Annie Groves - Home for Christmas

‘No, that’s not true. My mother would never have wanted . . . She loved my father.’

‘Yes, she did, and in my view it was because of the great love she had for both him and for Morag that she welcomed the knowledge that your father would not be left alone after her own death.’

‘You’re on their side, aren’t you?’ Sally accused him.

‘It isn’t a matter of taking sides.’

‘It is for me.’ Sally pulled away from him, adding bitterly, ‘And I know now whose side you’re on, Callum. I wish I’d never met either of you. I trusted Morag. I thought she was my friend, but I realise now that I never knew her at all. No one who was a true friend to me would have done what she’s done, betraying my mother, stealing my father, and you taking her side. I never want to see either of you again.’

‘Sally, please don’t be like this.’

‘Don’t be like this? How do you expect me to be? Am I supposed to be glad? Am I supposed to welcome the fact that my best friend has been making up to my father behind my back whilst my mother has been dying?’

‘Sally . . .’

Callum was reaching for her, his dark hair, tangled by the cold wind, flopping over his forehead, as he held out his arms. The pain she was feeling was more than she could bear. She had loved him so much, and she had thought that he loved her, just as she also believed that Morag was her friend and that her father was devoted to her mother. But all of them had deceived her, and betrayed her mother, and she would never be able to forgive them. Never. She stepped back from him.

‘Don’t touch me. Don’t come anywhere near me.’ Her furious words were raw with bitterness and pain.

Chapter One Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Keep Reading Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Annie Groves About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

12 September l940

Sally Johnson pushed back her mop of dark red curls, briefly freed from the constraint of her starched acting sister’s nursing cap, and slipping off her shoes, wriggled her toes luxuriously.

She was sitting in a small windowless room close to the sluice room of the operating theatre where she worked. In this small haven the nurses were unofficially allowed to have a kettle, tucked away, when not in use, in the cupboard above the sink along with a tin of cocoa and a caddy holding tea so that they could make themselves hot drinks. The place was more of a large cupboard than a room, the dark brown paint on the skirting boards like the dull green on the walls, rather faded, although, of course, both the floor and the walls were scrupulously clean. Staff nurse would have had forty fits if her juniors hadn’t scrubbed in here with every bit as much ferocity as they did the theatre itself.

When it had three nurses or more in it there was standing room only. Right now though as she was in here on her own, Sally had appropriated one of the two chairs for her tea break. Nurses always had aching feet when they were on duty. They’d had a busy shift in the operating theatre: a list of patients with all manner of injuries from Hitler’s relentless bombing raids on London.

Thinking of their patients brought home to Sally how much more responsibility she would have when she got her promised promotion to sister. She was very proud of the fact that Matron thought she was ready for it, even if there were times when she herself worried that she might not be. Sally loved her work, she was a dedicated and professional nurse who always put her patients first, but right now she couldn’t help thinking longingly of her digs in Article Row, Holborn, and the comfort of a hot bath. What a difference time could make – to some things. Article Row was her home now and the other occupants of number 13 as close to her as though they were family. Family . . . Sally’s expressive eyes grew shadowed. What she had left behind in Liverpool no longer had the power to hurt her. And besides, Sally reminded herself as she replaced her cap firmly over her curls, there was a war on and she had a job to do.

On Article Row another member of the household at number 13 was already on her way home, or rather she had been until she’d bumped into a neighbour.

‘Tilly, let me introduce you to Drew Coleman,’ said Ian Simpson. ‘He’s an American and he’s going to be my lodger.’

Tilly smiled politely as Ian turned from her to the tall, broad-shouldered, hatless young man, whose open raincoat was flapping in the breeze.

‘Tilly’s mother knows all about lodgers, Drew. She’s got three of them. All girls too,’ Ian grinned.

Article Row possessed only fifty houses, all built by the grateful eighteenth-century client of a firm of lawyers in the nearby Inns of Court, whose fortune had been saved by the prompt action of a young clerk articled there.

Number 13 had belonged to Tilly’s paternal grandparents originally. Tilly and her parents had moved in with them when Tilly had been a baby because of her father’s ill health. Tilly couldn’t remember her father. He had died when she was a few months old, his health destroyed by his time in the trenches during the Great War. Her mother had nursed first Tilly’s father, then later her mother-in-law, and then her father-in-law through their final illnesses. It had been after the death of Tilly’s grandfather, just before the start of the current war, that Tilly’s mother had decided to take in lodgers to bring in extra money.

‘Four girls all living under the same roof?’ the young American queried with a smile. ‘Oh, my. I’ve got four sisters at home, and they fight all the time.’

‘We don’t fight,’ Tilly informed him reprovingly, shaking her head so that her dark brown curls bounced, indignation emphasising the sea green of her eyes and bringing a pink flush to her skin. ‘We’re the best of friends. Sally – she’s the eldest, she works at Barts Hospital – St Bartholomew’s, the oldest hospital in London – like I do. Only she’s a nurse, and I work in administration for the hospital’s Lady Almoner. And Agnes, she . . .’ Tilly hesitated, not wanting to tell this stranger that poor Agnes was an orphan who had never known her parents. ‘Agnes works at Chancery Lane underground station, in the ticket department. Then there’s Dulcie, who works in the perfume and makeup department of Selfridges, the big department store on Oxford Street. She’s ever so stylish, although she’s got a broken ankle at the moment.’ A small shadow crossed Tilly’s face at the still raw and frightening memory of what had happened only a few nights earlier, on her own eighteenth birthday, when the four of them had been caught in a German bombing attack on the city on their way out to celebrate. Dulcie had caught her heel in the cobbles of the street and had fallen over, breaking her ankle and banging her head. As all of them had admitted to one another afterwards, they’d thought they were going to be killed, but they had stuck together, determined not to run for safety and leave Dulcie to her fate. Now, because of that, a bond had been formed between them that they all knew they would share all their lives. Tilly really felt that she had grown up that night.