The Foreshadowing

I would like to thank the following for their assistance with the research for this book: Helen Pugh and the staff of the Red Cross Museum and Archives Department, the helpful members of staff at the Imperial War Museum, Martin Nimmo and Sue Rubenstein of
mybrightonandhove.com
, and Elizabeth Garrett, for her invaluable research into Clifton Terrace, and Brighton in general, in 1916.

I have found many books invaluable for capturing the spirit of the time, including Vera Brittain’s
Testament of Youth
and
Chronicle of Youth,
Enid Bagnold’s
A Diary Without Dates,
Robert Graves’
Goodbye to All
That
and Captain Dunn’s
The War the Infantry Knew. A Brief Jolly
Change,
the diaries of Henry Peerless, edited by Edward Fenton, was not only informative, but delightful to me, since it features members of my own family.

So, believe me, or not,
What does it matter now?
Fate works its way,
And soon you will stand and say,
my words were true.

AESCHYLUS,
Agamemnon

PART ONE

101

I was five when I first saw the future. Now I am seventeen.

I can’t remember much about it. Or maybe I should say I
couldn’t
remember much about it, until now.

For years all I could recall was laughter, nervous laughter, and later, silence, then later still, anger. I felt ashamed, guilty, hurt when I thought about it, but I had quite forgotten what
it
was. Or rather, I had made myself forget.

Memories, half hidden for twelve years, have started to surface, in bits and pieces, until I see a picture of that day long ago, when I was just a little girl.

We weren’t living in Clifton Terrace then, with my wonderful view of the sea, but I don’t know where we did live. There was a big garden, bigger than the one we have here. I was playing in this garden with another girl about my own age. Edgar and Tom were young then too, and even played with us sometimes when they weren’t trying to fall out of the big cooking-apple tree.

It was summer, and the girl and I were best friends. Her name was Clare, and she was the daughter of friends of my parents. It was a long and happy afternoon, but eventually it was time for Clare to go home.

And this is the part I had pushed away and hidden in the depths of my memory for so many years.

I was standing in the hall, giggling with Clare while grown-up chat buzzed above our heads.

Then I said something. I said something that stopped the grown-ups talking and started the silence.

“Why does Clare have to die?” I asked.

Because no one said anything, I thought they hadn’t heard me, so I tried again.

“I don’t want Clare to die tomorrow.”

Then they did start talking, and I knew they had heard, because Mother was scolding me, and Clare started crying and her mother took her away.

I was wrong. Clare didn’t die next day. But I was only five, and, I suppose, didn’t understand that
tomorrow
meant something more specific than
soon.

Soon, however, I
was
right. Clare died of tuberculosis. It came quickly and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. I can remember very clearly now wishing I could have helped her. Stopped her dying.

Then the silence started.

Not long after, we moved house, here to Clifton Terrace, and gradually I forgot all about that day when I was five.

Until now.

100

I have seen the future again, and it is death. I can no longer pretend it is my imagination.

I wasn’t sure. That I had dreamt about something that came to be might just have been a coincidence. It was a month ago that I dreamt George had been killed. The morning after my dream Father was reading the
Times
at breakfast.

“George Yates,” he said, without looking up. “That’s Edgar’s friend, isn’t it?”

Mother nodded.

Father read from the paper, still without looking up.

“ ‘Captain George Yates died of wounds, Vermelles, September 26, 1915.’ ”

I was too shocked to know what to think.

“Poor George,” said Tom.

“Poor Edgar,” Mother said, thinking of her other son. Her elder son, away somewhere in France.

Clumsily she began stacking the plates from breakfast. Tom, my other brother, rose to help her.

“Edgar is fine,” Father said. “He’s a strong young man.”