Something had told her he would be fine, and he would return and they would have a family. But the thought of Samuel up in the sky, only the thin metal of an aeroplane between her boy and Hitler’s bullets and bombs, filled her with a dark dread. Part of her wanted to stay away from the war, but a stronger part felt, irrationally, she knew, that if she was on English soil once more, gazing up at English skies, she could, in some way, protect Samuel. The Irish prime minister—though they didn’t call him that, they used some ridiculous Irish
