Home Front Girls (7 page)

After laying Mary, who didn’t stir, onto the small settee, she then hurried across to make sure that the curtains were firmly drawn before dashing upstairs to fetch Mary’s pyjamas and warm them on the fireguard. Eventually the little girl was tucked up nice and cosy in Lucy’s bed, a habit she had adopted since her big brother had been gone. Lucy didn’t mind in the least, in fact she liked having Mary’s little body to cuddle up to on a cold night. Now she looked around her modest living room and felt contented. It was only an ordinary terraced house, but she and Joel had worked tirelessly on it to turn it into a home since they had moved in. Joel had scoured the second-hand shops to find the three-piece suite, which had come up a treat with a good scrub, and Lucy had then brightened it up with cushions. She had bought the curtains for a snip from a rummage sale along with the hearthrug, and all in all the room was now very comfortable. But it just didn’t feel the same without her brother.

The nights were the worst, when Mary was in bed. That was when the loneliness would close in on her and why she had not been averse to getting a job. She and Joel had always kept themselves very much to themselves, but at least now she would have someone to chat to apart from Mary and Mrs P. She wondered what Joel would be doing now and hoped that he was all right, then she set to tidying the room and getting Mary’s clothes ready for the morning.

Dotty was hurrying through the deserted streets with her coat collar turned up against the cold. She hated going out after dark, particularly since the blackout had been in force. Even the streetlamps were turned off and the odd people that were out and about loomed up out of the darkness like spectres.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t snow soon, she thought to herself. It certainly felt cold enough. The pavements were white over with frost and they glistened eerily in the gloom. At last the house came into view and she fumbled in her bag for her key. Once inside, as always the smell of stale cabbage met her. She was sure that cabbage was the staple diet of Mrs Cousins and her children, but at least they would have something different this evening. She had called in to the corner shop on the way home and picked up some milk, bread and a tin of corned beef along with a few apples for the woman.

‘Why, hello, luvvie,’ Mrs Cousins greeted her when Dotty tapped on her door. ‘What can I be doing for yer?’

‘Nothing,’ Dotty responded with a shy smile. ‘But I just realised if I don’t get rid of these few bits they’ll go off before I can eat them. I thought you might be able to make use of them. You’d be doing me a favour and if you can’t I shall have to throw them away.’

‘Then in that case I’d be glad to take ’em off yer hands.’ The woman flushed. She guessed that Dotty had bought them especially for her and thought what a lovely young lass she was. It was a shame that she didn’t seem to have any friends though. She had never once seen anyone visit her since the day she had moved in, apart from a woman who Dotty had told her used to look after her in the orphanage, and she tended to keep herself very much to herself. But then she was a quiet sort of girl and happen she wasn’t one for gallivanting about like most girls her age did.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said as she took the brown paper bag from Dotty’s gloved hand. ‘Would yer like to come in fer a warm an’ a cuppa?’

‘I won’t, if you don’t mind. I’m just longing to put my feet up, but thanks for asking,’ Dotty replied as she headed for the last set of stairs.

Once in the privacy of her own little flat she hurried to light the gas-fire and put the kettle on to boil. She had quite enjoyed the day and having someone to talk to for a change during the breaks and the lunch-hour. She grinned as she thought of Annabelle and Lucy. They were as different as chalk from cheese but she liked them both, especially Lucy, with whom she somehow felt an affinity. Admittedly, Lucy had a family, or at least a brother and sister, but there was something sad about her eyes that made Dotty feel that Lucy was no stranger to heartache. She could remember as a child how she would try to imagine what her own family was like, and her young imagination had run riot. Perhaps she was the daughter of a princess who had been stolen away by a jealous godmother? And maybe one day, her mother and the prince, her father, would come and find her. Soon after that she had started to write, and invariably her stories were of abandoned children who eventually made good. Sometimes the stories had been so touching and heartfelt that they had moved Miss Timms to tears when Dotty showed them to her, and from then on the kindly woman had encouraged her to write at every opportunity.

