Heartache for the Shop Girls by Joanna Toye

Author:Joanna Toye [Toye, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-04-23T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Dawn, thought Lily the next day when she opened her eyes on a blackness that wasn’t just the fault of the blackout, what dawn?

She turned her hot head on the hot pillow. She’d finally fallen into a shallow sleep, her waking dreams replaying the previous evening in all its horror and humiliation. Now it was morning – or soon would be. She reached out and switched on the light. To her amazement it was after seven o’clock. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be late!

Her eyes were still burning and she pressed them with the backs of her hands, cold because the room was cold. Her mum saying ‘talk to Jim’ was all very well, but she had to go to work. Jim had said he’d stay out of her way, and if he went back to Bidbury during the day, the chance would be lost. Her only hope was that her mum could keep him in Hinton – by force if necessary.

The thought of Jim lassoed with the washing line and lashed to a kitchen chair almost made her smile and gave her some resolve. Shivering as her feet touched the boards beyond the rag rug, she dressed and sped downstairs. She’d write her mum a note and shove it under her bedroom door.

But there was no need. On the table downstairs, a note in her mother’s writing was propped up against the cruet. Lily snatched it up.

Get to work and don’t worry. I’ll make sure Jim stays till you can see him. You two must sort yourselves out – I can’t do that for you. But I’ve had an idea that might help. Remember, ‘head down, chin up!’ Love, Mum. x

P.S. Gone to queue. A rumour of corned beef!

Lily read the note again. And again. An idea? What could that be?

At least it was Wednesday – half day – and on the way in, Lily worked out a way to put the famous family motto into practice. Miss Frobisher noted a face as pale as the collar and cuffs on Lily’s uniform dress but looked approving when Lily proposed swapping two of the four-arm rails for three-arm to show the thicker winter coats off to better advantage and offered to get up and dust the top of the glass-fronted cabinets where the cleaners’ feather dusters didn’t reach. Anything to keep busy – and keep Miss Frobisher’s all-seeing eyes off her.

If Lily had but known it Miss Frobisher had another victim in mind for her gimlet gaze that day. Gladys might not have seen Lily leave with Frank yesterday evening, but in the boardroom, early for the buyers’ meeting, Miss Frobisher had been standing by the window – and had not been impressed with what she saw happen below.

So by mid-morning, as Lily lugged rails and coats about, Eileen Frobisher had Frank Bryant in front of her – in fact almost knee-to-knee – in the cubby hole Mr Simmonds called his office. She allowed Frank to run through his

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