Rose in the Blitz

by Rebecca Stevens

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I’ll be more careful next time.’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘I think you should go home,’ he said. ‘It has been quiet so far but might not be so quiet tonight.’

  And then he smiled.

  It was a smile that made you feel like you were the most beautiful, interesting, funny person in the world, not someone who was often grumpy, sometimes got spots and was currently fed up because your mum was getting married to a man who wasn’t your dad. It was the kind of smile that made you smile back.

  So Rose did. She smiled back and Tommy wagged his tail, thumping it against her legs.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will. Thank you. Sorry.’ And then, because he was about to go and she didn’t want him to, ‘Can I ask you something?’

  She wanted to ask him if he’d met Aunt Cosy yet, tell him to be careful, not to join up, but she couldn’t, of course she couldn’t. He wouldn’t understand. She didn’t understand herself. So when she opened her mouth a different question came out.

  ‘What’s the date?’

  ‘The date?’

  He looked at her to see if she was joking, but when he saw she wasn’t, he took the paper he had from under his arm. ‘Let me see now,’ he said, shaking it out to look at the front page. ‘It is Saturday, the seventh of September. 1940,’ he added, with a little sideways grin.

  1940. That was during the war, the Second World War. Wasn’t it?

  ‘Thank you.’ Rose wanted to say more, but she couldn’t, she didn’t know what to say. So she just stood there, watching the tall, slim figure move off towards the station, people turning to stare at him as he passed. And then:

  ‘Wuff!’

  Tommy was wagging his tail and sneezing with excitement. He’d spotted someone coming out of the station, someone holding the hand of a little girl with fair plaits. Rose felt her stomach clench. Because it was her. The girl in the photograph with the dark curls and the red lipstick and the mischievous expression.

  It was Rosemary. The girl who would grow up to be Rose’s Aunt Cosy. And she was heading straight for Johnny.

  Rose held her breath. Was this why her aunt had brought her here, back to the London of her youth? So she could see the moment that she and Johnny met?

  Closer they got, closer. Any minute now they would see each other and the world would change for both of them.

  And then the little girl dropped the toy monkey she was clutching and Johnny stopped to let an old lady go past and the moment was gone. Rosemary bent down to pick up the monkey, Johnny hurried off into the station and it was over. They hadn’t met after all.

  Rose felt suddenly desperate. Was it her fault? Maybe if she hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t stepped into the road at just that moment, if Johnny hadn’t stopped to save her, he and Rosemary would have met. Had she ruined everything for them? Had she somehow managed to change the course of history?

  ‘Sorry,’scuse us.’

  Rosemary was pushing past, heading away from the station. She looked young, about the same age as Rose, and seemed tired and preoccupied, but the little girl turned and stared at Tommy with big eyes as he wagged his tail. They headed away past the shop with the single sad dish of sweets in the window and around the corner. They were going home, Rose realised. Home to Nightingale Lane.

  So she followed them.

  The crowds thinned out as they turned the corner and hurried away from the shops and into the long stretch of Nightingale Lane. It seemed much wider than Rose remembered (probably because there were no parked cars) and the houses had a tired look as if they were waiting for a fresh coat of paint. The old school hadn’t changed though, and the pub even had the same sign: a picture of a chubby brown bird (a nightingale, Rose presumed, because that was the pub’s name) sitting in a tree. As they walked past, an old man in a flat cap came out and spat on the pavement.

  Although the little girl turned to stare at them a couple more times, Rosemary (Rose couldn’t think of this girl as her aunt!) didn’t seem to notice they were there. Until they got to the house, when she stopped and wheeled round so quickly that Rose almost bumped into her.

  ‘Are you following us?’ Her dark eyes were glittering with amusement.

  Rose didn’t know what to say. This girl – Rosemary – can’t have been much older than her, but she seemed so much more confident. So much more grown-up.

  She looked down at the little girl who smiled a secret smile and hid her face in Rosemary’s coat. Her monkey waved a paw at Rose, who realised it was a glove puppet and waved a finger back.

  ‘My monkey likes your dog,’ the little girl said, emerging from the coat. ‘He’s called Munk-munk. What’s your dog’s name?’

