Rita had taken over at just after midday, placing little Ellen just behind the counter in a wooden drawer lined with plenty of cosy blankets. True to form, the baby had been sleeping peacefully when Violet left, taking a careful peep under her little bonnet. It was just the hours of the night that she didn’t like to slumber through.

Violet had run upstairs to her room, Eddy’s room as was, and got changed from her worn corduroy skirt with its frayed hem into her best frock. Even that was old now; she’d got it just before war broke out. The buttons had been replaced and Dolly had kindly altered it as food rationing had made everyone lose weight. Violet hadn’t had much to lose to start with, but at least the frock hung as flatteringly as possible on her lanky frame. She brushed her shoulder-length brown hair, as straight as if she’d ironed it, and took off her horn-rimmed glasses for a moment, but then put them on again as she couldn’t see herself in the mirror without them.

The face staring back at her could never be described as conventionally pretty, but she had a rosy complexion today, her cheeks flushed with anticipation. Normally she was sallow, but the thought of seeing her Eddy gave her an inner glow. It’ll have to do, my girl, she told herself. After all, this was the face that Eddy had fallen in love with. That had come as a bolt out of the blue. She’d known as soon as she clapped eyes on him that he was the one for her, but the fact he’d felt the same was like a miracle. She hadn’t been able to believe it. Yet here she was, several years later, married to him and waiting for him to come home.

Even Nancy had caught the excitement and lent her a rare bottle of nail polish, but Violet hadn’t wanted to use it until she’d finished in the shop in case she chipped the varnish when shifting boxes of stock. Now she realised her hands were trembling with nerves and she wouldn’t be able to paint it on properly. She would leave it. It didn’t matter in the wider scheme of things.

Now she drummed her unvarnished nails on the window frame, its once-white gloss turned cream with age and years of smoke from the parlour fireplace. What if something had happened to him at the last minute? You heard of these things. A person would be waiting at home for a loved one’s return and instead of the husband, or son, or brother, it would be the telegram boy at the door … No, she mustn’t even think it. He hadn’t said a specific time. Just that it would most likely be this afternoon.