At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham

Author:Margaret Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448183104
Publisher: Random House

CHAPTER 13

Rosie spent the night at Norah’s. Not speaking to her, or to Harold. She couldn’t. She couldn’t sleep, eat, think. All she could do was feel.

She travelled to Yorkshire the next morning, her mouth dry. She must see him, talk to him. She must make him understand. The leaves were down from the trees, the wind buffeted the train. There was a view of Harrogate screwed to the wall. What had happened to the one that Jack had taken and sold in Somerset? What had happened to her world?

She turned from the glass-framed picture, from the man who sat reading his paper, blowing his nose. She stood, left her paper in her place and walked up and down the corridor to dull the pain. Everything was dark. There was no colour. He couldn’t leave her. He was her life. He was her childhood, her future.

She leaned her head against the window, letting it bang against the glass as the train rushed through long sweeps of countryside, watching the rain jerk down the pane. Yes, she’d known. But she couldn’t tell. It would have made it worse. Or would it? She didn’t know, for Chrissake. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had promised Jack, and Maisie too, and there was anger added to the pain. Why couldn’t people live their own lives? Why reach out and destroy hers? Why, Maisie? For God’s sake why?

She changed trains, buying a roll which she couldn’t eat from a kiosk, buying stewed tea, feeling it coat her teeth; feeling despair. She had to wait two hours for a connection. This part of the journey was slower, and she wanted it to roar and rush. She had to talk to him.

The camp was large. Squat buildings lined the roads. Nissen huts stood behind barbed wire. White notice boards held stencilled letters. The taxi took her to the duty room. It was six p.m. He was out.

‘Where?’

They wouldn’t tell her.

She held the taxi, gripping the door as though it would drive off, asking each soldier who passed, ignoring the winks, the whistles. No one knew. But still she waited. Still she asked.

‘In the pub, in the village,’ a boy with a shaved neck told her. He looked a child.

‘Which pub?’ She still held the taxi door. The meter was ticking over.

He didn’t know. But it was one in Little Somerton.

They drove there along unlit roads. Sheep were huddled on the moors and the trees were stunted and crouched before the wind. Faster for Chrissake, she thought, but she said nothing.

She paid the taxi, standing in the centre of a village which was more like a town and watching it leave. It was dark and cold. The grey stone of the buildings funnelled the winds in off the dales. There were soldiers in the streets and girls who smiled, their lipstick bright in the light from the street lamps and the windows of the houses. There were railings, sharp pointed, newly painted. She could smell it.

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