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watched and listened intently from the window ledge. She knew she should return to her workbench as she had said she would, but curiosity was rooting her to the spot.
    *
    Five floors down on the cobbled street, Daisy grabbed her opportunity with both hands.
    ‘Well, hello, beautiful,’ the GI grinned as he allowed his grey eyes to roam appreciatively over Daisy’s shapely body. ‘You smell like the jasmine flowers on my porch
back home,’ he smiled silkily.
    Sal was laughing at the pair’s brazen performance when suddenly she too found herself broadsided by a cocky Yank.
    ‘And what about you, miss?’ drawled a GI as he leaped athletically from the jeep and planted himself in front of Sal, hands on hips. ‘You’re staying awful quiet. Cat got
your tongue, as you Brits say?’
    Sal knew it was a line: she wasn’t as naive as some of the young girls these soldiers had no doubt been practising their lines on. She was a married woman, for goodness’ sake, and
old enough to know better, and yet, when faced with the GI’s dazzling charisma, a little piece of her reacted to his attentions. It had been a long while since a young man had spoken to her
with such charm.
    ‘I speak when there’s something worth responding to,’ she replied with a shrug.
    His eyebrow shot up and he started to laugh, revealing the widest white smile Sal had ever seen.
    ‘I like you, Red. You’re a real firecracker,’ he laughed. ‘Should have known with hair like that. And there was me thinking you were all shy English roses. Anyway,
how’s about you both meet us at Dirty Dick’s later? It’s opposite Liverpool Street Station.’
    ‘Do you mind?’ said Daisy in mock horror. ‘We’re not those kind of girls.’
    ‘All right, then,’ he said, changing tack. ‘There’s a big dance on tonight in Leicester Square. Meet us there instead?’
    ‘Maybe,’ grinned Daisy, as if butter wouldn’t melt. ‘Come on, Sal – we best get back upstairs.’
    ‘See you later, then, doll,’ winked the first GI.
    Daisy didn’t need to look back to know the soldiers were watching as she sashayed over the cobbles.
    As they ran giggling up the stairs, Sal’s laughter disguised her deepest fears. She could talk the talk all right, but finding the strength to step out from her husband’s shadow?
That was another thing entirely.
    *
    From her vantage point five floors up, Vera watched the whole performance and shook her head. She didn’t mean to be an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy, but it wasn’t
right, not in her eyes. Their mother had been so ladylike, despite the poverty in which she had raised them, and she always knew the right way to behave. Dignity, respect, hard work and cleanliness
were the bywords that had governed Anne Shadwell’s life, and she had passed those virtues down to her elder daughter.
    A horrible sense of foreboding swept over Vera. With every silly row, she felt her little sister pull ever further away from her, and yet she felt powerless to do anything to prevent it. Daisy
seemed to be growing more reckless and restless with each passing day.
    What was it she had said last night?
You can’t tell me what to do anymore.
Maybe not, but Vera would never stop trying to protect her, if only from herself. She had a feeling
these Yanks were going to be trouble.
    The factory door burst open and Daisy and Sal fell through it, flushed with giggles and euphoria. As they drew level with Vera, they saw her thin lips were pursed in a rigid line.
    ‘Mother would be turning in her grave,’ she hissed as Daisy sauntered past her to her workbench.
    Daisy flicked her hair nonchalantly as she sat down. ‘Don’t be bitter, Vera,’ she snapped. ‘It’ll show on your face.’
    ‘I mean it, Daisy. She would never have conducted herself like that,’ Vera went on, determined that her words would hit some small fragment of Daisy’s conscience.
    Daisy merely shrugged and fished her compact mirror from her pocket. Pinching her