1

July 1936

Pa had a friend who worked at the Orwell Hotel and said he could get the smaller lounge for a private function fee of five pounds, so long as they put ten pounds behind the bar for drinks.

‘Drinks? You’re going to let them drink alcohol on her sixteenth birthday?’ Ma shouted, believing her daughter safely out of range. ‘Fifteen pounds? Are you out of your mind?’

Kath, sitting at the top of the stairs, could hear every word and pictured the scene as clearly as though she were there: Pa hiding behind his newspaper, Ma pacing the small rug in front of the old cast-iron Esse fire, unlit of course, it being July and one of the hottest days of the year.

Finally she heard Pa, his voice mild, mollifying. ‘It’s not every day your only daughter turns sweet sixteen, Maggie. She’s a level-headed kid, she won’t overdo it. What harm could there be in half a pint on her sixteenth birthday?’

‘She might be level-headed, but what about her friends? Especially the boys? They won’t be content with just half a pint, you know that. And before long they’ll be pickled and getting into fights. Answer me that, Bob.’

He was caving in, as she knew he would.

‘And what’s wrong with the parish hall, anyway?’ her mother’s rant continued. ‘Mark had a good old do there for his sixteenth. We can do a fruit punch and sausage rolls, put on some of your old records . . .’

Kath turned back into her bedroom and closed the door. The dreary old parish hall that always smelled of damp, the toilets out the back filled with cobwebs and creepy insects? She didn’t want a ‘good old do’ like her brother Mark’s. It was just boring: the boys gathered in one corner, the girls in another, all shouting over the music and ignoring each other.

No, Kath had something more glamorous in mind: fairy lights, a glitter ball, a proper dance floor and a swing band: the world that Hollywood stars like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers seemed to inhabit. Okay, perhaps that was stretching it a bit, for Felixstowe. But a fruit punch in the parish hall was not how she’d envisaged celebrating her birthday, the end of her General Certificate exams, the last few weeks of school ever and the start of her life as an adult.

But what was that new life going to look like? She had no idea, and that worried her – not that she was letting on. That Saturday, she and Joan went to the beach and, after a short and numbingly cold dip in the sea, laid their towels on the sand to make a start on their tans.

‘This is more like it,’ Kath said, stretching out and closing her eyes. ‘Summer’s here at last. No more exams and soon no more school. Holidays forever.’

‘Aren’t you going to college?’ Joan said, leaning up on one elbow.

‘Hadn’t really thought.’

‘You’re going to get a job, then?’

‘Not if I can help it. Who wants to work in a shop or serve grumpy tourists in a cafe? On your feet all day?’ Kath squinted up at her friend, shielding her eyes with her hand. ‘That’s not for me.’

In fact, she knew her parents would be expecting her to find a job, at least until she got married. It was inevitable. Kath’s mother Maggie had always gone out to work, except when the children were young. Currently she was cook for a private school in Lower Walton, to which she cycled every day come rain or shine. The hours were ideal: she was always there when they got home from school and during the holidays. The extra income meant that the family had been able to buy their own three-bedroomed semi in a tree-lined street not far from the seafront with all mod cons: an electric cooker, a fridge and a vacuum cleaner. They even had a clothes washing machine.

‘What’re you going to live on, then?’ Joan said.

‘I’m going to find a rich man,’ Kath said. ‘Preferably handsome, and good at dancing.’

Joan scoffed. ‘Dunno where you’re going to find one of them.’

‘Mark’s got some mates at the station.’ She meant the flying boat station down at Landguard, the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment or MAEE for short, where he worked as an apprentice carpenter. Unlike Kath, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life: he was going to become a pilot. His friends were infinitely more sophisticated than any her own age, and a few were decidedly dishy.

In particular, she had her eye on one called Billy, who came to the house every now and again. He’d sit at the kitchen table rocking back on his chair, chain-smoking and swigging beer direct from the bottle. He wore wide-legged trousers and tight-fitting jumpers, often with stripes, and although Ma disapproved – after he’d gone she would fling doors and windows open wide whatever the weather, muttering about the disgusting smell of tobacco – Kath thought he was the most thrilling boy she’d ever met.

‘Surely you don’t want to stay in this place forever?’ Joan asked. She was one of the clever kids at school, always coming near the top of the class, apparently without having to do any work at all. If she got the grades she was hoping for, she was going to study shorthand and typing at the technical college in Ipswich.

