LITMIR.BIZ

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that ever happened to me, I don’t mind telling you, and even better he says the same about me. I just adore him, however foolhardily brave he might be. Wouldn’t have him any other way.’

      Kitty nodded, pleased for her friend. ‘And no news about—’

      ‘No, none,’ Laura said hurriedly. She didn’t have to check what Kitty meant; there was one person they both knew was never far from Laura’s mind. Her cheerful attitude masked a deep-seated sorrow for her lost brother, a pilot missing in action since before they had started their training. No confirmation had ever come about what his fate had been, and so there was no way of knowing if he was alive or, more likely, dead. So Laura kept going, trying to remain positive, but with a little bit of hope dying away every day.

      ‘No, nothing. Of course I’d tell you if there were. And who knows what might happen if we invade France? I might at least find out, one way or the other. But for now it’s limbo as usual. Come on,’ she tugged on Kitty’s arm, ‘I’m perishing. I’ve put on my most glamorous new coat for you, I hope you recognise, and it turns out to let the breeze right through it, so if I don’t have a hot drink soon I might well expire, and you wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?’

      ‘Definitely not, Peter would kill me,’ said Kitty, allowing Laura to lead her towards Piccadilly and the promise of tea and crumpets.

      ‘So will you look after Georgie on Saturday evening, Mam?’ asked Nancy, quickly checking her reflection in the mirror over Dolly’s fireplace. She carefully smoothed her victory roll, making sure every hair was in place. She had red hair like her sister Rita, but Nancy’s was more Titian in tone, and she always styled it, whereas Rita usually made do with anything that was tidy enough to fit under her nursing sister’s cap. Nancy nodded quickly in satisfaction. She’d been told she had a look of Rita Hayworth about her, and thought there might be some truth in it.

      Dolly looked up from the comfy armchair, where she was knitting something in mustard yellow with wool unravelled from Violet’s old cardigan, which had finally given up the ghost. ‘Saturday evening? Are you off out, young lady? Don’t forget your poor husband, stuck in a Jerry prison.’

      ‘Of course I never forget Sid,’ snapped Nancy, annoyed, ‘but it doesn’t mean I have to spend every hour God sends with his miserable mother in her horrible house. Honestly, Mam, she keeps it so cold it’s a wonder I haven’t turned blue. It’s making Georgie ill, I swear it. He’s got a bad chest again, poor little soul.’ Sid Kerrigan had been a prisoner of war since Dunkirk and had never even seen his little boy. Now and again Nancy felt guilty about that, but usually she was too preoccupied by the idea of her youth disappearing fast and having nobody to go dancing with. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if I’m off gadding about. My WVS group has joined forces with the WI to put on a dance for the visiting servicemen and they need volunteers. Of course I said I’d help out when they asked. They rely on me for that sort of thing.’

      Dolly sighed. She’d tried for ages to get Nancy involved with the local branch of the Women’s Voluntary Services, of which she was a mainstay. Then Nancy had outmanoeuvred her by announcing she was indeed joining the WVS, but the branch in the city centre. Nancy assured her mother it was because they were most in need of help – and as it was just after the dreadful days of the Liverpool Blitz, this was true – but it also had the advantage of being away from her mother’s eagle eye, and mixing with the influx of American servicemen, a trickle which grew to a flood after Pearl Harbor. Nancy was fooling nobody – and the fact that she was never without a new pair of nylons spoke volumes. Dolly had a pretty shrewd idea what Nancy got up to in order to get them, but she had no proof. She wasn’t going to stand for her middle daughter letting the family down, and had warned her often enough. Now she had another reason to object.

      ‘That’s all very well, Nancy, but I said I’d have little Ellen that evening,’ Dolly told her. ‘Rita’s worn out with her, and I promised to give her a few hours when she can grab some unbroken sleep. And no, before you ask, Sarah’s working, Ruby’s apparently going out with a friend and Violet is keeping the shop open late. I can’t risk having Georgie if he’s got a bad chest; he might pass it on to Ellen and she’s far too tiny to cope with that.’

      Nancy all but stamped her foot in frustration. ‘But, Mam—’

      ‘Don’t you give me any of your soft soap, my girl,’ said Dolly sternly. ‘I love Georgie to pieces, and well you know it, but there’s someone else smaller than him to consider now. You might as well get used to it. You’ve got his other grandmother who could help out, after all.’

      Nancy huffed in indignation. ‘I’d sooner let him play in the dock road. She’s useless, Mam, all she goes on about is how she’s suffering ’cos Sid’s a POW, as if she’s the only one who’s got anything to complain about. I wouldn’t trust her to notice when Georgie was hungry or if he needed anything. She’s not like you and Violet, you know.’ She turned on her dazzling smile, but it was wasted on Dolly.

      ‘Well, has she got him now?’ she demanded.

      ‘You have got to be joking!’ Nancy pouted. ‘No, she hasn’t.’

      ‘Where is he, then?’ Dolly wanted to know.

      ‘With Maggie Parker, as was. You know, Betty Parker’s big sister. Her house got bombed out and she’s moved back in with her family here and she’s got a kiddie just a bit younger than Georgie,’ Nancy explained. ‘I thought it would be nice for him to have a playmate the same age. Particularly if everything here is going to revolve around a new-born baby,’ she added crossly.

      ‘Nancy, you can’t be jealous of your own little niece,’ Dolly sighed in exasperation. ‘Betty Parker, now there’s a name from the past. She was Sarah’s best friend all the way through school, then she went and joined the Land Girls, didn’t she? They’re a nice family, so they are. Why don’t you ask them to mind Georgie on Saturday? It’s not as if you’ll be out late, is it?’ She gave her daughter a straight look.

      Nancy squirmed, but couldn’t exactly say what she’d had in mind for Saturday. It certainly didn’t involve coming home directly after the dance. Common sense told her to quit while the going was good, though. ‘That’s an idea, I’ll ask,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and do that right away – it’s time I was picking Georgie up anyway.’

      ‘That’s right, love, you do that.’ Dolly approved of the Parkers, and felt she could rest easy that Nancy couldn’t get up to anything now. She picked up her knitting again, Pop coming though the back door just as Nancy went out.

      Pop shrugged off the heavy donkey jacket that he wore for his salvage work, and turned to wash his hands at the kitchen sink. ‘Did I miss anything?’ he asked, coming through the narrow doorframe between the back kitchen and the kitchen proper. He bent to kiss Dolly on the cheek. ‘What did Nancy want? The usual?’

      Dolly laughed up at him. ‘Of course. She can’t have her own way this time, though.’ She recounted their conversation.

      Pop raised his eyebrows. ‘She’ll have to get used to the new way of doing things,’ he declared, running his hand through his shock of white hair. ‘We’ve helped her a lot and we’ll do so again, but she has to realise little Ellen needs us too. I don’t want our Rita took bad because she’s tried to do much too soon. You know what she’s like.’

      ‘You’re right, she’ll be angling to get back to work any day now,’ said Dolly, untangling a length of wool that had tied itself in a knot. ‘She’s not to rush it. We’ll have to keep an eye on her, see that she takes her time.’

      ‘She never thinks of herself, that one,’ Pop said. ‘What’s that you’re making there, Dolly? That looks familiar.’

      ‘So it should.’ Dolly held her work at arm’s length and inspected it critically. ‘It’s the wool from the cardigan Violet’s been wearing these past three years, which was more hole than cardie by the time I came to use it. I don’t know, it’s been washed so often it’s gone all scratchy and uneven. I reckoned I could make it into a bolero

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