Rose in the Blitz

by Rebecca Stevens

  Rose took a biscuit. Rosemary was right – it was hard and not very nice. She looked up as she crunched, feeling Rosemary’s eyes on her.

  ‘Are you a local girl, Rose?’ she said. ‘I’ve not seen you around here before.’

  Rose swallowed a large chunk of biscuit. ‘Yes,’ she said. The biscuit seemed to have got stuck halfway down. ‘I am in a way. Local, I mean.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m looking for someone actually. That’s what I was doing when I saw you coming out of the tube station.’ Rose pictured Aunt Cosy, wandering round in the tangle of her memories while she sat there, eating biscuits in the shelter. ‘Listen, I should go. I’ve got to find her.’

  ‘You can’t go anywhere until the all-clear. Have another biscuit.’

  ‘There’s none left,’ said Betty. She was sitting on the floor, cuddling Tommy. Munk-munk was balanced on his back like a jockey riding a horse. ‘I’ve been giving them to Tommy.’

  ‘Betty . . .’ Rosemary shook her head at her, but Betty was looking at Rose.

  ‘I love him,’ she said. Her eyes were green with very dark eyelashes in spite of her fair hair. ‘He’s a special dog, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose. ‘He is. Very special.’

  The Very Special Dog grinned and wagged his tail as he felt the three pairs of eyes on him, looking pleased but embarrassed to be the object of so much attention. Then, something changed. Munk-munk slid to the ground as Tommy stood up, ears pricked, listening.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ said Betty.

  ‘Shh.’ Rose couldn’t hear anything, but she knew she would. ‘Dogs always hear things first.’ She knew that now.

  And then it came. A long, constant blast of sound filled up the air, as if someone somewhere was leaning on a giant car horn.

  ‘That’s the all-clear!’ Rosemary scrambled to her feet. ‘Come on, girls, let’s inspect the damage.’

  Betty beat her to the door. She scrambled up the steps and pushed it open, letting a dusty sunbeam into the shelter. Tommy skittered after her as she danced across the lawn, monkey on her hand and plaits flying. Rose was somehow surprised to emerge into a world that didn’t look very different. Dark-green shadows stretched across the grass and the air glittered with dust.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ said Rose. It was like when a match is blown out.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rosemary flung back her head to look at the sky. It was blue and perfectly clear. ‘Smoke?’ she said. ‘Is that what bombs smell like? We’ve not had one so close before.’ She looked at the house. ‘No damage done that I can see. The blast can’t have been near enough to break the windows.’

  Betty grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door that led through to the street. ‘I want to see what’s happened!’

  There were some bits of twisted metal lying on the road that Tommy sniffed at, but otherwise it looked the same as before. Other people were emerging from their front doors, looking dazed, as if they too were surprised to find that the world was still there and the sun still shining.

  ‘Not as bad as it sounded then.’ Mrs Wetherington was at her front door. ‘They didn’t get us this time. Blighters. I tell you, if I could get my hands on that ruddy Adolf . . .’

  Rose suppressed a giggle as Rosemary caught her eye. Betty was right, Mrs Wetherington did look like Winston Churchill.

  ‘Shrapnel!’ Betty had picked up one of the bits of twisted metal and was banging it against the wall.

  ‘Put that down, Betty! It might be sharp!’

  Betty threw it into the road just as the young man with the bike skidded to a halt beside them. He was wearing overalls now, navy blue, and a tin helmet with a big letter W on it. His face was grey with dust.

  ‘All right, Billy?’ said Rosemary. ‘Where was the bomb?’

  ‘Couple of streets away,’ he said. ‘Family bombed out, but nobody hurt this time. I’ve taken them to the rescue centre. We got it easy. Unlike some.’

  He pointed to the horizon. The sky above them was clear, but away over the rooftops across the road there was a great cloud that rolled and shifted as if it was alive, glowing red and orange and pink.

  Rosemary reached for Betty’s hand. ‘That’s the sun going down.’ She gave the young man a quick, frightened look. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘In the east?’ he said. ‘That’s no sunset, Rosemary. That’s the East End. It’s on fire.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ said Rose.

