The Heart of the Family
The much-loved author of ACROSS THE MERSEY tells of Liverpool under bombardment as never before – but the Campion family refuses to give in.The Campions have always stuck together through danger and sorrow, but even they begin to wonder if it’s time to take their youngest, the twins, to safety away from the bombing raids. The twins have other worries on their minds; having been inseparable, they now realise that they each have different ambitions – and Lou isn’t sure she’ll find what she wants close to home.Meanwhile, cousin Bella is managing a creche and discovers that life isn’t all about pleasure. She’s the last person her family would expect to help anyone; but when a figure from the past turns up on the doorstep, Bella’s unexpected reserves of compassion are revealed.From hardship and heartbreak, surviving the toughest of times, the Campions know they can make it through if they have one another.
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ANNIE GROVES
The Heart of the Family
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2009
Copyright © Annie Groves 2009
Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007265909
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007322695 Version: 2016-12-15
For my readers who have so kindly and generously supported me. I hope you are all enjoying reading about the Campion family as much as I am enjoying telling their story.
Contents
Wednesday 7 May 1941
It had just gone midnight. Conversation between the occupants of Jean Campion’s comfortable and homely kitchen slowed and stuttered, then died.
Jean’s twin daughters, Sasha and Lou, Katie, her billetee and her son, Luke’s, girlfriend, looked at one another.
Jean’s husband, Sam, who had been out working since eight o’clock that morning helping to remove what could be cleared of the devastation left by Hitler’s six nights of ferocious bombing, slumped in his chair, looking defeated. All of them were waiting for the dreaded and now familiar sound of the air-raid siren, warning them that Luftwaffe bombers were approaching the city, bringing yet another night’s destruction and death.
The tension caused by the heavy bombing of Liverpool had taken hold of them just as it had all those who were now virtually trapped in a city cut off from the rest of the country, its buildings destroyed, its people killed and maimed, a helpless victim now waiting for the deathblow.
Jean looked at the twins. They had been very subdued since Sasha had been rescued on Saturday night after becoming trapped in a bomb site. The young UXB soldier who had taken Sasha’s place beneath the bomb so that she could be rescued without the device being disturbed had become a hero to the whole family.
Without his bravery Jean was convinced that there would have been only one of the twins here now. Her heart missed a beat. She mustn’t think of what could have been. She must concentrate instead on praying that they would all survive what was happening now. The twins were growing up. Soon they would be sixteen – young women and not merely girls any more. Sixteen and on the brink of womanhood with their adult lives stretching ahead of them, if they survived Hitler’s onslaught on Liverpool.
Just gone midnight. If the bombers were coming then they would know soon. The siren had sounded around midnight for the last three nights.
Jean thought of her two eldest children – Luke in the army and stationed at nearby Seacombe barracks; her daughter Grace in her final year as a trainee nurse and on duty tonight in one of the city’s busiest and most vulnerable hospitals – and she prayed as she had done every night since the war had started that those she loved would all be safe.
Surreptitiously Katie looked at her watch. Nearly half-past midnight. Would tonight be yet another spent in the air-raid shelter, trying not to be afraid for Luke, whom she loved so much and whom she knew, as a serving soldier whose unit was on home defence duties, would be in far more danger than they were?
Jean couldn’t bear the tension any more. ‘I’ll put the kettle on—’ she started to say, and then stopped as it began: the shrill urgent call to protect themselves, the sound of which gripped a person by the throat and around the heart, a shuddering shocking exhalation of noise that warned of the terrible unbelievable horror that brought death raining down from the night sky.
