The news gave us a whopping great boost. With only a week between the village deadline and the swim, I felt pretty confident Ma Blackwell would give in and let Lena stay on with us a bit longer. Yet she still took some persuading.

‘We’ll have moved by then, mind, so there might not be much room.’

‘It’s only for a few nights. We can sleep top to toe in the same bed,’ I pleaded.

‘So you’re both going on the boat to support Nate, eh? Well, in’t he the lucky chap.’ Ma Blackwell’s brows bristled with suspicion. She still wasn’t a fan of Nate’s.

I grew frustrated. ‘Well? Can Lena stay? Please say she can.’

‘If her father says so, I suppose,’ Ma Blackwell finally 156agreed. ‘He’ll need to know she’s off to France in a boat, remember. There might be paperwork to do.’

*

Once Lena had penned a quick letter to her dad, we didn’t think much more about it, not when there was so much else happening. It was, by now, the end of May, and as we trained harder than ever, life in Syndercombe was nearing its end.

First, that same week, our village school closed. There were only twenty pupils, though in the war there’d been evacuees, and before that generations of local families like the Blackwells and the Sethertons, going right back to Victorian times. We were taught in the one classroom, which served as an assembly space, a dinner hall and the library. After next week, all that would change. We’d be going to West Birchwood, a small town in the next valley, which had a junior and secondary school, and was where the older kids like Maudie went already.

Though I was excited about the new school, leaving Miss Setherton and Syndercombe was a real wrench. Lena was sympathetic, but also rather astonished.

‘Honestly, Nell, I’ve never seen anyone cry so much over leaving school,’ she admitted. 157

I’d only just recovered by Thursday, when the undertakers arrived to clear the churchyard. Since that night back in February, of the first meeting at the village hall, I’d been dreading this moment. A smattering of villagers had gathered to watch proceedings, among them Captain Farley, whose car was parked on the roadside. A canvas screen had been erected near the lychgate, so we couldn’t see what was happening. But we heard the slap and slice of spades digging soil, and wheelbarrows full of the stuff kept appearing from behind the screen.

They’d already cleared some of the headstones. The ones still intact were propped up against the church wall, but plenty more had been split, chipped – half a word here, a cherub’s wing there – lying like builders’ rubble on the pavement. I couldn’t bear for Mam’s headstone to be treated this way. We’d had to empty her post office savings account to pay for it, a rectangle of polished granite and the words ‘Mary Foster: dearest mam to Nellie’. If it got broken, I’d never afford a new one, and so decided it was best to act now.

‘I’m going to fetch Mam’s gravestone,’ I told Lena.

‘You’re what?’ She pulled a puzzled face. ‘How’re you going to get it home?’

‘You’re going to help me.’ 158

Behind the screen the churchyard was a mess of open trenches and mud. It was bad enough that the dead were being sent to a cemetery miles from where they’d lived. But this carelessness, this lack of respect made me angry. Mam’s plot was easy to spot, being one of the only headstones in her row still upright. The relief was short-lived, though. What was left of her grave was a deep, empty pit: the coffin had already been taken. The shock of it made me start crying.

‘Nellie,’ Lena warned, as one of the workmen approached. I quickly wiped my eyes.

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ the workman informed us. ‘Scarper or I’ll call the site manager.’

I lifted my chin in what I hoped was a brave manner.

‘This is my mam’s gravestone, and I’ll be taking it to the cemetery myself, please,’ I explained.

‘You can’t do that,’ the man replied.

‘It’s my property: my family paid for it, so it’s mine,’ I insisted.

‘Not any more. The water board owns everything in this valley, right down to your front door handle.’

I didn’t believe him. Surely, the brassware on Combe Grange’s door belonged to the Blackwells. And Mam’s gravestone was definitely mine. I tried to argue with the man, but he wasn’t budging and I was too upset to stand 159my ground. Reluctantly, I followed Lena back out to the street.

‘You don’t suppose he’d help?’ Lena asked, meaning Captain Farley, who also appeared to be upset over the broken headstones.

The group of workmen he was addressing stared shamefully at their boots.

‘You’re meant to move the headstones, not obliterate them!’ the captain boomed. ‘What the hell’s got into you? Have you lost all respect?’

‘We’re only following orders,’ one of the workmen tried to say.

‘Which is what the Nazis said,’ the captain retorted. ‘I’ve a good mind to report the lot of you to Mr Clatworthy, and insist he takes the cost of this from your wages.’

