She was so excited, her heart beating so fast, she could hardly think what to say. Simon Collinge, asking her out! But she wasn’t allowed out: what would Mom say? Her mind was working very fast. All she could think of was that she must say yes, that seeing him again was the only thing that mattered, whatever else. She’d get round Mom somehow.

‘I’d like that,’ she said, thinking how weak that sounded compared to what she meant.

‘Tomorrow? Go on: say yes!’

‘All right – yes!’

‘Good, tomorrow it is.’ She saw that he had expected her to agree, assumed he would get what he wanted in life, and for a second she felt a niggle of resistance to him. But she wanted it too, so much! And he looked so delighted she had agreed that it took away any doubt. He leaned quickly towards her, and for a dizzy moment she thought he was going to kiss her cheek, but instead he released the door and pushed it open.

‘Well, good. Marvellous! I’ll see you in the morning. Goodbye, Katie. Have a good evening.’

‘Bye,’ she said, still recovering from the non-kiss. ‘Thanks for the lift.

‘My pleasure.’

When he’d driven away, his hand just visible waving, she stood outside the house, hugging herself, not noticing the cold. Simon, she muttered. He’d asked her out with him just like that! Simon, Simon. Tomorrow!

Thirteen

Does it show, she wondered the next morning as she walked into the office. Can anyone see that I’m – well, that I can’t stop thinking about him? That a smile keeps wanting to break out all over my face? She thought of her mother, of the way Vera had described falling in love with her father. Wasn’t this how it was supposed to be?

Vera had commented on her early arrival home the night before, and Katie had told her that she had been lucky with the bus. The first of the lies. How easily it slipped out. What else could she do with a mother who wanted to control every aspect of her life? She compounded the lie by saying that she had been asked to work late the next evening, that there was a rush on. Vera looked put out, but she couldn’t argue.

Simon Collinge was not there when she arrived, which was a relief and gave Katie time to compose herself. Mrs Crosby was the only one in the room, sitting behind her typewriter, with a compact open, putting her lipstick on, a hard pink that did not make her powder-dusted face look any more approachable.

‘Morning,’ Katie said. It seemed a good idea to try and keep Mrs Crosby as sweet as possible, though it was an uphill struggle.

The other typist snapped her compact shut and gave Katie a look of unveiled dislike. ‘Morning,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Miss.’

Catty bitch, Katie thought to herself. She sat at her own desk and was looking through her notebook in the cold winter light from the long windows when Mr Graham came billowing in.