‘They asked me if I would run the cake stall at the summer fête,’ she blurted out. ‘I can’t believe it! Mrs Parsons said that I was the best cake maker in the village and I was an inspiration to the younger women.’Belle was doing the ironing, and although Mog’s triumph was hardly important when just a few days earlier they’d heard the sobering news that the Germans had broken through the Allied lines in France, it was a victory for Mog. Belle stood the flat iron on its end, and went over to hug Mog. ‘Quite right too,’ she said. ‘If anyone deserves something good to happen, it’s you.’Jimmy was sitting by the stove reading a newspaper and looked up with a smirk. ‘I’ve been telling people for years you are the best cake maker in London.’Mog glowed even more at that. ‘But how will I get the ingredients with it all on ration?’ she asked anxiously.‘They’ll expect you to make Garth pull some strings to get them,’ Jimmy said.Garth did keep in with black marketeers, and the odd pound of ham, butter or cheese came his way, but Belle felt the way Jimmy had phrased his remark implied that Mog had only been shown favour today because of her husband’s ability to get hold of anything.Jimmy had never been cynical before he went to war, but he was now.
