At the Break of Day Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Graham

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Copyright

  About the Book

  It is 1946, and as Europe slowly picks itself up after the trauma of war, Rosie Norton faces a bright future in America. Evacuated in 1939 by her grandfather, she escaped the cramped streets of London to a new world in Pennsylvania.

  Suddenly, at the age of sixteen, she is called home to a Britain bruised by war and still suffering the hardships that America knows nothing about.

  While struggling to become accepted again by her family she is supported by her childhood sweetheart Jack.

  Until Jack is sent to war in Korea and a homeless Rosie, together with the child he doesn’t know they have, is left to fend for herself in London.

  About the Author

  Margaret Graham has been writing for thirty years. Her first novel was published in 1986 and since then she has written a further fourteen novels, and is now working on her fifteenth. As a bestselling author her novels have been published in the UK, Europe and the USA. At the Break of Day was previously published as The Future is Ours.

  Margaret has written two plays, co-researched a television documentary – which grew out of Canopy of Silence – and has written numerous short stories and features. She is a writing tutor and speaker and has written regularly for Writers’ Forum. She founded and administered the Yeovil Literary Prize to raise funds for the creative arts of the Yeovil area and it continues to thrive under the stewardship of one of her ex-students. Margaret now lives near High Wycombe and has launched Words for the Wounded which raises funds for the rehabilitation of wounded troops by donations and writing prizes.

  She has ‘him indoors’, four children and three grandchildren who think OAP stands for Old Ancient Person. They have yet to understand the politics of pocket money. Margaret is a member of the Rock Choir, the WI and a Chair of her local U3A. She does Pilates and Tai Chi and travels as often as she can.

  For more information about Margaret Graham visit her website at www.margaret-graham.com

  Also by Margaret Graham

  After the Storm (previously published as Only the Wind is Free)

  Annie’s Promise

  Somewhere Over England (previously published as A Fragment of Time)

  A Time for Courage (previously published as A Measure of Peace)

  Easterleigh Hall

  For Mum, and Dad

  I would like to thank Sheila Doering of the United States, Helen and Danny Buckley of Dorset, Jackie Gaines, Marian Farrow, Miss E. M. Glass of Somerset and of course Sue Bramble and her library team for their invaluable help with the research for this book.

  CHAPTER 1

  Rosie gripped the ship’s rail, feeling the throb of the engines, feeling the surge of the ship through the sea, seeing Frank and Nancy standing so far away on the quay, so far away and so small. The wind was harsh and hot but it didn’t matter. It was 1946 and she was leaving America. That’s what mattered. She was leaving to return to a family and a country she had almost forgotten after six years as an evacuee and it was unbearable.

  The wind carried spray into her face but still she stood there; there was nothing else she could do. Just stand and watch the two people she had grown to love become smaller. Just stand and wonder whether she would ever see them again, whether she would ever see the bedroom where she had read Grandpa’s letter three weeks ago and heard the jazz sweeping out from the gramophone, as always, across the sloping Pennsylvanian lawn.

  No breeze had ruffled the maples, the sycamores or the chestnuts that day as she stood at the window. There were skis in the corner of the room, Cougar pennants on the wall. She had wanted to be a cheerleader but that wouldn’t happen now. The letter had said it was time she came home – there was a job waiting for her at Woolworths – it was only fair on Norah – the war was over and the two sisters should be together again.

  From the ship, Rosie had to strain to see the two small figures. How could they be so small? Frank was big, with arms that had held her when she had finished reading the letter out to them in the kitchen. Nancy was large too, and had put her arms around them both and said, ‘We’ll write to your grandfather in London, Rosie. We’ll ask him to let you stay and complete your education, and become the journalist you want to be. We’ll tell him how much we have grown to love you.’

  ‘Woolworths, goddamn it,’ Nancy had said while ‘Rinso White, Rinso Blue’ filtered out from the wireless. ‘Woolworths for Christ’s sake.’ They had all had tears in their eyes which Frank blamed on the onions sliced up on the side for the evening’s barbecue. ‘Goddamn onions,’ he said and then stamped into his study, his pipe clenched between his teeth, and Nancy had laughed gently.

  ‘This’ll be the third he’s broken this year if he’s not careful,’ she said, ‘and the Sub-Editor will just love that. They’ve got a bet on that this year it’ll be three within six months.’

  But Rosie hadn’t laughed. She had stood with Nancy’s arms around her, wanting to cling to this plump, grey-haired, blue-eyed woman who had become her mother, who had watched her grow from a ten-year-old English girl into a sixteen-year-old American. But she didn’t, because Nancy wasn’t her mother, was she? She had no mother. She had a grandfather whom she knew she had once loved, and a sister whom she had never known whether she loved or even liked, a sister who had never written.

  The wind on the ship was steady, no longer snatching at her cotton jacket, just streaming past her, through her, and now she looked out to the yawning emptiness of the sea and the sky, beyond which lay England. But she wouldn’t think of that, or of Manhattan which was fading behind her. She would think instead of the lake, where they had gone the day after Frank had written the letter.

  They went upstate each summer but this time it was different. This time they were waiting.

