‘Oh, God.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Susie begged. ‘She couldn’t very well keep it, could she? She’s married and what with William Smith being the father—’
‘—What?’ Daniel snapped. ‘Is that what she told you?’
‘Yes. Why are you having this reaction, Daniel? I don’t understand.’
Daniel downed his drink, banged the glass down on the floor then marched towards the door, again feeling the numbing wash of guilt that he had felt last August. ‘William isn’t the father...’
Susie leapt up behind him. ‘How do you know, Daniel? Where are you going?’
Daniel hurried from the house.
‘Daniel!’ he heard Susie calling after him.
A shot of adrenalin, akin to that which he felt on every scramble as he lifted the nose of his Hurricane from the ground, was injected into his bloodstream, increasing his sense of remorse. He wanted to run, to get there before it was too late, but he knew from what Susie had just told him that it likely already was.
He walked quickly, the waning moon softly brushing the blossoming hedgerow and the narrow lane, lighting his path. The throbbing desperation continued to bang inside his heart, worsening when Cliff House finally came into view.
Daniel paused and stared up at the house, unblinking. He waited for his pulse rate to return to normal before walking ghost-like in the footprints of his memories towards the house. Snippets and snatches of his life here began to resurface in his mind, but he blocked them out; now was not the time.
He rapped hard on the door and waited.
It seemed to take an age, but eventually it was opened and he was immediately blinded by a light being shone directly in his eyes.
‘Who is it?’ a voice called out.
‘Me—Daniel,’ he answered, shielding his eyes.
The beam dropped down to his feet, but it took several seconds more for his eyes to adjust and for Agnes Finch’s rancorous face to crystallise before him.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to see Elsie,’ he demanded.
Agnes shook her head, then lifted the heavy metal torch, returning the beam painfully to his eyes. ‘Impossible. What do you want her for?’
Daniel reached out and pushed the torch down. ‘I want to warn her of what goes on here,’ he yelled. He looked past Agnes. ‘Elsie! Elsie! Are you in there?’
Agnes raised the torch above her head. ‘Get off my property before I call for the police.’
Daniel took a step back and watched as she slammed the door in his face. He backed away from the house and looked up at the window above the front door. It was blacked out but he detected movement. He was sure Agnes was there, making certain that he left. He shook his head and turned back in the direction in which he had come.
The darkness of the overgrown shrubbery at the gate absorbed him and he knew he could no longer be seen from the house. He leant on the gate and gazed back at it, bathed in a cool pale blue, as he pondered how he was going to get inside to warn Elsie.
Cliff House did as it had always done, and drew him in. The memories that earlier had simmered gently below the surface of his mind now bubbled through, revealing themselves with stark clarity.
He had arrived here in the summer of 1939, taking lodgings at the house after seeing an advert in the local paper. He had moved here from his home in Worthing in order to start his job in the banking industry, never imagining that war would so decisively end that career before it had even begun. Even with the outside chance of surviving this war, he couldn’t imagine returning to the staid safe life of banking. It now seemed no less absurd than saying he wanted to live his life on the moon. Frankly, he couldn’t picture any job or any life other than that in which he now found himself.
With his elbow propped on the gate, Daniel rested his chin in his hand and watched the house, recalling the happy, carefree days that he had spent here. Outside of work, he had spent his time fishing, bathing in the sea and enjoying a fleeting relationship with Kath Finch. Their courtship had ended amicably when Daniel had signed up to become a pilot with the RAF. He had left Cliff House in October 1939.
The wind gently teased a lock of Daniel’s blond hair over his forehead. He pushed it back with his fingers, as his rumbling memories began to slide into the black obscurity of where it had all gone wrong. An uncomfortable wavering grew in his stomach as he remembered vainly waltzing up the drive in June 1940. It had been during the Phoney War, before the raids had started and he wanted to show off his new pilot’s outfit. In hindsight, his expectations that life at Cliff House had been on permanent pause since his departure, when his had evolved so much, was plainly naïve. And yet, the changes had been so profound and so surprising. He had found Kath pregnant, then another girl and then another.
His recollections abruptly ceased; the air raid siren—positioned close to the house—began its painful wail, forcing Daniel to cover his ears. With the moon still bright enough to see by, it looked like England was in for another night of attacks.
There was a sharp movement in his peripheral vision. He strained his eyes to the rear of Cliff House and watched as several blurred figures bundled hastily into the Anderson shelter that he himself had built. Had one of them been Elsie? He couldn’t be certain.
Keeping himself stooped below the top of the hedgerow, Daniel crept towards the house; the conversations that issued from the shelter were torn by the wind, offering him just fragments of sentences and isolated words. He listened carefully, straining his
