Nancy almost skipped down the street, despite the pain in her feet from wearing impractical sandals for a busy shift. She knew she should wear more sensible ones, and had told herself off time and time again, but she’d felt like dressing up this morning. The miracle had happened. Gary had managed to get a message to her. One of the GIs under him had been shipped home wounded, but had recovered enough to come back to the WVS canteen. He had been told to seek out ‘the lady who looks like Rita Hayworth’ and pass on the news that Staff Sergeant Trenton was alive and well, fighting fit but looking forward to coming back to Liverpool. That was all. He didn’t know any details, such as when that might be, and he’d been wounded so early on in the proceedings that he couldn’t really say where Gary was now. However Nancy didn’t care.

Gary had survived the first onslaught, which everyone was saying would be the most dangerous part, and had thought so highly of her that he’d arranged this way of telling her how he was. She knew the young GI couldn’t have been expected to say he sent his love or anything as sentimental as that. Still, he’d cared enough to take the trouble, and that had made her day. It was only yesterday that she’d heard. Since then she had been on cloud nine and had struggled to hide her joy from her inquisitive mother-in-law.

Then on top of it all she had all the brownie points from her family, sharing out the baby clothes like she had. It was no skin off her nose, and in fact it might even annoy her mother-in-law if she found out, except she wouldn’t be able to say anything without sounding extremely mean. It just got better and better. Nancy was fond of baby Ellen, and knew that she’d look even more adorable in the clothes; Rita simply didn’t have the time to go out and hunt down new ones. As for Violet, Nancy couldn’t begrudge her the loan of anything, seeing as she’d been so good with Georgie and had gone through the hell of losing Eddy. Nancy sometimes was taken aback when Georgie spontaneously asked for Violet before anyone else, including her, if anything went wrong, but she found it hard to resent her sister-in-law. She was too sunny-tempered to fall out with. On a day like today, Nancy felt she might not ever fall out with anyone ever again. Even the prospect of hand-washing her delicate blouse and treating it with Reckitt’s Blue didn’t quench her joy. Despite everything, life was good.