  ‘What?’ said Rosemary. She sounded almost cross. ‘Where? Why? Why have you got to go?’

  Rose thought of Aunt Cosy standing under the plane tree on the corner of Clapham Common. She didn’t know if the old lady was still out there somewhere, wandering the streets of the burning city in her dressing gown and slippers, but she did know one thing: she couldn’t just stay here, doing nothing. She had to find out.

  ‘Hey!’ Rosemary was moving her hand in front of Rose’s face. Her lipstick had worn off, which made her look younger and even more like Rose. ‘Have you even got somewhere to go to?’

  Rose shook her head, trying to choke back the teary feeling she was getting behind her eyes. ‘Not really,’ she said.

  ‘I knew it! I knew there was something lost about you.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been bombed out, haven’t you?’ Rosemary turned to the young man with the bike. ‘Billy – this is one for you.’

  It was the first time Billy had looked at Rose properly. ‘Is that right?’ His voice was gentler than before. ‘Have you – lost someone? Can I ask?’

  Rose knew what he meant but chose to misunderstand him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have. An old lady. My aunt.’ It was true, of course, just not in the way that Billy meant.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Billy. He sounded like he really was and Rose felt bad. ‘Got any other people?’ he went on. ‘Mother? Dad?’

  Dad. He suddenly appeared in Rose’s memory, as clear as day, standing at their front door, waving goodbye as she ran down the road to meet her friends on the corner to go to school. He was wearing an apron, the one with blue and white stripes, and still had the washing-up brush in his hand. Grandad always used to tell Rose never to wave someone out of sight. If you did, he said – if you carried on waving until you couldn’t see them any more – you’d wave them out of your life. And he was right. Dad did wave himself out of Rose’s life that day. She never saw him again. She’d looked back and wiggled her fingers at him in a little ‘OK, Dad, you can go in now’ wave, before hitching her bag on to her shoulder and heading off with Grace and Ella. She hadn’t looked back again. But she’d always wished she had.

  Rose blinked and looked at Billy Boyce’s face, grey with dust under his helmet. The spots on his chin made him look young, probably younger than he was. He reminded her of the boys in her year at school, the ones who were good with computers and bad at talking to girls.

  ‘No, nobody else,’ she said. ‘Not – not here anyway. Just my aunt.’

  ‘We could check the homeless persons’ register if you like. The – hospitals?’ He looked down at the pavement. ‘Where did you last see her? Was she in the house when it happened? When the bomb—’

  ‘No,’ said Rose. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ How could she tell him that she suspected her aunt was out there somewhere, lost in the web of her own memories, and that she, Rose, had not the least idea of how to find her? He’d just think she was mad. ‘It’s OK. I’ll find her myself.’

  She turned to go, but Billy grabbed her arm.

  ‘You should be in a shelter tonight,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back as soon as it gets dark.’

  Rosemary was watching Betty who was drawing a picture of a dog on the pavement with a bit of chalky stone. She looked up sharply. ‘What makes you say that, Bill?’

  ‘RAF can’t see in the dark, can they?’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked over the rooftops at the angry glow in the sky. ‘And the whole of the East End is lit up like a blinking Christmas tree.�
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  The three of them stood in silence for a second.

  ‘Yup,’ said Billy. ‘The Luftwaffe won’t have any trouble finding that in the dark. So they’ll come back and give them some more.’

  ‘Poor people.’ Rosemary bit her lip. Her face looked very pale in the evening light. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Warden, like you, Billy. Fire service, ambulance driver. Something.’

  ‘Can you drive?’

  ‘No, but—’ She frowned. Then, ‘Nurse! I could be a nurse.’

  Billy laughed, which made her furious.

  ‘I could!’ she said. ‘I’d be a blooming good nurse, Billy Boyce! Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rosemary, I can’t see it. No, tell you what, you want to help people, you stick to what you’re good at. You’ve got a nice voice on you, use your talent. Sing to them.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is this another way of getting me to sing with that band of yours?’

  ‘No! People are doing it, musicians and stuff. Singers. They go down the shelters. Bucks everyone up no end. We had a woman playing a cello the other night.’

