Home for Christmas by Annie Groves Page A

you?’
    Dulcie had never told anyone at work that she came from the East End. Some of the girls were so snooty they’d have refused to have anything to do with her or, worse, made fun of her, and now she was glad that it was here in Olive’s house that Lizzie had come to see her.
    ‘Everyone was really shocked when they heard what happened.’
    ‘Everyone?’ Dulcie raised an eyebrow. ‘What, you mean including Arlene?’
    ‘She’s leaving. She said so this morning. She said that her parents don’t think it’s safe for her to come in to London to work any more and they certainly don’t approve of her having to do fire duty up on the roof, like Mr Selfridge had us all trained to do, before he stepped down and retired.’
    ‘That’s typical of Arlene, running home to her mum and dad. Not that I’m going to miss her. Got right up my nose, she did, always making out she was something special.’
    ‘She’s not the only one who’s left.’ Lizzie stopped speaking when Olive opened the door and came in with cups of tea on a tray for them both.
    ‘I’m just off out now to the WVS, I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ she told Dulcie.
    ‘None of us know if we’re even going to get back at all these days,’ Dulcie pointed out truthfully, which made Lizzie shiver slightly.
    ‘I wish you hadn’t said that,’ she complained, as the door closed behind Olive. ‘It’s made me start worrying about my Ralph all over again. I still can’t believe I’m actually going to be marrying him in three weeks’ time.’
    A dreamy look came over her face and Dulcie eyed her with irritation. Lizzie was supposed to be here asking after her, not mooning over her fiancé and their wedding.
    ‘Of course, I’ll be staying at home with my parents, with him being in the army, but like he says, it will be company for me. Oh, I nearly forgot! Arlene said this morning that she’d heard that Lydia’s husband, who joined the RAF, has been shot down and is in hospital, badly injured. I know you never liked Lydia, Dulcie, but you can’t help feeling sorry for her.’
    Dulcie, who had just picked up her teacup, put it down again abruptly, keeping her face averted from Lizzie as she told her in a sharp voice, ‘If I were to feel sorry for anyone it would be for him, for being married to her.’
    ‘That’s typical of you, Dulcie, it really is, making a remark like that. Of course you always did have a bit of a soft spot for him, I seem to remember,’ Lizzie scolded her good-naturedly.
    ‘Well, you remember wrong,’ Dulcie snapped rudely.
    ‘You wanted him to take you out dancing,’ Lizzie reminded her, holding her ground.
    ‘Only because of her – Miss Smarty Pants – and the way she carried on like we were all beneath her and she was something special, that was all. It had nothing to do with him,’ Dulcie retaliated swiftly.
    David – shot down and badly injured. David, with his thick well-groomed head of hair, his knowing and amused hazel eyes. Somehow it didn’t seem possible. That was the kind of thing that happened to ordinary men, not posh men with double-barrelled names and a title to look forward to, like handsome, charming David James-Thompson, whose sense of entitlement to be what he was through birth and upbringing had secretly been one of the things that had attracted Dulcie to him.
    Attracted her to him? He had meant nothing like that to her, she reminded herself. She had just flirted with him, that was all, and only then to annoy Lydia. After all, she had turned him down when he had offered her a bit of fun on the side, hadn’t she? Sent him packing straight off! David . . . Dulcie could see him now striding in through the doors of Selfridges and smiling at her , even though it had been Lydia he had been walking out with. Dulcie had known then from the look in his eye that he liked her. She could have taken him off Lydia good and proper if she had really wanted him.
    ‘What do you mean, badly injured. How