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The Girl in the Pink Raincoat – Alrene Hughes
About the book
In wartime it takes courage to follow your heart.
Manchester, 1939.
Everyone hated the heat and the deafening noise, but for Gracie the worst thing was the smell of chemicals that turned her stomach every morning when she arrived at the Rosenberg Raincoats factory.
Gracie is a girl on the factory floor. Jacob is the boss's charismatic nephew. When they fall in love, it seems as if the whole world is against them – especially Charlie Nuttall, who also works at the factory and has always wanted Gracie for himself.
But worse is to come when Jacob disappears and Gracie is devastated, vowing to find him. Can she solve the mystery of his whereabouts? Gracie will need all her strength and courage to find a happy ending.
EXTRACT
Of all the bedrooms in the Midland Hotel, this one was Sarah’s favourite. She went straight to the windows and opened them wide to gaze down at the vast, circular Central Library and across to the buses and cars in St Peter’s Square. Then she got to work stripping the bed, leaving the eiderdown, bedspread and blankets to one side and putting the used sheets and pillowcases in the cart. Fresh white sheets, lightly starched, were definitely one of her favourite things. She stood at the end of the bed, tossed the sheet into the air and inhaled the smell of clean linen as it billowed and descended.
Bed made, she moved on to the bathroom. She had never seen one before she came to work at the Midland. In Belfast, where she had grown up, they had had a privy in the yard and a tin bath hanging on the wall, which they brought inside on a Saturday night and filled with hot water. When she’d come to Manchester, it was no different.
The bathroom gleaming, she set out the fluffy towels – so soft, she held them to her face – then placed a tiny Yardley soap in each dish. She ran the Ewbank over the carpet and polished the furniture, checking the writing desk had a good supply of Midland Hotel-headed notepaper and wondering what the guests might write about. Finally, she looked in every drawer and wardrobe and under the bed. The guests left things behind sometimes: a button, a handkerchief, a business card, the faint scent of French perfume … Once, she had found a beautiful silk scarf behind a dressing-table.
At the door she paused. She would never sleep in a room like this, but she made it new again every morning and allowed herself to think that one day her Gracie might rise in the world and enjoy such luxury.
When Sarah had finished her shift, she hurried home. She had left some sheets steeping in bleach that morning and she hoped that the few hours of sunshine left in the day would be enough to dry them. She turned into Pearson Street and the little girls gathered round the rope swing hanging from the lamppost called, ‘Mrs Earnshaw, do you want a go?’
She waved at them, ‘Not today, girls,’ and hurried on.
As usual, the boys were playing football on the croft at the far end of the street, but she was surprised to see a group of women standing close to her house, having a serious chinwag.
‘What’s up?’ she said, then noticed that Doris, her next-door neighbour, was sniffing and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. A few of the others looked close to tears.
‘The kids are being evacuated.’ Doris waved a letter in her hand. ‘They came home today with this and they’re going in a week’s time. They’re taking our kids.’
Another mother shouted, ‘We’re not even at war!’
About the author
Alrene Hughes grew up in Belfast and has lived in Manchester for most of her adult life. She worked for British Telecom and the BBC before training as an English teacher. After teaching for twenty years, she retired and now writes full-time.
Follow Alrene:
Facebook: @alrenehugheswriter
Twitter: @alrenehughes
Buy links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2HU9E4V
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2HKJRN5
iBooks: https://apple.co/2TEXaQO
Google Play: https://bit.ly/2YqUREC
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