All the time he’d been speaking, Lena had drifted towards him. Finally, he looked up and saw us – saw me, my face streaked with tears.

‘Oh, Nellie, this is most unfortunate. Has your mother’s gravestone suffered the same fate?’ he asked.

‘Not yet,’ I croaked. ‘But they won’t let me take it away. They say it belongs to the water board.’

‘Do they indeed?’ He straightened his spine. ‘We’ll see about that.’ 160

Captain Farley disappeared behind the canvas screen. In next to no time, he reappeared with Mam’s headstone in a wheelbarrow.

I was stunned.

‘Do return the wheelbarrow when you’re done, won’t you?’ he said briskly.

‘Of course.’ I seized the handles. ‘Thank you, sir!’

The captain waved away my gratitude. ‘Think nothing of it.’

But of course, we did, and discussed it all the way back to Combe Grange.

‘I can’t believe the captain did that for me,’ I said, pushing the wheelbarrow over the cobbles.

‘I can,’ Lena replied.

‘Can you? Why?’

‘He’s always nice to you, Nell. Makes a bit of a fuss of you.’

‘Does he?’

I could feel a flush creeping up my neck. The captain was often kind to me. I was aware of it too: he’d let me come to the hall with Mam all those times, and took a special interest in my swimming. If any grown-up had to be involved in our training then I was glad it was him.

Lena gave me a playful jab with her elbow. ‘Papa material, maybe?’ 161

‘What?’ I stopped, bewildered.

We’d not played our game for ages and it took me a moment to realise what she was up to. Thankfully, Miss Setherton was on the opposite side of the street, so I was able to get in a quick ‘Mama’ in retaliation.

‘Seriously, though, Nell. Don’t you ever wonder who your dad is, or was?’ Lena asked.

‘But I know what happened,’ I reminded her: I’d told her all this before, in one of our late-night chats. ‘He was a soldier who didn’t come home from the war.’

I set off again, pushing the wheelbarrow in a very determined fashion. What did Lena mean, bringing up my father like that?

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Lena said, struggling to keep pace with me.

I sighed. ‘It’s just that I don’t know much else about him. I never knew him. It’s different with Mam: there’s tons I remember.’

‘Okay, tell me something about her, then.’

I liked this idea better. ‘Well, she loved gooseberry jam, and could crack open walnuts with her teeth.’

‘Wow!’

‘What about yours?’ I asked.

Lena smiled warmly. ‘She’d sing to me. Change the words to silly ones. She called me Le-Le.’ 162

‘Calls,’ I corrected her. ‘She’s not dead.’

‘No, she’s not. And even if she was she’d still be alive in me, wouldn’t she?’

I’d not thought of it like that before, but Lena was right. Though our mothers weren’t actually here, they were with us in our faces, our smiles, the way our hair fell, our laughter, our courage to not give up. And after the shock of seeing Mam’s empty grave, this was a comfort.

‘Thanks, Lena,’ I said. ‘For understanding. For being such a terrific pal.’

She laid her head on my shoulder. ‘Likewise.’

We walked on in silence, only slowing as we approached Combe Grange. The Blackwells had, by now, found a new place to move into, a cottage up at Marley’s Head that was smaller, with proper heating and lino on the floors. There was hardly any garden to speak of. Mr Blackwell’s apple tree saplings that he’d salvaged from the orchard would have to be replanted in a friend’s field further down the lane.

‘We all have to make do,’ Ma Blackwell pointed out. Yet I couldn’t imagine ever loving it like I did Combe Grange.

‘I’m going to miss living here,’ Lena said, staring up at the old farmhouse. 163

‘Gosh, me too.’

In the giddy whirl of the last hour or so, I’d almost forgotten the goodbyes we still had to say, to the horses, to the village, to the church. I felt as if my heart would burst.

And here was Combe Grange, as close to home as anywhere had been for me. It was looking particularly lovely in the early summer sunshine, the stone mellow pink, the thatch alive with sparrows and martins, and the thick glass of the windows warping the light like oil. Earlier that day, Lena had swept the steps and polished our usually mud-splattered front door. Now it looked spotless, the brassware on the door – the handle, the letter box, the knocker – all shining to perfection.

‘You’d be lucky to live in such a fine house, wouldn’t you?’ Lena observed, taking my hand.

I nodded. We were.