Free When the Lights Come on Again by Maggie Craig

corresponding accent - neither of them could decide whether or not either characteristic was genuine - had predicted that they were both shortly going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger with whom they would fall deeply in love.
    ‘A tall, dark, handsome stranger,’ Liz had scoffed once they were safely back out on the street ‘You’d think she could have been a bit more original.’
    ‘At least we’re getting one each, Liz,’ Helen had pointed out ‘We won’t have to fight over just one of them!’
    ‘Besides,’ she went on now in her normal tones, still talking about Adam Buchanan, ‘he was perfectly nice and polite to me, but he looked at you in a different way.’ She raised her fair eyebrows. ‘Quite a different way.’
    ‘Might I point out, Miss Gallagher, that the fortune-teller spoke of a tall, dark , handsome man?’
    Helen batted her eyelashes at her. ‘And you said that was a load of baloney.’
    Liz snorted and determinedly changed the subject.
    It hadn’t taken Liz long to find out the real reason why Helen wouldn’t come to the dancing. Having worn out her last evening dress some time ago, she had nothing suitable to wear. Working behind the make-up and perfume counter in Woolworth’s, it was a hard enough job ensuring she had some decent outfits for work. She rang the changes with two skirts and four pretty, but businesslike blouses.
    When her supervisor suggested that one of the skirts was becoming a bit threadbare, it hadn’t been easy to find the money for the material to make another, so a new dance dress had gone way down the list. And of course, as the only girl in a family of boys, Helen had no sister to borrow from.
    Liz had a solution to that particular problem. It was hanging at the back of her wardrobe. Bought at Copland & Lye’s January sale six months previously, the dress had been a real bargain and she’d thought it exquisite. It had an orange satin underslip and draped brown georgette overdress. A boat neckline was set off by a graceful floaty collar in the same material. Little cap sleeves completed it and the hem danced attractively on the knee. As she and Helen had agreed, skirts were getting shorter again.
    Once Liz got the dress home, trying it on in the privacy of her bedroom, she saw that it did absolutely nothing for her. Her own colouring was too dark. The beautiful rich brown of the dress needed a blonde.
    Soon after she met Helen, she realized that the dress would look great on her. Her golden hair would set it off to perfection. The two girls, both fairly tall, were also much of a muchness in size. Helen was perhaps a little less full in the bust, but the dress could be easily adjusted for that.
    So far, however, Helen had refused even to try the dress on. Looking unusually haughty, she had informed Liz that she most certainly was not prepared to accept it as a gift. Until she had the money to buy it from her, the dress would have to stay where it was.
    Passing the town hall on her way home, Liz glanced up at the clock. Twenty past ten. Helen was so stubborn, but she’d look fantastic in the georgette dress. There must be some way she could make her take it-
    Twenty past ten? Hell’s bells, she must have been dawdling down the road. Her father would be home in five minutes’ time!

Seven
    Breaking into a run, Liz rounded the corner- and stopped dead. Her father was a hundred yards in front of her. Oh, Mammy, Daddy! What was she going to do?
    Then it came to her - the muddy lane which ran behind the houses on Queen Victoria Row. She could dash along there and get in the back door before her father reached the front one. She’d need the luck of the Irish to do it, especially as she would have to give him another half-minute. If she ran down behind him now, he might hear her.
    She counted out the thirty seconds, her eyes on the back of his head. Don’t turn round, don’t turn round. Then she ran like the wind, sticking close to the hedges of the gardens