Dotty had never given up hope that one day her natural mother would come back to claim her and she would be whisked away to a life of happiness, but as the years had passed and Dotty saw other children at the orphanage being chosen for adoption by loving families, her dreams had dimmed to a dull flicker of hope. She could well understand why the other children had been chosen over her. Most of them were pretty and cute, something that Dotty could never claim to have been. Once Miss Timms had found her crying about it and she had wrapped her in her arms and assured her that it was always the ugly ducklings that turned into swans and that Dotty was beautiful inside. But that had been a poor consolation. One day in her early teens, Dotty had spent her meagre savings on face cream, powder and rouge and plastered it on in front of the little mirror in her dormitory, but all it had done was make her resemble a clown, so after that she gave up and accepted herself for what she was. Her thoughts moved on to Annabelle, who was everything that Dotty longed to be – pretty and confident. A little full of herself admittedly, and undeniably spoiled – but then who could blame anyone for spoiling Annabelle?

Sighing, she lifted her writing pad and soon all the sad thoughts disappeared as she became lost in the story she was writing.

‘Good morning,’ Dotty said the next morning as she made a beeline for Lucy who was hanging her coat up in the staff cloakroom. ‘Is Annabelle not here yet?’

‘Well, if she is I haven’t seen her.’ Lucy glanced around before grinning. ‘And between you and me I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t come back. I don’t think she much enjoyed her first day.’

But the words had barely left her mouth when the door opened and Annabelle strolled in, looking none too pleased with herself or the world. Her hair didn’t look quite so immaculate today and both girls noticed that she was wearing only the minimum amount of make-up, unlike the day before. She made her way over to them and started to take her coat off.

‘I can’t
believe
that we have to be here a whole hour before the shop opens,’ she said, grumbling as usual. ‘I had a job to get up this morning at such an ungodly time.’

‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ Dotty told her encouragingly. ‘I wonder what departments we’ll be working in today?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t much care,’ Annabelle replied. ‘Just so long as they don’t stick me in the hardware department.’ She couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend her day amongst buckets and bowls.

The room was buzzing with laughter and noise as the staff chatted to each other about what they had done the night before and tidied themselves in readiness to go to their departments. Before the doors were opened, the head of each floor would inspect them all to make sure that they were respectable and then that the department was neat as a new pin before the customers were let in.

Annabelle thought it was a ridiculous waste of time. After all, it was hardly as if the customers were going to appear in droves at that time of the morning, especially when it was so bitterly cold outside.

‘Did you notice what they’re doing outside now?’ she asked in disgust as she took a lipstick from her bag and expertly applied it. ‘Stacking sandbags against all the shop-fronts! They look appalling and I really don’t know why they’re bothering. What with them and all the shelters, the whole place is beginning to look a total mess – and what about those awful barrage balloons they’ve got floating above the city! Why, they remind me of great grey elephants flying. And all for what, I ask you? We haven’t had a sign of a single bomb yet.’

‘And let’s hope we don’t,’ Lucy said quietly. Without another word she turned and left to go to her department, thinking what a self-centred young woman Annabelle was.

At morning break-time they all sat together again in the canteen and Dotty treated herself to a slice of toast with a thin layer of margarine spread on it to go with her cup of tea. She was actually finding the canteen quite handy. At lunchtime you could get a warming bowl of soup for a penny and it certainly beat trying to cook herself anything when she got home, dead on her feet. They had all been surprisingly busy as people were trying to get their Christmas shopping done early before the rationing came strictly into force.

‘Where are you today?’ Annabelle asked Lucy as she joined her and Dotty at the table. Thankfully, she herself had been in the lingerie department again.

‘I’ve been in childrenswear,’ Lucy beamed. She had loved working in there and only wished that she could afford to buy some of the lovely garments they stocked for Mary. Most of their clothes came from jumble sales, not that Lucy was complaining. There were some rare bargains to be had if you were prepared to look carefully enough, and she was proud of the fact that she had always managed to keep her little sister well turned out.

