She stopped. Rosemary was staring up at the tower, her lips slightly apart. Climbing up the scaffolding, battling against the wind, was a tall, slim figure in the overalls and helmet of a fireman. There was no mistake this time. It was Johnny.
‘Johnny!’
Although he couldn’t have heard Rosemary’s voice, Johnny paused for a second and looked down. Some of the men, rescue workers and others who weren’t battling the fires, had spotted him too and called their encouragement.
‘That’s it, mate! Keep going!’
‘You’re nearly there, pal!’
He climbed on, through the smoke and the snowstorm of burning embers, up towards the clock face. A gasp went up from watchers below and Rose felt her friend’s fingernails dig into the back of her hand as his foot on the ladder slipped. But he held firm and climbed on, up, up, up, until at last he was there. The bomb was just a few yards away, spitting its deadly white fire into the darkness. Johnny pulled himself upright on to the wooden platform and then slowly turned his head to look at the bomb, as if it was someone he didn’t much like who had unexpectedly called his name.
Rose held her breath as Johnny started to move towards the bomb, putting one foot down in front of the other as if he was afraid a sudden movement would scare it away.
Easy does it now, easy . . .
He stopped a few feet away and seemed to gather himself together, then in one slow movement, removed his helmet and lobbed it gently over the sparkling white light as if he was throwing a Frisbee in the park. A cheer went up as the light went out.
‘YES!’
The two men nearest Rose hugged each other and did a little dance of glee as if their favourite football team had just scored a goal. She turned to look at Rosemary. He’d done it! Johnny had saved the tower of Big Ben!
Rosemary wasn’t there.
Rose hadn’t seen her go. She hadn’t even noticed her let go of her hand.
‘Rosemary?’
Where was she? Where had she gone?
‘Rosemary!’
Rose felt Tommy’s body vibrate with a small worried growl. Across the road from the clock tower, along the Victoria Embankment, the main road that ran alongside the river, there were tall buildings, four or five storeys high, all ablaze. There were flames dancing out of their windows and smoke pouring from the roofs. And standing right in front of them, silhouetted against the glow, was Rosemary. She must’ve gone there to get a better view, to see Johnny save Big Ben. But now—
‘ROSEMARY!’
It was no good. She couldn’t hear anything above the roar of the flames.
‘Tommy. Stay.’
He wagged his tail once to show he understood and sat down on the wet pavement. Rose stepped into the street. A blast of heat blew in her face as she approached the burning building and a thousand tiny red sparks swirled around her. She looked back. Tommy was there, the tower of Big Ben behind him, his white fur pink in the firelight. Ahead of her was Rosemary and the fire, breathing rhythmically like some living creature.
And then, a voice came through the smoke behind her.
‘Rosemary!’
It was a voice Rose knew. A warm voice with some sort of accent . . .
‘Get back! The wall’s going to go!’
It was Johnny. He must have reached the ground safely. But what did he mean, the wall was going to go?
‘Get back!’
The building groaned like an old man getting up from a chair.
‘ROSEMARY!’
She heard him at last and turned, her face softening into a smile as she saw him through the smoke. Beyond her, the wall bulged as if some giant hand was pushing it gently from behind. Rose felt a rush of air as Johnny ran past and for a moment he and Rosemary just stood there, close together but not touching, looking at each other, just like they had at the end of the dance on New Year’s Eve.
There was a long rattling crack from the building. Rosemary and Johnny wrapped their arms around each other and turned to look at the wall. Everything stopped. Time froze solid and Rose thought of nothing at all.
And then the wall came down.
‘What are the chances, eh?’ The man nearest Rose was wearing the tin helmet of a rescue worker and his mouth was hanging open in disbelief. ‘What are the blinking chances?’
Rose had shut her eyes when the wall came down, not wanting to see what happened to Rosemary and Johnny, not wanting to see anything at all. The entire world seemed to rock around her as the wall crashed into the street. And then, as the seconds slid past and the noise died down, she’d heard the rescue worker’s voice above the rattle of the pumps and the roar of the flames.
