Home Front Girls

things wouldn’t be so bad, after all. He looked nice enough.
    ‘Hello, my dear,’ he greeted her. ‘Mrs Broadstairs informed me that I would be having a temporary new assistant today, and I must say I was glad of the fact. We are seriously short-staffed at present with all our young men disappearing. But there we are, we shall just have to make the best of things, won’t we, and pray that the war will soon be over.’
    Lucy warmed to him immediately. He looked like everyone’s favourite grandad although he was very smartly turned out in a dark grey suit, a crisp white shirt and a pale blue tie. He was slightly shorter than her and plump, with wispy grey hair and startlingly blue eyes.
    ‘So come along then,’ he said pleasantly.’ I’ll show you where everything is so that you can get your bearings. Over on this side are the suits, and over there are the shirts and ties . . .’
    Seeing that Lucy was now safely in her colleague’s capable hands, Mrs Broadstairs turned back towards the lift, abruptly telling Annabelle, ‘Right, we’ll go and get you settled now. You will be working in the lingerie department for the rest of this week.’
    Mrs Broadstairs was experienced enough to know that Annabelle would be perfectly suited to this department. Women who shopped there were usually looking to be a little extravagant and they liked to be surrounded by young attractive women, so Annabelle would certainly fit the bill.
    Once in the lingerie department they were met by Miss Williams who, along with Miss Norton, had that particular department running like clockwork. Tall and slim, she looked to be in her late thirties and was known for being fairly strict with her staff. As she was keen on telling them, ‘There is a place for everything and everything has its place.’
    She was exactly as Annabelle had imagined a spinster to be – tall and thin with a nose so sharp it could have cut butter, and she was impeccably dressed in a smart two-piece costume that was, however, quite old-fashioned. Her hair, which was fair, was pulled back into a tight bun on the back of her head and large rimless spectacles were perched on the end of that knife of a nose.
    Despite the daunting floor manager, Annabelle was actually secretly pleased to be in this particular department.
    At least she had nice things to look at here. It would have been awful to have been stuck in household wares or somewhere boring like that.
    Her eyes flicked appreciatively over the display stands and came to rest on a young mousy-haired girl who was busily dusting the tops of the glass counters as if her very life depended on it. The girl offered her a nervous smile but Annabelle stuck her nose in the air and turned her attention back to what Miss Williams was saying, wondering how such a dowdy-looking girl had ever got to work in such a glamorous department. They really must be short of staff!
    And then a customer emerged from the lift, and forgetting all about Annabelle, Miss Williams almost pounced on the woman with a smile so wide that her plain face was quite transformed, trilling, ‘Hello, madam, how may we help you?’
    Crikey, she could be quite attractive if she’d take a bit of trouble with herself, Annabelle thought as she crossed to examine a pretty lace bra that had caught her eye. It was on a stand quite close to the counter that the mousy-haired girl was dusting and now she looked at Annabelle and said shyly, ‘Hello, I’m Dotty.’
    ‘Annabelle Smythe,’ Annabelle introduced herself imperiously and Dotty was completely bowled over by her. The girl was so beautiful that she might have been a model out of one of the magazines she was so fond of. In fact, Dotty wondered if perhaps she was a model come to model some of the lingerie.
    ‘Worked here for long, have you?’ Annabelle asked now. She was bored already.
    ‘Not very long,’ Dotty admitted. ‘But it’s quite nice here.’
    ‘Hmm, well I could certainly think of better ways of spending my time,’ Annabelle said petulantly. By now, Miss Williams had passed the customer over to a senior member of the sales staff and was bearing down on Annabelle again.
    ‘Right then, Miss Smythe. Let me show you around so that you are properly acquainted with where everything is when the time comes for you to serve the customers. Over here we keep the knickers, ranging from cotton to pure silk, and over there are the brassières. Later on I shall show you the correct way to measure a