And preparing presents to give each other. “I went in to Miss Laburnum’s room just now to borrow her iron,” Eileen reported, “and caught her trying to cover up something on her writing table. I think she’s making us Christmas gifts.”

“Or she’s a German spy,” Polly said, “and you caught her writing messages in code.”

Eileen ignored that. “What if we’re still here on Christmas, and she gives us a gift and we haven’t one for her? We must get something for her and for Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming … oh dear, do you think Mrs. Rickett will expect a gift?”

“She won’t be here. I heard her tell Miss Hibbard she’s going to her sister’s in Surrey for the holidays.” Polly started to say she doubted any of them would expect gifts in light of all the government admonitions to have a “frugal Christmas” to assist the war effort, and then thought better of it. Planning gifts might keep Eileen from fretting about Mike. “What about Theodore?” she said instead.

“Oh, yes, I must definitely get Theodore and his mother something,” Eileen said, making a list. “I know we can’t spend much money because we’ve got to save for our train fares to the drop, but I should send a gift to Alf and Binnie as well. Speaking of which, do you think you could steal some Christmas paper at work to wrap them in?”

“Gladly, if it will make us run through our supply sooner,” Polly said. “You’d best do your shopping soon, or the shops will be sold out.”

Which was true. Townsend Brothers’ shelves were becoming barer and barer, and Polly spent half her time bringing out ancient, dusty stock from the storeroom to sell in place of the stockings and gloves she was out of—old-fashioned garters and bed jackets and Victorian nightgowns. Customers snapped them up.

Both Townsend Brothers and Oxford Street were jammed with shoppers, parents bringing children to see Father Christmas, and elderly women soliciting donations for the Air-Raid Distress Fund, the Minesweepers Fund, and the Evacuated Children’s Fund. In front of bombed-out John Lewis’s, Victory bonds were being sold from the back of a lorry. Banners went up on government buildings proclaiming Not a Merry Xmas but a Happy Xmas—Devoted to the Service of Our Country, and Christmas trees went up in the shelters. Mistletoe hung from the tunnel arches, the canteen was swathed in fir branches, and WVS volunteers handed out sweets and toys and tickets to pantomimes.

One of them gave two tickets for Rapunzel to a mortally offended Sir Godfrey, “because you like plays and things.” He promptly gave them to Polly. She gave them to Eileen to pass along to Theodore and his mother.

“But they’re for Sunday the twenty-ninth, and she works Sundays,” Eileen said. “And I can’t take Theodore because we won’t be here. What do you think I should do? Give them to someone else?”

No, Polly thought, because if Mike’s still not here by the twenty-ninth, you’ll definitely need something to keep your mind off things.