‘I don’t believe it!’
So she’d opened her eyes. And they were still there.
Rosemary and Johnny were still standing there, wrapped in each other’s arms as the dust and smoke rose up around them and the fires roared behind them, sending their flames up towards the sky.
How could that be? How was it possible?
Then Tommy barked and someone yelled and everything started to move. Rose was the first to get to them. She stumbled through the rubble and put her arms round both of them, unable to speak, to think, to breathe. There was blood on Johnny’s face and Rosemary was shaking and crying and laughing, but they were safe. They were safe, safe, safe.
And now they were all in an ambulance with the same rescue worker, driving back over Westminster Bridge, leaving the fires behind them. Big Ben had been saved and the firemen had managed to contain the fire in the Houses of Parliament. It was over.
The rescue worker shook his head and called forward to the driver, still unable to believe what he had seen.
‘I said, what are the chances? Whole front wall of the building come down around them and they just stood there! Just stood there, didn’t they, in the gap where one of the windows had been.’
Johnny was on a stretcher with Rose’s parka over him. His eyes were closed and Rosemary was crouching beside him on the floor of the ambulance, holding his hand.
‘It was like that bloke in the silent movies, what’s his name? Comedian. Sad face. You know the one.’
‘Buster Keaton.’ The driver swung the vehicle off the road. ‘Buster Keaton, that’s him. I don’t know. What are the chances, eh?’
The ambulance stopped and the driver got out, slamming the door behind him.
‘Here we are, my darlings. Told you it wasn’t far.’ The rescue worker jumped out as the driver opened the back doors.
‘Is he your young man, love?’ he said, looking at Rosemary.
Rosemary’s face was black from the smoke and streaked with water, but her eyes were shining, whether with tears or happiness, Rose couldn’t tell. She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, he is.’ Then, ‘He is going to be all right?’
‘He is, darling. Thanks to you.’ The two men manoeuvred Johnny’s stretcher out of the back of the ambulance. ‘Whatever made you think of it? Staying upright like that? Standing there like statues while a hundred ton of hot bricks fell down around you?’
Rosemary shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It was a blinking miracle, that’s what it was. A blinking miracle.’
Rose had clambered out of the ambulance and was looking at the sky. A greenish dawn was beginning to break through the haze that hung over the ruined city, and as she watched the seagulls drifting over the river, a long blast of sound came shimmering across the water. It wasn’t like the horrible wailing moan of the air raid warning. It was one constant note that sounded defiant and reassuring. Safe.
‘That’s the all-clear.’ The men had paused to listen too, holding Johnny between them, still unconscious on his stretcher. ‘It’s over for tonight at least.’ The rescue worker looked at Rose. ‘Do you not want your coat, love?’ He looked down at her parka. She’d put it over Johnny after they’d helped him away from the fallen wall. He’d been soaked through with water from the hose and she didn’t want him to get cold. ‘It’s got blood on it
, I’m afraid.’
‘No, I’ll be all right.’ Even though the sun was struggling to get through the smoky haze, it felt like the day was going to be a good one. ‘What’s the date, by the way?’ she said. ‘I’ve sort of lost track of time.’
‘The date? It’d be, now let me think, the tenth, no I tell a lie, it’s the eleventh now, the eleventh of May. 1941!’ he added and grinned.
The eleventh of May. It was Mum’s wedding day. And Rose needed to be there. She wanted to be there, actually, to tell her mum that she was right to hold on to her new love. And that she, Rose, was happy for her.
‘The beginning of the end of the beginning, that’s what I reckon,’ said the rescue worker. ‘It can’t get any worse than last night, that’s for sure. What do you think, Joe?’
The driver shrugged and jerked his head towards the hospital entrance. It was St Thomas’s, the one where Rose had looked for Betty on that awful New Year’s Day that was yesterday and five months ago. Their ambulance was one of many waiting to deliver patients. Nurses were bustling about in the chilly morning light, helping those people who could walk, checking those that were being brought in on stretchers.
