Moonlight and Ashes by Rosie Goodwin Page B

front door looking tired and bleary-eyed.
    ‘Yes, thanks! I’m just going to check that me dad’s OK.’
    Maggie impatiently waited for a fire engine to speed past with its bells clanging before darting nimbly across the street. She threw her parents’ front door open and shouted, ‘Dad - it’s me! Where are you?’ After the noise and activity in the street the house felt unnaturally quiet as she waited for her father to reply. Guessing that he was probably still asleep in the cupboard under the stairs, she started towards it with a smile on her face. Her mam had always joked that Bill could sleep through anything, and it was beginning to look like he had. However, when she flung the door open, the smile slid from her face. Because the houses on the opposite side of the street to Maggie didn’t have room for an Anderson shelter in the back yard, her mam had long since cleared all the rubbish out from under the stairs and made up a bed of sorts in there. At a glance it was obvious that it hadn’t been slept in.
    Maggie frowned. Perhaps he’d decided to go to bed and to hell with it. Fear lent speed to her legs as she thumped up the stairs, but again she was presented with a tidy - and empty - bed.
    Systematically she checked every room in the house but there was no sign of her father anywhere. Unlocking the back door, she stepped into a shared yard where her mother’s neighbour was staring up at the smoke-blackened sky.
    ‘You ain’t seen me dad this morning, have you?’ she asked.
    The woman shook her head. ‘Can’t say as I have, Maggie. I heard him go out last night just before the commotion started though. I thought he were coming over to you.’
    ‘Thanks, Mrs Hughes.’ Maggie locked up and returned home. Her mother was still in the shelter with the children who had just woken up.
    ‘There’s no sign of him, Mam,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Mrs Hughes says she heard him go out last night but she ain’t seen him since.’
    Ellen frowned. ‘He’d probably popped up the shop for his Woodbines. But why wouldn’t he have come back?’ An edge of fear had crept into her voice and now it was Maggie’s turn to comfort her.
    ‘Try not to worry, Mam. He probably slipped into a shelter somewhere when everything kicked off. Let’s get the children inside and give them some breakfast, shall we? I shan’t be sending them to school today an’ I’m certainly not turning into work. Look, by the time we’ve sorted the kids out, Dad will have turned up like a bad penny.’
    Lifting Lucy from the bunk, she ushered the twins in front of her. Once they were all seated around the kitchen table the questions began.
    ‘Did they drop many bombs, Mam?’ The first was from Danny.
    ‘I’m not sure, love. It certainly sounded like it.’
    ‘Will they come back and drop some more today?’ The next was from Lizzie who was trembling like a jelly.
    Maggie gulped as she stirred milk into a large pan of porridge. ‘I hope not, sweetheart. But let’s try not to worry about it for now. We’ll have some breakfast and then I’m sure we’ll all feel much better.’
    Her mother had wandered off into the front room and was peering up and down the street for a sign of her husband. After a few minutes she rejoined Maggie in the kitchen. ‘There’s no sign of yer dad, but Sam’s lumberin’ down the street like he’s got the weight o’ the world on his shoulders.’
    Maggie supposed that she should feel a measure of relief, but there was nothing but resentment. Once again when she and the children had needed him, he had let them down. She listened to his heavy tread in the entry and the sound of the back gate opening, and then he was there in the doorway, looking, as her mother put it, like death warmed up.
    He flung his cap onto the chair, unable to meet their eyes as the two women stared at him. After a time he muttered, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Could yer both come into the front room away from little