ever since I got the children back. She used to run this place like clockwork, but now she doesn’t seem to bother about anything – not the orders, or the cashing up, or filling the shelves. I have to try to keep on top of that as well as everything else.’ Her expression gave away just how tiring she was finding it.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, I hadn’t quite realised,’ Violet said. ‘You can’t do everything, you know. Maybe I could help? I’m not very organised but I can talk to the customers all right.’
Rita smiled in gratitude. ‘I know you could; you’d charm them and they’d love it. But you’re so busy already, what with helping with little George and the WVS, and aren’t you helping Mam with the new victory garden too? You’ve got your hands full.’
Violet shrugged. ‘That’s as may be, but you think about it. If I can be of any use I will – as long as you don’t expect me to do any sums. I never was any good at maths, just you ask my Eddy.’
‘Oh, I will, next time we see him.’ Rita cheered up at the mention of her brother, who everyone thought of as the quiet one in the family, but who had a wicked sense of humour. ‘Don’t let me keep you. Did you want anything?’
‘Some strong string,’ said Violet, reaching for her purse. ‘I’m going to mark out seed drills in the new plot. One of the old fellows from the Home Guard showed me how. We’ll all have fresh carrots and be able to see in the dark.’ She waved brightly and was on her way.
Rita grew solemn again as soon as she’d gone. Violet was a breath of fresh air, all right, but she’d feel bad asking her to help out any more than she already did. Besides, it was the sums that most needed attention. Rita had only just realised that the shop wasn’t making anything like the income it had before Christmas, and she had no idea what to do about it. They needed the money – now Charlie had given up any pretence of providing for them. But there was no time to think about it now. She checked her watch, knowing that she’d have to set off for the hospital any minute.
‘Winnie!’ she called through the inner door. ‘Are you ready to take over? I’ve got to get going.’
There was a shuffling and then Winnie slumped reluctantly along the corridor. ‘When are you going to give up that ridiculous nursing job?’ she demanded. ‘Your place is here, looking after the shop and me. Now you’ve driven Charles away, it’s the least you can do.’
Rita closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for strength. She would not rise to the vicious old woman’s bait. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said instead, picking up her bag and jacket and making her way through the meagre stock to the outside door. She wrinkled her nose. It was still morning – but was that sherry she’d smelt on her mother-in-law’s breath?
‘Blast!’ Laura sat back on her heels and groaned. ‘You must think I’m a waste of space, Kitty, but this is much harder work than I’d ever have imagined.’ She wrung the grey water out from her damp cloth over the galvanised bucket. The sleeves of her overall were dripping from where they’d come unrolled.
It seemed that all they’d done since arriving was to clean the building, scrubbing and polishing, even though it had evidently been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of its life already by the previous band of new recruits, and alternating this with gruelling rounds of PT. The girls had also been sent on errands around London, taking urgent papers between offices, dishing out tea at important meetings and generally making themselves useful. Kitty had found it a shock to the system. She’d been accustomed to lifting enormous heavy pans of stew around the NAAFI canteen, but running around on her feet all day, minding her p’s and q’s whilst learning the ropes had been exhausting, and it had been almost impossible to take it all in. To begin with it had been hard to adjust to sleeping in their dormitory – which they were told to call a cabin. Soon they would also embark on a series of classroom lectures to learn the rules and regulations of the service, along with the endless jargon everyone used.
Kitty couldn’t help laughing at her friend. ‘It’s easier once you’re used to it,’ she said warmly. ‘Believe me, I know. I’ve been scrubbing floors since I was eleven – that’s when Mam died and I had to take over. Or even before that, as she couldn’t bend down when she was expecting our Tommy.’ A cloud passed across her face at the memory. ‘Anyway, they won’t have us doing this for long. It’s just to make good use of our time until we’re allocated our new positions.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said the young woman who’d been assigned to clean the corridor with them. ‘This stuff is making my hands red raw. I wasn’t sure what to expect in our first week but it wasn’t this.’
Kitty regarded their new colleague with interest. She was slight, and had very pale skin and a smattering of freckles across her small upturned nose. While she was not conventionally pretty, she had striking looks and an air of determination and energy about her that somehow reminded Kitty of her old friend Rita back in Empire Street. ‘I bet they think that as long as they have a group of women together they might as well set us to clean up the place,’ she said, shaking the bristles of her scrubbing brush with vigour. ‘But I’m sure they’ll start training us to do something else once we’re all here and the place is shipshape. What did you do before?’
The girl raised an eyebrow. ‘I was a teacher.’
‘A teacher!’ Kitty gasped. ‘You don’t look old enough … sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but …’
‘I’m older than I look,’ said the girl. ‘Don’t worry, everyone says the same to me. I’m twenty-three. I trained for two years, and then all the kids got evacuated, and I thought, “Marjorie, my girl, you’d better find something else to do with yourself and do it sharpish.” So here I am.’ She shrugged.
Kitty couldn’t help staring. Nobody from Empire Street had ever been a teacher, much less any of the women. Hardly anyone stayed at school longer than they had to; they were all needed to go out and work, or help raise the families, or both. It was all she could do to stop her mouth gaping open. ‘Well, at least you’ll be all right with these lectures we’re going to have to go to. I can hardly remember the last time I sat at a desk – I’ll probably be useless. Don’t you miss your job?’ she managed to say after a moment.
Marjorie looked wistful. ‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. I had to fight tooth and nail to do my training. My family thought I was crazy, spending all that time studying for my Higher Cert and then going to college, when I’d only end up getting married and having to give up anyway.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, that’s not going to happen. I prefer teaching to going out with men and I’m not ashamed to say so. When this war ends I’ll be back in the classroom like a shot. But meanwhile I’ll do whatever’s needed here. It’s just a pity that happens to be scrubbing floors, or ferrying urgent messages backwards and forwards, never mind the endless PT lessons. I know we’ll have to be fit, but at the moment my muscles don’t know what’s hit them.’
‘Too true.’ Laura sloshed the water around in the bucket and went back to the task in hand. ‘You must have been really determined to get to college, Marjorie. I must say I envy you. I’d have loved to be allowed to study like my brother, but my folks wouldn’t hear of it. My father still thinks that women get ill if they have to think too hard. Doesn’t want me coming down with a fit of the vapours.’ She rubbed at the tiles. ‘There, that’s better. Do you think they’ve ever been so shiny?’ She sat back on her heels once more. ‘I probably shouldn’t