  Betty looked up from her drawing. ‘What’s a cello?’

  ‘A very big violin,’ said her sister. But Rose could see that Billy’s suggestion had got her interested. ‘What do they do, then? Just turn up and start?’

  ‘Yup. One bloke read poems. That didn’t go down so well, the kids threw buns. Usually, though, people are ever so grateful.’

  ‘I could sing to them!’ Betty shouted. ‘It’s a long way to Tipper-RAR-ree! It’s a long way to go—’

  ‘Stop it, Bets, nobody’s going to do any singing tonight.’ Rosemary looked at the sky again and turned to Rose, who was standing a little apart from them on the pavement. ‘What do you want to do, Rose?’

  Rose took a deep breath. ‘I’ll go with Billy,’ she said. ‘I really do need to find my aunt.’

  ‘But we’ll see you again?’

  ‘Not if we see her first!’ shouted Betty.

  ‘Shut up, Bets. Rose?’ Rosemary held out her hand.

  Rose took it and looked into the familiar eyes of the girl who was to become her Aunt Cosy. The face around them wasn’t the same, this one was young and fresh and lovely. But the eyes hadn’t changed at all. They were still dark, shiny brown, like those of a mouse.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Rosemary.

  Rose nodded. Across the road a woman walked past pushing a big black pram.

  Billy was in a hurry to go now. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty tonight, and we need to get you to a shelter before the blackout.’ He looked down at Tommy. ‘That your dog? Not allowed in the shelter, I’m afraid. He’ll have to stay here.’

  Rose’s heart lurched. She didn’t think she could bear it, being alone in this city without Tommy. But she had to. She knew they’d find each other again. It was like Betty said, Tommy was a special dog.

  ‘Betty?’ She squatted down on the pavement next to the little girl. ‘Will you look after Tommy for me, please? Just till I get back?’

  ‘When will that be?’ said Betty. ‘Perhaps NEVER?!’

  Rose looked up at Rosemary. ‘Will that be all right with your mum?’

  Rosemary nodded. ‘But he’s your dog. Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ He’d probably be safer with them than out on the streets in the dark. Rose put her arm round him and hid her face in his rough fur. ‘And you, Mr Thomas,’ she said, her voice sounding false and squeaky as she tried not to cry, ‘you look after Betty. Will you?’ He wagged his tail once, twice, three times and stuck his wet nose in her ear. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  And then she got up and followed Billy Boyce as he pushed his bike up Nightingale Lane towards Clapham Common. Behind them, Rosemary and her sister started singing: ‘It’s a long way to Tipper-RAR-ry! It’s a long way to go . . .’

  And, just like when she’d said goodbye to her dad for the last time, Rose didn’t look back.

  ‘I’ll have to leave you here,’ said Billy when they reached the end of Nightingale Lane. ‘You know how to get to the shelter?’

  Rose nodded. She didn’t, of course, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She watched him as he rode off down the street, leaving her standing there on her own, wondering what to do.

  The sight of the common spread out in the late evening sunshine reminded her of the thousand and one times she’d gone there with her friends after school, swinging along its paths with school bags over their shoulders, or lying on the grass staring at the sky. If it wasn’t for the unfamiliar smell of burnt matches in the air and those strange silvery balloons floating above the trees, she could almost imagine she was on her way to meet Grace and Ella in the cafe, to share a single mug of hot chocolate and a hundred funny stories about school and parents and boys . . .

  That was before Dad died, of course, before Mum announced that she was getting married. It was usually just Rose and Tommy who walked on the common now.

  And Aunt Cosy.

  And just as that thought dropped into Rose’s mind, she saw her. Standing under the big plane tree across the road, in her blue dressing gown and red velvet slippers, looking straight at her.

  Aunt Cosy.

  Rose kept her eyes on her, willing her to stay where she was, afraid that if she lost sight of her for one second she would disappear again. A black cab rumbled past, familiar, with its yellow light feeble in the sunshine.

  ‘Aunt Cosy!’

  The little figure had turned and was beetling away into the glimmering dusk.

  ‘Wait!’

