Aware that her name would be mud in certain quarters, Ruby just wished he would go. There was nothing these old wives liked better than to get their knife into someone, and the gossip this incident would generate would go on and on until some other poor mug came into the firing line.

She smiled back, a tight smile, and said, ‘Goodbye, Mr Forsythe,’ before turning and walking away. As she opened Mabel’s front door she was praying he would have the good sense to drive off without delay, and she closed it without looking round or waving.

Leaning against the wood she strained her ears for the sound of the car’s engine, and as Mabel appeared from her front room-cum-bedroom where she’d obviously been peering out behind her nets, Ruby said, ‘Has he gone?’

‘Aye, he’s gone, but who the heck is that? I thought you were going to one of your suffrage meetings. I’ve been worried to death for the last hour or so with it getting so late.’

Mabel sounded like her mother, but the landlady’s tone was anxious rather than disapproving and it softened Ruby’s voice as she said, ‘I’m twenty years old, Mabel, not two, besides which it’s only half-past six and broad daylight outside.’

‘That’s as may be, but you never know these days. Things aren’t like they were before the war, sorry to say.’ This was one of Mabel’s favourite sayings, covering everything from the milkman arriving late and the disgraceful – in her opinion – rise in hemlines, to the state of the country under the new Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. On taking office in January he had stated that there could not be a social revolution overnight, thereby alienating Mabel for good who had expected immediate benefits for the working class. ‘So?’ She eyed Ruby with a look that said she meant business. ‘Who’s the gent?’ Then she added, ‘Come into the kitchen and have a cuppa.’

Resigning herself to the inevitable, Ruby followed her landlady without protest and over a cup of tea filled Mabel in on the afternoon’s events. Mabel listened without interrupting, but as Ruby finished speaking, shook her head. ‘Them lot out there will never believe he’s not your fancy man. You know that, don’t you? Why on earth didn’t you let him drop you off a couple of streets away so no one was any the wiser?’

In truth, Ruby hadn’t thought of it, but her voice indignant, she said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong so why should I?’

‘All right, all right, don’t have a go at me. I’m only looking out for your best interests, lass. Mud sticks, that’s all I’m saying, and you know what they’re like round here.’

Same as they were everywhere. ‘He only brought me home.’