Kath hated it when people complained about the town. As far as she was concerned, it was perfect. It had everything she needed: the beach and the prom, the pleasure park, the tennis club, a good range of shops, dances at the Pier Pavilion or the Town Hall every weekend, the marshes if you needed time to yourself. Why would anyone want to leave? Besides, all her friends were here.

She was one of those girls who seemed to sail through life, having discovered at an early age that a sweet smile could win most arguments and help her get what she wanted. Although not the prettiest in the class and certainly not the most sophisticated, she was one of the most popular; though not the brightest, she was by no means dim; although not good enough at hockey to be the first one the captain picked, she was never the last. She had no idea what her exam results would be, and nor did she really care; she had, until now, given scarcely a thought about what she might do with the rest of her life, except for a vague understanding that she would eventually get married and have children.

The sun disappeared behind a particularly large grey cloud and she shivered, sitting up and pulling her towel around her. ‘This is no good. We’re never going to get a tan today. Let’s get dressed and cycle to the ferry. Pa says there’s something happening over on the Bawdsey side.’

Joan demurred for a moment, checking her watch. ‘I’ve got to be back for lunch.’

‘It’s only half eleven. There’s a whole hour before lunchtime,’ Kath said, pulling on her jumper. ‘So let’s get a move on.’

The best part of cycling to the ferry was the long downward slope as you left the town, freewheeling as fast as you dared, bending as low as possible over the handlebars to reduce wind drag – that’s what Mark called it – so that you kept going halfway along the flat part. You could compete to see how long you could keep going before having to turn the pedals, or if you were on your own you could judge the distance you had travelled before having to pedal by the little flags marking the greens on the unkempt golf course that lay between the road and the sea.

Cycling was the perfect kind of freedom: the air rushing through your hair, the road speeding by beneath you. Kath hated the winter, when that liberty was often curbed by the weather, but in summertime her bike went with her everywhere.

Some of her wealthier friends rode horses and she’d even sat on one briefly, but Kath could never really see the point of it. ‘Why would you want all that bother of feeding them and clearing up their muck when you can get there faster on two wheels?’ she’d scoff. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ they’d retort, rolling their eyes. ‘A horse is a living being. It can love you, and you love it back. You can’t have a relationship with a bit of metal.’

They reached the ferry in record time, parked their bikes in front of the Ferry Boat Inn and strolled past the fishermen’s shacks. Over on the other side of the estuary, on a small bluff overlooking the junction of the river and the sea, stood the fairy-tale towers and turrets of Bawdsey Manor, an architectural confection built as a holiday home by a Victorian millionaire glorying in the name of Sir William Cuthbert Quilter. Kath’s grandfather Poppa had told her that Quilter also owned several hotels in Felixstowe as well as being a Member of Parliament, so there were plenty who’d doff their caps to his memory.

Poppa worked as a gardener at the Manor and had even, on one occasion, been inside the house itself. As a child sitting on his knee, Kath had listened entranced to his descriptions of Sir Cuthbert’s study lined in gold-tooled leather, the beautiful wood panelling and heavy oak staircase leading upwards to heaven knew how many salons and bedrooms, the double-height hall with a musicians’ gallery above, the mirror-lined ballroom and the wonderful views from the terraces.

‘They say there’s a hundred rooms,’ he said as she tried to imagine what anyone, even someone with a large family, could possibly do with a hundred rooms.

What Poppa coveted most was the billiard room, with racks for the cues and brass sliders on the walls for keeping score. ‘I could’ve spent many a happy hour in there,’ he said, the smile crinkling his whole face. ‘A glass of port or two, a cue in my hand, and that view across the North Sea with nothing between you and the horizon. What bliss.’

Poppa had taken an especial shine to Lady Mary, Sir Cuthbert’s elegant wife, who had designed the gardens herself. ‘You should see them, little Kathleen.’ He waved his arms expansively, nearly unseating her from his lap, as he described the sequence of separate areas: the Round Garden made from the foundations of a Martello tower, the lily pond in the formal Italian garden, and the kitchen garden the size of a cricket pitch with a beautiful ornate glasshouse they called the lemonry. ‘Though whatever you’d want with all those sour old fruits beats me,’ he’d muttered.

