Home Front Girls

She helped herself to a digestive biscuit from the plate between them.
    ‘They are nice,’ Joel agreed. ‘And I have the feeling you’re quite enjoying your job. But . . . well, it wouldn’t do to get too close to them. You know what I mean, don’t you?’
    Lucy bit her lip. ‘I’m very careful what I tell them,’ she assured him.
    He nodded with satisfaction. ‘Good. I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, but if they ever found out . . .’
    ‘They won’t! At least not from me. But let’s not discuss it on our last night together. All that is in the past now, and I try not to think too much about it.’
    Joel pursed his lips now and told her, ‘I went to see Mum today. I told Mrs P that I was going to do a bit of shopping and she looked after Mary for me. She doesn’t seem any better, does she? Do you still go every Sunday?’
    ‘As much as I can,’ Lucy told him in a small voice. ‘But I can only go if Mrs P is able to look after Mary. It upsets her too much if I take Mary along.’
    Her brother reached out to squeeze her hand, sensing that she was getting emotional. ‘And is my money coming through all right?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh yes,’ she assured him in a slightly wobbly voice. ‘Your wages arrive every other week but you really shouldn’t send so much. You must hardly keep anything for yourself, and now that I have a job I’m managing fine.’
    ‘It’s not as if I have anything to spend it on, is it?’ he said ruefully. ‘And I need to know that you and Mary have enough to get by on. But what’s going to happen after her birthday? She’ll be five soon.’
    ‘I know.’ Lucy’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I try not to think of it too much because I’ll have no choice but to let her be evacuated, and I don’t know how she’ll cope with it. She’s never been away from us before.’
    Joel too was worried sick at the thought of it. ‘I’m sure they’ll be kind to her, whoever takes her in,’ he said gently, and hoped with all his heart that that was true.
    And then they went on to talk about other things as the short time they had left together ticked away.

Chapter Nine
     
    Dotty met Lucy and Mary in the bus station on Saturday afternoon and they caught the bus together to Cheylesmore. Mary was looking very pretty in her Sunday best outfit, and anyone seeing her would have thought that she was just a normal little girl, until they looked into her eyes and saw the vacant expression there.
    ‘Oh Lucy, she looks just lovely,’ Dotty cooed as she bent to plant a kiss on Mary’s cheek. Then: ‘I wonder what Annabelle’s home will be like?’
    ‘Really posh, I should think,’ Lucy replied as she paid the conductor. ‘Which is why she’s probably invited us,’ she went on with a grin. ‘I think Annabelle likes to think of us as the paupers.’
    ‘I reckon you could be right,’ Dotty agreed, then giggled. ‘But she’s nice when you get to know her, isn’t she? Though I have to admit I wasn’t all that keen on her at first. She really hated her job to begin with, she said that it was beneath her, but between you and me I reckon she quite enjoys it now. At least she doesn’t grumble so much, and when I went through the perfume department the other day I saw her arranging her counter without being told. When I teased her about it, she said that she was only doing it so that she knew where everything was, but I didn’t believe her for a minute. I think she takes a pride in her own counter now.’
    Lucy nodded in agreement as she pointed out St Michael’s Cathedral to Mary from the window, not that the child took much notice of it, but Lucy never gave up trying to reach her – although deep down she knew that she never would.
    Eventually they arrived at their stop and the bus trundled to a halt. Lucy and Dotty ushered Mary off between them then Dotty took a scrap of paper from her pocket and peered at it. It was only three thirty in the afternoon but already the light was fading and it was bitterly cold, although thankfully they hadn’t had any more snow as yet.
    ‘Ah, that’s Leaf Lane over there – look,’ Dotty pointed. ‘And the house is called Primrose Lodge.’
    ‘Doesn’t it have a number?’ Lucy asked as they set off with Mary between them.
    Dotty scoffed. ‘No, none of them along here do, by the look of it. Numbers are common, didn’t you know? Crikey, they’re really posh, aren’t they?’
    They moved on, looking at the names on the gates of the