Far From Home. Anne Bennett

her mother was so sick.’

      ‘So what are they like?’

      Kate smiled, ‘Oh, all right, you know. They tease a bit, like most lads seem to. There’ll probably leave you alone, but I am considered fair game now they know me so well. And Susie’s parents, Frank and Mary, are just great – so kind and generous and just … well, just lovely. Tell you, Sally, it would have been far harder for me to settle down in Birmingham if I hadn’t had the Masons to rely on.’

      ‘Do you call them Frank and Mary?’

      Kate nodded her head. ‘They insisted on it,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t have any truck with Mr and Mrs Mason. Anyway, we’re nearly here now, so you will see the set-up for yourself.’

      Kate turned into a drive from the tree-lined road as she spoke and Sally looked at the semi-detached house with bay windows set behind a neat hedge. Susie was in the doorway waiting to welcome them.

      The whole family made much of Sally, particularly Mary and Frank, and Kate guessed that Susie had told them about the circumstances that had led to Sally arriving in Birmingham in the first place, and their mother’s reaction to it. This was their way of making Christmas slightly better for her, and Kate warmed to them even more as she saw Sally relax.

      As usual, the dinner at the Masons’ house was sumptuous, and the talk and banter around the table as much fun and as riotous as ever. As they were tucking into the plum pudding and brandy sauce, Sally told the Mason family of her plans for that afternoon. No one seemed to mind.

      ‘Christmas afternoon is getting more flexible as we all get older,’ Susie said later as she and Kate washed the dishes in the kitchen. ‘My brothers are doing their own thing too, and, as my mother said, she would never like it said that she got in the way of true love.’

      ‘It’s hardly that at Sally’s age,’ Kate said.

      ‘Can’t tell with matters of the heart,’ Susie said. ‘Just how old were you when you found that you loved Tim Munroe?’

      ‘That was totally different,’ Kate protested. ‘I had known Tim all my life.’

      ‘I don’t see that that has got anything to do with it,’ Susie said. ‘All I know is that, whether it was the real thing or imagined, that love was strong enough to stop you looking for anyone else. Look how you were with David Burton.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Kate demanded. ‘I was very nice to him.’

      ‘Not nice enough to agree to go to the New Year’s Eve Ball with him, though?’

      ‘Well, no.’

      ‘Yeah, well, that has put me in a very delicate position,’ Susie said.

      Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘I can’t see how it could have done.’

      ‘Well, because I thought you would agree. I mean, you seemed to be getting on very well at the pantomime,’ Susie said. ‘Anyway, when Nick asked me to go with him, I said yes.’

      A cold feeling of loneliness stole over Kate suddenly. ‘Is it serious between you?’ she asked in a bleak-sounding tone.

      Susie shrugged. ‘Serious enough, I suppose. We are meeting up tomorrow as a matter of fact.’ And then she caught sight of Kate’s face and said quite sharply, ‘It isn’t a crime, Kate, and I do like him well enough. Anyway, I was just telling you about the ball because we have always gone together. I mean, there’s nothing to stop you walking up with us, but you’ll have to be sort of prepared that we might not be coming back the same time.’

      Kate looked at her friend’s shining face and saw that, though she was a little embarrassed telling Kate this, she was as determined as Sally had been. She faced the prospect that someone was becoming more important in Susie’s life than her; there was someone she would rather spend time with. It was Nick now, but if not him it would be someone else. Kate found that it was with little enthusiasm that she looked forward to 1939.

      The next day, after Sally had left for work, sporting the beautiful brooch Phillip had bought her for Christmas, Kate found that she was at a loose end. Normally, she would have wandered up to the Masons’, but she couldn’t do that when Susie had told her that she was meeting Nick.

      She busied herself at first, tidying and cleaning a flat that wasn’t really dirty, and eventually sat down with a cup of tea and one of the mince pies Mary had insisted she take home. Alone with her thoughts, she surveyed her future and didn’t really like what she saw.

      She suddenly felt more achingly lonely than she thought it was possible to be. She knew that she could no longer continue to count on the Mason family and Susie in the way she had been doing since she had moved to Birmingham. She knew she would always be immensely fond of all of them, and between her and Susie there was a special bond, but it had become almost too easy to rely on them.

      Then she thought about David Burton, whom she did like immensely. She didn’t feel for him the way she still felt about Tim, but Susie was right: it was time for her to grow up and face facts. She decided she would tell Susie the very next day and make arrangements to go with David to the New Year’s Eve Ball after all.

      Susie was very pleased to see her friend standing on the doorstep the following day and she pulled her inside quickly out of the cold as she said, ‘Oh, Kate, I am so glad to see you. I have lots to tell you, but the first thing is that Nick took me to meet his family yesterday.’

      ‘Oh,’ Kate said, genuinely shocked. ‘I had no idea that things were as serious as that.’

      ‘They’re not,’ Susie said. ‘Well, I mean, the more I see of Nick, the more I like him and that, but these days just because you meet a chap’s parents doesn’t mean you will be getting engaged the next minute or anything.’

      Kate remembered her younger sister had said something similar about how things were arranged in Birmingham, but she still said, ‘It signifies far more than that in Ireland.’

      ‘Maybe it does here in some rural backwaters,’ Susie conceded. ‘But such ideas are very outdated in today’s world. Anyway, his family were very nice and welcoming, his mother in particular. She said she had thought that Nick would never settle down and nothing would please her more than to see me and Nick together.’

      ‘Sally seemed to really get on with Phil’s mother as well,’ Kate said. ‘Seems like everyone is getting fixed up.’

      ‘And how about you, Kate?’ Susie said gently. ‘Did you think any more about what I said on Christmas Day?’

      Kate nodded her head. ‘I did a lot of mind-searching yesterday and let’s just say I have come to my senses at last,’ she said. ‘You were right. Tim is part of my past and I must leave him there and move on.’

      ‘So, you will go out with David?’

      Kate nodded. ‘If he still wants to, I will.’

      Susie shook her head. ‘I think I can guarantee that he will,’ she said. ‘Tell you something else. I didn’t think I loved Nick, not at first anyway, but it has sort of grown on me. I was asking my mother about this love business the other day and she said that liking someone was just as important as loving them. She said that you can love a person to distraction but if you don’t like them as well you are setting yourself up for a life of misery.’

      ‘So I suppose if we like them in the first place we are in for a life of happiness?’ Kate said with a grin.

      ‘Something like that,’ Susie said. ‘And how about putting this to the test straight away? Nick wants to take me to the pictures tonight.’

      ‘Well, Having a Wonderful Time is on at the Plaza,’ Kate said. ‘Sally says it’s just great.’

      ‘She says that about everything.’

      Kate gave a short laugh for she had to agree with Susie. ‘I suppose she does,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t exactly