The most extraordinary feature of the gardens was the way they’d used artificial rocks to build grottoes and tunnels, and even a winding pathway along the very edge of the cliff, with little seats and viewpoints. ‘Just like a fairy story,’ he said with a wistful sigh. ‘Never seen anything like it, not around these parts.’

Everyone had heard tell of glittering nights at the Manor in the old days, when the winding lanes along the peninsula would be clogged with vanload after vanload of food and drink and Lady Mary ordered so many flowers that the ferry had to make three journeys. After dark the place was lit with coloured lights, and orchestras could be heard late into the evening, even from the Felixstowe side.

For her fourteenth birthday Ma had given her a book about an American millionaire who hosted the most glamorous parties in the world, and she’d instantly pictured it set at Bawdsey Manor in that mirrored ballroom and on the terraces from where, Poppa said, you could see the lights of Harwich eight miles away. That the hero failed to find happiness despite his wealth never troubled Kath’s visions. She wanted to be the girl he’d fallen in love with and even, for a few weeks, tried to insist that her friends call her Daisy. But it never seemed to stick, and she soon gave up.

Today, as she and Joan stood looking across the river, all the glamour of the place seemed to have evaporated. The fairy-tale castle looked forlorn, its entrance festooned with officious signs: KEEP OUT. NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONS. REPORT TO GUARDHOUSE. Behind the house stood a tall mast, like the Eiffel Tower, she was sure had never been there before. All along the wall surrounding the estate were slung coils of shiny barbed wire. Spanning the gateway was a new barrier with a uniformed guard standing beside it. As they watched, vans waited in a queue while he laboriously checked their papers before allowing them to pass.

‘Crikey, look at that. They really don’t want anyone in there, do they? I wonder why?’

‘My dad said they’d sold the place to the Air Ministry, and there’s some kind of top secret stuff going on,’ Joan said.

‘I hope that don’t stop us using the beach.’ The red-tinted sands bordering the river, south-facing and sheltered by the low bluff on which the Manor sat, were a favourite place for picnics. You could swim at high tide, and if you searched carefully enough you might find sharks’ teeth and other fossils left over from the Ice Age. Crossing the river by ferry was the only way to get there from Felixstowe if you wanted to avoid a twenty-mile road journey up to Ipswich and back, along the winding road from Woodbridge and out along the northern shore of the River Deben.

Charlie Brinkley, the ferryman, was returning from the other shore, steering with casual skill against the swirl of an outgoing tide. That he managed the heavy clinker-built boat single-handed – literally, for his right hand had been replaced with a hook after a duck-shooting accident – was never commented upon, so familiar was the sight. He’d been skipper since the good old days when a steam boat ran across the river on chains carrying several cars. It was only very recently the Quilter family had stopped supporting the service, and the local council said they couldn’t afford to pay for it; so the Brinkleys had acquired two boats and run it as a foot ferry ever since.

‘Mornin’, girls. Orrite?’ Charlie shouted, raising his grubby old cap in a cheerful salute, a slight smile softening his weather-beaten features. He was a legend around here; he knew everyone and everything there was to know at this end of town. ‘Well, well. You’re that Motts girl, am I roight? All grown up these days. Spit of yer mother, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Yes sir, I’m Kathleen Motts,’ she said.

‘Got those same red curls.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘Maggie Motts. Quite a looker in her day, believe me.’

‘What’s going on over there, Mr Brinkley, with that mast and all the barbed wire?’

‘They in’t tellin’,’ he said, using his hook to hold the boat against the post while looping the mooring rope with his hand. ‘All very hush-hush. Not for the loikes of us ord’nry folks.’

‘But who are they? And what are all those lorries bringing in?’

‘All them questions, Kathleen Motts. Curiosity killed the cat, in’t that what they say?’ He tapped his nose with a gnarled finger whitened with salt.

Joan tugged at Kath’s sleeve. ‘I’ve got to get back for lunch, remember?’

‘I reckon they’s getting prepared, after the antics of that Hitler fella,’ he suddenly volunteered, as he climbed out of the boat. ‘Gearing up for war. Best not to ask too many questions, dearies. Even walls have ears, as they say.’ He paused. ‘But you could ask your Pa. He’ll have seen a few comings and goings up the station.’

‘I will, sir, thank you.’