  They had driven down through small towns which smelt of diesel as they passed the petrol stations. Her tanned legs had stuck to the seat in the heat. She could still feel the stubbled kiss from Uncle Bob who had wrapped his arms around her before she climbed into the car. His new jazz band had played at the barbecue the evening before.

  He had hugged her and said, ‘If you go back, Rosie, don’t forget that it’s the half valving that sets jazz apart, gives it the variation in pitch, oh hell, which sets it above other music. You remember us, you remember jazz, you remember that we love you. You hear me now. And you scout out for bands to send me. I want one with a middle tone, hear me? I love you, hear me? I’m glad you came. You made me glad we fought with Europe.’

  She heard him. She had heard him on a dark evening five years ago too when he had been an isolationist shouting at Frank in the living-room that there was no way the States should be drawn into a war. There was no way they should supply the Britishers. For Christ’s sake they wouldn’t even pay their debts. She had stood then, gripping the banister, shouting at him, ‘You silly old bugger. Over there the ’ouses are being blood
y bombed. Me grandma’s been killed and there ain’t no kids in London any more. Even me best friend Jack’s ’ad to go to bloody Somerset and you carry on about bleedin’ money.’

  The banister had been hard, but warm, unlike the ship’s rail she was still clutching.

  Bob had called up, ‘Why did you run away then?’

  And now she heard her voice as it had been then; so young, so different.

  ‘I didn’t. I was bloody sent. No one asked me. I was just sent.’

  Rosie said those words again now, into the wind which stretched them out then scattered them. ‘No one asked me.’ And her voice was now an American drawl and there was the same anger in it that there had been then. ‘No one asked me, did they, Grandpa?’

  They had stopped to eat at a roadside diner surrounded by walnut and ash trees and the earth had oozed out the last of its heat as they drove the last leg towards their wooden lake house. Rosie had stood in the hall. It had smelt the same, dry and warm, filled with the scent of pine. Frank’s rods were there, the old clock. But this time there was the dark sense of waiting.

  She barely slept and rose with the dawn, not allowing herself to look out at the lake. She never did. She liked to feel the cool of the polished floors as she walked silently, barefoot, through the house, and then across the grass, and then the mulch of the woods before she saw the water. It was a ritual. It would keep her safe. But it hadn’t this time, had it?

  Still beneath the trees she had heard the lake, rippling in across the stones and on up to the sand which might still be cool. Then she was out into the light and at last the lake was there, glinting, easing in across the shore. And yes, the sand was still cool and loose and fine-grained. There had been no storms recently then. No storms to force the water into three-foot waves, to smash down beyond the pebbles, soaking the sand.

  Rosie looked out on to the grey sea now. The prow of the ship was slicing through the waves, her hair was thick with salt and still she could see the skyline of Manhattan and she knew that Frank and Nancy would remain there, waiting until she disappeared.

  And so too they had waited at the lake, day after day, swimming, sitting, beating time to jazz; Erroll Garner, Billie Holiday, Bix Beiderbecke, always Bix, and Grandpa’s reply to Frank’s letter had not come.

  On Nancy’s birthday, towards the end of June, they had driven to the Club, taking their costumes, swimming in the pool. She hailed her friend Sandra who was up here from town too. They sat on white wrought-iron chairs which dug into the grass at the edge of the terrace overlooking the pool. They slid ice-crowded glasses to the table’s edge to break the vacuum the condensation had produced. They sipped their Cokes, slowly. Behind them was the lawn which stretched back to the Clubhouse.

  Frank passed them bourbon-soaked cherries from his and Nancy’s cocktails and the talk was of the latest jazz band Uncle Bob was promoting, or the parched grass back home behind the rhododendrons where the hose did not reach; anything but England. Anything but Grandpa. Anything but the waiting.

  And then Joe came towards them from the Clubhouse – Joe who had been here last year, who had been a Senior at their school, who was now at College. Joe who she had thought was beautiful since she had arrived in Pennsylvania, who was even more beautiful now that she might be leaving. But no, she wouldn’t think of that. If she didn’t think of it, it might not happen.

  He was nodding at the girls, holding his hand out to Frank.

  ‘Hi, Mr Wallen.’ His voice was deeper than last year. He was taller, more blond. The hairs on his arms were bleached by the sun. Sandra nudged her and grinned. Joe didn’t look, not then. But then he hadn’t looked last year either. He did after dinner, though, when he smiled, his teeth white against his tan, his watch gold against his skin, and he asked her to the Subscription Dance which was being organised to raise funds for a new tennis court.

  That night she had dreamed that she was on a ship, like this ship, being pulled in half by Grandpa and Norah at the prow and Frank, Nancy and Joe aft.

  But she’d gone to the dance, goddamn it, she thought as she pulled her jacket round her throat and let the wind tear more strongly at her clothes. Yes, I went to the dance.

  She shut her eyes because the wind was dragging tears across her cheeks. That was all. Only the wind.

