told them to find somewhere else yet?’
    ‘It isn’t up to me to tell them anything. Daddy willhave to tell the council, and they won’t be very happy, not with Jan being a bomber pilot and a war hero,’ Bella pointed out.
    Vi gave her daughter a sharp look. The restrictions of the wartime diet, with its lack of protein and its hunger-appeasing carbohydrates, meant that Vi, like so many of the country’s older women, had put on weight around her mid section. As a family the Firths were luckier than most in that Edwin’s money and his contacts ensured that they were able to buy goods on the black market that others could not afford, when such goods were available, but everyone was beginning to feel the pinch now. Vi’s floral summer dress bought the previous year was straining slightly round her waist. Vi’s mouse-brown hair was also beginning to show touches of grey, although she still had it washed and set every week in the sculptured iron-hard waves she favoured. Her nails were painted with clear nail varnish, bought on the black market. The leader of Vi’s WVS group disapproved of the volunteers wearing nail polish at a time when the country was in such a dire position, although
Good Housekeeping
magazine was urging its readers to try to look their best to boost everyone’s morale.
    Carefully checking one of her rigid waves with her fingertips, Vi warned, ‘There’s no point in you being difficult, Bella. It is your father who owns the house, after all, and I fully agree with him that it makes sense for Charles and Daphne to live there and for you to come home. Your father’s got enough to do as it is without having to sort out your refugees, and if I were you I wouldn’t risk getting on the wrong side of him. He’s been very generousto you, and I do think you might show a bit more gratitude.’
    Gratitude for what, Bella wanted to say – taking her home off her? But she had learned some hard lessons these last few weeks, and she knew that she could no longer rely on her mother’s support and indulgence.
    She looked at her watch. ‘I must go. We’re having to double up as a rest centre as well as the crèche, and since Laura is still on leave visiting her parents, I’m in charge of everything.’
    Laura Wright was in charge of running the government-organised crèche where Bella worked as her deputy.
    A note of pride had crept into Bella’s voice. Against all the odds, during these last few days she had discovered that she not only had a talent for organisation but that she was also thriving on the need to get things done and make decisions. She had been up this morning at first light, hurrying out to the school, almost in one way actually rather thrilled to see the line of people forming outside – victims of the bombing in Liverpool who had made their way over the water to Wallasey, prepared to sleep rough if it meant a decent night’s sleep, and now patiently waiting for a hot drink.
    Queuing with them had been ARP workers, and fire watchers, and Bella had dealt with everything and everyone with calm efficiency – until the mothers had started arriving, bringing their little ones to the crèche, and amongst them she had seen
him,
smiling at her as brazen as anything, just as though … as though what? Despite what she had told him he actually still expected her to go off for that weekend with him?
    ‘Bella, you aren’t listening.’ Her mother’s protest broke into