Women on the Home Front (15 page)

There was a mirror not very far away. She'd slipped off her overall before she'd come up here, because you weren't supposed to mingle with the customers. The tan woollen skirt she was wearing complemented perfectly the leather straps on the vanity case, just as its cream leather complemented perfectly her cream silk blouse. She'd had the skirt made up from a roll of fabric she'd spotted on a stall in Portobello Market, which the stall holder had told her with a nod and wink was French. More like fallen off a lorry, Dulcie suspected. The cream silk blouse had come from a second-hand shop in posh Kensington, which Dulcie had heard about by eavesdropping on a conversation between two of the other girls who worked in the perfume department.

Together with her brown leather shoes, she reckoned that she looked every bit as good as Gracie Fields. In fact, she thought she looked a good deal better, seeing as she was far prettier and much younger than the famous singer.

The mirror wasn't very far away, but as she turned towards it Dulcie suddenly heard a sharp female voice exclaiming, ‘David, call the manager. That girl is trying to steal that case. I recognise her from the perfume department. She's got no right to be up here.'

In the mirror Dulcie could see David James-Thompson standing behind her, a purse-lipped Lydia Whittingham at his side.

Angrily Dulcie turned round, but before she could defend herself David James-Thompson was saying calmly, ‘I'm sure, Miss . . . ?' He looked enquiringly at Dulcie, who obliged with a pointed dagger look at her rival, ‘It's Dulcie, Miss Dulcie Simmonds.'

‘I'm sure that Miss Simmonds has a perfectly good reason for being here, Lydia.'

‘That's right, I have,' Dulcie agreed.

Lydia Whittingham flashed her a venomous look of female dislike, insisting, ‘I doubt that. It was plain to me what she was up to. Another few minutes and she'd have been walking out of the department with that case. Not that she would have got very far. It's perfectly obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that she simply isn't the sort who could ever afford such an exclusive and expensive item. I'm going to call the manager, David. He can deal with her, and you can buy me that lizardskin handbag you promised me for my birthday.'

Never one to back down from a challenge Dulcie drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head, her confidence boosted by the appreciative look she could see David giving her behind Lydia Whittingham's back.

‘You can call the manager if you like, and if you don't mind making a fool of yourself when I tell him that I got sent up here officially to look in this here case to see how much makeup could be packed into it.'

‘You're lying,' Lydia proclaimed immediately.

‘No I'm not.'

‘So who sent you up here then – and be aware that I shall check.'

‘Mr Selfridge,' Dulcie told her with aplomb and without the slightest concern for the fact that she was lying. ‘And you can go and ask him yourself if you want. He said that the case was a gift for a young lady of his acquaintance.'

To one side of her, Dulcie could hear David James-Thompson's muffled laugh.

Lydia opened her mouth to challenge her and then closed it again, and Dulcie knew perfectly well why. It was an open secret to the staff that, despite his advancing years, Mr Selfridge was prone to passions that led to him indulging the current recipient of his feelings with expensive gifts from the store.

Delighted by Lydia's heightened furious colour and obvious inability to refute her lie, Dulcie carried the case back to where she had got it, placing it carefully on top of the pile.

‘Come along, David,' Lydia commanded her escort in a sharp voice, turning on her heel so that her back was towards both Dulcie and David.

Seizing her chance, Dulcie turned to him and told him nonchalantly, ‘If you was ever to feel like dancing, I go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais most Saturday evenings.'

The look he gave her in response was one of amused admiration. Miss Iron Knickers might think she'd got him well and truly hooked, Dulcie thought with some satisfaction, but she, Dulcie, certainly didn't think so.

‘David . . .'

‘Coming,' David answered as he turned to follow Lydia.

The little shop girl didn't hold back when it came to putting herself forward, and there had been a look in her eye that he had liked. David had a weakness for girls like Dulcie, no doubt because his paternal grandmother had been a Gaiety Girl before she had ‘snared', to use his own disapproving mother's word, his grandfather. His paternal grandfather's regrettable lapse of good taste was not something David's mother approved of. Her family was stoutly county and rigidly proper. His father might be a judge and his mother's family might have come over with William the Conqueror, but there was no money in the family, which was why his mother in particular was so keen to see him engaged to Lydia, whose father might be merely a director at Selfridges but whose mother came from a family of wealthy mill owners and was likely to inherit a very nice sum of money indeed when her own elderly father died.

