Women on the Home Front: Family Saga 4-Book Collection. Annie Groves
to put herself forward for one.
The manager had been totally taken in. Her pretty face and perfect skin would be a definite asset to his department. Dulcie had been whisked through the formalities of becoming an employee, but although she might have charmed and taken in the manager, the girls she worked with were not as easily won over. Middle-class girls in the main, and protective of their own status, they were quick to sense that Dulcie was not really one of them. It wasn’t just because they thought of her as lower class that they kept her at a distance, though. In Dulcie’s eyes the truth was that it was because she was by far and away the best-looking girl on the whole of the cosmetics floor. Not that their hostility bothered her. She had wangled things so that her counter, the ‘Movie Star’ range of makeup, was almost the first that people – men – saw when they walked onto the floor, which meant that she got plenty of customers. Traditionally, Selfridges had its perfume counters close to the main doors on Mr Selfridge’s instructions, so that customers coming in would receive a delicious waft of perfume. The idea was that this would tempt them to the counter to buy, as well as adding to the allure and exclusivity of the store itself.
It wasn’t just her pretty face that kept Dulcie’s sales up, though. She knew how to sell, and how to make ‘her’ customers want to come back to her. The reality may be that ‘Movie Star’ makeup was made in a factory not very far away at all from Smithfield Market, but its management, like Dulcie herself, were determined to ensure that their cosmetics reflected the glamour of Hollywood films and encouraged customers to think that by buying it they too could look like their favourite movie star – or, failing that, the pretty girl who had sold them their precious new lipstick. The manager was very pleased with his decision to take her on, and Dulcie was equally pleased with her own success. Even the senior buyer for the cosmetics floor, Miss Nellie Ellit, had made it her business to seek Dulcie out and give her the once-over. It was thanks to Miss Ellit that Selfridges was well stocked with lipsticks ahead of war potentially breaking out, with more orders soon to be delivered.
So much for her brother, Rick’s, teasing that the only job she was likely to get in Selfridges was scrubbing its floors.
Dulcie headed for the kitchen. Unlike some in the area, who only had a couple of rooms to house a whole family and so had to buy hot food from one of the many small shops in the area, Mary Simmonds had her own kitchen. Today the kitchen smelled of cooking fish, making Dulcie wrinkle up her nose. Now that she was working at Selfridges she had a good dinner there in the canteen, and so she wasn’t particularly hungry.
‘Rick called by Billingsgate on his way home and brought back with him a nice piece of hake,’ her mother told her.
‘I passed Jimmy on my way home. He said that him and Rick had got their papers,’ Dulcie informed her mother.
‘That’s right,’ Mary agreed. ‘I don’t know why they’re making them all do this training when there isn’t supposed to be going to be a war.’ She was frowning now.
Dulcie knew, from the photographs of her as a young girl, that her mother had once been pretty, but now she was thin, and her hair turning grey, and her frown was caused by her anxiety for Rick and what might happen to him if there was a war.
The Government had bombarded them all with that many leaflets and warnings about blacking out windows, getting fitted for gas masks, children being evacuated to the country, not to mention filling the streets with sandbags and the parks with trenches, and setting up Air Raid Precaution posts all over the place, but at the same time the Prime Minister had said that they weren’t going to go to war with Germany.
Germany was going to war with other countries, though, and now the same Prime Minister who had said there would not be a war was saying that if Germany went ahead and invaded Poland then Britain simply wouldn’t stand for it. Dulcie didn’t think she trusted Germany – or the Prime Minister.
‘Come on, Dulcie,’ her mother instructed sharply now. ‘Get that oilcloth on the table and get the table laid, will you? I’m in a bit of a rush tonight, what with Edith upstairs getting ready for her audition. It’s lucky that Rick’s around to go with her because your dad would never have let her go on her own.’
‘Not in my good frock, Mum. I’ll have to get changed first,’ Dulcie protested.
Although her mother sighed, she didn’t argue, but then, as Dulcie knew, her mother was a stickler for keeping her home and her family clean. She’d been in service before she’d met Dulcie’s father and married him, a country girl brought up to London by the family she worked for, and she had what she called ‘my standards’. Those standards meant that unlike many of their neighbours there were no bedbugs in their beds, even if that did mean standing the feet of the beds in jars of water, and Dulcie’s father regularly putting a coat of lime wash on the bedroom walls.
As she reached the top of the stairs, Dulcie saw Rick coming out of the bathroom, his chest bare and damp, his trouser braces hanging from his waist, and his face obviously freshly shaved, a towel slung over one shoulder.
‘It’s Edith who’s being auditioned,’ she mocked him, ‘not you, or are you hoping that one of the chorus girls might take a fancy to you?’
‘Can’t see why they shouldn’t take a shine to a good-looking chap like me,’ Rick grinned back, not in the least bit put out by his sister’s taunt. But then nothing and no one ever got under Rick’s skin, Dulcie was forced to admit.
Over six foot tall, broad-chested and strong-armed from the local lads’ boxing club he’d attended when he’d been at school, Rick, like Dulcie, had inherited their mother’s family’s good looks, although his hair was much darker than his sister’s. Easy-going, with a sense of humour, Rick liked taking the mickey out of his sisters, especially Dulcie, who had such a high opinion of herself.
‘Well, seeing as you’ve got your papers to go and do your training, and that means you getting a short back and sides, I don’t reckon much to your chances.’
Rick laughed and winked at her. ‘Much you know. Girls love a chap in uniform. Why don’t you come with me and Edith down to the Empire?’
‘What, and have to listen to her caterwauling and then banging on about her ruddy singing for the rest of the evening? No, thanks.’ Her mother and her brother could fuss round Edith as much as they liked, Dulcie wasn’t going to join in.
Turning on her heel, Dulcie pushed open the door to the bedroom she shared with her sister, and then froze, as she saw what Edith was wearing as she sat at their shared dressing table, brushing her hair.
‘What do you think you’re doing thieving my new blouse?’ she demanded furiously, dropping her handbag onto the bed and going over to her sister.
‘I’m not thieving it, I’m only borrowing it.’
‘On, no, you aren’t. You can take it off right this minute.’
As she spoke Dulcie reached out and grabbed hold of her sister, who immediately tried to push her off, yelling as she did so, ‘Mum, Mum, Dulcie’s being rotten to me.’
‘That’s my blouse and you aren’t wearing it.’ Dulcie had to raise her voice to make herself heard above her sister’s screams of protest as Dulcie tried to unfasten her blouse. ‘You’re always thieving my things, helping yourself to them, and then ruining them.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are. Now get my blouse off.’
‘Dulcie, I’ve got to borrow it. I’m going for my audition this evening and I haven’t got anything decent to wear. I’m not like you, working at Selfridges. Oww!’ Edith screamed as Dulcie grabbed her hair and gave it a furious tug.
‘What’s going on?’
Both of them turned to look at their mother, who was standing in the open doorway.
‘It’s her, she’s pinched my best blouse.’
‘It’s Dulcie, Mum, she’s being mean to me.’
‘Oh,