Free When the Lights Come on Again by Maggie Craig Page A

which bordered the road. Her heart was thumping. She hadn’t moved this fast since she’d been at school.
    With a sob of exertion and relief she wheeled into the lane - and caught her skirt on a nail sticking out of a fence. Damn, damn, damn. Pulling herself free, Liz pushed open the garden gate, sped up the path, flung open the back door and threw herself into the kitchen.
    The occupants of it greeted her sudden arrival with upturned faces and looks of astonishment: her mother, Eddie and Mrs Crawford from next door. They were even more amazed when Liz flung her jacket off and ran out to the lobby to put it on the coat stand. Were those her father’s steps she could hear coming up the front path?
    Rushing back into the kitchen, Liz switched on the big wireless set which sat on its own solid wooden shelf to the left of the kitchen door. There was a dance music programme on. The band was playing the Lambeth Walk.
    Eddie was sitting at the table. Liz seized his hand and pulled him to his feet.
    ‘Dance with me,’ she said breathlessly. She threw a glance at her mother. ‘Don’t tell him I’ve been at my Red Cross class, Ma. Please!’
    Mrs Crawford looked puzzled. ‘Why should her father object to her doing that? I don’t understand.’
    Liz and a bemused Eddie started dancing. The music was very loud. In her haste, she’d turned the dial too far. Then it suddenly stopped.
    ‘What’s the matter with the wireless?’ asked Eddie, whirling round to check. ‘Oh!’
    His father was standing in the doorway, his hand on the knob of the substantial machine.
    ‘What do you lot think you’re playing at? I could hear that cheap music from halfway down the street!’
    He wasn’t to know that everyone present knew that wasn’t true. From the front door maybe... but not from halfway down the street. The wireless hadn’t been on then.
    ‘Mrs Crawford. I didn’t see you there.’ His voice had changed, become much less cold. Liz hated him for being able to do it. He would give his family the rough side of his tongue, not because he had lost his temper and couldn’t help himself. That, though unpleasant, she could have understood. No, they were all in for it because he had found them acting in a way he didn’t consider proper. In some obscure way it threatened the control he seemed to need to exercise over his house and his family.
    Mrs Crawford was on her feet, aware as everyone was of the sudden chill in the air.
    ‘Good evening, Mr MacMillan. You’ll be wanting your supper. I’d better be getting home. I’ll be seeing you, Sadie.’
    Liz saw her father’s eyebrows rise at the use of her mother’s first name. The gesture infuriated her. She wasn’t going to allow him to spoil her mother’s new friendship. Taking a mental deep breath, she rushed in. Where angels fear to tread were the words that sprang to her mind.
    ‘Why don’t you see Mrs Crawford to the door, Ma? I’ll get on with the supper.’
    With grim pleasure she saw that her father was torn between the desire to assert his authority and the desire to defer to Mrs Crawford as the wife of one of the senior managers. Deference won. That didn’t mean the storm wasn’t about to break - only that it had been delayed.
    Sadie crept back into the room and lifted her apron off its hook. Her hands were clumsy as she tied the strings around her waist.
    ‘Here, Ma,’ said Eddie gently, ‘I’ll get that for you.’
    He completed the task and sat down. Liz began slicing the bread. The icy silence was too much for Sadie to bear.
    ‘They were only having a wee dance, William. You and I used to enjoy that, don’t you remember?’
    Liz and Eddie exchanged a look. Couldn’t their father hear the plea in their mother’s voice?
    ‘That’s where we met,’ Sadie told her children as she unwrapped the cheese. ‘Your father was a lovely dancer. Real good-looking, too. All the other girls were jealous when he asked me up.’
    For the merest second, Liz saw