The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [40]
‘I’d better go in, I don’t like to leave Mother for too long.’
Diane had been so deeply involved with her own bleak thoughts that she hadn’t realised they had reached Ruthie’s house. They said goodbye, and Diane made her way slowly back to her billet, vowing to stop thinking about her broken heart. At least working helped to keep her most private thoughts and emotions at bay.
Myra had dressed as carefully for her afternoon out as though she had actually been meeting Nick rather than having no one’s company other than her own. Her white silk dress, with its scattering of rich scarlet poppies, might have been bought second-hand, but it still clung seductively to her curves, whilst her hat, with its matching trim, was tilted at exactly the right angle to draw attention to her mouth, painted with her precious red lipstick. She was perfectly well aware of the looks she was attracting as she walked towards Lyons’ Corner House, even if she was behaving as though she wasn’t. The café was very busy, filled with men in uniform and the women they were escorting. Half a dozen or so people were standing outside the door. They could have been queuing but Myra decided to take the view that they were simply thinking about whether or not to do so, dodging past them and going inside. A couple of nippies were busy resetting recently vacated tables. One of them, set up for four people, was in full view of the door, and Myra headed for it.
‘’Ere, you can’t sit there,’ the indignant nippy told Myra. ‘This here is a table for four.’
‘I’m going to be joined by some friends,’ Myra told her determinedly, sitting down. If Nick should decide to come in on the off chance that he might find her here – and she was saying ‘if, mind, and not that he would – then it made sense for her to be seated somewhere where he could see her.
‘I’ll have a pot of tea, please, and look sharp about it,’ she told the nippy.
The girl glowered at her, obviously not believing her claim to be waiting for friends, but unable to challenge her over it. The two couples who she had walked past were also now inside the café and looking crossly at her, but Myra didn’t care. She opened her handbag and removed the copy of Picture Post she had brought with her. Then she carefully crossed her legs and posed herself so that she was on view to anyone coming in through the door, before pretending to be engrossed in reading it.
‘I thought you said you was meeting friends, only we’ve got people waiting for these tables.’
Myra lifted her gaze from her Picture Post and blew out a cloud of smoke, narrowing her eyes as she looked at the nippy.
‘My, you’re sharp, aren’t you?’ she told her. ‘You’d better be careful you don’t cut yourself. My friends have obviously been delayed. You’d better bring me another pot of tea.’
From behind her magazine, Myra watched as the girl made her way determinedly towards a supervisor, saying something to her that made her look over in Myra’s direction. She didn’t care what they said, she wasn’t going to move.
‘Waiting for anyone special?’
Myra nearly dropped her cigarette.
Nick. How had he managed to creep up on her without her seeing him?
‘Not really,’ she managed to answer. ‘I just came in for a cup of tea. What about you? What brings you here?’ she asked, striving to appear only casually interested.
‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ he told her softly, pulling out one of the chairs and dropping into it, leaning towards her, his long legs stretched out in front of him. ‘I’ve been thinking about you. You have a hell of a way of keeping a guy from his sleep at night, making him think thoughts he shouldn