Free The Hills and the Valley by Janet Tanner

care what you do at home. Here we sleep in the bed, not under it,’ he said decisively.
    Now at last all was quiet and Margaret and Harry were relaxing in their comfortable kitchen, Harry stretched out in his shirt sleeves in his favourite chair, Margaret curled up on the arm, resting against him.
    â€˜They can’t stay here,’ he said again. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere else for them to go tomorrow.’
    â€˜But I have to go to school tomorrow,’ Margaret said.
    â€˜Exactly. And what is going to happen to them?’
    â€˜I suppose I shall have to take them with me. They’ll have to go to school eventually so they might as well start tomorrow.’
    â€˜But you can’t drag them all the way to Sanderley every day. They’d be much better off in Hillsbridge with their friends. And anyway,’ Harry said, ‘it’s going to be too much for you. Looking after two difficult girls and holding down a job – you just can’t do it. Especially in your condition.’
    â€˜Oh, I’m all right,’ Margaret said impatiently, but she had to admit to herself that she didn’t feel all right. In fact she felt extremely tired.
    â€˜No, we must sort something out tomorrow,’ Harry said firmly.
    â€˜The trouble is they were all in such a state!’ Margaret shifted her weight slightly. ‘You can understand people not wanting to take them in. You can’t believe it really, can you, that anyone could live like that.’
    Harry did not reply.
    â€˜At least these two are clean now and have a good meal inside them,’ Margaret said. ‘But they looked so lost, Harry. I couldn’t do anything but bring them home with me.’
    He settled his arm comfortably around her waist.
    â€˜Knowing you, love, I don’t suppose you could.’
    â€˜They’re just children, after all,’ she said defensively. ‘I mean – think what Huw was like when Amy took him in. And look at him now. A credit to her.’
    Harry’s heart sank. Sorry as he felt for the children he did not want Margaret making herself ill by doing too much in her condition.
    â€˜I still say they’ve got to go,’ he said decisively. ‘There are others better able to look after them than you. Now – are you ready for bed?’
    She nodded.
    â€˜I certainly am. It’s been a long day. And it will probably be an even longer one tomorrow.’
    Within a week Hillsbridge was beginning to feel other repercussions of the newly declared war than simply the arrival of a coach load of evacuees.
    The TA left en masse, off to an ‘unknown destination’ as the Mercury , the local newspaper, phrased it and half the town was at the station to see them off. Lighting restrictions, came into force so that vehicles were obliged to use sidelights only and every house was required to fix up some sort of black-out at the windows to ensure no crack of light showed once the lamps were lit at night. And petrol rationing was announced to come into operation the following week – ‘Lord knows how we’ll manage,’ Amy said to Herbie. ‘Let’s just hope the Hauliers Association can sort something out.’
    But in spite of Harry’s resolution that it should be otherwise, the young evacuee sisters remained still installed in his spare bedroom at the end of the week.
    To begin with, he supposed, the girls had remained simply because it was easier to let them stay rather than find alternative accommodation for them. By the time she had risen earlier than usual to cook them a breakfast and hurried home from school to prepare an evening meal, Margaret was too tired to go out knocking at doors to find someone willing to take them, and for all his good intentions Harry could not see that it was his place to do it. But as the days went by he sensed that Margaret did not intend to try very hard to rehouse the girls. They were both still