At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham

too tight. They sat in silence now and still there was no movement from Jack’s house. At home there would be the smell of waffles cooking and the sound of jazz playing, and she had to talk to muffle the memory.
    ‘Do you remember the peas, Grandpa?’ Rosie asked as she watched a bee weave in and out of the rose bushes.
    He chuckled. ‘They were good times.’
    Rosie nodded, looking up into the sky, which was pale blue with small white clouds that seemed to fit the size of England. Yes, perhaps they were but she had seen another world and she couldn’t leave it behind yet. Would she ever be able to? She looked at Jack’s house again.
    ‘What’s wrong next door? Jack seemed strange. He told me not to go in. There was something in his eyes.’
    Grandpa leaned forward, poking the ground with his stick, rubbing it backwards and forwards across the cracks in the concrete. ‘You’ll have to ask Jack. People have a right to their privacy. He’ll tell you what he wants you to know, if there is anything. It’s maybe just the war.’
    He brought out his handkerchief and wiped the corners of his mouth. ‘It’s maybe just the war, Rosie. It changes so much.’
    ‘Yes, Grandpa. But you haven’t changed and neither have I.’ Did he know she was lying?
    Rosie left him in the yard then because she was thinking too clearly of Frank and Nancy, of Sandra and Joe, and there was no place for them here where there was no shower, just a tin bath. Where her grandpa’s skin was tight and old, where there was no laughter from Maisie.
    She was glad she had to sort out ration cards, jobs, shopping. That would do for now. Later, when the sun was past its height she would talk to Jack. Later still she would write to Frank to refuse his offer of money to finance further education. All that was over. They were no longer responsible for her. She was back in her old world. She looked at the list Norah had written, this was her reality now.
    Rosie spent an hour at the Food Office waiting for a ration card, then joined a queue forming outside a small shop and waited for half an hour shuffling forward slowly while the sun beat down. Norah had said, join any queue you see, there’ll be something at the end of it, but today it was dog food and they didn’t have a dog. She bought a pound anyway and gave it to the woman at the end of the queue with two crying children. She knew Jack would have sold it to a man without a dog for twice as much and she smiled at the thought.
    She registered with Norah’s grocer round the corner whom she had known as a child, collecting tea and cheese at the same time. The shop seemed so dark, so small. The goods on the shelves were dull, meagre. He nodded to her. ‘Back then. Norah told us you’d had it easy.’
    ‘I guess I did,’ she replied and watched his tight withdrawn face, wanting to apologise, wanting to take the years back, stay here, be one of them again. But at the same time, wanting to shout her anger at him.
    ‘Next please,’ he called, hurrying her, looking past her.
    ‘I’d like some Players, please,’ she said, resisting the push from behind.
    ‘Only available to our regulars.’ He was reaching forward for the next customer’s ration card.
    ‘They’re for Grandpa,’ Rosie insisted, not moving over. She had just enough for a packet and then her money from Frank was gone.
    The man sighed. His brows met across the bridge of his nose and his eyes were tired. He bent below the counter and passed her one pack.
    ‘Thanks.’ She paid and walked past the queue which was jostling behind her.
    ‘These Americans think they can come here and throw their money about. Isn’t right, it isn’t,’ one old lady said to the woman next to her. Rosie didn’t look at them, she didn’t look anywhere but in front, thinking of the lake, of the sloping lawns and the soaring music. I didn’t choose to go, she wanted to scream at their shadowed faces and resentful backs.
    She walked back down the street