Mulligan looked up sharply. ‘Postponement form?’
Bobby felt her cheeks heat. The officer’s look was suddenly none too friendly.
‘Yes.’
‘Employer making trouble, is he? If he wants to make a case that your work’s vital to his business, he can write requesting a postponement himself.’ Squadron Officer Mulligan’s gazedrifted to something on her clipboard. ‘Huh. Journalist. Well, I wish him luck with that.’
‘It isn’t him.’ Bobby’s face turned an even deeper shade of crimson. ‘It’s me. I thought I might… that is to say, there was something about exceptional hardship.’
‘You’re unmarried with no children, it says here.’
‘I am, although I’m to be married shortly, but that hasn’t anything to do with it. My fiancé’s in the forces too. It’s my father.’
Mulligan raised an eyebrow. ‘Elderly?’
‘Well, no. He’s fifty-one next month. But he… suffers.’
‘Suffers?’
‘Yes, because of the war – the last war, I mean.’
‘Has he got a handicap that prevents him from working?’
‘No, physically he’s fit. He’s a gamekeeper.’
‘Decent wages?’
‘Enough to live on. But he… he has bad dreams.’
The expression on Mulligan’s face told Bobby this sounded just as feeble to the officer as it had coming out of her mouth. It was so hard to explain to strangers just what she had to fear from leaving her father alone.
‘And he’s a widower,’ Bobby said, realising she was starting to sound desperate. ‘I’m the only one left to take care of him.’
‘There’s no one else who could come in to cook and clean? No woman relation, or a home help he could hire?’
‘There’s Mary – my fiancé’s sister-in-law. But she has her own home to keep, and besides… well, he really ought to have someone living with him.’
‘Right. Because of his “bad dreams”.’
Bobby tried to ignore the sneer in the woman’s voice. ‘Yes. Do you think they’d consider my case?’
‘Oh, no doubt they’d let you off,’ Mulligan said, her tone conveying exactly what she thought of this state of affairs.‘These committees still occupy that rose-tinted past where it was believed a woman existed to make a home first and foremost. That having a hot dinner on the table and a fire in the grate for some man was more important than work that could save lives. Thank goodness not all of us are living in cloud cuckoo land.’
‘So, um, what should I do then?’ Bobby mumbled.
Squadron Officer Mulligan scribbled something on her clipboard. ‘Speak to the girl on the front desk and ask her for an NS13 – that’s the form you need. But I hope I don’t need to tell you, young lady, that a lot of people are giving their all to win this war. We’d be in a fine mess if everyone tried to weasel out of it.’
‘I know that, but—’
‘We’ve got a lot of others to see. You’re dismissed, Miss Bancroft.’
Mulligan again ignored her. After hesitating a moment, Bobby left the room, humiliation burning her cheeks.
She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for. That the officer would see her point, she supposed, and give her blessing to a postponement application. Anything that might help her feel better about it. But Mulligan’s disapproval had been palpable, and Bobby was once again left with nothing but her own conscience to guide her.
Chapter 11
It had started snowing when Bobby stepped into the street. The stuff fell in huge wet blobs, quickly absorbed by the yellow slush that already filled the gutters and slunk into the cracks in the pavement.
