ONE

On a scorching afternoon, the train was already packed with uniformed men and women, and King’s Cross station was a maelstrom of noise and bustle. Pop had managed to book a sleeper: he guided Tess and Barney through the crush, steering round embracing couples, depositing them there, with their luggage.

‘We’ll need more than the jam sandwiches the dear aunts made to fortify us. I’ll take Fly to stretch his legs, see what refreshments are available; you get comfortable; it might look cramped, but we must think ourselves fortunate.’

Tess took off her panama hat and her blazer, which she rolled up, and tossed them on to a top bunk. She shook her head in relief: her hair had been cut to shoulder length after heartfelt pleas to the aunts. ‘What will your father say?’ Peg worried, but she wielded the scissors and the end result was passable.

‘Thank goodness,’ she remarked, ‘I don’t have to wear that hat again – I said I’d jump on it when I left school, but I find I can’t!’

‘I-I’ve got to go to a new school,’ Barney sighed. ‘You’re lucky, Tess.’

‘I’ll be keeping house for you and Pop,’ Tess reminded him. ‘Not so lucky,’ but she grinned so he’d know she was joking. I’ll be eighteen soon, she thought, I’ve been treated as a child until now. Roma was working at sixteen. I’m old enough to join up, too, but Pop says I’m not strong enough; anyway Barney needs me, and I suppose it’s a small step towards independence.

There was a sudden hush, then panic among those still milling on the platform as they became aware of the blood-chilling rise and fall of the siren.

‘Pop!’ Tess cried, as station staff rushed to slam and lock all the doors on the train, which was gathering steam. She opened the window. ‘Pop,’ she shrieked again, as she spotted him running towards their carriage, pulling the panting dog behind him. ‘I can’t open the door – they’ve locked it – oh Pop!’

Pop heaved Fly through the window to her. ‘Calm down, you two! Take these bags, Barney, stand back, I’m climbing in!’ Sweating from his exertions, he tumbled at their feet as the flag was waved, the whistle blew and the journey began, just as the last notes of the warning died down, and the all clear began. ‘False alarm; everyone’s getting very edgy. Never mind the holes in my knees,’ Pop winced, then winked as he saw their concern. He shoved the window shut. ‘Look – jam again, but home-cooked pastries I charmed from the WVS, and milk. We’ll keep the flasks of tea for later.’

What jam! Tinned apricot, with sticky fruit oozing sweetness, encased in soft pastry triangles. They sat on a lower bunk; jam spurting and trickling down their chins with each blissful bite. They steamed steadily away from London, air raids and bombs, and Tess thought, we’ll be breathing sea air again. I’ll always remember these delicious pastries, Barney tearing open the paper bags and licking the jammy smears; tepid milk about to turn, and the smouldering heat and promise of today. She wiped her hands on her hankie and took her pencil and notebook from her bag. No aunts to ask: ‘What are you writing?’

Pop quoted Millie Mae, softly: ‘Let the muse be undisturbed . . . ’

A new page, a new in my life, Tess thought, eager to begin.

*

Pop woke them early, as the train crossed the Forth bridge. Tess, with Pop’s arm round her shoulders, stood by the window looking down through the massive girders at the dark water flowing far below, reflecting the flushed sky.

‘It’s beautiful, Pop,’ she breathed. ‘It’s – awesome.’

‘I’m hungry,’ Barney yawned.

‘Jam sandwiches?’ Pop suggested slyly. Fly flipped one ear.

Barney hauled himself up onto the top bunk, pulled the covers over his head. ‘Wake me up at the next stop, Pop! I’d r-rather starve.’

They boarded a local train from Aberdeen, where Fly drank a large bowl of water and they were showered when he shook his dewlaps, while they partook of baps and hot coffee. The carriage was claustrophobic in the midday heat, but they followed the coastline and glimpsed to their delight, the glistening sea and sweeps of sand below towering cliffs. Once, they chuffed past a gathering of raspberry pickers who watched the train go by. They gazed longingly at the brimming chip wood baskets and imagined the luscious taste of the soft fruit.

*

The smell of fish soup pervaded the steep street of grey stone and slate cottages that regarded the harbour, where they left the bus. No time for exploring today – they climbed, cases in hand, until Pop said, ‘We’re here.’

The cottage was the end one of a terrace, and their landlady greeted them with the teapot keeping hot on the range and fillets of fish coated with seasoned flour ready to toss in the iron frying-pan half-full of bubbling dripping.

Mrs Munro, brown hair in a bun and a pinny covering her plain dark dress, smiled shyly, showing Tess what was what. ‘I’m round the corner, next street, three doors along, should you need me, lassie – my son Gregor and I have moved in with my brother while you’re here.’

They were together, as Pop promised, but it didn’t feel like home, not yet.

