JULY 1940

All I could think of this morning was that a whole month has passed since Sandra died. And then the inspector showed up. I was standing in the shop with Len, going through the books for the week, when suddenly we heard a van pull up. Len went to the window and fingered the curtains. Then he turned to me and shouted in a whisper that I’d got to go out the back with the eggs and get rid of them. I didn’t need telling twice. He doesn’t tell me much, doesn’t Len, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I work in the shop with him. I’m married to him. I know his game. I dashed into the back of the shop and started to push everything into a flour sack. Hurry up, you silly cow. Why should I hurry up if this is the best he can call me? I heard the doorbell ring, and then there were voices. Me, I took the sack and went out the back. Then I was away through the woods and down the hill, laughing all the way like a crazy bugger. When I got to the stream, I opened the sack up wide. There was nobody around. I was standing by myself. That bastard Len. I knew it was a crime. It was madness. It was the sort of thing that somebody who was plain bloody daft would do. I knew all of this. But I did it anyway. I just threw everything into the stream. Egg after egg. Let the fish or whatever have them. Len said to get rid, so I was getting rid. I’d just pretend that I didn’t understand what he meant. I thought, it’s a hell of an expensive way to spite somebody, but he bleeding well deserves to be treated with spite. When I’d finished, I sat on the bank and laughed. I didn’t know what the bloody hell I was doing in this place. With him. I couldn’t be any worse off in a factory or in the WAAF. I must have been mad. It was mad. To have come to this place at all. I picked up the empty flour sack. Then I looked at the stream. I threw the sack in after the eggs. I didn’t want any of it. What did I need with an empty sack? I didn’t want any of it. By the time I got back from the stream he was in the pub. It was night. I was asleep when he came in. Or at least I was pretending to be. He asked me, so I told him that I’d done what he wanted me to do. I’d got rid of them. He laughed. Then he reminded me that tea and margarine were now on coupons. Then he went to the bathroom. When he found out that it was the truth that I’d told him, I knew he’d want to take a strap to me. But until then he laughed. I think he liked me for a minute or so. He thought I was funny.