Home Front Girls

sitting behind the desk, then turning to Dotty again she said, ‘I’ll just go and organise a cup of tea for us all. I’m sure you’ll be ready for one after your journey.’
    Dotty stepped into the room feeling like a lamb going to slaughter as the man rose and held his hand out. She noticed instantly that one of his arms was much shorter than the other and the hand on the end of it was shrivelled. But then her eyes travelled to his and she saw that they were blue and kindly.
    ‘Hello, Miss Kent, or may I call you Dorothy?’ he asked as they shook hands. ‘Laura and I have so been looking forward to meeting you. We were both very impressed with your story. Do sit down. I’m Robert, by the way.’
    He motioned towards a chair in front of his desk and Dotty perched uncomfortably on the edge of it, balancing her bag on her lap.
    ‘You can call me Dotty, if you like,’ she said in a voice that came out as no more than a squeak.
    ‘Dotty it is then.’ He shuffled some papers into a pile before asking, ‘Did you bring us any more of your stories to look at?’
    Dotty nodded as she fumbled in her bag, suddenly all fingers and thumbs. ‘Y-yes, I did.’ She placed them on the edge of the desk and he took one up and began to skim through it, giving her time to study him. He was quite a nicelooking man – not too tall, she had noticed when he had stood up to meet her, in fact only a few inches taller than herself. He had a thatch of thick dark brown hair that had a tendency to curl, and a small moustache.
    ‘This is very good too,’ he said presently as he laid the pages back on the desk. ‘But if we are to make your stories a regular item in our magazine, I’m afraid there are a few things I will have to ask you to do. Can you type?’
    ‘Yes, I had lessons at school,’ Dotty answered.
    ‘Then it might pay you to invest in a typewriter,’ he advised. ‘It’s so much easier to read typed manuscripts rather than handwritten ones. Not that there is anything wrong with your handwriting, of course,’ he rushed on with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Do you think you could do that?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ Dotty said eagerly. She had really enjoyed her typing lessons but up until now hadn’t felt the need to buy a typewriter of her own. And it needn’t be too expensive if she bought a good quality second-hand one. There were any number of them appearing in the second-hand shops and pawnshops back home as the rationing made everyone tighten their belts.
    ‘Good.’
    Laura Parsons appeared at that moment, balancing a tray containing cups of tea, and Robert told her, ‘I’ve just said to Dotty here – that’s what we are to call her – that a typewriter might be a good investment. Luckily she can already type.’
    ‘Excellent – and you must call me Laura,’ she told Dotty as she carefully slid the tray onto the desk. ‘I don’t mind telling you that we’re quite excited about your stories. Have you always enjoyed writing? And have you had any of your work published before?’
    ‘No, I haven’t,’ Dotty answered truthfully. ‘And yes, I’ve always loved writing. I was brought up in an orphanage, so writing gave me something to do.’ She saw a flicker of sadness flash in Robert’s eyes but assured him, ‘We were very well treated.’
    ‘That’s good then.’ He studied her more closely, making her blush and lower her eyes. She was an attractive little thing in a funny sort of way, he thought. Not pretty in the conventional sense, but there was an air of vulnerability about her that he found appealing.
    She, meanwhile, was trying to judge his age and put him at somewhere around thirty.
    ‘Do you have no family at all?’ Laura asked as she handed Dotty a cup of tea.
    Dotty shook her head. ‘Not that I know of, but I was very close to one of the workers at the orphanage. Still am, as it happens. She was like a substitute mother to me.’
    Laura felt sad. She couldn’t begin to imagine how lonely life must have been for this poor girl, having come from a large family herself. But then she pulled her thoughts back to business and began to explain to Dotty how they would want their stories set out in future and what length, what sort of stories they should be, et cetera.
    Soon Dotty’s head was spinning. There was so much to remember. She had always assumed you just wrote a story and that was it, but it was now apparent that there was a right way to do it.
    Eventually Robert said to her, ‘And now I