The Very Thought of You Read Free Page A

himself into mechanical action, cabling the news to London, rallying his staff.
    In the embassy, people came and went as if in a dream. Only a few hours ago they were still negotiating the price of peace, they thought, but Hitler had outmanoeuvred them all.
    At 6 a.m. Norton heard an air engine and went out onto the embassy balcony. Straight ahead in the clear sky, he watched a German fighter plane swooping over the Vistula. Sirens wailed, and there was a boom of anti-aircraft guns. Ahat was a shock; the frst air raid in Warsaw so soon. War had reached them already.

3
    London, 1st September 1939
    Anna lay on her back, suspended in the stillness of sleep. Roberta sat on the bed and smoothed back her daughter’s hair until she opened her eyes.
    They both smiled, then Anna reached out her hand
.
    There had been so many things to prepare for the evacuation. They had already picked up the new gas mask, in a box you could carry over your shoulder. The previous evening, Roberta had carefully packed Anna’s case with three changes of clothes and her wash things. And her bathing costume, of course. Her mother also produced a surprise book as a special treat. Into this she had slipped a loving letter and a family photograph.
    Roberta had stowed the food in an extra bag, because she didn’t want Anna to open her case and have everything else fall out. There was a tin of evaporated milk, some corned beef, two apples and a bar of chocolate. There was also a luggage label with Anna’s name and school on it, and her age.
    “A label, round my neck?” asked Anna, surprised. It felt strange, the itchy string against her skin.
    Anna had already decided not to take her teddy with her, in case anyone laughed at him. So she propped Edward on her pillow and kissed him goodbye.
    “I won’t be long,” she promised him.
    Roberta was so anxious as she fed her daughter that she had no chance to feel sentimental. But she was careful to be loving, not impatient, as they put on their coats and left their Fulham house. There was little time for Anna to look back at the green front door and be sad.
    But as they walked together towards the school, both of them began to feel the ache of parting. The coming separation made Roberta breathless – it would be several days before she could know where Anna had been sent. She thought with dread of some dismal, dirty house.
    “You
must
keep your hands clean,” she said.
    Walking along in the cloudy sunshine, war seemed remote and unimaginable. Roberta wondered how she could be doing this to her beloved daughter. Perhaps war would not touch them. Perhaps it would not happen. Would any German planes really fly as far as London?
    After her husband joined up, her first thought had been to leave the city with Anna. But they had no family outside London, nor the means to move. So, like other reluctant mothers, she had signed up for the evacuation scheme: all the parents at Anna’s school had been urged to take part. At first she had thought she could go with Anna, but was later informed that only nursing mothers would be able to stay with their children. It’ll only be temporary, Roberta told herself.
    Anna, meanwhile, had no such trepidation. She assumed that all the evacuees would be going to the seaside, like a holiday. She had only ever been on a beach once before, at Margate, and she was longing to run through wet sand again. And now she had her own bathing costume, packed and ready.
    She was expecting adventure; she had read so many fairy tales that she longed to set out into the world alone. Like Dick Whittington. The long road, the child with a small case, it seemed only natural.
    Her shoes were polished, her socks were clean. She carried her kit with pride. She did not fear parting, her mother’s face felt closer than her pulse. She could not yet imagine any rift.
    Beneath the red-brick gaze of the old Victorian school they joined an uneasy crowd of mothers, fathers, children, all there to say