FOUR

      Angry, salty tears coursed down Dulcie’s cheeks making her mascara run and blurring her vision. She knew she couldn’t possibly get on a bus looking such a sight, and then a thunderclap broke the clouds and the pewter sky released great splashes of rain onto her ashen face, soaking her beautifully styled hair. At any other time she would have been mortified at being seen in such a chaotic state. But what did it matter now? How could her sister be so brazen, she thought as she hurried to the shelter of the bus stop to gather her thoughts and retreat from this deluge. How could Wilder be so callous?

      ‘Excuse me, ma’am, would you like to share my umbrella to cover your golden curls?’

      Dulcie only just stopped herself from telling the owner of the polite American accent where he could put his umbrella. She’d had enough of Americans and wasn’t in the habit of being picked up in the street.

      If he was really interested in her, he could catch her in a West-End dancehall every fourth weekend, when she had time off from the munitions factory and her golden curls were temporarily released from the turbaned headscarf they were forced to wear to protect their hair from being caught in the powerful machines.

      Lifting her eyes to tell him in no uncertain terms where he could go, Dulcie was amazed to see the most gorgeous silver-blue eyes she had seen for a long time. Quickly re-thinking the angry retort she gave a trembling half-smile and wondered if her mascara had run all the way down her cheeks.

      ‘Are you okay, ma’am? You look upset.’

      ‘Thank you for asking,’ Dulcie answered, noticing the wings on his immaculate uniform and realising he was an airman, and reminding herself that moments earlier she had sworn she would have no more to do with them. But nobody else knew of her self-imposed promise so her volte-face could not be held against her. Anyway, she thought, he didn’t seem like the loud, brash Wilder. This one seemed kind and, by the sound of his softly spoken enquiry, she couldn’t even begin to compare the two men and, Dulcie thought, giving him her most demure smile, she shouldn’t throw all the eggs out because one had gone off. Maybe she shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to give him the cold shoulder after all.

      He was being kind and thoughtful offering her the shelter of his umbrella in this torrential downpour as the bus stop was full, and a girl shouldn’t refuse herself a little male attention, especially when she had been so badly deceived by someone she thought she loved – even more so when she had been betrayed by her sister and her boyfriend, she thought, her heart now full of retaliation. A little harmless flirtation with a handsome man did wonders for a girl’s ego.

      ‘Can I get you anything? I see you’ve snapped your shoe.’ His striking eyes looked so caring and she realised she hadn’t been exactly hospitable to this young man who was a long way from home. She rummaged in her bag under the protection of his umbrella, as much to collect her thoughts as to retrieve the gold compact she had treated herself to when she left Selfridges to work in the higher-paid munitions factory.

      ‘I tripped on a broken pavement,’ Dulcie simpered. ‘I’ve just had a terrible shock.’

      ‘I am so sorry. Ma’am, is there anything I can do?’

      ‘How good of you, I think I just need to sit down for a while,’ Dulcie said as she popped the concealed button on the side of her compact. She gasped when she saw the black rivulets of mascara that had run down her once perfectly made-up face.

      ‘You look beautiful to me, ma’am,’ said the young airman. ‘In fact I don’t think I’ve seen a better-looking woman since I got over here a month ago.’

      ‘Flatterer.’ Dulcie could feel the delicious warmth only a really good compliment could bring, and wondered how he could say such a thing when she now had panda eyes, and long white tracks where her tears had smudged her pan-stick foundation. ‘I looked perfect until …’ She paused. She had only just met this man, she wasn’t going to pour her heart out on the street, and without any hint of self-consciousness or false modesty she dabbed at the dark track lines.

      The amused airman, standing so close, still holding the umbrella over her head, smiled as she expertly applied a slick of vermilion lipstick to her bee-stung lips. After pressing them together, revelling in his complete attention, Dulcie turned to the airman and pouted in the same way she used to do when she worked the busiest beauty counter in Selfridges. Without warning the airman took her actions as an open invitation, and he kissed her full on her ruby-red lips. When he let her go Dulcie gasped, completely taken aback.

      ‘How dare you!’ she exclaimed, secretly delighted.

      ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but you are so irresistible, I couldn’t help myself.’ He then went red to the tips of his ears and gave her a bashful smile. Dulcie knew she couldn’t be angry with him.

      ‘You had no right to steal a kiss from me like that,’ she smiled coquettishly. ‘You saucy devil … just you wait to be invited next time.’

      ‘I am so sorry, ma’am; I don’t know what came over me.’ Then they both laughed, and for a moment Dulcie forgot that her sister had just run off with her man.

      ‘Would you like to go for a drink?’ asked the airman. ‘You look like you could do with one.’

      ‘It’s that obvious,’ Dulcie said, remembering again. And then, perhaps as a gesture of retaliation for what Edith had done, she decided that two could play at that game. ‘I’d be delighted,’ she said as she took the arm he offered, helping her across the road to the little pub opposite the train station. Once inside, much to her embarrassment, he removed her shoe and then the offending strap leaving just a sling-back and the front peep toe.

      ‘It looks great,’ said Dulcie, ‘but what about the other – they are now odd.’

      ‘May I?’ he asked as he removed her other shoe and as Dulcie nodded her consent he took a penknife from his trouser pocket and sliced off the other ankle strap. ‘There,’ he said, satisfied with his wonderful handiwork. ‘They’re both the same again now.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Dulcie said, slipping the straps into her clutch bag. ‘I suppose Olive will soon find a use for these.’

      The airman laughed as he went to the bar and got them both a drink. A young Tommie sitting in the corner with his pals gave Dulcie a withering look as if to ask if Englishmen weren’t good enough for the likes of her.

      Dulcie turned her attention to the posters on the wall advertising Dobie’s Four Square cigarettes and the smily face