That night, Tess changed into a flannel nighty; a parting gift from Peg and Ida, who feared the nights would be cold by the North Sea. She selected a book from the shelf. This must be Gregor’s room, she supposed, from the choice of reading. There was a full set of Joseph Conrad, that sailor writer, a well-thumbed book on ornithology, fat exercise books into which she would not pry, and a pile of Boys Own Papers which she could pass on to Barney.

She settled down on the narrow, hard bed, huddling under coarse, grey blankets to dip again into an old favourite, Treasure Island. Barney tapped his coded goodnight on the party wall. He was sharing with Pop.

Tess felt a sudden misgiving. This was, after all, an alien place. Pop had warned them that they would be mostly on their own, that she might be lonely when Barney went to school. Even the local accent was hard to comprehend. ‘The women round here all work,’ Mrs Munro had said. What would she find to do all day? Then she realised that she would have time to write.

*

The late afternoon sunlight was caught in flash of silver as the fishermen deftly sorted their catch. Plump cod and herring slithered into piles, the undersized specimens free to all comers. The local lads, leaping on and off the harbour wall on to the jetty, yet alert for the first sign of the returning boats, now scrambled for this bounty. They chattered shrilly in Gaelic.

Tess and Barney stood at a distance. ‘Get to know people,’ Pop had urged. This was easier said than done, she thought ruefully. The group of older women, black clad, gossiped. They knitted with one hand only, securing the alternate needle in a loop on their belts.

The test, she discerned, was to see which boy could achieve the longest string as the tiny fish were threaded expertly through the gills. In triumph, the most nimble-fingered presented his granny with a necklace of quicksilver.

Barney unexpectedly darted forward and managed to grab a miserable four fish, despite being roughly elbowed aside by bigger boys, and bore them proudly to his sister. ‘Look, supper!’

She grimaced. ‘Poor little things, why didn’t they throw them back? I’m not sure I fancy preparing them – I’ve never dealt with heads and tails before.’

‘I’ll d-do it! I know how,’ Barney offered eagerly. Earlier, they had watched the younger women of the village gutting fish with lightning strokes of their sharp knives, their aprons silvered with scales. They had almost choked on the pungent odour as the doors of the smoking sheds opened and closed.

Barney observed then, ‘They only bite the middle out of their sandwiches’, as the fishwives paused briefly for refreshment.

‘The edges are fishy from their fingers, that’s why the gulls get the crusts.’ The sound of the screaming seabirds brought back memories of Dungeness. Tess’s eyes smarted. She was still homesick after all this time.

‘Would you like this?’ A tall young man with curly sandy hair proffered a fine cod in red, damp hands. His eyes were very blue, like Moray’s. Maybe he had stood on this very quay in the holidays, at Barney’s age, she thought. The young pilot who had literally dropped out of the sky was still her hero.

‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you,’ she said, echoing the aunts’ polite rejoinders. ‘I’m sure we shall enjoy it.’ Yet, she did not take the fish. Barney, who was becoming less inhibited each day now they were released from their strict regime, had no qualms, pretending to stagger under the weight.

The young man smiled at Tess as she brushed back the strand of fiery hair that fanned her flushed face. ‘You are the Rainbow children?’ he asked.

She nodded. He must think her younger. Barney was nearly as tall. Millie Mae was right, she took after her grandmother in more ways than one.

‘And you are Gregor, aren’t you?’ Barney asked in return.

‘That is so. You are staying in our house.’

Surely he must resent that, Tess thought; we are usurpers, no denying it. Mrs Munro was a widow, no doubt glad of the rent for the cottage, with a son to support. But Gregor was a grown man, not the youth she supposed. He had obviously been out with the boats today.

‘We must go,’ she said abruptly to Barney. ‘Goodbye.’

She was unaware Gregor was watching them as they went up the hill. He would be teased by his companions, which was nothing new, for he, too, was a fish out of water, but there, he’d got in first with the lassie and that was not like him at all.

*

Tess hovered anxiously over Pop as he ate. He’d returned later than usual and the baked cod had unfortunately dried out. Pop kept his thoughts to himself as he tackled the fish and mashed potato. He couldn’t tell them how exhausted he was, now he was working on the great bombers. It appeared he had taken his family away from the proximity of blazing London just in time. And what of his beloved Roma? She was living and working with danger, no doubt of that. He lay awake at night, fearing for her safety. The Luftwaffe could cross the Channel in six minutes. If it wasn’t for the miracle of radar, which alerted the South Coast aerodromes of impending attack, and the courageous young pilots of the Spitfires and Hurricanes. But now the London docks were burning. Bombing by day intensified, the flames a beacon for the raiders who followed at night. Retaliation meant ordinary folk were suffering in Berlin, too.

‘So, you encountered young Gregor at last,’ he said, pushing aside his plate with some relief. ‘It was good of him to give you the fish.’

‘I gutted it!’ Barney put in proudly. He exchanged glances with Tess. She smiled. What a mess he had made, but she didn’t tell tales.