our little Dora, a nurse!’ Dora could smell the gin on June’s breath as she was trapped in her bony embrace. ‘Wait till I tell my Nick. He’s a porter up at the hospital, he’ll look after you.’
‘We know all about your Nick,’ Nanna Winnie muttered. ‘You stay away from him, Dora. There’s plenty of girls round here wish they’d done the same, the dirty little sod.’
‘Nanna!’ Dora hissed, as June moved over to hug Rose.
‘I speak as I find,’ Nanna said primly. She looked at June and shook her head. ‘Look at the state of her. I expect she’s just got up. Down the pub till all hours, I daresay.’
Dora blushed, but luckily June hadn’t heard Nanna. Drink made June Riley unpredictable, and she was as likely to go for Nanna Winnie with a poker as she was to laugh it off. They’d lived next door to the Rileys for the last ten years, ever since Dora’s father had died and they’d moved back in with Nanna Winnie. Poor June had turned to drink four years ago when her husband ran off, leaving her to bring up her two sons alone.
The Turnbulls and the Prossers came out of the house they shared on the other side, to see what all the noise was about, and Rose recounted their news over and over again. It gave Dora a warm glow to see the pride on her mother’s face; this was her moment of triumph as much as Dora’s own.
‘It’s good news, then? What did I tell you?’ Ruby stuck her head out of the upstairs window, alongside her mum Lettie’s. She and June greeted each other with the curtest of nods. The Pikes lived upstairs from the Rileys, but the two women rarely saw eye to eye. ‘What am I going to do without you, Dor? Gold’s Garments won’t be the same!’
‘You’ll have to find someone else to cover for you while you sneak outside for a fag!’ Dora called up to her.
‘I won’t have anyone to have a laugh with, that’s for sure. They’re a miserable lot there. And as for that cow Esther—’ Ruby rolled her eyes.
‘She’s all right,’ Dora said, thinking of the hamsa, still nestling under her blouse. She’d tried to return it, but Esther had insisted she keep it.
‘Only ’cos you’re her favourite.’
‘You’d be her favourite too, if you put a bit of effort into your work and didn’t give her so much cheek!’
‘I put enough effort into that place just by turning up, thank you very much. I’m not killing myself to line that old Jew’s pockets!’
‘I hope you don’t think you’ll have it easy?’ Lettie joined in. She worked as a ward maid at the Nightingale. Unlike her pretty, easy-going daughter, she was a thin-faced, sour little woman, always ready to look on the black side of life. ‘I’ve seen the way they treat them up at that hospital. They work them into the ground, and keep them locked up in that home like nuns. It’s do this, do that, all day long. And those young nurses are right stuck up, too. Very posh they are, don’t give the likes of us the time of day.’ She looked Dora up and down. ‘Don’t know as they’ll take to you.’
‘Gawd, Mum, do you have to be so bloody cheerful all the time?’ Ruby rolled her eyes at Dora.
‘I’m only telling the truth,’ Lettie said huffily.
‘Take no notice of her,’ Nanna Winnie muttered as Lettie and Ruby went back inside and closed the window. ‘She’s always been a bitter old cow. Just because her daughter’s a trollop.’
‘Nanna! That’s my best mate you’re talking about.’
‘That doesn’t stop her being a trollop, does it? Like I said, I speak as I find.’
‘They’re not really going to lock you up, are they, Dora?’ her sister Josie asked. She was fourteen, and the only one of her sisters not to inherit their father’s red curls and sturdy figure. Josie was dark, slender and pretty like their mother.
‘’Course they’re not, Jose. But I will have to live at the nurses’ home.’
‘How long for?’
‘Dunno. Forever, I s’pose.’
‘You mean, you won’t live here with us no more?’ Josie’s wide brown eyes filled with tears as she took in the news.
‘I’ll be able to come and visit,’ Dora said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you all, make sure you’re keeping up with your schoolwork and Bea’s behaving herself.’
‘That’ll be the day!’
‘Then you’ll just have to keep her in line, won’t you?’ Dora put