Home Front Girls

turned and walked away then and she stood there and watched until he was swallowed up by the crowd.
    It had been a truly unforgettable day.

Chapter Fourteen
     
    As February 1940 drew to a close the worst storms of the century swept across the country and many areas ground to a halt as people found themselves snowed in and cut off from the world. The buses and trams in Coventry were having difficulty getting about, which gave Annabelle an excuse not to turn in to work, much to her mother’s annoyance.
    ‘Come on, Annabelle,’ Miranda urged one morning after entering her daughter’s bedroom and shaking her shoulder. ‘You still have time to get to work if you get a move on.’
    ‘I’m not going,’ Annabelle ground out, snuggling further down under the blankets.
    ‘But you’ll get the sack at this rate. You’ve missed two days already this week.’
    ‘So what? I hate the damn job,’ Annabelle snapped. ‘There are loads of staff can’t get in. They’ll understand. Hardly anyone is venturing out to shop anyway,’ she finished lamely.
    Miranda sighed as she straightened up. She knew better than to argue with Annabelle when she had made her mind up about something. The girl had seemed depressed and distracted for a couple of weeks, now that she came to think about it – ever since the day the letter from Lucy’s brother had arrived, as a matter of fact. Annabelle had told her nothing of what the letter had contained, apart from that Joel had been shipped out, and now she wondered if Annabelle had feelings for him? He certainly didn’t sound like the sort of young man her daughter usually favoured, though. She had never made a secret of the fact that she wanted a rich husband who could keep her in the manner she had become accustomed to, and Miranda really couldn’t see Joel being rich.
    Sighing, she went downstairs to the kitchen where she filled the kettle and put it on to boil as she stared through the window at a mountain of snow.
    Upstairs, Annabelle took Joel’s letter from beneath her pillow and read it through again even though she now knew it off by heart.
    Dear Belle , he had written, and the abbreviation of her name made her smile. Hardly anyone had ever shortened her name before and she quite liked it when he did it. I thought I would just drop you a line as promised. I hope you are keeping well and not suffering too much with the bad weather. I am now in . . . The word had been censored and was unreadable but Annabelle had a funny feeling that he might be in France. The letter continued:
     
I hope you had a good Christmas. Mine was pretty grotty as you can imagine, being stuck here away from the family, but then I shouldn’t grumble as the rest of the chaps are all in the same boat. I’d like to think that we might get leave again soon but it doesn’t look likely for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, I’ve never been much of a one for letter-writing, and there’s not much more to tell, but I just didn’t want you to think I had forgotten you. I hope you are keeping your eye on Lucy and Mary for me.
     
Kind regards,
     
Joel
     
    Annabelle folded the letter and slid it back beneath her pillow. It was quite a formal letter really; he had even signed it kind regards , but she was still pleased to think he had remembered her. Sighing, she burrowed back beneath the blankets.
    As Miranda read the newspaper in the kitchen she shivered, and not only from the chill air. It was bad news, and now with the bad weather to contend with as well, her spirits were at an all-time low. Annabelle’s tantrums didn’t help, not that she wasn’t well used to them. She had been forced to admit that she and Richard had spoiled Annabelle shamelessly, and now that he was away at war it was she who was paying the price. She rose and spooned some tea leaves sparingly into the teapot, aware that the meagre ration she had left was supposed to last them for the rest of the week. Perhaps if she took a cup up to Annabelle it might coax her daughter out of bed and put her in a better mood? She could but try.
     
    Lucy and Dotty meantime had just met up outside Owen Owen and were heading for the staff cloak room.
    ‘No sign of Annabelle again then?’ Lucy commented as she glanced around. The place was nowhere near as busy as it usually was in the morning. Almost half of the staff hadn’t managed to make it in.
    ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Dotty replied. ‘I bet there were no buses running again.’
    ‘Hmm,