“But, the planes…How did you…?”

Calmly chopping a leek, Zelda said breezily, “Well, I didn’t see anything to get panicked about. If you’ve spent the past few years in the London Blitz, a lone Spitfire isn’t going to worry you. In fact, nothing short of a formation of Junkers would scare me—you can tell them from the others by their guttural engine noises. When you spot them, then it’s time to find a shelter.” She gave the boys a concluding nod, like it was easy as pie.

Ordering the boys back outside to finish the weeding before supper, Audrey pulled out a chair. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful to you for calming down Christopher, but is it wise to advise children not to be worried when an aircraft goes overhead?” Her tone was cross, as if Zelda had overstepped the mark.

    “The poor boy’s a bag of nerves, Audrey. They can’t be terrified every time a plane goes over. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool all their lives.” Zelda’s tone was one of impatience. “Arm them with the facts, tell them when they should be worried, and leave the rest to them.”

Audrey crossed her arms angrily. “It’s all right for you. You haven’t already lost a husband in this ruddy war, have you? If you had, I’m sure you wouldn’t be so cavalier about the remainder of your family.”

Zelda shrugged. “I’m sure it’s hard for you, Audrey, but you can’t lose your head. Let them get through it by themselves—they’re not going to break.”

Snarling with annoyance, Audrey stalked over to the back door. “I’ll do what I want with my children,” she snapped, before storming out into the garden.

Zelda was suddenly alone, questioning why she’d bothered—what did she know about children?

Why did she even care?

“Why did I say anything?” she muttered into the browning leeks, thinking of her own childhood, the opposite of theirs. The dirty tenement flat, her mother hitting her if she didn’t mind her young siblings. There was no playing in the garden for her.

But before she got any further, Audrey came back into the kitchen, coming alongside Zelda at the stove. “Look, I’m sorry. Maybe you were right.” She didn’t sound very apologetic, more resigned, confused even.

“What do you mean?”

“The boys are outside talking about how to spot a plane. So, thank you because, whatever your reasons, you seem to have allayed their fears—at least for the day.” She paused, watching them through the window. “Perhaps I am too worried for them.”

“Perhaps you are.”

Silence reigned for a minute, and then as if remembering something, Audrey put her hands on her head and let out a loud, “Drat!” She plumped down on one of the kitchen chairs. “It’s the contest tomorrow, and I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do.” She glanced at Zelda and snapped, “I hope you don’t expect to cook in here, too?”

    “I already told you. I’ll use the factory kitchen.”

Pulling out a pile of recipe books, she mumbled, “Frankly, Zelda, I don’t know why you’re even in this contest. All your talk about being a big chef in London.”

“But I’m not a head chef, am I?” Zelda focused on rolling the pastry for the quiche. “No one wants a woman as their head chef. I’m better than half the male chefs in London—often ludicrously better—but it’s not au fait to have a woman at the top.”

“But what if you’re better?”

“They want me to cook all right, but only so that a male head chef can take the glory.”

“That’s appalling.” Audrey’s annoyance vanished.

“I’ve tried to change them, argued, coerced, worked my way up, but nothing alters the fact that I’m a woman in a man’s world. Sometimes the restaurants tell me that it’s not to do with them—they would take me as a head chef. No, it’s the clientele. ‘If we want to stay in business, we have to have customers. No one would come if we had a woman as head chef.’ Women are viewed as cooks, not chefs.”

“But all the men have to go into the services. How can restaurants get by without using women chefs?”

Zelda shrugged. “Top chefs have become reserved occupations, politicians protecting their lavish dinners and fancy clubs. Otherwise, they’ve found excuses to get out of conscription, a bad back, color blindness, or flat feet. A lot of them are foreign, which excludes them from fighting. They all say they’re French, even if they’re not.”

“And so that’s why you want to win the contest.”

Zelda nodded. “I need to win. If I’m a famous chef, restaurants will want me at the top.”

