Read Online Safe Harbour by Marita Conlon-Mckenna - Free Book Online

at a large old mahogany table, Grandfather at the top, eating his way slowly and silently through his meal. The children ate in silence too. Only Nancy chatted and broke the tension.Finally, the old man pushed back his chair and got up from the table.
    ‘Time for my evening walk. Nancy will show you to your rooms,’ he said.
    Sophie was disappointed that her grandfather had not wanted to talk to them, to hear about Mum and Dad, and their lives in London. He didn’t seem to be at all interested, and she was too shy to ask the hundreds of questions that rattled around in her brain, demanding answers.
    Sophie’s room was big and the yellow brass bed was so tall she would have to climb up into it. Nancy had turned back the sheet and coverlet, and put in a hot-water bottle. It was very comforting. The room was decorated in a pale pink wallpaper with a deep pink stripe, and a line of trailing pink and blue flowers all around the top. The curtains were pink too, and hung from a thick bamboo-like curtain pole. Nancy closed over the curtains, blocking out the end of evening light. ‘Into bed, Sophie,’ she said. ‘You need to sleep, child.’
    Hugh’s room was smaller and painted yellow and blue. His window overlooked the garden. He was in bed in seconds, too tired to protest.
    Sophie tossed and turned for a while. The horsehair mattress at first seemed too hard, but finally she settled down, warm and comfortable. Here, lying in the dark, Sophie felt safe at last, in this room, in this house. No bombs, no sirens, no air-raid shelters, no swivelling beams of searchlights.
    There was a knock on the door, then it creaked open. Itwas Hugh, in an old washed-out stripy pair of pyjamas. ‘I can’t sleep! I can’t sleep, Soph! It’s too quiet!’
    Sophie almost giggled. He was right! It was so quiet and peaceful. All there was was the gentle shush of the waves outside, and a wobble of pale moonlight that gleamed through the curtain.
    ‘Honest, Soph, I can’t sleep!’
    Sophie patted the narrow bed and her brother clambered in beside her, his bony knees and arms sticking into her. Out of habit, they both said their night-prayers, thinking specially of Mum and Dad, and adding their grandfather to the list of people to be prayed for.
    In seconds, Hugh drifted off to sleep. Sophie lay awake. She was exhausted too, but her head was swimming with thoughts of this long, long day and all that had happened.
    Lots of children were sleeping in strange beds tonight, she told herself – Maggie and her brother and little Lily, and all the others from the train. She and Hugh weren’t the only ones feeling homesick and lonely.
    It was all part of the war effort. You had to make the best of it, that’s what everyone was expecting of you. She thought of Mum in the hospital and Dad in the war, and knew she must be brave for their sake.
    Grandfather returned from his walk. She heard the heavy front door beneath her window bang shut. Would he come up to wish her goodnight, she wondered? But then she heard another door opening and closing. He wasn’t going to come.
    There was no point in comparing him with her mother’sfather, Grandad Joe. Sophie remembered him so well. He was fun and told stories and played games with her. She had always been his favourite, his special granddaughter. She had loved him so much, but he had died when Hugh was only three.
    This grandfather was different. He was their flesh and blood too, but he had never come to London to visit them, or seen them when they were babies. He was stern and distant, and he just wasn’t interested in them. No wonder Dad never talked about him. She couldn’t help but think that it was a mistake to have come to Ireland, even if it was safe, but now there was no going back.
     
    Before breakfast the next morning, Sophie unpacked the few bits of clothes they had and hung them in the two huge wardrobes in their bedrooms. She draped her spare dress and cardigan over the polished wooden