1

      Vi looked again at the letter half-hidden behind the sepia vase on the kitchen mantel and wondered bitterly whose fault it had been. Some seaman pissed out of his mind in a dock-road pub, like as not. Ale talk for listening ears. Careless talk, that cost lives.

      ‘Taking ammo to the Middle East. Danger money this trip, so fill yer boots, lads. Sup up.’ Somewhere, someone had opened his mouth and Gerry had paid; him, and fifty others.

      The letter was addressed to Mrs Violet Theresa McKeown and she took it down, holding it between finger and thumb. She didn’t take out the folded sheet. There was no need. Since it arrived four days ago, every last word was beaten into her brain.

      ‘… and it is with regret we must inform you that your husband Gerald Patrick McKeown has been reported missing, believed lost at sea as a result of enemy action on the night of 23rd/24th April, 1941 …’

      There was more, of course, about sympathy and sorrow and about writing again when they had anything more to tell her. She hadn’t been able to read the signature at the bottom of the page, and that seemed wrong, somehow. A man from the shipping line tells you your husband has been lost at sea and you don’t even know his name. There were the initials GWE/BW typed at the top of the letter but they hadn’t helped. Dead is dead, no matter who signs the warrant, though it might have been nice to think that BW had felt compassion when she typed that letter and a bit of respect, maybe, for Stoker Gerry McKeown of the Mercantile Marine.

      Vi slipped the envelope into the attaché case packed ready for the shelter. All her important things were in that case: her marriage certificate and wedding snaps; her Post Office bank book, rent book and ration book. And Gerry’s last letter.

      ‘… Thanks for a fine leave. You are the best there is and I love you, Vi. Take care of yourself …’

      She closed her eyes tightly. Gerry didn’t often use her name. Girl, he called her, but this last time he’d called her Vi and written that he loved her, and he’d never done that before. Not ever. But he’d known, hadn’t he, that this trip was his last.

      ‘Come home to me,’ she’d whispered when he left. ‘Promise you’ll take care. Promise, Gerry.’

      But it hadn’t been up to him. The SS Emma Bates’s name was on that torpedo, so he hadn’t had much of a choice.

      She reached for her mother’s photograph and laid it in the case with the rest of the things. She was glad Mam hadn’t lived to see another war. The last one had brought her trouble enough. Four kids to rear and a husband coughing away his lungs from mustard gas. Da had died a year after the armistice, so they hadn’t needed to give Mam a pension.

      Vi looked around