Home Front Girls

am.’
    ‘What do you mean, what you really are? You’re Annabelle Smythe, the same person you’ve always been.’
    ‘But I’m not though, am I?’ Annabelle stared down into her mug. ‘I’m the daughter of a common runaway girl.’
    ‘How do you know she was common?’ Dotty said indignantly. ‘Don’t you remember Mrs Cousins, my neighbour from Hillfields? She resorted to walking the streets, bless her, to put food on the table for her children. But she certainly wasn’t a bad person or common. Circumstances made her do what she did out of desperation. Perhaps it was the same for your mum? From what I could gather she was very young so perhaps she had no way of keeping you. She probably let you go because she wanted the best for you.’
    ‘Oh yes, how romantic,’ Annabelle said sarcastically.
    Dotty lowered her head then before saying cautiously, ‘I went to meet Miss Timms yesterday afternoon and she’s asked me again to move in with her, so I thought . . . Well, I’m very grateful for all you and your mother have done for me but I think it’s time to give you both a bit of space. You have a lot to come to terms with at present.’
    ‘If that’s what you want,’ Annabelle answered carelessly.
    Lucy and Dotty exchanged a worried glance, but they didn’t say anything. It was as if Annabelle had put up a brick wall and there was no getting through to her at the moment.
    That evening after work, Annabelle and Dotty travelled home together on the bus and Dotty told Miranda of her decision to move out.
    Miranda cried a little. She had grown very fond of Dotty and enjoyed having her around, but she didn’t argue with her. At the moment she was trying to spend as much time as she could with her daughter and Annabelle was her priority. Dotty packed her belongings quickly and efficiently. The whole of her worldly possessions amounted to no more than a small suitcase full of the clothes that Robert had bought for her, and her typewriter, which she packed carefully into its small hard case. She said her goodbyes to Miranda and within an hour was back on the bus on her way to stay with Miss Timms, who had written her address down for her. She lived on the main Kenilworth Road and when Dotty toted her cases off the bus she chewed her lip in agitation. The houses all looked very grand, even grander than Annabelle’s, and she felt out of place. They were all a very far cry from the orphanage she had been brought up in and her little flat in Hillfields, but she had no choice but to go on now. Perhaps she could just stay for a few days and then start to look for somewhere else of her own again the following weekend?
    She walked on a little further until eventually she came to the number Miss Timms had given her. She took a deep steadying breath before setting off up the path and tapping on the door. It was a lovely old timbered house painted in white with the timbers painted black and its leaded windows sparkled in the early evening sun. Just like Miss Timms it looked very spick and span.
    The woman answered the door almost immediately. So quickly in fact that Dotty wondered if she had been watching out for her.
    ‘Oh you’re here at last,’ Miss Timms said happily as she took Dotty’s case from her. ‘You are so welcome and I have your room all ready for you. I do hope you’ll like it. I’ve put you in the back one overlooking the garden. But first you must eat. I have a meal all ready for you.’
    Dotty was overwhelmed at the greeting. It was almost as if she was visiting royalty.
    ‘I er . . . hope you don’t mind,’ she said as Miss Timms hauled her into a spacious hallway where a highly polished parquet floor shone in the dull light, ‘but I rang Robert and gave him your phone number this afternoon. I didn’t want him worrying about where I was.’
    ‘Ah, that’s your boyfriend in London, isn’t it? Of course I don’t mind. Your friends are welcome to ring you or call whenever they wish. This is your home now.’
    ‘Well, just temporarily,’ Dotty answered quickly. ‘And I really appreciate this but I think I might start to look around for another flat at the weekend. I can’t keep putting on people forever. And Robert isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just friends,’ she added.
    ‘Oh, but you can’t think about leaving when you’ve only just arrived!’ Miss Timms exclaimed. She spread her hands then. ‘This place is far too big me for now that Mother is gone,’ she confided. ‘In