‘Oh you poor thing, how
ghastly.’
Annabelle looked horrified but Lucy shook her head.

‘Actually I love working in there. I’ve asked Mrs Broadstairs if I could stay there permanently if it’s possible.’

Annabelle stared at her as if she had lost her marbles. She had never had a lot to do with children, having no brothers or sisters, and nor did she wish to.

‘But how could you possibly enjoy serving brats?’ She shuddered dramatically. ‘All those runny noses and tantrums.’

Lucy chuckled. ‘There is a little more to children than that,’ she assured her. ‘My Mary is a little sweetheart and as good as gold.’

Annabelle frowned as she took a packet of Players and a box of Swan Vesta matches from her bag. ‘Don’t you feel resentful of the fact that you have to care for her? After all, at your age you should be out dancing, going to the cinema and enjoying yourself.’

‘Not at all,’ Lucy said evenly. ‘Family is family at the end of the day and you do what you have to do.’

‘Well, rather you than me,’ Annabelle retorted, lighting her cigarette. ‘I don’t think I shall ever want children.’

‘Really?’ Dotty gazed at her in amazement. Surely every girl dreamed of getting married and starting a family? Not that she thought there was much chance of that happening to her. She had never even had a boyfriend and doubted that she ever would. But now, sensing the tense atmosphere, she hastily changed the subject, telling them:
‘I’ve
been in the fabric department.’ Her eyes were shining and she looked really pleased. ‘Ooh, you should just see some of the material they have in there,’ she went on. ‘It’s really beautiful. They’ve got such a selection too. There’s raw silk in all the colours of the rainbow and satin as well as lace and the more everyday materials. It almost makes me wish I could sew, but I’ve never been very good with a needle. I prefer to write myself.’

‘What sort of things do you write?’ Lucy asked with kindly interest.

Dotty flushed. ‘Oh, just stories and poems really,’ she said self-consciously. ‘And I’m not that good at it . . . I just enjoy it.’

Again, Annabelle raised her eyebrows. It seemed that anything that didn’t involve going out and having a good time was of no interest to her.

‘I shall have to get you to show me some of your stories sometime,’ Lucy said. ‘I love to read when I get a spare minute. I often go to the library.’

‘Oh? What sort of books do you like?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘Anything I can get my hands on really, although I do love a good soppy love story and of course the classics – Jane Austen, Mrs Gaskell, Dickens – any of those. In fact, I’ve read
The Olde Curiosity Shop
three times. That’s one of my very favourites.’

‘Mine too,’ Dotty admitted, but their conversation was stopped from going any further when Annabelle butted in with, ‘Well, give me a trip to the cinema any time. I’m going to the Gaumont tonight as it so happens to see that new Clark Gable film with my friend Jessica. Don’t you think Clark Gable is just the
handsomest
man you’ve ever seen? Now find me a fellow with his looks and a fat wallet and I shall be happy.’

Both Lucy and Dotty giggled.

‘So will the man you marry have to be rich then?’ Dotty asked innocently.

‘Oh absolutely.’ Annabelle tossed her head. ‘You’ll never find
me
in some grotty back street surrounded by a herd of kids. I want to enjoy myself and see the world.’

‘In that case I wish you luck, but this perfect man might prove difficult to find with most of our chaps away fighting the war,’ Lucy said as she took a sip of her tea.

‘But the war can’t last forever, can it?’ Annabelle stubbed out her cigarette and rose from the table. ‘Right – I’ll see you both at lunchtime,’ she said. ‘Bye for now.’ And with that she stalked off to the ladies, her smartly clad rear wiggling provocatively.

Lucy chuckled. ‘She’s a bit of a one, isn’t she? But you know, I like her for all that and I hope she manages to meet her ideal man. I can’t see Annabelle settling for anything less. But come on, we’d better get a shufty on otherwise we’ll be late. See you later, Dotty.’ And with that she hurried off to the lift with Dotty close at her heels.