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flowered dress that left little to the imagination. The woman almost pounced on her.
    ‘Ah, here you are, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waitin’ for you an’ I have a big favour to ask. Could yer keep yer ear out for the kids for me? They’re all abed asleep, but I have to go out, see, an’ I’ve no one else to ask. I shouldn’t be gone that long – I promise.’
    A waft of cheap perfume made Dotty blink in surprise. She had never seen Mrs Cousins in her glad rags before. Dotty had been up since six that morning and had been looking forward to falling into bed. But seeing the look on the woman’s face, she felt herself melt.
    ‘All right then, you get off and I’ll keep my eye on them,’ she promised. ‘I’ll pop down every fifteen minutes or so to check that they’re all right.’
    For a moment she was afraid that the woman was going to burst into tears as her heavily mascaraed eyes welled up. She seemed to be a bag of nerves, but then pulling herself together with an enormous effort, she forced a smile.
    ‘You’re a good girl, Dotty,’ she said quietly, and then she was clattering away down the stairs in her high heels, making enough racket to waken the dead.
    Dotty shook her head in bewilderment. I wonder what all that was about? she wondered, then she hurried on inside her flat. Thankfully, the noise travelled up to her flat from Mrs Cousins’s rooms and if one of the children should wake and cry she had no doubt that she would hear them.
    For the rest of the evening she crept into the children’s bedrooms at regular intervals, but luckily each time she found them fast asleep. At eleven o’clock she went downstairs yet again, and she was just leaving when she almost collided with Mrs Cousins.
    ‘Oh – so you’re here then, Dotty.’ The woman looked acutely embarrassed and as Dotty made to pass her she saw the reason why. Mrs Cousins had a man with her and from the way he was looking at her he hadn’t come for tea and cake. As his eyes raked up and down Dotty she saw that he was in uniform and her stomach tightened. She knew how hard things had been for Mrs Cousins, but surely she hadn’t resorted to bringing men back to make ends meet?
    Mrs Cousins met her eye and she seemed to be silently imploring her not to judge her.
    ‘Right, I’ll be off now then,’ Dotty forced herself to say in as normal a voice as she could manage. ‘They’re all asleep, Mrs Cousins. Goodnight.’
    Once back out on the landing, she let out a deep breath as she pulled Mrs Cousins’s door firmly shut. And then when the initial shock had worn off, she felt sad. Perhaps this was the only way the poor woman could think of to put food on the table for her children. She certainly wouldn’t be the first to resort to walking the streets, and servicemen on leave were making whoopee with the local girls and women. They wanted to have a good time, and were prepared to pay for it. Dotty made her way back up the stairs with a heavy heart.
    When she got in from work the next evening, Mrs Cousins was waiting for her again but this time she was in her usual clothes with the baby in her arms. ‘Look, lass,’ she said in a choked voice, ‘I just wanted to say – please don’t think too badly of me. I had no money for food, see, an’ the kids were hungry, so—’
    ‘I don’t think badly of you,’ Dotty butted in, sensing the woman’s shame. ‘I know how much you love your children and what a rotten go you’ve had of it. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.’ And with that she patted the woman’s arm and shot away, thinking how unfair life could be.

Chapter Nineteen
     
    It was now well into June and the weather was so glorious that the girls had taken to leaving the department store during their lunch break to enjoy a little sunshine. They didn’t usually venture far and today was no exception as they strolled around the city centre, window shopping.
    Lucy was quiet as usual. She seemed to have lost all her sparkle since her mother’s death, and the other two had quickly discovered that even mentioning the poor woman was still strictly taboo.
    Dotty, on the other hand, was bubbling over with excitement. ‘I can’t wait to go to London again next week,’ she said. ‘Robert is going to take me to meet the editor who is interested in my novel. I can hardly believe this is happening to me – but then he hasn’t actually said that he’ll be publishing it,’ she had told them this