A Place To Call Home Hardback: Allison & Busby 2004 Paperback: Allison & Busby May 30th 2005. ISBN: 0-74908-324-7 Audio: YES Large Print: YES C) June Francis 2004 Excerpt from A PLACE TO CALL HOME publication date 23rd August 2004 Greta Peters dragged the key on the string through the letterbox with cold stiff fingers and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, glad to be out of the freezing fog. Scarcely any daylight filtered through the fanlight that was grimy with dust. Silence greeted her and she experienced a familiar sense of loss. She hated this house. Since the deaths of her younger brother and sister from measles and her mother from pneumonia, it no longer felt like home. It was miserable coming into an empty, cold house when in the past, at the end of a school day, there were those she loved to greet her. A pan of scouse would be on the fire or a hotpot in the oven, and smiling eyes would welcome her and a loving voice would ask how her day had been. Greta walked slowly up the lobby, hoping she would feel better once she put a match to the making of the fire her father had set before they left the house that morning. She pushed open the kitchen door and froze. The gaslight was on and there was a fire already burning in the black leaded grate. Her spirits lifted and, crazily, she thought that the past three months had been just a bad dream as she inhaled the delicious smell of fried bread and egg. Her stomach rumbled because she had eaten little that day.

'Mam! Alf! Amy! Are you there?' she whispered, and rushed into the back kitchen but it was empty. She dumped the shopping on the drop-leafed table and slumped over it. Her grief was like a weight in her chest and she wanted to cry but she had told herself that she had to be brave for her dad. She had sensed from the beginning that if she had given way to tears then he would have broken down, too, and neither of them could have coped with that. Greta straightened and walked like a zombie back into the kitchen and went over to the fire. She rubbed her numb fingers and held them out to the blaze, staring hypnotically into the fire's flaming heart. Could her dad have lit the fire? No! It was too early for him to be home yet, especially with the fog. Unless he had been allowed home early because of the weather but if that was so, then where was he? She experienced a feeling of dread. Dear God, please don't let him have done something terrible! Fear caused her legs to lose their strength and she had to reach out and cling to the mantle-shelf. She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes and, in that moment of silence, heard footsteps overhead. 'Dad!' Her fear evaporated and she left the kitchen and began to climb the stairs. A sudden blood-curdling yowl caused her to stumble in the darkness and she would have fallen if she hadn't clutched the banister rail. What the hell was that? 'Dad! Dad, are you there?' She rushed up the rest of the stairs and along the landing to the front bedroom. Light showed beneath the door and filtered through the crack round its edge. The door was not quite shut and she pushed it open wider. Instantly, she saw that the curtains were drawn and that the room looked empty. Her heart was hammering from her dash upstairs and she felt dizzy. For a moment she could only wonder whether her dad, Harry Peters, had gone off his head and was playing some kind of game of hide and seek with her. But no, what was she thinking, he wouldn't be so cruel. Then she noticed that the chocolate box, in which her mother had kept old letters, photographs and other precious knick-knacks was open and its contents spilled out on the blue and white cotton bedspread. What was that doing there? Greta stepped towards the bed and, as she did so, out of the corner of her eye, glimpsed a youth standing behind the door. She whirled round and for one heart-stopping moment they stared at each other. Skinny and of medium height, he wore a jacket and trousers that had seen better days. His shabby tweed cap was pushed to the back of his head, so that it rested precariously on his tousled, nut brown hair. His face seemed all bones and angles. He opened his mouth as if to speak and that blood curdling yowl she'd heard earlier was repeated. Then the light went out. Back to Books1 Back to Main Page