‘He said he’d be here about half-past seven, and he isn’t my beau,’ Tilly told Dulcie firmly. Dulcie knew it was a bit mean of her to tease Tilly but she was on edge because, in the morning, she was going back to work after her time off. There had been many changes during her absence, she knew. Arlene, her old enemy, might have left but, according to Lizzie, who had faithfully visited Dulcie every week, when you added together the number of girls who had left because their parents considered London too dangerous for them to work there any more, and the number of girls who had decided to go into uniform of one sort or another, some of the sales jobs had had to be filled with much older women. Women who, Lizzie had already warned her, were inclined to be rather old-fashioned and stuffy. Then there was the fact that the store itself had been bomb-damaged during an air raid. ‘It isn’t the place it was,’ Lizzie had told her sadly, So because she was feeling nervous and didn’t really want to admit it, Dulcie was taking her anxiety out on Tilly by teasing her about her American.
