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“Here I am, doing a sinkful of bedclothes—for the second time today—that will go out on that line and be black as soot by the time they come in again; your boys have always got snotty noses, your wife is fit to pop, you’re working yourself silly doing two jobs, and you’ve got the cheek to sit there and say, ‘This is all very well.’ I don’t know where you’ve had your head, Billy Beale, but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not very well—not very well by a long chalk. Miss Dobbs has come here and made you an offer that even to my uneducated mind sounds like a dream come true, and you want to turn it down in case your Canada boat comes in. You’ve got a nerve, son.” She turned away, muttering under her breath, her wet, reddened hands dragging a scrubbing brush back and forth across a sheet laid out on the draining board.

Billy shrugged; his face reddened. “I reckon we can look tomorrow.” He turned to his wife. “You feel up to it, going down there on the train?”

“It’s hardly Brighton, Billy—it’s not that far.” Doreen rubbed her swollen belly and turned to Maisie, her smile more open than it had been for months. “I want to see this house. And thank you, Miss Dobbs, for thinking of us—you know, before you went out and talked to anyone else, or put it up for rent in the paper.”

Billy accompanied Maisie to the door. She turned to him before leaving.

“Two jobs, Billy?”

“I was going to talk to you about it, really I was.”

“You can talk to me about it another time, Billy. In the meantime, get a good night’s sleep and I’ll meet you and Doreen—and your mum—at the building office in Eltham.” She pressed a few coins into his hand. “And don’t let Doreen walk any farther than she has to—here’s a bit of bonus money for the taxi.”

“What bonus money?”

“For listening to your mother.”

A letter from James Compton was among those waiting for Maisie at the flat, and as she opened the envelope, she took care not to damage the Canadian stamp—Billy’s sons might like it as a keepsake. In the letter James explained that he would be sailing for Southampton later than originally planned, and that it would be a couple of weeks before he arrived home. She read on, then slipped the letter back in the envelope to read again later. As she slid her fingernail under the edge of the stamp to peel it back, she noticed the franking was smudged, but not enough to hide the fact that the letter had been sent not from Toronto, but from London.

Chapter Seven

By Saturday afternoon, Maisie had returned to the building company’s office to sign the preliminary required letter of intent to purchase a house in Eltham with three bedrooms, one bathroom, one new-look “fitted” kitchen with an electric cooker, and French doors leading onto a small garden with a shed at the end of a narrow path. The front garden, the builder promised, would be finished with planted flower beds and a willow tree—in fact, on Willow Avenue, all the houses were to have front-garden willow trees as a “feature,” according to the builder’s pamphlet. The only drawback was the wait—the house would not be completed for another month, and with Doreen due to give birth at some point in October, Maisie hoped they would be situated in their new home in a timely fashion.

“And you’re sure it will be all right to rent only until we go to Canada, Miss?” said Billy. They were lingering in what would become the back garden, while his mother and Doreen remained in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors that were yet to be painted and had no fittings. The family had been lost for words upon entering the house, and when they stepped into the drawing room, Doreen had walked across to the broad bow window, looked out at her boys running around at the front of the property, and burst into tears.

“Yes, I’m sure, Billy,” replied Maisie. “This is a big step for both of us, but it’s your home for as long as you want to live here.”

Billy nodded and blushed, rubbing his hands together in a manner that revealed both his excitement and his nervousness. “This