“But what about your new baby? How can you look after the baby if you have a job?”

The question hung in the air.

    Zelda tried to gather her wits. “It’ll stay with my relatives when I find work again in London. They’re awfully nice.”

Audrey glanced at her curiously. “I didn’t know you had family. If they’re so nice, then why don’t you stay with them for the birth? Pregnant women and women with young children are excluded from national service, so you don’t need to stay here to do war work.”

Zelda grappled for an excuse, saying quickly, “I-I need the money. Without a husband to support me, how am I going to live?” She focused on the pan, trying not to meet Audrey’s eyes, panicking that her lies didn’t tally up.

Then, as if to confirm her fears, Audrey came up and took her pan off the stove. “Zelda, come and sit down. We need to talk.”

Zelda, as reluctant as an errant schoolgirl, took a seat at the table.

Which is when Audrey asked the question that Zelda had not been expecting.

“Tell me the truth, Zelda. Are you actually pregnant, or did you just say that to get the room?”

Zelda pulled back, relieved it wasn’t an inquisition about her nonexistent family. “Oh, I am, I am.”

“Then why don’t you look pregnant? There should be a bump by now.” Annoyance had crept into Audrey’s voice. “If you lied to get into my home, I think you should leave.”

Well, at least I can prove that part of my story, Zelda thought, and without a moment’s hesitation, she stood up, undid the corset beneath her baggy blouse and skirt, and whisked it away in her hand.

Audrey stood up in shock.

Zelda’s belly popped out like a small ball, round and firm. It somehow felt like a relief to expose it at last.

Audrey was aghast. “What are you doing? Trying to flatten the baby like that! You’ll kill him—or her.”

“I was only wearing it loosely.” Even to her own ears, Zelda sounded like an obstreperous child.

Audrey took the corset from her as if it were something loathsome and dropped it into the bin. “I forbid you from ever wearing that thing again.” She then set her hands on the bulging abdomen, as if to soothe the child beneath. Her eyes glared into Zelda’s. “How could you do such a thing? Why?”

    Calmly taking control, Zelda swept Audrey’s hands off her and sat down at the table.

“I had to do it in order to keep my job. A lot of women are wearing them. I read about a woman in a factory who kept her pregnancy under wraps until she gave birth—well, the bulky factory uniforms helped. She had to. As soon as they knew, she’d be out. It’s the same everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or unmarried, whether you plan to keep the baby or not.”

“And do you plan to keep the baby?” The question was asked slowly, carefully.

Zelda was taken aback. She bit her lips together, but in the end the truth was desperate to be spoken. “I was planning to give it up for adoption.”

The room felt still as these words sank in. It had been the first time Zelda had said it out loud.

Audrey nodded slowly, but before she could utter another word, Zelda pushed her chair back and stood up angrily.

“I don’t need to answer any of your questions,” she said gruffly. “You don’t know anything about me, what I’ve been through.”

And without more ado, she got up and strode out of the door, slamming it behind her.

Audrey

On the afternoon of the contest, a speckled beam of sunshine flickered through the window into the kitchen at Willow Lodge. Through a haze of condensation came the warming smell of pastry, and then the sound of a woman’s voice resounding a large “Drat!”

Audrey was in a tizzy. Tonight was the first round of the contest, and she’d been so busy working on her pies all week that she only had that one afternoon to create a winning starter. So far, all her trials had been miserable failures.

“What was I thinking, joining a competition with no money and even less time?”

“What’s gone wrong this time?” Alexander came to see.

“It’s an egg tart that tastes bitter and has the texture of a rubber tire.” All her real eggs had been used up, plus her reserves of isinglass eggs, which had been dipped in a concoction to make them last a few months longer. She’d had to settle for a box of dried egg powder, and now she could see why it was universally loathed.

Alexander attempted to cut the tart with the side of a fork and had to fetch a sharp kitchen knife to hack through the tough consistency.