The Light Over London(9)

“Please pass the mashed potatoes, dear,” said her mother in her deceptively soft voice.

Louise unclenched her fists from in her lap to hand the warm blue-and-white patterned bowl to her mother.

“Mrs. Moss called on me this afternoon for a cup of tea,” said her mother. “She mentioned she’d stopped at Bakeford’s.”

The faint hint of disapproval at the idea of her daughter working in a shop was unmistakable, but there was little Rose Keene could do about it when Louise had her father’s support. That particular battle had been lost more than three years ago when Louise had turned sixteen and was still smarting from the news that her parents thought her headmistress’s suggestion that she sit a university entrance exam to read maths a preposterous waste of time and money.

“Mrs. Moss mentioned some confusion about the ration books. Apparently one of hers was issued without the full complement of tickets,” said her mother.

“That seems unlikely,” said Louise’s father.

“It’s what she said,” said her mother.

Father’s and daughter’s gazes met for a moment before sliding back down to their plates.

“She also said Gary asked after you in his last letter. Have you written to him yet this week?” her mother asked.

“I haven’t had the time,” Louise said as she cut a piece of parsnip in two.

In truth, she hadn’t wanted to write Gary back. What did you say to a boy who’d taken you to one dance and to the pictures twice but who seemed to have little interest in you? Gary’s letters were polite but uninspired, as though he wanted to write those battlefield letters as little as she wanted to receive them.

“You be sure to make the time,” said her mother in her too-polished voice. “Good young men like Gary Moss don’t come by the dozen in Haybourne. If you’re smart, he’ll come back and ask you to marry him. His prospects are the best in the area, with him set to take over his father’s business one day.”

“Leave the girl alone, Rose,” said her father.

“Arthur—”

“He’s fighting a war, not attending a garden party. Louise can’t be hanging all of her hopes on him, even if he does manage to come back.”

“What a perfectly wretched thing to say,” said her mother.

Her father shrugged. “It’s the truth. There’s no telling who might be killed out there.”

Her mother huffed. “Well, I for one don’t understand why they can’t simply send more soldiers and have it done with.”

“Perhaps you should tell the generals that,” said Louise’s father with a laugh.

“Perhaps I should. It really is a disgrace. Just think of all the girls left behind like poor Louise.”

Louise dug her fingers into the flesh of her thighs as the familiar urge to scream roared back. Poor Louise. That was who she was here. All she’d ever be. She had to find a way to leave Haybourne and this house where her future was lined up neat and orderly and inevitable without a word from her.

“Kate wants me to go with her to a dance in Saint Mawgan on Friday,” Louise said, hoping the change in subject would keep her mother from prodding her about Gary any further.

“Saint Mawgan?” her mother said. “But that’s two villages over.”

“We’ll ride our bicycles. They’ll be more reliable than the bus,” Louise said.

“Who is invited?” her mother asked suspiciously. “Will there be servicemen there?”

“Of course there will be,” her father interjected. “The entire county’s crawling with them.”

“I really don’t know if that would be entirely appropriate,” said her mother.

Her father lifted his brows. “We met at a tea dance. Was that appropriate enough for you?”

Louise’s mother opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her mother never spoke of it, but over the years Louise had gathered enough of the details to know the story. Rose Wilde, daughter of a local fisherman, had gone to the dance in her one good dress. Her father, Haybourne’s newly appointed postmaster, had caught her eye. They’d danced all night and three months later they’d been married. Louise had always thought her parents had married in August, but once, when her father had indulged in three whiskeys instead of his usual one, he’d let it slip that they should really celebrate their anniversary at the start of October. Louise had been born seven months later, on the eighth of May.

“I just think that with Gary serving, Louise could show a little deference—”

“She’s nineteen,” her father cut in. “She wants to go out and have a bit of fun with her cousin.”

“Kate asked me just this afternoon. I haven’t spoken to anyone else about it and I don’t know who else will be there,” said Louise, trying to soothe the tension in the room.

“Go,” said her father, before her mother could protest again. “Enjoy it.”

The rest of the meal was held in strained silence, her mother punishing her father for overruling her objections, and her father no doubt enjoying a meal without the constant interruptions and observations of a difficult wife.



Louise wiped the last plate clean and set it in the cupboard to the right of the sink. She was just folding up the dish towel when her father shuffled in.