Joanna Toye - Heartache for the Shop Girls

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2020

Copyright © Joanna Toye 2020

Cover © Gordon Crabbe/Alison Eldred (woman), CollaborationJS/Arcangel Images (front cover street scene), Everett Historical/ Shutterstock.com(back cover bombed street)

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Joanna Toye asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008298722

Ebook Edition May 2020 © ISBN: 9780008298739

Version: 2020-04-28

For Clara, with love from Shosho xxx

Contents

Cover

Title Page HEARTACHE FOR THE SHOP GIRLS Joanna Toye

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Author’s Note

Don’t miss the next book in the Shop Girls series

Have you read the first book in the Shop Girls series, A Store at War ? Read on for a taste …

About the Author

Also by Joanna Toye

About the Publisher

August 1942

The writing above the clock on the first floor of Marlow’s read ‘Tempus fugit ’ . That, Lily had learnt, meant ‘Time flies’. Well, if time was flying this morning, it was a bird with a broken wing, a Spitfire spluttering home with half its fuselage shot away, a bee drowsily drunk on pollen. It might be half-day closing, but with the sale over and many customers away, Wednesday mornings in August could seem longer than full days.

August was the strangest month, thought Lily as she spaced the hangers on the girls’ pinafores the regulation half-inch apart. It had a sleepy, droopy-eyelids feel, and it was still summer, but it often felt as if summer was over, with a blank white sky, shorter days, the leaves crisping and the shadows lengthening on the grass. And things happened in August – not always good things. The Great War had started in August, and so had this one, pretty much, with the wait for Hitler’s ‘undertaking’ that had never come.

She looked across to Furniture and Household, hoping to catch Jim’s eye, but he was with a customer. He was tipping a kitchen chair this way and that, demonstrating its sturdiness. He took his job very seriously. Jim took lots of things seriously – and plenty not so seriously. It was a combination that had first attracted her to him – but whether he was testing her or teasing her, Lily had accepted the challenge.

‘Miss Collins! Customer!’

Lily snapped to attention and smoothed down her dress as Mrs Mortimer approached. She was one of the first customers Lily had served after her promotion from junior to sales, and a kind, tweedy soul so it had been a gentle dunking, not a baptism of fire.

Mrs Mortimer would only be looking – or ‘doing a recce’ as she put it – on behalf of one of her busy daughters or daughters-in-law before she, or they, returned with the essential coupons to make the purchase. But it was all good practice.

Lily began as she’d been taught.

‘Good morning, Mrs Mortimer, how are you? How may I help you?’

On Toys next door, Lily’s friend Gladys was dusting Dobbin, the much-loved Play Corner rocking horse, and thinking much the same about the time. When you had nothing to do on your afternoon off, a long morning didn’t matter, but when there was something you were looking forward to, my, did it drag!

This afternoon there was a little party planned at Lily’s, a welcome home for their friend Beryl’s husband. Les Bulpitt had been invalided home from North Africa, to everyone’s relief and delight, especially Beryl’s, now a proud mother to baby Bobby. Les had been away for Bobby’s birth, so hadn’t seen his son as a newborn. Now he was home they could be a proper family.

Gladys sighed happily. Thoughts of contented married couples always led to thoughts of her fiancé, Bill, and how contented she would be when they were married, and especially when they started their family. A husband and children were all Gladys had ever wanted, and Bill was the answer to years of fervent prayers. Had it been wrong to pray for something like that, Gladys wondered now, when there were bigger things to pray for, like an end to starvation and cruelty and persecution? She probably ought to pray for forgiveness for having been so shallow and selfish, but she was too busy praying for a speedy end to the war and for Bill to be kept safe in the meantime.