“
Cliff went to bed early that night. Knowing I’d not sleep I stayed by the stove trying to read, but my mind kept jumping in and out of the story. That word ‘erase’ really bothered me: as if you could just wipe out a person’s home and move them on somewhere else and expect life to pick up again as normal. Being evacuated had felt like that. You just had to get on with it and try to fit in. the Kindertransport, though, must’ve been so much worse because on top of everything else Esther had to learn a new language and new customs, which would have made the fitting in part doubly hard.
I shut my book with a sigh. I was trying to understand her, I really was. It was’t surprising she was angry – difficult, Mum would say. I wondered what Esther thought of me: was I annoying? Quiet?
Maybe.
Or was the uncomfortable truth that perhaps, from Esther’s viewpoint, it was me who was the angry, difficult one?
Mulling it over, I wasn’t really listening to Ephraim as he talked on the radio upstairs. But at some point I became aware that his voice was raised.
‘They were expected days ago, you know that. It was always going to be tough. With such a small window of time they’d have to be incredibly quick,’ he was saying. ‘No, I’ve not had any contact… no… not a word.’
I moved to the bottom of the stairs to listen properly.
‘The weather was set fair so that shouldn’t have been… She had the co-ordiantes… Yes, I know the whole north coast is German-occupied, that’s whny they had to act fast. And it’ll be dangerous landing a boat her without the light…’
He went silent. Somewhere in the crackle of the radio I detected a familiar woman’s voice – Queenie’s. It startled me for a moment, though it also made sense. My hunch from the other night had been right: whatever they were up to, they were in it together.
‘Patience, Ephraim,’ Queenie said. ‘We need to sit this out for a few more days.’
‘But it’ll only get harder, won’t it? Spratt’s got other plans for the lighthouse. He told me so this afternoon…’
‘Losing your nerve won’t help anyone,’ she insisted. ‘Look, it sounds like we need a meeting. I’ll contact the others. Come over as soon as you can.’
I only just managed to get back into my seat before Ephraim came rushing down the stairs.
‘I’m going out for an hour,’ he muttered, grabbing his oilskins from their hook.
‘Where?’ I tried to sound innocent.
‘Out,’ he repeated. The tension, still there in his voice, made me ever so slightly afraid. Whatever was going on involved a boat, and danger, and someone who’d been expected here but still hadn’t arrived.
Once Ephraim had disappeared, I shut my reading book. I really couldn’t concentrate anymore.
”
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