‘Rosemary?’ Rose looked over at the girl who was to become her aunt and had become her friend. Maybe the best friend she’d ever had. ‘What do you want to do?’
Rosemary didn’t reply. She was looking down at Johnny.
‘Hello,’ she said.
He’d opened his eyes. A slow smile spread over his face as his eyes focused on her.
‘Hello, you.’
The two men holding the stretcher exchanged a look. One grinned, the other rolled his eyes. But they didn’t move.
Rosemary smiled back at the face on the stretcher. ‘They say you’re going to be all right.’
‘That’s good.’ He sounded sleepy. Then, as if he’d just remembered, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’
Rosemary didn’t move. ‘What?’
‘My commission came through.’
‘The RAF?’
He nodded, grimacing a bit with pain. ‘Going to a place called Padgate for basic training.’
‘And then?’
‘Who knows?’
‘’Scuse me, love.’ It was the rescue worker. ‘Much as I hate to interrupt, my arms are killing me. And we best take him in.’
‘Can I go with him?’
He shook his head. ‘Against the rules, I’m afraid. The hospital’s that busy. But he’ll be all right.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ she said, then looked down at Johnny. ‘I’ll see you again, though?’
‘You will,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
There was a pause. The stretcher-bearers exchanged another look.
‘Well, go on then,’ said the first.
Rosemary looked at him. ‘What?’
‘Give him a kiss. Then we can all get out of the road and on with our blooming day.’
Rosemary looked over at Rose and Tommy. Rose mouthed, ‘Go on!’ and Rosemary grinned, her teeth very white in her smoke-blackened face, then bent down and kissed Johnny on the mouth, before straightening up.
‘Right then,’ said the rescue worker. ‘Let’s get a move on!’
But as they started to move, Johnny stopped them.
‘Wait!’ He was holding something out to Rosemary. She took it and clutched it tightly in her fist as they carried him away.
Rosemary stood there for a moment, her back stiff, then turned. She looked lost and confused, as if she was a little girl who’d lost her mum in a crowd. When her eyes found Rose, she looked relieved for a second and then her face crumpled.
Rose opened her arms and, for the second time that night, Rosemary walked into them. Rose didn’t know how long they stood there, locked together like Rosemary and Johnny had been when the wall came down, and when they eventually separated, she didn’t know if the wet on her face was Rosemary’s tears or her own. They looked at each other and then laughed as they realised they both looked as mad as each other, with their faces blackened with smoke and smeared with tears.
‘What did he give you?’ said Rose.
Rosemary unfurled her fist. Inside was the gold signet ring Rose had seen in Aunt Cosy’s memory box.
‘It’s too big,’ she said, twirling it on her thumb. ‘But I’ll keep it for ever.’
Rose nodded. ‘What will you do now?’
Rosemary shrugged. ‘Wait here. See if they’ll let me see him before he has to go.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘I’ll keep waiting. He’ll come back and find me. I know he will.’
Rose said nothing. Rosemary looked so happy, so sure of herself and her love. She couldn’t tell her that Johnny wasn’t going to be able to come back and find her – that he’d go off to join the RAF and be sent on a mission and get shot down over Europe. That she’d never see him again. So she just smiled back into those shining dark eyes and turned to look out over the river. The tide was out and an old woman was down on the mud feeding the seagulls. She was wearing what looked like a blue dressing gown and red slippers, and when Rose waved she blew her a kiss from the tip of one finger.
‘It’s her again.’ Rosemary was looking at her too. ‘Is it you she’s following? Or me?’
‘Both of us, I think,’ said Rose.
‘But what’s she doing here? What does she want?’
Rose took a deep breath. ‘I think she wants me to be part of her memories,’ she said. ‘So whatever happens, today, tomorrow, or seventy-five years from now, they won’t ever be lost.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not sure I do, completely. But I do know one thing. It’s time for me to go home now.’
