The Runaway Family by Diney Costeloe Page A

simply shook her hand and said, “Goodbye, Ruth. I’ll be in touch.”
    Ruth nodded. She knew that she should be thanking him properly for the money, for housing them all for so long, for making sure they weren’t hungry and homeless. She knew that he had done all he could for them, but the words wouldn’t come. She felt so bereft at his leaving, she could only let him shake her hand before he laid his keys on the table and, without another word, walked out of the apartment. As the door closed behind him, and she heard his feet on the stairs, Ruth looked at the keys, and finally accepted that Herbert wasn’t coming home again. No man who thinks he might come back leaves the keys to his home on the table. She moved to the window and looking down into the street watched him walk away, suitcase in hand, his head bent against the late October drizzle.
    “Goodbye, Herbert,” she whispered. Then with a deep breath she turned back to the room and slowly and methodically began to clear the breakfast table. When it was done she called the children to come and do their lessons.
    “Uncle Herbert’s gone away for a holiday,” she told them. “He says you girls can use his bedroom while he’s away. That’s kind of him, isn’t it?”
    “Will he want it back when he comes home again?” asked Inge.
    “Of course he will,” said Laura. “It’s his room.” She glanced across at her mother and added, “But it will be nice to sleep in there for now.”
    When they had finished their lessons, while Ruth made up Herbert’s bed with clean sheets, the girls moved their few possessions into his bedroom. They moved the clothes he had left behind into one corner of the wardrobe and began to settle in.
    Ruth made the other bedroom more comfortable for the twins, deciding that she would continue to sleep on the sofa in the living room. That way everyone had a little more space. She had counted the money Herbert had given her, and she had to admit he had done his best. If she were careful she could make it last for two or even three months. They would not eat well, but they would not starve either, as they waited for Kurt to come. She divided the notes up into several smaller bundles, which she hid in different places in the apartment. One crammed between the lavatory cistern and the wall, another buried in a tin of flour in the kitchen, a third under the mattress in the twins’ room, and a fourth, the largest, tucked into her own underwear. The rest she put into the cashbox with the passports and other personal documents that was locked in their suitcase. Ruth did not know why she felt compelled to do this. It was unlikely burglars would break into a third-floor apartment, but she remembered how important the cashbox buried in the garden had been, and although there was no garden in which to hide it here, she was determined not to have all her money in the same place. She told Laura where the money was hidden. It was Laura, after all, who had remembered the box buried in the garden.
    “If anything should happen to me,” she said gently, “you’ll know where to find the money.”
    Laura stared at her in horror. “ You won’t leave us, will you, Mutti?” she whispered.
    Ruth gathered her into her arms and said, “No, darling. I won’t leave you, but we have to look after the children now, you and I, and if there was an accident or something…” Ruth’s voice trailed off as Laura’s arms tightened round her and she buried her face in her mother’s neck. For a long moment they hugged each other close. “You are my strength, now, Laura,” Ruth said. “You must help me with the younger ones.”
    After lunch, they all trailed down the stairs and out into the autumn wind. The earlier drizzle had stopped, but there was a distinct chill in the air, and Ruth realised that it wouldn’t be long before she had to find the children warmer clothes if they were going out of the apartment at all. Ruth led them briskly along the