‘I need to go to the powder room,’ she said to Dilys, giving her a surreptitious wink to make her realize she was to come, too.

‘Get us another drink in, boys,’ Dilys said, giving Ernie what passed for an affectionate tap on the cheek. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘We’ve got to get out of here, they’re horrible,’ Molly said once they were in the Ladies. ‘It’s half past eleven anyway, so we’ve got to get back.’

‘I’m too drunk to run,’ Dilys said, slurring her words. ‘I hope we don’t get seen by Matron. She takes a dim view of girls drinking.’

‘Come on, then,’ Molly said, opening the door a crack to check the two men weren’t watching. She could just see Mike’s head. He appeared to be watching the girl singer. All they had to do was to skirt round the edge of the club, keeping behind other people till they got to the door.

They bent over to walk to the door, but the ridiculousness of that made them giggle like schoolgirls. After a while, they reached the door that led to the stairs up to the street.

Just as they got to street level Mike shouted from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Wait up, girls!’ he yelled. ‘We’ll take you home in a taxi.’

‘Run for it,’ Molly ordered. She took Dilys’s hand and they tottered along as fast as their high heels and drunkenness would allow.

It was only after they’d turned two corners and there was no sight of the men pursuing them that they slowed down.

‘I’ve got a stitch,’ Dilys said, bending over to get rid of it. ‘My God, we can pick men, can’t we? What a handsome pair they were!’

They laughed all the way back to the hostel. ‘At least it was a cheap night,’ Molly said, after they had got into their room, without being seen by Matron. ‘Apart from the drinks in the pub, we didn’t spend anything. But I think the girls on their own in that place are – you know.’

‘What?’ Dilys asked.

‘Well, street girls,’ Molly said, explaining that she’d seen girls come in alone and then a man would approach them.

‘So maybe next time we try out some dive we need some nice male company,’ Dilys giggled. ‘I wonder how much Mike and Ernie would have been prepared to pay us?’

‘They could offer me a thousand pounds and I’d turn it down,’ Molly said. ‘Did you see Mike’s teeth?’

‘I don’t think he’d be using his teeth,’ Dilys said. They were still giggling after they turned out the light.

That night in Soho and the awful Mike and Ernie was something the girls often reminded each other of and laughed about, but there were many more memorable evenings, dancing at the Empire, at safer jazz clubs and in pubs. They learned that the girls they saw that night were club hostesses who got a fee for keeping men company. Mike and Ernie must have thought that’s what they were.

Dilys didn’t quite fill the hole that Cassie had left in Molly’s life, but in many ways she was an even more agreeable friend because they had no secrets from one another, they shared clothes, looked after one another and really liked being together.

Molly had been down to Whitechapel several more times, going to see Constance for tea and a chat, then asking questions around the neighbourhood, but although many people remembered Cassie and Petal, they couldn’t throw any light on Cassie’s past. It seemed almost unbelievable that anyone could become so embroiled in so many people’s lives without giving anything of herself away.

Through reading the journal again and again Molly was certain Cassie had either come from, or had long holidays on, the coast in East Sussex. Her plan was to go there, but as the weeks passed and the store gradually grew busier, with people buying winter clothes and looking ahead to Christmas, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it till the new year.

It was frustrating and disappointing that she couldn’t find out anything new about Cassie and so was no nearer in discovering what had happened to Petal, but at least everything was fine at home in Sawbridge.

Her mother wrote every week, and she said that Jack had become easier to live with since Molly had left. She said he was doing more in the shop; he’d even painted the walls and got smart new linoleum tiles laid. One time when Molly telephoned her she said she thought Jack had always been jealous of Molly and Emily because they took her attention away from him. That was why he was happier now.

George also wrote often, telling her not only the village gossip but echoing her mother’s words in saying Jack was much less grumpy, sometimes even jovial. He also said her mother was looking more relaxed and was getting out some afternoons to go to Mothers’ Union meetings and to visit her old friends. He always said he missed Molly and wished she’d come back for a weekend, and reminded her she could stay at his house.

Dilys said it was obvious he was in love with her, but Molly thought she was being silly, as surely a man told the woman if he loved her. But, sometimes, late at night when she couldn’t sleep, Molly would think of George and his kisses, and wonder if she should say something in her letters back to encourage him.

But she didn’t want him to think she was homesick and only latching on to him because of it. Besides, with her in London and him back in Somerset, it was never going to work out anyway.

One night halfway through November, Dilys and Molly were just getting ready for bed, when Dilys suddenly blurted out that she had to warn Molly about someone.

Molly’s three-month probationary period was up now, and she’d been moved from Haberdashery to Gloves a while ago. With autumn well under way, the department was a very busy one.

‘Who?’ Molly asked, and giggled. ‘Is it Stan in the stores? He does keep leering at me.’

‘No, he’s harmless,’ Dilys replied. ‘It’s Miss Stow. She can be a real vixen.’

Ruth Stow was the senior assistant in the Glove Department. She was a plain woman from Shropshire, in her mid-thirties. She’d worked at Bourne & Hollingsworth since she was seventeen, and she was always snooty towards the younger girls.

‘Have I put a pair of gloves back in the wrong drawer?’ Molly asked, grinning, because Miss Stow was always complaining about assistants who did this.

‘No, that’s your trouble: you don’t. She thinks you’re after her job.’

Molly pulled back the covers on her bed and climbed in. ‘That’s daft. All I want is to be moved to the fashion floor before long. What on earth gave her that idea?’

‘You’ve had a lot of praise from customers, I think,’ Dilys said. ‘Miss Stow knows her stuff, but she’s starchy. People like a bit of warmth and someone who takes a real interest in them.’

Molly frowned. She couldn’t see what could have upset the older woman. She’d tried to be friendly with her, not just behind the counter but talking to her here in the hostel. But her manner was always chilly and Molly had got the idea it was because she was the senior assistant and felt unable to mix with anyone more junior.

‘It’s not just in the shop,’ Dilys said. ‘You’ve become popular with most of the other staff, including some of those above us juniors.’

‘Me, popular?’ Molly asked.

Dilys laughed. ‘Yes, very. Surely you’ve noticed that the girls always include you in anything going on and want to share a table with you at mealtimes. And I’ve heard some of the men are sweet on you, especially Tony in Menswear.’

Molly laughed. She was aware that Tony with the buck teeth was always gazing at her, but she hadn’t considered that people asking to share her table was a sign of popularity; she thought it was just because there was nowhere else for them to sit. ‘I have always attracted male lame dogs,’ she said. ‘Tony is good company, and he’s sweet, but not my type. But, tell me, what should I do about Ruth? Should I try and talk to her about it?’

‘I think that might just put her back up even more,’ Dilys said. ‘Just carry on normally and take no notice of her. Chances are she’ll decide all on her own that you’re no threat to her.’