A sister is a wonderful thing. Well most of the time. I loved mine. I’m not sure that she loved me but she hid it well if she didn’t. Being two years younger than her, I treated her as my role model in everything. That’s not to say that we didn’t argue from time to time. My sister was called Eveline but right from the start everybody shortened it to Evy. My parents learnt their lesson and called me Grace. Everybody lengthened it to a Gracie.

We shared a bedroom in the little house in Fordington. Fordington used to be next to Dorchester, now it was part of Dorchester.

Evy left school and got a job at Genge’s. Two years later, I left school and got a job at Genge’s.

As young adults we took a keen interest in any fashion magazine that we could lay our hands on. Without much success, we tried to emulate the styles of the times. With minor adjustments we were still able to ride our bicycles. The cycles were our pride and joy. It took us ages to save up for them. Much to Mother’s chagrin we kept them in the hallway.

The Great War largely passed Dorchester by. Many Dorchester families wished that it had passed them by completely. Nobody really knew what it was about. The King and the Kaiser were cousins but it was unusual for family disputes to get that far out of hand.

Apart from the fact that the shops stopped selling some things, the biggest impact on the town was the Prisoner of War Camp. It was located on the Poundbury side of Dorchester so we never really saw it.

What we saw were groups of men who were put to work road sweeping and the like. The locals always treated them politely. There was very little name calling. Even people who had lost loved ones simply turned their heads and passed by.

Mother was an embarrassment. She was always getting into trouble for talking to them. She would ask if anyone spoke English. Then she would inquire if they were being well treated. Generally, they were. Mostly they were glad to be away from the mud, barbed wire, mustard gas and machine guns. They all missed home.

When she was rebuked by the NCO in charge, she would simply reply that she hoped some German mother was doing the same for our boys.

Just as the War was coming to an end the Spanish Flu struck. Father was working in Weymouth when he caught it. He threw himself in front of a train. The Coroner wasn’t sure if it was because he was afraid of bringing it home or if it was a side effect of the disease. He ruled it as ‘Misadventure’. Mother didn’t last a year after that. She just went downhill fast.

So there we were. Two young women, barely in our twenties, all alone with a house to run. Slowly, we learned to budget. The bills were paid on time but money was always tight.

We hated the idea but, by 1920, the both of us finally summoned the courage to clear out our parents bedroom.

Evy, as ever the practical one, decided that if we rented it out we might just be able to afford a few luxuries. It sounded easy but there were very few suitable takers. They were all families. We didn’t want a family and they wanted more than one room anyway.

We were about to give up, then one evening a gentleman knocked on the door. He’d got a job in Dorchester and was staying at a cheap hotel there. After he’d paid for his room and board it left him very little.

It turns out that we hadn’t really thought things through. When he mentioned board and lodgings, we realised that he would probably want feeding.

Evy was quicker than me. She asked him how much he thought he would be prepared to pay. We were shocked. It was more than we thought. We agreed straight away.

Michael was from a little seaside town south of Dublin called Greystones. Some people are dubious about taking in Irish lodgers but our mother never brought us up that way. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers.

He had a wonderful softness in his voice that made even the simplest story sound like a mist-covered Celtic legend.

When he first came to England he had lived in Manchester but he hated it. He missed living by the sea. So he had headed south.

“When I got to your glorious little town I bumped into just the right type of work for me so I thought ‘That’s close enough to the sea’. So here I am,” he said.

Evy thought that there couldn’t be many birds in the trees in Greystone as Michael must have charmed most of them.

Each evening, we would ask him about his life. Every answer involved a long and humorous tale which travelled far from the point and somehow miraculously found its way back again in the end. The only time he was a bit reluctant to speak was when we asked what he did in the war.

He really liked our cooking. Evy thought life in Ireland must be tough.

Less than four months had passed before Evy discovered that she was pregnant. “Oh, thank God,” I thought to my shame. I was petrified that it was going to be me.

Nearly every time we were alone together, Michael had made love to me. I say ‘made love’. It really wasn’t like that. He never forced me but he was always forceful. Like it wasn’t something I had no choice in. It was just his right. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t make a fuss because I knew that I liked the attention.

Whenever Evy went into the yard to hang out the washing, Michael would bend me over the kitchen table. It was as if he enjoyed the danger. I think that maybe I did too.

As it turns out, every time I wasn’t around he was doing the same thing to Evy.

Unlike Evy, I could pretend that it never happened.

I was so pleased when Evy and Michael got married. Suddenly instead of being Miss Eveline Groves, she was Mrs Michael Costello.

I don’t know if he was one of those deep philosophical thinkers that you read about but after three months Michael decided that he didn’t want to be a married man and he left. In the evening he was there and in the morning he was gone. It did cross my mind that maybe he thought that he’d married the wrong sister but I told myself not to be unkind.