The Willow Pool. Elizabeth Elgin

an’ serve London right for nicking your ’ouse without a by-your-leave. We’ll do it again next year, eh?’

      If she were still here, that was. If National Service didn’t catch up with her. If They said that helping to look after two old ladies and working sometimes in the kitchen garden to dig for victory wasn’t enough, and she had to go into the armed forces or get herself back to Liverpool to work in munitions. Big money to be earned there, but she didn’t want big money. A pound a week suited her very nicely and she wanted nothing to change.

      ‘Hey! You were miles away! Bet you were thinking about Mark!’

      ‘No, I wasn’t! I was thinkin’ about when I’m twenty and have to register. I don’t want to, you know.’

      ‘Nor me. When is your birthday, Meg?’

      ‘August the twenty-ninth.’

      ‘Goodness! And mine’s on the twenty-eighth, would you believe! Sometimes I wish I knew where I was born, but Mummy always says she was never told, that they got me from the Church of England Adoption Society, and they wouldn’t say. They don’t, you know. Where were you born, Meg?’

      ‘Lyra Street, Liverpool 3.’ The lie came easily to her tongue. ‘Mrs Shaw – the neighbour I’ve told you about – was there, helping the midwife, I believe.’

      Lies, which led to more lies, and all the time wanting to say she had been born here at Candlefold.