28

Sweat clung to Joseph’s face as he rocketed upwards, pulling his bed sheet with him. It was swampy and cloying. He gasped, not once or twice, but several times, as if emerging from the coldest of rivers.

Joseph was not usually a dreamer, whether awake or asleep. He’d never had any patience for it: why daydream when the next bad thing waiting was only round the corner?

This probably explained the grip that this particular dream held over him.

It had been night, and they were at the zoo, bombs falling, thick and fast, too many to count, way too many to stop. There was no sign of Mrs F, but the rifle was somehow in Joseph’s hands. Not that it was any use: there were no bullets no matter how many times he pulled the trigger.

The thing that made the dream strange was that it wasn’t Nazi planes releasing the bombs: they were being hurled by people, huge godlike figures peering round the darkest of clouds, laughing and leering as they propelled the explosives towards the ground. There was Bert and Jimmy, old man Gryce, and Mr Conaghan too, screaming for revenge as he rained his weapons down.

Joseph saw them in the greatest of detail: their faces all completely recognisable to him, but there was one face which was not. Its features were hazy, vague, at times obscured by cloud, and no matter how hard he tried to focus, Joseph could not make out who it was.

It was a woman. He knew that much. Her arms were long and slender, yet they weren’t gentle, far from it. They hurled destruction with abandon, double the number that the others could. And when the others’ arsenal ran out, she went on, throwing bombs faster and faster, leaving Joseph to scrabble on hands and knees, feverishly catching each and every one.

But in the end, it was just too much, even for him. With sweat blinding and hands cut to ribbons, Joseph made one last, desperate lunge, but the bomb was too big, too fast, ripping the sky in two.

As it hit the ground, it did not make a sound. Only Joseph did, letting rip with a deafening cry. But it was not loud enough to pull him from the dream; only the response from the woman could do that: ‘Shush now, my darling. Don’t cry for Mummy...’

He tried not to cry. Desperately holding his breath, trapping the wail deep in his lungs. He wanted to please her, to keep her, to stop her from walking away again. He’d be good this time, he promised. Do whatever it took just as long as she stayed.

But as he reached his arms in her direction, she turned quickly and disappeared.

No, he cried, don’t go. I’m sorry.

And that’s when he sat up, awake now, searching for someone who patently wasn’t there.

As reality and sleep merged and twisted, leaving Joseph disorientated and whimpering, he heard another voice, another woman, her tone clipped, but reassuring.

‘Joseph. Joseph now, come on. It’s a dream. A dream. That’s all it is.’

He leaned into the voice, feeling the pain in his ribs for the first time since waking.

‘Open your eyes now. It’s all right. That’s enough.’

He peered through sticky eyelids to see Mrs F perched in front of him, shocks of greying-red hair flailing in all directions.

‘Well,’ she said, levering his hands from her. ‘I don’t know what that was about. Maybe it was what happened earlier, with those boys. And you shouldn’t feel bad about that, you know, if it’s upset you.’

Joseph allowed himself to fall back to the mattress, embarrassed by what had happened. He really didn’t want to talk about it.

‘I’ll not be sleeping for a while,’ she went on. ‘So if you want some company, you’ll find me in the kitchen.’

Slowly, knees creaking, she stood, yet her eyes remained fixed on the boy, head tilted to one side, even as she moved to the door. ‘It’s up to you.’

The offer surprised Joseph, as did her act of leaving his door ajar. She usually closed it with a bang, like she wanted to seal him within the four walls. Not tonight, though.

After a few minutes, feeling his chest rise and fall with a degree of normality, Joseph climbed gingerly to his feet, feeling every jolt of pain, and descended the stairs on jelly legs.

It was vaguely warm in the backroom. The stove was lit, just: a single flame trying to welcome him as he quietly shut the door behind him. Mrs F was sitting at the table, her back to him, shoulders rounded, poring over something laid out in front of her.

‘We don’t have any milk, do we?’ he asked, his voice not loud, but startling enough to see Mrs F jump to her feet and clumsily bundle a pile of documents towards a battered tin that sat open on the table. ‘No, no we don’t,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Right.’ He pointed at the papers. ‘What are they?’ He could see old photographs, and letters, some handwritten, others formal and faded, yet he couldn’t make out any detail. She’d moved too hurriedly for that, which interested him. The only time he saw her flustered like that was when the siren sounded.

‘None of your business, that’s what they are!’ she said, once the pile was back in the tin. ‘And I’ll thank you not to sneak up on me like that again, Joseph.’

‘You told me to come down. Do you want me to go out and knock?’

‘What I want, is you not to put me in an early grave by sneaking up on me. I’ve enough grey on this head without you adding to it.’ And she moved past him briskly, putting the tin on the lintel above the fireplace, well out of his reach. She even partially hid it behind an empty vase, as if obscuring it would wipe any memory of it from his mind.

‘I thought you’d gone back to sleep,’ she added, filling a glass from the tap.

‘Don’t think that’ll be happening for a while.’

‘It was clearly quite a dream you were having. What was it about?’

‘Can’t remember now,’ he muttered. He didn’t want to give it a second’s thought, nor risk her judgement when she heard how strange it was.

‘Maybe that’s just as well,’ she said. ‘Still, there’s plenty we can talk about, isn’t there? Water?’

She slid a glass in front of him, and waited for Joseph to speak.