A Store at War
A brilliant, nostalgic debut novel that conjures up wartime life in a town’s department store.Even in wartime the customer comes first at Marlow’s department store.It’s 1941 and young Lily Collins is starting work in Midlands department store Marlow’s, whose gleaming facade has fascinated her since childhood.As the air raid sirens blare, Lily learns the ropes from her sophisticated boss Miss Frobisher alongside shy fellow junior Gladys. But her burgeoning friendship with young salesman Jim draws her into a swirl of secrets within the store. And with the war progressing to crisis point, Cedric Marlow and his staff must battle nightly bombings and the absence of loved ones to keep going.From a former writer of The Archers comes a novel that weaves together a powerful sense of community and a vivid evocation of a time when every man, woman and child was doing their bit.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Joanna Toye 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photography © Johnny Ring (model), Alamy and Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Joanna Toye asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008298234
Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008298241
Version: 2018-11-16
For my grandmothers – and all the women of their generation.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
June, 1941
‘Well? Will I do?’
Lily Collins hovered in the doorway of the small back parlour. Her brother Sid, shirt sleeves, flannels, wavy blond hair, broad shoulders – Sid was the looker of the family, and no mistake – his injured foot propped up on a stool, glanced up from his Picturegoer magazine.
‘Come in, then, Sis, give us a closer look!’
Coming in was just what she didn’t want to do. What she wanted, no, needed, to do was to get Sid’s swift approval, then shoot out of the house faster than a firecracker before her mum could see that Lily had dabbed on a bit of her powder and even (before quickly blotting most of it off) a smudge of precious lipstick. She’d only dared sneak down to seek Sid’s approval because she’d seen from upstairs that her mum was out in the back garden, sitting on a canvas stool in the sun, shelling peas.
‘Come on!’ urged Sid. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit!’
Lily edged forward. She was horribly aware of how young she still looked in her faded print frock and – horror of horrors – ankle socks.
Sid scrutinised her, his head on one side.
‘Um … your hair. What exactly were you aiming for?’
‘A mind of its own’ was the kindest description of Lily’s own fair hair. It made life interesting, she supposed, because she never knew when she woke up which way her strong-minded curls would have decided to arrange themselves overnight. She imagined them in the small hours, debating long and hard.
‘I’ll flop over her right eye if you stick out at an angle at the top.’
‘No, hang on, I stuck out at the top yesterday! Why don’t I do the flopping? And for a change, you can spring off her ear?’
It hadn’t used to matter that much. At school she’d had to force her hair back any old how with grips and a hairband, but for a job interview, and with hairgrips just one of the things that had started to disappear now the war was in its second year … The best she’d been able to do was a complex arrangement with as many grips as she could muster and a couple of combs – also her mum’s. The effect she’d been aiming for, since Sid was asking, was side-parted and crimped at the side – Bette Davis in Dark Victory, basically – but her brother’s face told her the effect was more like something from The Wizard of Oz. And not Judy Garland, either.
‘Sorry, Lil, I’m not sure …’
‘It hasn’t worked, has it?’
‘You’re ahead of your time, that’s all. Give it six months, a hairdo that looks like you’ve stuck your finger in the socket’s bound to take off.’
‘Sid! They’re never going to give me the job!’
‘No. They won’t. Not unless you get a shake on, have you seen the time?’
In her anguish, Lily hadn’t seen or heard her mother come in.
‘Now sit yourself down and let’s sort that hair out.’
Dora Collins crossed the room. Lily was her youngest child but neither being the baby of the family, nor, after two boys, being a girl – at last! – meant that she was in any way indulged. If their father had been around, it might have been different – a lot of things would have been different – but he’d died of a heart attack the year Lily was born and Dora had been left a widow with three children under five.
Lily’s stomach took a plunge.
‘Here we go,’ she thought. ‘She’ll see the make-up. I’ve had it.’
