Home for Christmas by Annie Groves

I was. We’ve got a new boss in our department. He doesn’t like me and he’s moved me to a non-reserved job, just because his own son has joined up and he thinks everyone else should do the same.’
    Tilly didn’t know what to say. It was plain to her that Kit was very upset. His Adam’s apple wobbled when he spoke and his naturally pale face looked whiter than ever.
    ‘It might be better than you think,’ she tried to console him, biting her lip when he turned to her with a burning look in his eyes and demanded, ‘How?’ before walking away at a speed that told her that he didn’t want her to catch up with him.
    ‘Dulcie, you’ve got a visitor,’ Olive told her lodger. ‘A Lizzie Walters. She said she’s come from Selfridges to see how you are. I’ve put her in the front room. You go in and I’ll bring you each a cup of tea.’
    It was half-past two, just about an hour since the all clear had sounded after a daylight air raid, during which Olive, Dulcie and Sally had all had to take refuge in the garden shelter.
    ‘Another blinking raid, that’s all we need,’ Dulcie had huffed in complaint, before adding darkly, ‘Mind you, it is Friday the thirteenth.’
    ‘I didn’t have you down as superstitious, Dulcie,’ Sally laughed.
    ‘I’m not,’ Dulcie defended herself with her customary smartness, pointing out, ‘’Cos if I was I wouldn’t be living here at number thirteen would I?’
    Now they were back in the house, Sally had returned to bed, after the quick soup lunch. Olive was a firm believer in the efficacious effect of a warming bowl of soup, as comforting as it was nutritious. Her soup had been made from the last of the summer’s home-grown tomatoes. Dulcie had been reading Picture Post when she and Olive had heard the knock on the front door.
    Putting down the copy of Picture Post , Dulcie now stood up and leaned against the kitchen table to reach for her crutches.
    Olive had gone to Selfridges to tell Dulcie’s manager what had happened, and had come back with a message that Dulcie was to stay off work until she could walk properly, so that was exactly what Dulcie intended to do. She hadn’t really been expecting a visit from any of her work colleagues, even Lizzie, who worked on the counter closest to her own, Lizzie being on bath salts and the like, and Dulcie being on a much more glamorous makeup and scent counter.
    Small, homely-looking and now engaged to her long-term boyfriend, who was in the army, Lizzie was kind-hearted enough – not like Dulcie’s arch enemies at Selfridges, Arlene on one of the other makeup counters, and Lydia, the ultra-snooty daughter of one of the store’s directors. Not that they saw much of Lydia in the store since she had married her barrister and now RAF fiancé, David. Even so, Dulcie didn’t want Lizzie getting the impression that she was not suffering with her broken ankle, so she wasn’t at all pleased when the first thing Lizzie said to her when Dulcie hobbled into Olive’s front room was an envious, ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one?’
    ‘Lucky? With me ankle in plaster and being on crutches?’ Dulcie scoffed. ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘I certainly wouldn’t mind a bit of time off work right now, with all these bombs falling,’ Lizzie told her. ‘It took me nearly two hours to get into work this morning, the trains were running that slow, and there’s me worrying myself sick about the bombs.’
    ‘Never mind being off work,’ Dulcie retorted in typical fashion, ‘what about not getting my wages, and ruining my best shoes? I suppose Selfridges have sent you to spy on me, have they, to make sure that I’m not swinging the lead?’
    ‘Of course they haven’t, and if they had asked me to I wouldn’t,’ Lizzie responded indignantly. ‘I was worried about you. Mind you, it looks as though you’ve got yourself a really nice billet here.’
    ‘Of course it’s nice. You don’t think I’d stay anywhere that wasn’t, do