  Tommy wagged his tail and grinned, but before Rose could reply, he stopped. His ears went up and he stood quite still, listening with his whole body, just like he had done on the common with Aunt Cosy.

  ‘Tom?’ Rose said. ‘What’s up? What can you—’

  She was interrupted by a mournful wail that curled up into the air, getting louder and closer, louder and closer, rising and falling as if it contained all the sadness in the world. Rose felt cold in spite of the warmth of the afternoon. It wasn’t, was it? Not when the sun was shining and the sky was so very blue. It couldn’t be the air raid warning.

  But it was. Rose could tell by the look on Rosemary’s face. She was frowning and biting her lip as the last note sank away into the air.

  ‘Cosy?’ The little girl was tugging at her hand. ‘Munk-munk doesn’t like the siren. He thinks it sounds sad.’

  ‘Well, you tell him not to worry,’ said Rosemary. She was rummaging in her bag. ‘It’ll just be another false alarm. But still, we’d better go in.’

  She found her keys and turned to the door. The little girl looked longingly at Tommy and held out the monkey as if she wanted to give it to him. Rosemary tugged at her hand.

  ‘Come on, Betty. Let’s—’

  And then she stopped. All of them stopped dead, as if they’d been turned to stone. Because they all heard it.

  Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

  The rhythm of engines, coming closer and closer, making the ground beneath their feet vibrate. Rose looked up at the sky, afraid of what she was going to see.

  And there they were.

  The sky was full of planes. Row after row after row of them, silvery and glittering in the sunlight, sliding past like a great shoal of fish, the big planes hemmed in by smaller ones. Rose could see black crosses on the underside of their wings. There must have been three hundred of the big planes, more of the little ones. They just kept on coming, in strict formation, forwards, forwards, forwards. They just kept on coming.

  Where are you?

  Rosemary was staring too and the little girl was holding up her monkey to watch as the planes slid past. An elderly woman wearing slippers and a flowery apron had appeared on the doorstep of the house next door and a man with a rolled umbrella had paused on the pavement opposite and was looking up with a hurt and puzzled expression. It seemed as if the whole of the city was watching the sky.

  ‘So they’re coming.’ The old woman shook her head at the planes as if she was disappointed in them. ‘They said they would. And now they are. Blighters.’

  Rose wasn’t sure whether the blighters were the planes or the people who’d said they’d come.

  ‘Where are our fighters?’ the woman went on. ‘That’s what I want to know. Where’s the blinking RAF?’

  ‘Someone’s going to cop it tonight.’ A young man on a bicycle with some sort of tatty black instrument case strapped to the back had stopped in the middle of the road. He had a skinny neck and spots on his chin and he sounded almost pleased.

  ‘Shut your face, Billy Boyce,’ said Rosemary. ‘Could be your house gets it.’

  He blushed from the neck upwards. ‘I was only saying—’

  ‘Well, don’t!’ She fixed him with an angry glare. ‘Don’t say! We don’t want to h
ear it! Do we, Mrs Wetherington?’

  Mrs Wetherington shook her head. ‘First war finished, we thought that was it. And now look.’ She gestured up at the planes with disgust. ‘I’m too old for this,’ she said, and went back into her house, shutting the door behind her.

  And still the planes kept coming.

  ‘Where are they going, Cosy?’ said the little girl. She was making her monkey wave a paw to the planes as they went past.

  ‘I don’t know, Bets. The docks, I expect. Doesn’t look like they’re interested in us. But we best not take the risk.’ She looked at Rose. ‘You better come too.’

  ‘Really?’ said Rose. ‘Are you sure?’

  Rosemary shrugged. ‘Well, we can’t leave you out here, can we?’ she said. ‘And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling you’ve got nowhere else to—’

  BAM! BAM-BAM! BAM!

  The noise was like nothing Rose had ever heard. It seemed to come from all around them, as if the whole of London was shouting with rage at the sky, bellowing and barking like a huge angry dog chained up in a backyard. The little girl laughed with delight and started to tap-dance on the pavement along with the rhythm of the bangs while the young man jumped on his bike and sped off down the road.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rose had to shout to be heard.

