‘No, I … my friend was inadvertently responsible for your injury.’

‘What, her? The old bottle-chucker?’ Ida turned. The bruise was like an inked-on moustache, vivid against the colourless bread-and-marge complexion, the sparse, pale eyelashes. ‘Sent you to say sorry, has she? Too scared to come herself?’

The Flea managed not to smile. ‘Quite the reverse, I had to persuade her to let me visit. I work in this area, you see.’

‘How did you find me, anyhow?’

‘A policeman called and told us you were worried you’d not be allowed to go in to work, so I went to the cloakroom at St Pancras and …’

Ida flushed. ‘That cow of a supervisor,’ she said. ‘You’d think I got the styes on purpose, you’d think I’d chosen them out of a catalogue. She said it was from the dirt, and I’m as clean as Christmas, I bet I wash more than her. So you going to tell the police I was lying then, and I’d already been sacked?’

‘Of course not.’

The girl gnawed at her lower lip, indignation fading. ‘I don’t even know why I said it.’

‘You were upset and shocked, I’d imagine. Did you try bathing your eyes with borax?’

‘Are you a nurse?’

‘A sanitary inspector and health visitor.’

‘Salt water, I tried. I boiled the water first.’

‘Yes, that’s sensible.’

‘But I’ve got another one coming already – look.’ She dragged down the skin of her cheek, and The Flea peered at the cream-tipped swelling on the lower lid.

‘My aunt says it’s the soot from the railway.’

‘That could be a factor. Perhaps it’s just as well you no longer work at the station.’

‘I suppose she told you about the row, too?’

‘What row? Oh – something to do with geography?’

‘All I said was, “Where are you travelling to, Madam?”

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Their Finest Hour and a Half

Lissa Evans

Longlisted for the Orange Prize

‘Beautifully written, minutely observed and researched, evocative and very funny’

GUARDIAN

It’s 1940. In a small advertising agency in Soho, Catrin Cole writes snappy lines for Vida Elastic and So-Bee-Fee gravy browning. But the nation’s in peril, all skills are transferable and there’s a place in the war effort for those who have a knack with words.

Catrin is conscripted into the world of propaganda films. After a short spell promoting the joy of swedes for the Ministry of Food, she finds herself writing dialogue for ‘Just an Ordinary Wednesday,’ a heart-warming but largely fabricated ‘true story’ about rescue and romance on the beaches of Dunkirk. And as bombs start to fall on London, she discovers that there’s just as much drama, comedy and passion behind the scenes as there is in front of the camera …

‘This is the truest and most enjoyable novel about homefront life I’ve read; it’s touching and hilarious’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘A triumph … A compulsively readable tragi-comedy to savour’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Gloriously observed … Evans’s recreated propaganda scripts are a total joy. Delicious’ THE TIMES