Rita!’ Violet’s lanky frame appeared silhouetted against a rare burst of sunlight. ‘Hello, Mrs Delaney. Cold out, isn’t it? Brass monkeys, as my brothers would say.’ She threw her head back and gave her braying laugh – which took some getting used to – and her bright scarf slipped sideways on her poker-straight hair.
Vera shot her an infuriated glance. ‘Well, if you’d tell Winnie that I asked after her …’ She beat a hasty retreat. Violet beamed at her cheerfully.
‘Bye, Mrs D, sorry you couldn’t stop!’ she called as the door slammed shut. She turned back to Rita. ‘Horrible old bag, what did she want?’
Rita shook her head. ‘Her sugar ration. Or that’s what she said, anyway. Really she wanted to carp about Charlie and to find out when Winnie’s back in charge so she can get bits and bobs on the QT.’
‘Still no word from him then?’ asked Violet sympathetically. She had never met the man, but had heard all about him from the rest of the family. Nobody had a good word to say about him.
‘Not a dickie bird. He’s as good as vanished,’ Rita confirmed. She couldn’t bring herself to mention the shame of hearing about the visit from the police. ‘I can’t pretend I’m sorry, and the children never even ask about him. We’re better off without him. I just wish people wouldn’t tar me with the same brush.’
‘No, you mustn’t think like that,’ Violet said, immediately reassuring. ‘Everyone knows how hard you work. How are Michael and Megan? Have you heard from them recently?’
Rita’s expression changed at the thought of her beloved children. ‘Yes, they write all the time – well, Michael writes, and Megan mostly sends drawings. They love it down on the farm. Joan and Seth, that’s the couple who run the place, spoil them rotten. Now they’ve got Tommy as well, they’re made up. He’s big enough to help out with the animals. They’ll never want to come home.’ She shook her head. ‘I miss them of course. It’s like going around without one of my limbs. But knowing they’re safe and happy helps.’
‘Can’t you go and see them?’ Violet wanted to know. ‘You can’t be at that hospital every day, week in, week out.’
Rita bit her lip. ‘It’s just that bit too far to do on my own. You can’t rely on trains or buses and they’re rather out in the sticks. Also, I get called in for extra shifts all the time – you know what it’s like. Every time there’s a direct hit on the docks or anywhere around here I could be needed and I hate to say no.’
‘Of course,’ Violet nodded. But she could sense her friend wanted to say more.
Rita glanced behind her, as if to check the inner door was firmly closed. ‘Besides, I’m needed here,’ she said quietly. ‘Winnie’s not been herself ever since I got the children back. She used to run this place like clockwork, but now she doesn’t seem to bother about anything – not the orders, or the cashing up, or filling the shelves. I have to try to keep on top of that as well as everything else.’ Her expression gave away just how tiring she was finding it.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, I hadn’t quite realised,’ Violet said. ‘You can’t do everything, you know. Maybe I could help? I’m not very organised but I can talk to the customers all right.’
Rita smiled in gratitude. ‘I know you could; you’d charm them and they’d love it. But you’re so busy already, what with helping with little George and the WVS, and aren’t you helping Mam with the new victory garden too? You’ve got your hands full.’
Violet shrugged. ‘That’s as may be, but you think about it. If I can be of any use I will – as long as you don’t expect me to do any sums. I never was any good at maths, just you ask my Eddy.’
‘Oh, I will, next time we see him.’ Rita cheered up at the mention of her brother, who everyone thought of as the quiet one in the family, but who had a wicked sense of humour. ‘Don’t let me keep you. Did you want anything?’
‘Some strong string,’ said Violet, reaching for her purse. ‘I’m going to mark out seed drills in the new plot. One of the old fellows from the Home Guard showed me how. We’ll all have fresh carrots and be able to see in the dark.’ She waved brightly and was on her way.
Rita grew solemn again as soon as she’d gone. Violet was a breath of fresh air, all right, but she’d feel bad asking her to help out any more than she already did. Besides, it was the sums that most needed attention. Rita had only just realised that the shop wasn’t making anything like the income it had before Christmas, and she had no idea what to do about it. They needed the money – now Charlie had given up any pretence of providing for them. But there was no time to think about it now. She checked her watch, knowing that she’d have to set off for the hospital any minute.
‘Winnie!’ she called through the inner door. ‘Are you ready to take over? I’ve got to get going.’
There was a shuffling and then Winnie slumped reluctantly along the corridor. ‘When are you going to give up that ridiculous nursing job?’ she demanded. ‘Your place is here, looking after the shop and me. Now you’ve driven Charles away, it’s the least you can do.’
Rita closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for strength. She would not rise to the vicious old woman’s bait. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said instead, picking up her bag and jacket and making her way through the meagre stock to the outside door. She wrinkled her nose. It was still morning – but was that sherry she’d smelt on her mother-in-law’s breath?
‘Blast!’ Laura sat back on her heels and groaned. ‘You must think I’m a waste of space, Kitty, but this is much harder work than I’d ever have imagined.’ She wrung the grey water out from her damp cloth over the galvanised bucket. The sleeves of her overall were dripping from where they’d come unrolled.
It seemed that all they’d done since arriving was to clean the building, scrubbing and polishing, even though it had evidently been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of its life already by the previous band of new recruits, and alternating this with gruelling rounds of PT. The girls had also been sent on errands around London, taking urgent papers between offices, dishing out tea at important meetings and generally making themselves useful. Kitty had found it a shock to the system. She’d been accustomed to lifting enormous heavy pans of stew around the NAAFI canteen, but running around on her feet all day, minding her p’s and q’s whilst learning the ropes had been exhausting, and it had been almost impossible to take it all in. To begin with it had been hard to adjust to sleeping in their dormitory – which they were told to call a cabin. Soon they would also embark on a series of classroom lectures to learn the rules and regulations of the service, along with the endless jargon everyone used.
Kitty couldn’t help laughing at her friend. ‘It’s easier once you’re used to it,’ she said warmly. ‘Believe me, I know. I’ve been scrubbing floors since I was eleven – that’s when Mam died and I had to take over. Or even before that, as she couldn’t bend down when she was expecting our Tommy.’ A cloud passed across her face at the memory. ‘Anyway, they won’t have us doing this for long. It’s just to make good use of our time until we’re allocated our new positions.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said the young woman who’d been assigned to clean the corridor with them. ‘This stuff is making my hands red raw. I wasn’t sure what to expect in our first week but it wasn’t this.’
Kitty regarded their new colleague with interest. She was slight, and had very pale skin and a smattering of freckles across her small upturned nose. While she was not conventionally pretty, she had striking looks and an air of determination and energy about her that somehow reminded Kitty of her old friend Rita back in Empire Street. ‘I bet they think that as long as they have a group of women together they might as well set us to clean up the place,’ she said, shaking