Ruby Jackson - Churchill’s Angels

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Jacket layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

Jacket photographs © Colin Thomas (girl); UPPA/Photoshot (background)

The Author hereby waives all moral rights in the Work. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Publishers undertake to include the Author’s name in all copies of the Work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007506231

Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007506255

Version 2016-10-17

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

This book is dedicated to Sarah and Colin Ramsay

Table of Contents

Title Page RUBY JACKSON Churchill’s Angels

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Read on for an exclusive extract from Grace’s story, Wave Me Goodbye.

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

‘Cheerio, Mrs Richardson.’

Daisy Petrie held the door open as her last customer, still grumbling under her breath, left the shop.

‘Give me strength,’ Daisy muttered. ‘I have got to get out of here.’

She stood for a moment watching the old lady’s progress along the crowded High Street. Two large trams passed each other as they flew noisily along their tracks and the indistinguishable words of a carter and a van driver drifted over to her on the warm air.

The day promised to grow even warmer, and she caught the smell of fresh fish from the open window of a neighbouring shop.

Hope somebody buys them before they go off, she thought ruefully as she stepped back into Petrie’s Groceries and Fine Teas.

She looked around the family’s small shop, the place where she had worked almost every Saturday while growing up, and full time since she had left school. It was, as small, family-run grocery shops go, a pleasant place. Behind the counter was a wall that, to the child Daisy, had seemed a magical place, lined as it was with large black tins, each one exotically painted with brightly coloured Chinese dragons. Inside each tin, sweet-smelling tea leaves waited to be weighed out for knowledgeable customers.

The large window, into which her dad, Fred Petrie, put out the bargains of the day, looked out over the busy High Street, and there in the middle of the street now stood Mrs Richardson, chatting enthusiastically to young Mrs Davis, who was obviously trying to be polite while keeping an eye on two active toddlers.

‘Not too tired to stand now,’ said Daisy.

Mrs Richardson had grumbled loud and long about having to wait while Daisy had dealt with the three customers before her.

‘Should be two assistants working every day, Daisy, not just when it suits you, and so I shall tell your dad or your mam when I see them. Kills me, all this standing about, absolutely kills me.’

Daisy had apologised, explaining that her father was at the market, since it was market day, and her mother … she had not given the actual explanation, but had taken refuge in ‘busy in the back’, a euphemism that covered a multitude of explanations. Her mother was actually upstairs in the family flat baking for the party Daisy and her twin sister, Rose, were giving for their friend Sally Brewer. Sally, to Daisy’s delight and more than a little envy, had actually been accepted at a drama college.

What would it be like to go to college, to learn new things every day, to earn a certificate with your name and special letters after it, which would show the world that you were very good at something?

I want to do more with my life than weighing tea leaves and lentils, but what?

Daisy looked at herself in the spotless mirrored art deco panel on the locked cupboard that held patent medicines. She frowned at her image. Oh, to look like Sally, tall, slender, with glorious eyes and blue-black hair, or even her own twin sister, Rose, who was as tall and slim as Sally but had the Petrie family’s corn-coloured hair, which reached almost down to her waist and which she usually fashioned into a long pigtail. Daisy could see nothing exciting in her own short dark hair, her beautifully shaped eyes or her compact athletic body. She did not see the kindness in those green eyes or the willingness to see the best in people that shone from them.

I’m stuck here because Mum needs someone to help out in the shop when she’s busy upstairs. Simple as that.

Four years. Four years, five and a half days every week. Rose had worked in the shop on odd Saturdays and sometimes during school holidays, but none of the three boys had ever been behind the counter. Sam, the eldest, had driven the van on deliveries and maintained the engine, a skill he had passed on to his sisters. They had learned how to drive while still in primary school and both girls could strip an engine almost as well as Sam by the time they were fifteen.

Neighbours and friends had often said to Sam, ‘You’ll be taking over from your dad, a big lad like you,’ but Sam had made it clear that he had no wish to continue in his father’s footsteps. He had joined the army as soon as he could. Ron, Phil and Rose had followed one another into local factories as soon as each left school, but Daisy had been given no choice.

‘You’re finer made than Rose, Daisy, pet. Working here in the shop you won’t never get wet or cold in the winter. Shut the door at six o’clock and you’re home.’

And bored stiff. Daisy could think it but could never say it.

Years before, her mother had got it into her head that Daisy was delicate – possibly because Daisy was not as tall as her sister and brothers, though certainly not because she had suffered more than her share of childhood illnesses. The Petrie children, well-fed, well-clothed and well loved, had sailed through childhood with the minimum of trouble. But nothing that anyone, including the local district nurse, said could make the over-anxious Mrs Petrie change her mind. And so ‘delicate’ Daisy stayed at home and dreamed of a different life. What it might be, she had not yet discovered.