  Her aunt was heading along the path that led into the heart of the huge stretch of open parkland that was the common. Rose ran across the road and set off after her, past one of the huge silvery balloons, anchored by its heavy steel cable to a concrete base, past an area where it looked like people were growing vegetables, towards the centre of the common. She could see the outlines of the big guns in the distance, the ones they’d heard earlier, she assumed. They were silent now, but ready, pointing at the sky.

  Rose stopped for a moment to catch her breath, her heart beating all over her body. The evening sunlight glittered with drifting particles of dust and thistledown and when she looked up, the little figure was disappearing into a group of trees. She ran after her, around a bend in the path, through the trees and there it was, the bandstand, with Aunt Cosy sitting on its steps.

  Rose stopped. Then, as she took her first step towards her—

  BAM. BAM. BAM.

  The world flashed white-hot with terror.

  BAM-BAM.

  The sound vibrated deep inside her body. She looked up and saw trails of black smoke streaked across the deep blue of the sky like angry scribbles. Beyond them, a group of German planes floated soundlessly, too high for Rose to hear their engines.

  BAM.

  There was that smell of burnt matches again, and something else, something that reminded Rose of evenings with Mum in the days before Sal when they’d sit in front of the telly together and Mum would brush Rose’s hair. Sometimes they’d do proper makeovers, with face packs and nail varnish and – nail varnish remover. That was it, that strange chokey smell that caught in your throat and left a sweet, chemical taste in your mouth. That was what she could smell now.

  BAM-BAM-BAM.

  Another blast. Another spurt of black smoke. Another useless explosion that left the planes drifting peacefully on their way, too high for the guns to reach. Maybe they were heading home to Germany. Rose hoped so. She thought of the men inside, going back to their mums and wives and girlfriends, and she was glad.

  And then it was over. The planes had gone and the guns were quiet. Rose took a long, shuddering breath and turned back to the bandstand.

  Aunt Cosy had disappeared.

  Rose looked around, left, right, everywhere, but there was no one around. No little figure
disappearing over the horizon or into the trees. Although the guns had sounded very close, the common seemed deserted. The birds were singing again, the blue of the evening was thickening into dusk and Rose felt terribly alone. I don’t belong here, she thought, in this wartime London. But she didn’t really belong in the other one either, the one where her dad didn’t exist any more and her mum was getting married to another man.

  She stumbled over to the bandstand, flopped down on the steps where she’d last seen Aunt Cosy, and felt in her pocket for her phone. The battery was low and there was no signal here, of course, but it was still working. She looked at the last message she’d sent, the one where she’d told Fred not to come to the wedding. Maybe he hadn’t read it yet. Maybe she should never have sent it.

  It was too late now.

  She wished he was there, so she could explain. Tell him how she was feeling bad about the wedding, embarrassed that her grandad had asked him to travel so far, worried he wouldn’t want to come or would think she was pushy and needy and sad. And he would smile his slow smile and shake his head and say, ‘I didn’t see the message anyway. My phone was turned off, I was at the movies with my friends,’ and Rose would feel silly for having made a fuss, but happy that things were still all right between them.

  Fred always made everything seem all right, even when it wasn’t, especially when it wasn’t. But he wasn’t here. He was at home in Berlin in the twenty-first century, miles and miles and years and years away and he hadn’t replied to her message. Even a photo of him would have made her feel better, smiling his serious smile and squinting at the camera, his fair hair flopping over his gentle blue eyes. But she’d never had the chance to take one because they hadn’t seen each other again, not since the time they’d first met in Belgium. They’d talked on Skype a couple of times, but had both found it too weird, so had agreed to stick to messaging.

  She’d never have a photo of him now.

  She scrolled through the other pictures on her phone. There were loads of pictures of Tommy, head on one side, looking interested, enthusiastic and a bit puzzled, like he always did; some old ones of Grace and Ella making kissy faces at the camera; one of Rose herself, trying to be mysterious and just looking like she needed to go to the loo; Mum in the kitchen in her dressing gown, hiding her face with her hand because it was first thing in the morning and she thought she looked old; Aunt Cosy, sitting in her special chair, turning to the camera because Rose had just called her name.