Spare Brides by Adele Parks

were visiting the doctor; umbrellas popped up like shiny black mushrooms, but neither Lydia nor Sarah had one with them. The bitter January air scratched the women’s faces; helplessly they watched as a gust picked up a brown paper bag and carried it bouncing along the street. A small child gambolled after it, laughing; a nanny ran after the child, scolding. Lydia and Sarah wondered what to say to one another. The doctor’s hopelessness and blame sat heavily on the pavement with them, more solid and real than the longed-for Silver Cross baby carriage with a plump heir inside. Lydia rallied first. She was more familiar with this situation than Sarah; she’d been found culpable often enough.
    ‘Well, I’m stranded somewhere between painful outrage and a genuine interest in the leaflet,’ she commented, forcing a bright smile to her face. She threaded her arm through her friend’s.
    ‘Should we find a tea house? Warm us up?’ Sarah suggested.
Warm us up
was new-speak for
cheer us up
. No one admitted to needing to be cheered – it seemed unpatriotic – but everyone felt it. Gloomy Januarys were the worst.
    ‘Yes, tea.’ It would solve little, but both women needed to believe in this, the great British myth that everything would at least be better after a hot cuppa. ‘Let’s go to Maison Lyons at Marble Arch. It’s so very glam. Look, there’s a cab.’
    As hoped, the familiar white and gold façade did something to lift the spirits of the two friends. Lydia pushed open the door and both women tumbled into the welcome glare of the large, bustling food hall. They excitedly drank in the intoxicating sight of the fancies on offer. Fat pink joints of ham hung temptingly from hooks, alluring jewelled cakes, light pastries and delicate hand-made chocolates were displayed in glass counters, crates of exotic, colourful fruits that had been shipped to London from all over the Empire were stacked around them, as well as slabs of smelly ripe cheeses and displays of impressive wines and champagnes. The women breathed in the luxury and allowed themselves to let drop a small amount of the tension that perpetually gripped them both.
    ‘Do you have much delivered from here?’ Sarah asked conversationally.
    ‘Yes, when we’re in Eaton Square, it’s so convenient. They deliver twice a day, you know.’
    ‘How marvellous.’
    ‘I come here to have my hair done occasionally too,’ confessed Lydia. ‘There’s a salon in the basement.’
    ‘Do you? Why? I thought Dickenson had clever fingers and some flair that way.’
    ‘Yes, but sometimes it is fun to … oh, I don’t know … mix with other gals, I suppose. You know, the ones that aren’t like us.’ From the look on Sarah’s face, it was clear she had no idea what Lydia was on about; what possible attraction could there be in rubbing shoulders? ‘I like the smell of hot hair,’ Lydia added lamely.
    The five-storey building offered a different restaurant on every floor, all of them huge and bustling. The establishment sometimes stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and various fashionable orchestras played on each floor almost continually. Lydia wondered whether the number of patrons that came through the doors indicated that she and Sarah were not alone in needing somewhere cheerful to take sanctuary; did all of Britain feel the same, or were the other tea-drinkers feeling fabulous? Certainly many looked blissful as they jumped up from their seats and danced to the sinewy jazz notes that jerked and jostled their way past the clinking of cups and saucers, and through the ribbons of cigarette smoke.
    The women settled on the second floor because they didn’t want to eat more than a cake. They were led to their seats, and as they threaded through the chairs and chatter, the waitress said she’d fetch the trolley so that they could see today’s pastries.
    She noticed his uniform first.
    It was habit. For years she had noticed every uniform on the streets. At first