Beryl Bainbridge at her darkly comic best.

'The book I wish I'd written . . . Witty, chilling, every word in place' Hilary Mantel, Guardian

Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and jobs in munitions factories. Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naïve and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, a GI, at a neighbour's party she falls in love as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. But Nellie and Margo are not so blind...