The Blitz Business by D. A. Spruzen

Author:D. A. Spruzen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633932685
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2015-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

13

Rosie watched Jamie trying to eat his boiled egg. Or, rather, trying to decapitate it with the edge of his spoon. Absorbed in the task, his forehead raised and creased under his wavy fair hair as he worked at it. He wasn’t getting anywhere. The egg wobbled and cracked, but it wouldn’t be sliced.

“Jamie, I like to do my eggs this way,” she said. “Look.” She put the egg in the eggcup and, with the bowl of the spoon, cracked it gently all over the top. She pulled off the little pieces of shell and put them on the side of her plate.

“See, now it’s easy to chop off its head,” she said as she spooned off the top. “See how I’ve cut my toast into soldiers? Dip them in like this,” and she brought the eggy toast up to her mouth where it dripped on her chin.

“Oops,” Jamie said, laughing.

“Well, I usually manage better than that. Here, you crack the egg and I’ll cut your soldiers.”

They ate alone as Rosie’s mother was in bed nursing a headache and her father had a fencing problem to attend to in the upper pastures. Rosie was looking forward to Jamie’s first day back with them. Life had been very lonely since she’d broken up with Robin. Damned war, what a bother, what a thumping big bore.

They planned to practice reading together after breakfast, and then they’d take Laddie out for a long walk. Jamie said he wanted to help Evans every day, so he could do that in the afternoon while Rosie caught up with her letters.

The breakfast room was Rosie’s favorite place in the house, especially on a beautiful spring day like this. The windows, huge and partly mullioned, had cushioned seats beneath them where she loved to curl up with a book. Sun streamed in and reflected off the lemony walls and leached the light out of the satinwood dining table, always faintly scented with lavender polish. Outside, hundreds of tall daffodils nodded in the border that lined the path down to the lake. Rosie’s eyes focused abruptly as she saw a figure dart out from behind the boathouse and into the bushes that led from the lake to the woods.

“What’s the matter, Rosie?” asked Jamie, his eyes following hers.

“I thought I spotted someone out there. By the lake.” She looked for a few minutes more, but saw no one. “Maybe a deer, or maybe even Laddie, I haven’t seen him since I got up.”

“Maybe your mum went out for a walk.”

“Mummy’s in bed. When she’s got one of her migraines—that’s a bad headache—she usually has to stay there all day.” And if Mummy got some fresh air and exercise, maybe she’d have fewer of those wretched headaches. It got more and more difficult to be sympathetic as the years went by. People lost loved ones and picked themselves up and got on with it. Twenty years, for God’s sake!

“Aren’t you going to see her? When Gran had headaches, I used to put a flannel in cold water and put it on her head.

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