The basket she had filled with the new season's root vegetables from Covent Garden was beginning to weigh heavily on her arm as Olive headed for Article Row, so when Sergeant Dawson came out of the police station just as she was passing it and offered, ‘Let me carry that for you,' she was rather grateful to hand the basket over to him.

‘I hadn't realised how heavy the veggies would be. I got a piece of scrag end of mutton yesterday and I thought I'd make a nice tasty mutton casserole with it for the girls, and thicken it up with some veggies.'

‘Sounds good.'

Tall, well set up, and just turned forty, his dark brown, slightly curly hair now covered by his helmet, Sergeant Dawson looked very smart in his police uniform. Despite everything he and his wife had been through with the illness and then the loss of their son, Sergeant Dawson always had a kind look in his hazel eyes and a friendly word for everyone.

Olive felt very sorry for both him and his wife. Nancy might complain that it was unneighbourly of Mrs Dawson to keep herself to herself in the way that she did, but Olive felt that that was the sergeant's wife's way of dealing with the sorrow of her loss, and that they shouldn't talk about her behind her back.

‘I must admit I'm partial to a good mutton casserole,' Sergeant Dawson confided to her. ‘My ma used to make it. Thickened it with barley, she did.'

‘I do the same,' Olive told him with a smile.

‘I miss Ma's casseroles, but Mrs Dawson – well, she doesn't see the sense of making a big bowl of casserole when there's just the two of us to eat it. Working out all right, is it, having your lodgers?'

‘Very well,' Olive answered. ‘My Tilly and Agnes – that's the little orphan girl – get on really well together, and if Sally – that's the nurse – has her way we'll be eating our own veggies next year as she's taken over the garden.'

‘The other one looks a bit of a flighty sort,' the sergeant opined.

‘Dulcie.' Olive sighed ruefully, appreciating the sergeant's understanding tone. ‘I dare say she doesn't mean any harm, but I do worry about the effect she might have on Tilly and Agnes. Tilly has already started hinting that she and Agnes are old enough now to go out dancing, but I'd rather see them going to dances at the church hall than the Hammersmith Palais, which is where Dulcie likes to go.'

‘It must be hard work for you, having the four of them to cook and clean for.'

They both paused to cross over the road and then Olive answered, ‘Not really. Tilly's very good, and Agnes of course is used to helping out with being at the orphanage. I have to tell her off sometimes for wanting to do too much. After all, she is paying me to have her lodging with us. To be honest I like having the house filled up a bit; makes it seem more like a home than there just being me and Tilly there. And they're no trouble really. Sally, with her being a nurse, keeps her room spotless, and even Dulcie is the tidy sort. Mind you, she is prone to taking more than her fair share of the hot water, especially on Saturday when she's getting dressed up to go out.' Olive sighed, remembering how envious Tilly had looked when she'd watched Dulcie setting off for her evening out. ‘I dare say that if I hadn't got the girls lodging with me I'd have been asked to take in a couple of refugees. Not that I'd have minded that, although Nancy next door to me is dead set against them.'

‘No, she's never liked foreigners, hasn't Nancy.'

They exchanged smiles.

‘Tilly's got Agnes going to St John Ambulance with her, so that should keep them out of too much mischief, although I have to admit that I do worry about them being out during the blackout. I've got them both little torches and warned them to keep away from the pavement edge. Sally says they've had several injured people come into the hospital since the blackout started, because of not being able to see where there're cars coming, with them having to have their lights covered. It's going to get worse as well at the end of this month when the clocks go back and we stop having British Summer Time.'

‘Had to attend a nasty accident myself last night, as it happens,' Sergeant Dawson told her. ‘A young lady had driven straight into a cyclist and killed him. She was beside herself, of course, and had to be taken to hospital for the shock.'

