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…’
    She hesitated but didn’t turn round; without looking she knew that it was Johnnie from down the street, the man who’d carried her bags and caught her eye; the man she’d only seen in passing since that day, but who she had thought about and also heard much about.
    ‘Ruby!’ he shouted again. ‘Wait a minute and I’ll walk with you, Ruby Red.’
    This time she stopped and waited with a smile for him to catch her up.
    As he drew alongside he looked at her appreciatively and she was pleased she’d come back from the Wheatons’ with a decent selection of clothes and a secret lipstick. Clothes that had fortunately turned out to be mostly far too tight for her wide-hipped and ample-bosomed mother, despite the middle-aged woman trying her best to squeeze into them one by one.
    ‘Hello. What’s this Ruby Red silliness?’ she asked.
    ‘That’s what I’ve decided to call you, Ruby Red. Red for short. You look like a Red. Anyway, you look nice. Where are you off to?’
    With a grin Ruby held up the shopping baskets. ‘Just running shopping errands for Mum and Nan, off to queue, queue, queue in the High Street. Again. My life is one long queue, hand over coupons, queue again.’
    ‘See? I was right. Didn’t take them long to get you back in harness. Big brother Ray said he was going to train you back into your place, as the family slave.’
    Ruby laughed. ‘Shut up! He never said it like that! Do you think I’m daft enough to let you annoy me? Ray told me all about you and what you’re like, so don’t bother.’
    ‘Oh, so you were interested enough to ask him about me, then? I’m flattered.’
    Ruby smiled up at him shyly as he fell in step beside her, his long legs taking just one step to two of hers.
    ‘Not really! Anyway, I don’t really mind getting the shopping for the moment. Ma has plenty to do with her job and everything. I do it for her, not the boys. And it’s just until I can get a job and earn some money; just until I can start nursing training and live in at a hospital.’
    ‘But they get the benefit of everything you do – don’t you care?’
    ‘I already told you I don’t care.’ Ruby lied easily, not wanting Johnnie Riordan to see her as downtrodden. ‘In a way I feel sorry for Ray. He’s just jealous he didn’t get to live where I did during the war. His face nearly hit the floor when he saw it all when he came to order me home. It was so nice there – clean with lots of fresh air – it makes this bombed-out place look like a slum.’
    ‘Oi! Hang on now, missy.’ Johnnie stopped walking and faced her. ‘I live round here, so does my sister and her kids, and it’s all right, thank you very much. Apart from your bloody brothers, that is. If anything’s wrong round here it’s Ray and Bobbie. They lower the tone.’
    Although he was half-smiling there was an anger in his words that made Ruby pull herself up. She suddenly realised what a snob she sounded.
    ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I really didn’t. I meant the size of the houses and the gardens and everything – it’s all so much smaller here, and overcrowded. It’s so different from where I was out in the country with open fields, fresh air and no bomb damage, I’m still getting used to it back here.’
    ‘Apology accepted. I didn’t really think you’d be such a duchess, despite what your brothers say.’
    Johnnie resumed walking and Ruby strode alongside him.
    ‘Good,’ she smiled. ‘I’m not like that at all! And yes, I did ask about you. I wanted to know who you were before I spoke to you again. But I have to say that I didn’t ask Ray – as if I’d do that – I asked Mum, and she went and told Ray.’
    ‘And am I all right to talk to?’ he asked.
    ‘No you’re not. Ray went nuts and has forbidden me to even look at you, never mind have a conversation. You are the villainous enemy, a spiv who he hates, who hates him, a really nasty piece of work and far too old. And you think you own