  Rosemary stared at her. ‘It’s our big guns of course, the ones on the common. You must have heard them before?’ She looked up at the sky. ‘That’s it!’ she shouted. ‘Give ’em socks!’

  The blue of the sky was criss-crossed with streams of black smoke shooting up towards the planes.

  ‘Come on!’ Rosemary grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her into the house, leaving the door open for Rose and Tommy. ‘It’s this way!’

  They ran through the hallway, past the cuckoo clock in its place on the wall, through the kitchen with an unfamiliar old cooker and clutter of silvery saucepans, and out down the garden path to the Anderson shelter.

  Rose and Tommy didn’t need to be told where to go. After all, this was their house too.

  Rose and Tommy followed the little girl as she tumbled down the concrete steps into the shelter. It felt chilly after the warmth of the sunshine outside and it took a moment for Rose’s eyes to adjust to the grainy darkness.

  The shelter was much nicer than when she’d last seen it. There were two bunks covered in colourful knitted blankets, and a wooden crate at the end that was being used as a table, with a pile of books and magazines and a framed photograph of a young man in uniform. There was even a small camping stove, with a kettle and tea things on a tin tray next to it on the floor.

  Rosemary closed the door behind them, shutting out the sunshine. The noise of the guns was muffled and seemed less real now. Less frightening. It didn’t seem to bother Rosemary or her sister at all now they were in the shelter, even though Rose’s heart was thudding so loud she was afraid they might be able to hear it.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ The little girl had scrambled up on to the top bunk and was swinging her legs.

  ‘She’s doing a late shift at the factory, Betty, you know that. She’ll have gone to the shelter there. Come here, dog.’ Rosemary held out her hand to Tommy, who trotted over and sniffed it.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said, scratching him in his favourite place behind the ears.

  ‘It’s Tommy,’ said Rose.

  Rosemary let out a little shout of laughter that sounded so exactly like Aunt Cosy that Rose felt her skin prickle. ‘Not his name!’ she said. ‘Yours!’

  Rose felt her cheeks burn. ‘Rose,’ she said, hoping that there’d be no more questions. How could she explain who she was or how she got there? She didn’t know herself.

  ‘Rose?!’ Betty hung her head upside down over the edge of the bunk so her plaits dangled. ‘That’s funny, isn’t it, Cosy? She looks like you and she’s got nearly the same name!’

  ‘Does she look like me?’ Rosemary squinted at Rose in the gloom. ‘Ah well, it happens, I suppose. All sorts of people look like other people.’

  ‘Mrs Wetherington looks like Mr Churchill,’ said Betty.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Rosemary. ‘I’d love to see him in one of her hats, wouldn’t you? “We shall fight on the beaches”,’ she said, doing a funny voice. ‘“We shall never surrender!”’

  ‘And Billy Boyce looks like a chicken.’ Betty clambered down from the top bunk and squatted next to Tommy.

  ‘Don’t be horrid, Betty,’ said Rosemary. But she giggled and this time Rose couldn’t help joining in. The young man with the bike did look a bit like a chicken, with his skinny neck and anxious beady eyes. ‘I’m Rosemary, by the way. And this creature is my sister Betty.’ Rose shook the hand she held out and looked into those familiar eyes.

  Is this really happening? she thought. Am I really in an Anderson shelter with Aunt Cosy as a young girl? During the Second World War? The thought made her feel queasy and faint, as if she’d been twirling on the little roundabout in the playground for too long or playing twizzles with Grace and Ella after school.

  Betty leant over to confide in a loud whisper. ‘Billy Boyce loves Cosy!’

  ‘He does not! Betty! If you say that one more time, I swear I will strangle that monkey!’

  ‘Do you have someone though?’ The words tumbled out before Rose could stop them. She wouldn’t usually be brave enough to come out with a question like that, especially with someone she didn’t know. But then she did know Rosemary, of course she did. She’d known her all her life. Rosemary stopped trying to grab her sister’s monkey and Betty took the opportunity to escape with him to the top bunk.

  ‘A young man, you mean?’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘Nope.’ Rosemary sounded very definite. ‘You?’