‘Oh, what a dreadful thing to happen, and there Mrs Morrison from Floris Street and I were both wishing that we could drive when the vicar's wife told us that we've been offered the use of a small van for the WVS, but as none of us can drive we'd have to pass up on it. There's quite a bit of competing between the WVS groups to be the best equipped and of course those groups that have drivers and transport are very much top of the heap.' Olive laughed. ‘Now, though, after what you've just said I'm rather glad that I can't drive.'

‘You mustn't say that. In fact, if this war gets as bad as some reckon it will, the Government will be wanting women to learn to drive.' Sergeant Dawson paused and then said hesitantly, ‘If you and Mrs Morrison were wanting to learn to drive, and since you're saying that you've been offered the use of a van, I could teach you, if you like?'

‘You can drive?'

A rueful smile curled his mouth, making him look younger and far more carefree. ‘Learned almost as a kid at the back end of the last war, and once you've learned it's something you never forget.'

‘Well, it's very generous of you to offer. Of course, Mrs Morrison's husband would have to agree.'

‘Of course, but the offer's there if you want it.' They had reached Article Row now but instead of handing her basket back to her when they arrived at number 1, the sergeant shook his head when Olive made to take it from him.

‘I'll walk you to your gate with it.'

‘I'll send you and Mrs Dawson a bowl of the casserole, as a thank you, seeing as you've carried the veggies home for me,' Olive told him with a smile of her own.

He was such a kind man, offering to teach her and Mrs Morrison to drive, Olive thought five minutes later as she went into her kitchen. Mrs Windle would be pleased if he did succeed in teaching them, Olive knew. She had been quite crestfallen at the thought of having to turn down the offer of the van.

From the kitchen window she could see Sally working in the garden and she went out to her.

‘I'm just going to put the kettle on and make a cuppa before I start on the veggies for the mutton stew. Would you like a cup?'

‘I'd love one,' Sally admitted. It hadn't felt particularly warm when she had initially come out into the garden but now, after lifting the turf from the plot she had marked out, she was feeling very warm – and very thirsty. ‘I'm ready for a break so I'll come back with you.'

The minute Olive opened the kitchen door, Sally could smell the wonderful aroma, sniffing appreciatively as she removed her Wellington boots and left them outside.

‘I put the stew in this morning to let it cook slowly,' Olive told her.

‘My mother used to make a delicious stew and she always swore by cooking it slowly all day.' A sad nostalgic smile tugged at Sally's mouth and to her own surprise she heard herself telling Olive, ‘I had some good news today. Matron is upgrading me to the position of staff nurse and she's recommended that I train to be a sister. I'm thrilled, of course, but I couldn't help wishing that my mother was still alive so that I could tell her.'

Lighting the gas beneath the kettle she had just filled, Olive turned to look at her. Sally, for all her maturity, wasn't really that much older than her own daughter and she knew how she would have felt in Sally's mother's shoes, so it seemed completely natural to her to go over to Sally and give her a firm hug, before telling her gently, ‘That's what your mother would have wanted to do, I know. I'm so sorry you've had such sadness to contend with, Sally.'

Olive's unexpected tenderness brought tears to Sally's eyes. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth of a caring maternal hug.

‘Your father is still alive, though, you said,' Olive began carefully, but immediately Sally shook her head.

‘I know what you're going to suggest but there's no going back. I couldn't. I couldn't stand in the kitchen that used to be my mother's and watch the person who was my best friend usurping my mother's role. They didn't even wait a decent length of time. I don't know how they could do what they've done, but I do know that I don't want anything to do with them any more.'

Poor Sally, Olive thought compassionately. The kettle had started to boil, the steam activating its shrill whistle. As she went to make the tea, tactfully Olive changed the subject.

‘I don't know what you think but I'm to have driving lessons. Sergeant Dawson has offered to teach me. Our WVS group have been offered the use of a van. It belongs to the Lords, from the drapers in Norfolk Street, or rather it belongs to their son, Gerry, but he's been called up. They don't need it because Mr Lord has his own van that he uses for the business and Mavis, Mrs Lord, flatly refuses to learn to drive so Mr Lord has offered it to the WVS.'