Rosemary nodded. She seemed to know that Rose didn’t really belong here and that whatever it was she’d come to do was over. ‘I couldn’t have gone through this without you, Strange Girl. Will I ever see you again?’
Rose looked at her. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘You’ll see me again. I can promise you that.’
The nearest underground station was Waterloo, but the streets around it had been cordoned off, so Rose and Tommy carried on walking until they got to Elephant and Castle. The lifts weren’t working and there were no escalators at this station, so Rose led the way down the gloomy spiral staircase, stepping over people who had bedded down on the steps and were slumped against the walls, wrapped up in blankets and overcoats. Rose wondered how they could sleep, it looked so uncomfortable. But at least they were safe from the bombs.
There were more sleeping people at the bottom, rolled up in their bedding, with their sad bundles and tatty little suitcases beside them. One woman, wrapped in a faded patchwork coverlet, lay with her children lined up next to her, three on either side. Five of them were asleep, their tufty heads sticking out from under the blankets, but the sixth – a little boy of about five or six – was awake and reading a comic. He looked up as Rose and Tommy walked past and stared at them with round blue eyes.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Can I pet your dog?’
Tommy was wagging his tail and sneezing with excitement. Rose nodded.
‘What’s his name?’ said the boy as he scratched Tommy in his favourite place behind the ears.
‘Tommy,’ said Rose. ‘What’s yours?’
The boy wiped his hand on the back of his shorts and held it out for Rose to shake. It felt small and sticky in her hand. ‘Brian,’ he said. ‘Brian Albert Henry Thompson.’
Rose’s stomach flipped. It couldn’t be, could it? But when she looked into the round blue eyes gazing at her from the boy’s grubby face she knew they couldn’t belong to anyone else.
It was her grandad.
Before she could say anything else, the ground started to tremble. A train was arriving. Rose smiled at the boy and Tommy gave one last wag before they hurried through to the platform. It was crowded with more people, waking up, yawning and grumbling, disturbed by the arrival of the first train of the morning.
‘Sorry,’
said Rose. It was so difficult to avoid treading on blankets, tripping over bags. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
The doors slid open and they stepped on. It was a southbound train, heading for her station at Clapham South, but would it be the right Clapham South? Would it take her home?
She sat down on the prickly seat with Tommy at her feet and watched the familiar stations slide past.
Kennington, Oval, Stockwell . . .
The doors opened at every stop but no one got off and no one got on. The train was completely empty.
Clapham North, Clapham Common . . .
‘Next one, Tom.’
Clapham South.
They got off. The doors closed behind them and the train drew away. Rose took a deep breath and then looked around. The platform was empty but there was an advert for a mobile phone company on the wall and an empty fried chicken box down on the track beneath the rails. There was no smell of toilets and damp clothes and unwashed people. This station had an early-morning smell of bleach and electricity. And then, an elderly black woman came through from the passage carrying a shopping bag, followed by an Indian man with a briefcase and a Chinese couple with a little girl and Rose knew.
They were home.
Outside the station, dawn was breaking over Clapham Common. The woman who owned the flower shop was pulling up the metal shutters and the early-morning bus that rumbled down Nightingale Lane looked reassuringly shiny and modern. The police cars and fire engines that had been lined up along the side of the road were gone. They must have dealt with the wartime bomb, made it safe and taken it away. The old brick shelter opposite the station was the only reminder of what had happened here all those years ago.
‘Hello, Strange Girl.’
Rose knew Aunt Cosy would be there, sitting on the steps of the bandstand watching the sparrows picking up cake crumbs from the tables outside the cafe.
‘We’ve been on quite a journey together, haven’t we?’ The old lady smiled at Tommy as he wagged his tail in greeting. ‘We three.’
Rose nodded and sat down next to her. ‘Did you ever find out what happened to him, Aunt Cosy?’
Rose in the Blitz Page 12
