Rosamunde Pilcher - Coming Home

Also by Rosamunde Pilcher

Sleeping Tiger

Another View

The End of Summer

The Empty House

The Day of the Storm

Wild Mountain Thyme

The Shell Seekers

September

Winter Solstice

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Blue Bedroom

Flowers in the Rain

ROSAMUNDE PILCHER

Coming Home

www.hodder.co.uk

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint from the following copyrighted works:

Deep Purple, lyric by Mitchell Parish 1934, 1939 (Renewed 1962, 1967) EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.

I Can't Give You Anything But Love by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh 1928 EMI Mills Music Inc. (Worldwide Copyright Renewed). Rights for the Extended Renewal Term in the United States Controlled by Aldi Music Co. and Ireneadele Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.

I Get a Kick Out of You by Cole Porter 1934 Warner Bros. Inc (Renewed). All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.

If Love Were All by Noel Coward. 1929 Chappell & Co. Ltd. Copyright Renewed and Assigned to Warner Bros. Inc. for the United States and Canada. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.

It's De-Lovely by Cole Porter 1936 by Chappell & Co. Copyright Renewed and Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Jr., Trustee of the Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.

My Heart Stood Still by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers 1927 Warner Bros. Inc. (Renewed). Rights for the Extended Renewal Term in the United States controlled by The Estate of Lorenz Hart (WB Music Corp., Administrator) and Williamson Music (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc. & Williamson Music.

Lyrics excerpts of I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm by Irving Berlin. Copyright 1936, 1937 by Irving Berlin. Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved. Lyric excerpts of Puttin' on the Ritz by Irving Berlin Copyright 1928, 1929 by Irving Berlin. Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.

La Mer. Written by Charles Trenet. Copyright 1945 PolyGram International Publishing, Inc., and France Music Corp. Copyright Renewed. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.

All the Things You Are by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. Copyright 1939 by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. PolyGram International Publishing Inc. Copyright Renewed. Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.

The letter on page 52627 is largely based on a real one in The Highland Division, by Eric Linklater (London. His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1942). My thanks to his sons, Andro and Magnus, for their kind permission to use it.

Copyright 1995 Robin Pilcher, Fiona Pilcher, Mark Pilcher
and the Trustees of Rosamunde Pilcher's 1988 trust

First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette Livre UK company

The right of Rosamunde Pilcher to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 978-1-848-94117-5

Book ISBN 978-0-340-75247-0

Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

An Hachette Livre UK company

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

Contents

This book is for my husband Graham, who served
with the Highland Division.

And for Gordon, and for Judith, and for all of us
who were young together at the same time.

COMING HOME

T he Porthkerris Council School stood half-way up the steep hill which climbed from the heart of the little town to the empty moors which lay beyond. It was a solid Victorian edifice, built of granite blocks, and had three entrances, marked Boys, Girls and Infants, a legacy from the days when segregation of the sexes was mandatory. It was surrounded by a Tarmac playground and a tall wrought-iron fence, and presented a fairly forbidding face to the world. But on this late afternoon in December, it stood fairly ablaze with light, and from its open doors streamed a flood of excited children, laden with boot-bags, book-bags, balloons on strings, and small paper bags filled with sweets. They emerged in small groups, jostling and giggling and uttering shrieks of cheerful abuse at each other, before finally dispersing and setting off for home.

The reason for the excitement was twofold. It was the end of the winter term, and there had been a school Christmas party. Singing games had been played, and relay races won, up and down the assembly hall, with bean bags to be snatched and delivered to the next person in the team. The children had danced Sir Roger de Coverley, to music thumped out on the tinny old school piano, and eaten a tea of splits and jam, saffron buns, and fizzy lemonade. Finally they had lined up and, one by one, had shaken Mr Thomas, the headmaster, by the hand, wished him a Merry Christmas, and been given a bag of sweets.

It was a routine that was followed every year, but always happily anticipated and much enjoyed.

Gradually the noisy outflux of children was reduced to a trickle, the late-leavers, those delayed by a search for missing gloves or an abandoned shoe. Last of all, as the school clock chimed a quarter to five, there came, through the open door, two girls, Judith Dunbar and Heather Warren, both fourteen years old, both dressed in navy-blue coats and rubber boots, and with woollen hats pulled down over their ears. But that was as far as the resemblance went, for Judith was fair, with two stubby pigtails, freckles, and pale-blue eyes; while Heather had inherited her colouring from her father, and through him, back over the generations of ancestors, from some Spanish sailor, washed ashore on the Cornish coast after the destruction of the Armada. And so her skin was olive, her hair raven-black, and her eyes dark and bright as a pair of juicy raisins.

They were the last of the revellers to depart because Judith, who was leaving Porthkerris School forever, had had to say goodbye not only to Mr Thomas but all the other teachers as well, and to Mrs Trewartha, the school cook, and old Jimmy Richards, whose lowly tasks included stoking the school boiler and cleaning the outside lavatories.

But finally, there was nobody else to say goodbye to, and they were on their way, across the playground and through the gates. The overcast day had slipped early into darkness and a thin drizzle fell, shimmering against glowing street lamps. The street sloped down the hill, black and wet, pooled with reflected light. They began to walk, descending into the town. For a bit neither of them spoke. Then Judith sighed.

Well, she said in final tones, that's it.

Must feel a bit funny, knowing you're not coming back again.