‘Best be going along, toime for me lunchtime pint. Look after yourselves, my dears, and send my best to your Ma.’

Later that afternoon Kath made the five-minute walk from home to Town Station. Her father had been a guard on the trains for as long as she could remember, and the family knew the railway timetable by heart. She didn’t even have to think twice which service he’d be on for his final shift of the day, when he might be persuaded to buy her a cuppa and a buttered teacake and, away from her mother’s sharp ears, she could press him about hiring the Orwell for her birthday.

Waiting on the bench beside the cafe she recalled Charlie Brinkley’s words about ‘gearing up for war’. Surely they wouldn’t allow it, not after last time? She knew from the names on the war memorial that some families had lost two or even, in one case, three members, all much-loved fathers, husbands, brothers or sons.

Pa had spent the last war on the trains transporting the wounded back from France, and although he’d never been in personal danger, the sights and sounds he’d witnessed had certainly left their mark. Ma said he came back changed and even now, when talk of Hitler and Chamberlain came on the wireless, he’d shake his head and mutter, ‘they must never let that happen again’. Just thinking of it gave her a sick feeling, like when you’ve eaten too much ice cream.

At last the train drew in, ten minutes late due to ‘cows on the line at Walton’, the station master announced. Pa would be grumpy, she knew, having borne the brunt of passengers’ grumbles. As the guard, he was always last off the train, but she never minded. Watching the visitors as they arrived was always entertaining. She would try to judge from the look of them, what they were wearing and what kind of luggage they had which hotel or guest house they were headed for, and whether their stay was for business or pleasure.

Sometimes invalids would arrive, frail, wan-faced individuals whose bath chairs needed to be recovered from the guard’s carriage so they could be wheeled to the Convalescent Home. Ma had a friend who worked there and said she’d be able to find Kath a job any time, but the thought of sorting soiled laundry, making beds or, worse, emptying bedpans, gave her the shivers. To be a nurse you needed to have a ‘vocation’, was what Ma’s friend said, and Kath was perfectly certain that she didn’t have one of those.

Today was ‘change-over’ day for hotels and guest houses, and she amused herself watching the passengers from first class who were almost certainly destined for the Orwell, the Grand or perhaps some upmarket private ‘cottage’ at the northern end of town like the one, so it was rumoured, where the King came to visit his mistress. Apparently he wanted to marry her and the newspaper reports were disapproving, but Kath couldn’t understand quite why, if they were in love. Was marrying a divorcee such a sin?

Pa’s friend who worked at the Orwell said the wealthiest guests were always the worst behaved and gave the smallest tips. But that didn’t stop Kath envying their confidence, the way they seemed to assume that they owned the world. As soon as the train drew to a stop, the men leapt out in their pin-striped suits or plaid plus-fours all ready for the golf course, barking impatiently for porters. Their wives followed, adjusting wide-brimmed hats and smoothing crumpled skirts. Some even carried frilly parasols – they’d soon learn that the sea breezes were almost always too brisk for such things to be of any practical use. Close behind came the children, jumping and shrieking with the joy of being freed at last from the confines of the carriage, then being reprimanded and brought to heel by severe-looking uniformed nannies.

So absorbed was she in the scenes before her that Kath failed to notice the gentleman now addressing her: ‘I am so sorry to trouble you, miss, but could you advise me, please?’

She leapt to her feet and found herself face to face with a man unlike any she’d ever encountered, so unusual that she instinctively lowered her gaze for fear he might think she was staring. He was dark-skinned and exotic-looking, like those eastern princes pictured in schoolbooks, and yet he did not sound in the slightest bit foreign and in all other respects appeared like any other young Englishman of a certain class.

He was slim, slight and bare-headed with an untamed mop of black hair, his face framed by heavy eyebrows and a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles, the reflections from which obscured his eyes so effectively that she could not tell whether he was actually smiling or whether that expression of slight amusement was just what he’d been born with.

This was clearly not a man who cared much about his appearance. His suit, although well cut and of quality fabric, was terribly old-fashioned and crumpled, as though he had been travelling for days. In one hand he carried a cheap cardboard suitcase, and in the other an ancient brolly fading green with age.

Kath began to babble, apologising for her inattention. ‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I must have been in a dream. How can I help you?’

‘I would like to know the best way of getting to Bawdsey Manor,’ he said.