CHAPTER FOUR

      Rita stared at herself in the mirror in the bedroom she used to share with Charlie and thought how much weight she’d lost. It was no wonder: rushed off her feet all day, walking to and from work as often as not, serving in the shop when she wasn’t on duty, and all on less food than she was accustomed to. By the dim light of the overhead bulb she could see her clothes were beginning to hang loosely on her, but she couldn’t exactly go out and buy a whole new wardrobe in a smaller size. She had once been proud of her curvy figure, and Jack had loved it … now there wouldn’t be much left for him to catch hold of. That was if he ever came back. And anyway, she wasn’t going to go down that route again; there was no future in it but heartbreak. So really it didn’t matter what shape she was, as long as she could keep body and soul together. Shivering, she knew it meant that she felt the cold more keenly. Still, it was March now and the weather would soon turn warmer.

      There was a gentle knock at the flimsy door. Rita started. It wouldn’t be Winnie, that was for sure. She would just barge in – or at least the old Winnie would have. Now she no longer bothered, which was a relief. ‘Come in,’ Rita called.

      Ruby stepped into the room, as cautiously as a mouse peeping out of its hole to see if the cat had gone. ‘Rita? Um … can I come in?’

      Rita wondered what this was about – Ruby usually kept herself to herself, and in fact she felt she knew the younger woman no better than when they’d first met, three months back. Even though they shared the same house, they barely saw one another, as Ruby kept to her attic room and Rita rarely had time to sit around downstairs. She sat down on the bed and patted the space beside her. ‘Come on in, Ruby. Make yourself comfortable.’

      Shyly the young woman stepped forward and then sat where she’d been asked to, all without looking directly at Rita. Even though she was nearly twenty-one, she acted like a child, a timid one at that. Rita didn’t know if it was because there was something wrong with her, or because of how she’d been treated all her life. Being raised by that hard-faced Elsie Lowe would have been no picnic.

      ‘What’s wrong, Ruby?’ Rita could tell something was bothering her, and her naturally warm heart went out to her. ‘Take your time.’

      Ruby jerked her head away and muttered something before she managed to say, ‘I’ve not done nothing wrong.’ She turned to face Rita and her huge blue eyes glittered with unshed tears. ‘Honest, I haven’t.’ She began to shake violently.

      ‘Ruby, of course you haven’t. Who said you did? Why are you saying this?’ Rita asked gently, wondering what could have frightened her. Everyone had been living with frayed nerves during the bombings, but those had tailed off recently. Was it the fear of the planes returning that had upset the young woman so much? ‘Don’t be scared, you can tell me.’

      Ruby took a deep breath. ‘The police came.’ She looked away again. ‘I haven’t done nothing, really I haven’t.’

      ‘Police?’ Rita’s hand flew to her heart, immediately wondering if anything had happened to her children. Then she reasoned that they would have come to the hospital to tell her if it had been that. ‘Did they say what it was about?’

      Ruby gave a big gulp. ‘I … don’t know. I heard them. They had loud voices. Mrs Kennedy shouted at them. They were very angry. I could tell but I didn’t go down. Then Mrs Kennedy went away with them.’

      Mrs Kennedy! Rita had to stop herself from exclaiming out loud. Winnie was this poor girl’s mother and yet she wouldn’t even allow her to call her by her first name, insisting on the full and more formal Mrs Kennedy. And surely she hadn’t just shut the shop in the middle of the day? Even though she was a shadow of her former self, she still had an eye for profit.

      ‘You don’t need to worry, Ruby,’ Rita said, thinking fast. ‘It will have nothing to do with you. Otherwise they would have asked to speak to you, wouldn’t they? You haven’t done anything bad. They will have wanted to speak to Winnie. Maybe one of the customers has caused trouble, something like that.’ But Rita didn’t believe that for one minute. If it wasn’t the children, then there was only one person who was likely to bring trouble to this place.

      ‘So they don’t want to take me away?’ Ruby gasped. ‘They aren’t going to put me in prison?’

      ‘Of course not. Why would they do that?’ Rita tried to keep her voice reassuring, but she wondered just what Winnie had been saying to the poor girl while she was out of the house. Winnie loved to have control over people and here was a sitting target for her malice, daughter or no daughter. There was no telling how deep her spite ran.

      Ruby’s face had just begun to brighten when the all-too-familiar air-raid siren began to wail. ‘Oh no, not again,’ Rita exclaimed without thinking. Then she said, ‘Don’t panic, Ruby, just go and get your bag – you do have it ready just in case, don’t you? – and then meet me downstairs. We’ll go to the shelter at the end of the road. I’ll see what we can take to eat, to keep our spirits up.’ Wearily she began to shrug into the coat she’d not long taken off. Eight thirty in the evening and she hadn’t had a proper meal all day.

      Down in the kitchen she put her hand to the kettle and found it was still hot, so she quickly set about making a flask of tea. She knew Winnie kept packets of biscuits where she thought nobody could find them, and hastily bent to put a couple into her bag. A shadow fell across her as she stood up.

      ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ Winnie spat.

      ‘Getting ready to go to the shelter,’ Rita said shortly. She didn’t intend to waste time or energy on her mother-in-law. ‘You’d better grab your things and come with us.’

      ‘Go to that shelter again? I’ll do no such thing,’ Winnie protested. ‘You get all sorts in there, all squashed in together – it’s not hygienic. You don’t know where they’ve been.’ She caught sight of Ruby hovering in the doorway. ‘My point exactly. I’m not going anywhere where I’ll be seen with her, for a start.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘I’ll be safe enough in the cellar.’

      ‘In that case I’ll take that pie for Ruby and me,’ said Rita, catching sight of a pastry crust under a dome of white netting. ‘We all know you’ve got enough to feed an army stocked away down there.’

      ‘That’s my pie …’ Winnie began to protest, but Rita was too quick for her.

      ‘That’s my supper. I only just got back from my shift and I opened up the shop first thing this morning, if you remember.’ Rita wrapped the pie in a clean tea towel and added it to her bag. She was about to head out of the door when she paused. ‘Winnie, what were the police doing here? Weren’t you going to tell me?’

      Winnie’s head snapped round. ‘Oh, someone’s been gossiping, have they?’

      Rita thought that was a bit rich, coming from the vicious-tongued old woman. ‘Just explain to me what happened.’

      ‘It’s you who’s to blame,’ Winnie hissed. ‘Going round saying things about my Charles that aren’t true. It’s all a