  Rose thought of Fred and the message she’d sent him before all this had started. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just thought that maybe . . .’ She looked at the photograph propped up on the crate.

  ‘Him?’ Rosemary laughed again. ‘That’s our dad!’

  ‘Oh, what? Sorry. I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘No reason why you should. Our father was one of the men who didn’t die in the last war.’ Rosemary looked at the photo. ‘I’m just glad he’s not around to see this one.’

  ‘Is he—?’

  Rosemary nodded. ‘Soon after Bets was born. His lungs had never been good. He was gassed, you know, in the trenches.’ She tapped the back of Rose’s hand, just like Aunt Cosy did when she wanted her full attention. ‘Do you know what Mother said when they made the announcement on the wireless last year? You know, “This country is at war with Germany” and all that?’ Rose shook her head. ‘She was standing at the sink washing up the breakfast things and she dropped the dishcloth and looked at the ceiling and said, “Not again.” Not again!’

  Rosemary drew back to watch Rose’s reaction. Rose didn’t know what to say. Rosemary seemed somehow more alive than anyone she’d ever met. Maybe it was the war made her like that. If you didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, maybe you had to make the most of today.

  ‘Which is why,’ Rosemary was saying, ‘I most definitely do not want a young man. Oh I do, in a way, you know – but not now. Not when he could go off somewhere and never come back. I don’t think I could bear that. Could you?’

  Before Rose could reply, Betty hung her head down from the top bunk again. ‘Can I have your dog?’ she said. ‘We used to have one, called Sophie, but she died.’

  Sophie, thought Rose. That was what Aunt Cosy always called Tom. She wondered where Aunt Cosy was now. Was she really out there somewhere, lost in the wartime London of her memory? Or had Rose just imagined she’d seen her standing there under the big plane tree on the corner of the common?

  ‘Don’t be daft, Bets,’ said Rosemary. ‘He’s Rose’s dog.’

  Betty squatted on the floor and made her monkey stroke Tommy’s back with one paw. ‘Are there any biscuits?’ she said.

  Rosemary felt about beneath
the bunk and brought out a tin box, pale blue with a pattern of pink roses. There was no rust and the colours were fresh and new, but there was no mistaking it. It was Aunt Cosy’s memory box.

  ‘A few,’ said Rosemary, looking inside. ‘Not very nice.’ She offered the tin to Betty, who took two and gave one to Tommy. ‘Rose?’

  As she held out the tin, a terrible tearing whistling sound cut through the air. It sounded as if the sky was being torn in half like an old sheet. And then—

  THUNK.

  A deep, echoing thud that Rose felt in the pit of her stomach. The whole world seemed to shift and shudder. Then, silence.

  Nobody said anything, not even Betty. They sat quite still and looked at each other’s faces as dust floated down from the roof of the shelter like snow. And then, quietly at first, Rosemary started to sing:

  ‘I know where I’m going . . .’

  Rose felt her skin prickle. It was the voice that she’d heard every evening since she’d moved into the house on Nightingale Lane.

  ‘And I know who’s going with me . . .’

  Betty got up and sat on the bunk very close to her sister, watching Rosemary’s face as she sang. Her voice grew louder and more confident as it frightened their fears away.

  ‘I know who I love, but I don’t know who I’ll marry . . .’

  ‘Except we do know who Cosy’s going to marry, don’t we? She’s going to marry Billy Boyce!’

  ‘I am not!’ Rosemary stopped singing and tried to grab Betty’s monkey. ‘You are a horrid little girl!’

  As she watched the two girls tussling together, Rose felt a pang. This was what it was like to have a sister. All she was going to get was a stupid stepbrother she didn’t even like.

  ‘We’re not afraid of the silly old bombs, are we, Munk-munk?’ said Betty as Rosemary gave up and collapsed laughing on the bunk. Her monkey shook his head and started to sing in Betty’s voice:

  ‘It’s a long way to TippeRAReee . . .’

  ‘I know you’re not afraid, Betty, you’re as brave as a lion, that’s the whole trouble. Sit down and eat your biscuit. We’ve got to wait for the all-clear. Come on, Rose, you have one too. We don’t know how long it’ll be.’