Gloria gave her a quizzical look. ‘Suppose so. He seems too good to be true, your Gary.’

‘Oh, he is.’ Nancy’s face lit up. ‘He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Gloria. Well, apart from Georgie,’ she added quickly. ‘He keeps telling me about his home and how lovely it is. I think he’s preparing the way.’

‘What for?’ asked Gloria.

Nancy shrugged. ‘Well, I think he’s going to ask me to go back there with him.’

Gloria shook her head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know. Like one of those GI brides.’

Gloria gave her friend a sharp look. ‘Hang on there, Nancy. Wait a minute. You can’t marry him. You’re married already – never mind that there’s Georgie to consider as well.’

Nancy shook her hair, which she was wearing loose today, clipped back with a glittery grip that Gary had given her. ‘I’m sure he’ll find a way somehow. That’s how much he cares for me, Glor. Anyway we don’t know if Sid is coming home or not, do we? All those years he’s been away, anything could happen.’

Gloria raised her eyebrows. It was true she didn’t have much time for Sid Kerrigan, the cheater and would-be Mr Big, but the man had served all these years as a POW, and after enduring Dunkirk too. He couldn’t be erased from Nancy’s life quite so conveniently. Also, her initial distrust on first meeting Gary was growing by the minute.

‘Nancy,’ she said steadily, ‘don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure he’s not married? Older man, good-looking, knows how to please women … doesn’t that give you pause for thought?’

‘God, Gloria, I thought you were my friend!’ Nancy exclaimed hotly. ‘What do you want to say a thing like that for? Of course he’s not married, he’d have said. He’s a good man, Gary is. That’s exactly the kind of remark Mam would make. Fine sort of friend you are.’

‘That’s why I’m saying it,’ Gloria told her. ‘I’m not judging you, Nancy. You know me better than that. I’m just asking the obvious question. He might still be a good man – people keep secrets, that’s all. You do.’

Nancy puffed angrily. ‘You’re only saying that because you’re jealous. You don’t have anyone like him.’ Then her hand flew to her mouth as she realised what she’d said.