  She had gone to the dance because the letter had not yet come, and therefore there was still time. And now she laughed, but it was not a proper laugh as she thought of Joe’s arms around her, the taste of vermouth and lemonade, the talk of College, of majoring in Politics, of his wish to enter journalism, his hopes that he might work on Frank Wallen’s newspaper.

  She had listened to his ambitions, which were also hers, and pushed away the thought of England. Later she watched the lake as they drove back to the house in his Buick, and then smelt his skin as he leaned down, his lips touching hers, but then his tongue pushed into her mouth and she drew back, uncertain. She had never kissed like this before.

  Her feet crunched on the gravel as she walked towards the porch. ‘I’ll see you, Rosie,’ he called as he drove away, his wheels spinning.

  ‘Sure,’ she said and had hoped that she would, in spite of drawing back, because he made her heart beat faster and her lips feel full, her skin feel as though it needed to be touched, and if she felt like this, she thought, it couldn’t all end. Could it? Grandpa? Could it?

  She did see him again, within two days, because Sandra had rung and asked her to a barbecue on the beach, where Joe would also be. She had answered the phone then grinned at Nancy as, later, they both strolled down to the lake and Nancy sat while Rosie swam in the cool clear water out to the raft. She lay on the wet wood, then dived into the water again, swimming back to shore, to the beach house.

  She had rolled down her costume, running her hands down her body, brushing at the wet sand which had caught between her breasts and along the top of her cold buttocks, and between her thighs. Should she let his tongue search her mouth? What did she do with her own? What did other girls do?

  She returned to Nancy, and sat against her chair, taking handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers on to the ground.

  ‘So why don’t you ask that Joe over for a swim?’ Nancy had said, handing her a salad roll.

  The tomato was warm and the lettuce limp. It was the taste of summer by the lake for her.

  ‘I don’t know really, Nancy. I guess I just don’t want to somehow.’ She had bent her head down, resting it on her knees.

  ‘You know, when you’ve just come out of the water and your hair’s wet it’s just the same as when I used to wash it back in 1940 when you first came,’ Nancy said, her voice lazy. ‘I remember my first date. I didn’t want him to see my body, even in a costume. Too kind of personal if you know what I mean?’

  Yes, she’d known what Nancy meant and now she remembered the feel of Nancy’s hand stroking her head, her voice as she said, ‘You’ve really grown, Rosie, and I guess Joe has too. I remember it was difficult to know what to do with a new date at your age. Sometimes things that you’ve read in books become real and you don’t know what you think about it.’

  Rosie remembered now how the lake had lapped at the shore while Nancy continued.

  ‘I guess my mom was right, Rosie, when she said that you do what seems right at the time but don’t let yourself get hustled, if you know what I mean, my dear. Letting a boy go too far is wrong at your age. Kissing is enough, I think.’

  And Rosie remembered saying, ‘But Grandpa is hustling us. Can’t we just say I’m going to stay here?’ She had gripped Nancy’s hand, looking up at the woman who had come to her in the night when she had been ill, the woman who had smiled from the front row when she collected her literature prize. The woman who now said that Grandpa had the right to make the decision for them all. Rosie was sixteen, not twenty-one. It was only right, but Nancy had turned away as she said this.

  At the barbecue they had all jitterbugged in the humid heat which was heavy with the sme
ll of hamburgers and onions. Joe was good, very good, but so was she and they picked up the rhythm and didn’t talk, didn’t laugh, just danced as a breeze at last began to ease in from the lake. Dave, Sandra’s date, tapped Joe on the shoulder and they swapped partners and danced again, but though the rhythm was the same it wasn’t Joe’s hand which caught her and turned her and threw her up and then to one side, and so it was good to be called to eat, over by the glowing barbecue.

  She didn’t eat the onions but sat with Sandra on blankets out where the woods met the sand and they laughed while the boys fetched root beer which Sandra’s mother had brought from the ice-box. The parents smoked cigarettes which glowed in the dark and Rosie watched the lanterns blowing near the barbecue. Frank and Nancy hung up lanterns in their garden when they had a barbecue and people danced and ate. Did Grandpa? Of course not. But it hurt too much to think of that, so she watched as the moths beat against the lights.

  ‘Don’t they know it’s hopeless?’ she murmured.

  ‘D’you remember that darn great Polyphemus the old coach stopped the game for in ninth grade?’ Joe called across to Dave. ‘He stopped play and we watched it crawl out all wet. We had to wait until it dried and the wings got as tough as Flying Fortress wings. Jeez, those moths are more like birds. Six inches from wing-tip to wing-tip. We swatted it.’

  The breeze had become a wind as the music played again and Joe pushed his fingers between hers, pulling her up, dancing so close. Her head had lain against his shoulder. The humidity remained and they were drenched with sweat and Rosie had thought of the wings beating about her face. She hated moths. She always had done and she remembered Grandpa swatting at a hard-bodied one which had banged into the kitchen light but it was Jack who had come in, cupped it in his hands, taken it into the yard, set it free. Grandpa, let me stay.

  She shivered and Joe held her, looking into her face, but it wasn’t the moth, it was the thought of England. Joe kissed her and she felt his lips on her forehead, in her hair, his breath on her skin, and it was what she had wanted all evening.