HEARTACHE FOR THE SHOP GIRLS
Joanna Toye
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
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 © HarperCollinsPublishers 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
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