Where the Heart Is by Glenice Crossland

Author:Glenice Crossland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473578999
Publisher: Random House

Chapter Seven

CHARLOTTE KAYE WENT to the surgery on Tuesday morning. All she told Dr North was that she couldn’t sleep, not mentioning her dread of night-time or the hauntings. He prescribed something to help her sleep, and a tonic. When Mark arrived home she begged him once again to remove the panelling and take away the pictures.

‘All in good time,’ he promised. His wife had to be satisfied with that for now. When the clock struck one she simply reached for the sleeping pills and took another. Mark didn’t see her. He was in the other room, fast asleep.

Ernest Denman was celebrating with a lime juice, triumphant that their raid over Cologne had destroyed two hundred factories. Being a Yorkshire man, he considered it fair retribution for Hitler’s bombing of the fifteenth-century Guildhall in York, a month earlier.

Ernest was the life and soul of the NAAFI. It was only later, in the privacy of his bed, that he gave in and cried for the loss of comrades he had grown to love and respect for their friendship and courage. Ernest wanted to go home. He wanted his parents. He yearned to be back in Millington. This bugger of a war had gone on long enough and it wasn’t over yet, not by a long chalk.

All Daisy’s class were moving to the juniors. They were waiting at the end of the infants’ corridor. Daisy and Carol waited together. They watched a class of junior children file out and into the next room. A teacher came out then and began calling names from a list. Daisy Butler was one of the first to be called and went to join a new line.

‘Now,’ said the teacher, ‘my name is Miss Moran, you will come with me. Your new form is 1A. The rest of you will wait here until your teacher comes. Your form will be 1B.’

Horror of horrors, for the first time Carol and Daisy were separated! Daisy looked around her frantically and was relieved to see Jean, the girl with no toys, in the same line. They moved into their new classroom, apprehensive about this unknown teacher. Miss Moran turned out to be all right, though. Daisy studied hard and enjoyed the work, which seemed much more difficult than last year’s.

On the other hand, she was filled with terror on approaching the assembly hall to see a buck and a horse in readiness for gymnastics, and a huge pile of mats for forward rolls. Her stomach lurched at the thought of more PT lessons, and she felt sick at the sight of all that apparatus. Apart from that, she enjoyed the juniors.

Little Miss Broadway was on at the Palace. Pat was taking Norah and Daisy, who couldn’t wait to see Shirley Temple again. She had already seen Poor Little Rich Girl and The Little Princess. Shirley Temple was Daisy’s heroine. She had scrutinised herself in Mam’s wardrobe mirror and did indeed look like the film star, especially in her new frock.

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