added another hour to her workload until she was full time again. George and Jake were nowhere to be seen. A neighbour did their mother’s shopping.
‘A bit busy,’ she excused Mrs Preston.
‘I think I’d like some fresh air, Mum. Can you manage for half an hour?’
‘I managed for eight when you was in the hospital, Daisy, but don’t you go tiring yourself.’
Assuring her mother that she would not strain herself, Daisy hurried out of the shop to a poorer part of the town where the Prestons lived.
George was leaning against the wall of the building, a pack of Capstan cigarettes ostentatiously visible in his hands. Slowly, so as to show her that he was not afraid – although Daisy saw the pack tremble a little – George eased his thin body off the rough brick wall and stared at her.
‘Your mum home?’
He said nothing but gestured with his lit cigarette to the door.
‘Gives you horrible breath for kissing,’ said Daisy, and walked past him.
Mrs Preston started with fear when she saw who was standing on her doorstep, but she moved aside to admit Daisy. ‘Are you going to tell the polis?’
‘I’m hoping George didn’t intend to put me in the hospital, Mrs Preston.’
George’s mother burst into loud sobs and between sobs she told Daisy a long, heart-breaking story of how she was trying to bring up the boys on very little money and little or no support from her husband, who was, she said, in and out of prison like a yoyo. ‘And when he’s ’ere he’s too ’ard on Georgie, brutal really. Lad’s never ’ad a chance.’
‘Mrs Preston, if that door had burned, the whole lockup, van and all, would have been destroyed. The van would probably have exploded and the houses on either side could have been damaged or destroyed. Have you explained that to him?’
More heart-broken sobbing. ‘He never listens to me.’
‘Then he’d better listen to me or I’m going straight from here to the police station.’
‘I’m sorry I hit you. What d’you want to say?’ George, the cigarette gone, had entered so quietly that neither had heard him.
Trying to remember that he was only fourteen years old, Daisy repeated everything that she had said to his mother. ‘My sister told the police she saw a boy run off but she was too concerned about me to be sure who it was. You have a really bad reputation, George, and the policeman I talked to wants to have you sent to Borstal. What do you think of that?’
‘Get three meals regular,’ he said with bravado.
His mother began to wail again. They shouted at each other for some time with neither actually paying any attention to what the other was saying.
‘Be quiet, both of you,’ said Daisy. ‘Maybe you would be better off in gaol, George, because the way you’re going, looks like you’ll get there anyway. If you don’t want that you have to get a Saturday job till you leave school.’
‘I tried. No one wants me.’
His reputation was known all over Dartford. Was there no chance for him or his younger brother?
‘Have you asked my dad?’
‘You’re crazy. I near set fire to his van.’
‘Keep out of trouble till I sort something out or I’ll be down the police station with a list of complaints. All right?’
He looked at her and she could not read his expression.
‘Are you willing to try?’
She decided to be content with his nod and hurried out of the dirty, damp little house. It was worse than Grace’s old home. At least Grace had tried to keep it reasonably clean and tidy.
Now to tackle her father.
Fred Petrie was not at all keen to hire a boy who was constantly in a great deal of trouble.
‘Plus I don’t need a lad, Daisy. What is he supposed to do?’
‘I’ll be called up soon, Dad. What then?’
‘Then I might think of taking on someone to help out, someone dependable who doesn’t half kill my daughter or set fire to my lockup.’
‘If you was to bring him in an hour or so after school, Dad, then I could help him a bit.’
Eventually, much against his wishes, Fred found himself agreeing to ‘try to keep that holy terror out of jail.’
‘But I’m not paying him, Daisy. He can have his tea here, him and Jake, and maybe I’ll pay their way into the pictures of a Saturday and we’ll see how it goes. And no cigarettes smoked anywhere near my shop.’
George grumbled, but with the threat of a stint in an approved school hanging over his head, he reluctantly agreed.
So, every afternoon the Preston boys made their way from school – on the days that George bothered to attend – to the Petrie shop and were set to work tidying shelves, unloading boxes and even cleaning the van until the shop closed. Then they were taken upstairs where they scrubbed their hands in the sink before sitting down at the table where Flora took delight in putting plates of hot, nourishing food before them. George said nothing, refused all offers of second helpings and sat quietly while his younger brother tucked into an extra plate of whatever was offered.
Daisy said nothing either, but she and her mother were delighted to see the boys fill out a little.
‘See, Fred, told you,’ teased Flora, forgetting that she had not wanted the boys in her immaculately clean home.
‘Leopards don’t change their spots,’ said Fred firmly.
Daisy watched quietly while she made plans and then at last her mind was made up. If she stayed at home any longer a letter would come telling her that she had been conscripted into a potato-peeling unit at some godforsaken army base somewhere or – possibly even worse – storekeeping. All of the service units she had read about were very keen on that, but Daisy Petrie had already spent more than enough time in a shop. Today, instead of eating her sandwiches behind the little curtain in the shop, she would cycle over to the Recruitment Office and attempt to make her case. She tried to feel positive. If only she had bought that stunning costume she had seen in the windows of Horrell and Goff in the High Street last week. It was so elegant, just exactly what a well-brought-up young WAAF would wear, and it was in her favourite colours. The white linen jacket was collarless and was link-buttoned, like the cuffs on Dad’s best shirt. Under it was a blue and white backless, sleeveless dress in the new diagonal stripes, finished with a collar and tie. So gorgeous. With it, the model in the window wore a dashing man-type little hat pulled down over one eye. It had to be the latest word in fashion. The hat was extra, of course, but she could just have managed to scrape together two pounds, two shillings for the costume.
At the thought of spending her entire holiday savings on clothes, Daisy went hot and cold, and regretfully put the flattering picture of herself in the beautiful outfit to the back of her mind. But oh, it would have
