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clothes.
    She was wearing a camisole, chemise, drawers and stockings, over those a petticoat with yards of material, and then a fitted dress with long sleeves and a high neck. They were all damp with perspiration and her feet hurt because they were swollen with the heat, but she supposed she was luckier than most women who felt obliged to suffer a boned corset too.
    It was four in the afternoon and she hadn’t had a single customer since ten that morning. Earlier there had been plenty of people walking by on their way up to the heath. Most of the ladies had been carrying parasols, and if only she’d thought to stock a few she might have made some sales today.
    But it was very quiet now for a Friday, a lull perhaps because the fair was opening on the heath tonight. Last year she’d been really excited by it; Jimmy had taken her there on the Saturday night and they’d had a wonderful time on the swingboats, the carousel and the helter-skelter, and gone home with a coconut and a goldfish he’d won. But she had no enthusiasm this year. It might be the last weekend of August, and to everyone perhaps the finale of summer, but the grass on the heath was brown and dusty through lack of rain. It would be even more crowded this year because everyone was out to enjoy themselves while they could, putting the war to the back of their minds.
    Since the busy night when so many young men had enlisted, there was less talk about it, but plenty of grousing about rich people who were stockpiling foodstuffs. In some cases they’d cleaned shops out, and the word was that it was bound to make food prices soar. But Belle had sold more hats, as many sweethearts were rushing to get married.
    She wished she and Jimmy could go to the seaside tomorrow; it would be heaven to feel a sea breeze and escape the stink of drains, which kept making her feel sick. But with the fair on, she knew he couldn’t leave Garth and Mog to run the pub alone.
    She moved over to the open door of the shop, desperate for some cooler air, and stood leaning against the doorpost, idly wondering if she should tell Jimmy about the baby tonight. Just two days ago she’d finally gone to see Dr Towle in Lee Park, and he had confirmed she was indeed about three and a half months pregnant. Almost as soon as Mog had suggested she might be, the symptoms arrived. First, she was becoming ever more sensitive to smells and she’d gone off drinking tea. But now her breasts were tender and fuller, and the waistband on her petticoat was tighter.
    Only Mog knew so far, and she seemed to think it wasn’t quite proper to tell Jimmy and Garth yet. Belle thought that was the silliest thing she’d ever heard, as what could be more natural than to inform her husband he was going to have a son or daughter? But she had noticed that women around here didn’t talk about pregnancy, and because she was afraid of making a social gaffe, she was keeping it to herself for now.
    A young couple were coming up the street. The girl, who was probably younger than Belle, was small and slender, wearing a pale pink ruffled dress and a straw boater. She was holding the arm of a man a few years older than her; he had the look of a bank clerk with his formal dark suit and stiff collar. The girl was gazing up at him as he spoke, hanging on his every word. As she appeared far too young to be married, it was unusual that there was no one else with them to act as a chaperone. Belle privately thought it preposterous that a young couple couldn’t take a walk together without tongues wagging, but that was how it was around here.
    When she and Mog had first come to live in Blackheath, they had to bow to all these peculiar and restricting niceties, just so they would fit into the community and attract no gossip. Belle played along with it, but inwardly felt a little superior because she knew so much more about men and life in general than any of the simpering women she made hats for.
    Yet now she was going to be a