by Maggie Ford
Time became lost as the world outside dissolved in noise and havoc. The building shook with deafening explosions, and all the while Addie cried with a fear she couldn’t understand, ‘Mummy – don’t like it – don’t like it!’ As if she could make it stop.
In any brief pause falling pieces of metal from burst shells tinkled and clashed as they struck the iron stairs, reminding her that to be out even during a lull was equally lethal. No one in their right mind would come nigh or by. She was the only one here. She had never felt so alone. The whole world was falling about her ears and not a soul to find her or come to her aid should something happen to her. If only she hadn’t been so proud and gone to see Mum last week. Now it was too late. In this dark little hole she clutched Adele to her, her terrified heart yearning for the protection of her own mother’s arms. If this building collapsed on her, trapping her, who would there be to rescue her? Mr Stebbings had gone home, her secretive neighbours had disappeared leaving their flat empty, Mr and Mrs Copeland had gone to relatives in Hemel Hempstead after that first raid on south London.
‘It mightn’t be for long,’ Joan said. ‘I know it looks like we’re being cowards but we just want to be safe.’
She couldn’t blame them. She’d have gone too if she’d had anyone to go to outside London. If only they had been able to move to Dagenham, came the thought, she wouldn’t be in this predicament now. The thought made her bitter; she had no inkling of the temptation the docks there offered enemy bombers.
Through the hours their droning receded and returned in waves making it hard to ascertain if they’d left for good so she could venture out. At one time, realising that no more bombs had fallen for a while, she dared hope it might be over. If only Harry was here, she’d have felt less frightened even though common sense said he’d have no power to save her if there was a direct hit.
Gradually though, her fear blunted under the continuous onslaught; she sat merely listening to the high shrilling of ambulance and fire bells, and sometimes the sound of running feet and men’s voices calling out in the road behind her which in one way consoled her, in another put her in a dilemma. Should she actually go out and seek help or not? There was an acrid smell of burning wood. Dust dislodged from the shed roof covered the eiderdown. Having forgotten her torch she sat listening in utter darkness. After crying for some time, Addie fell asleep, allowing her to shut her own eyes against their gritty feel.
She wasn’t sure when the planes finally receded, but awoke with a start as the shed door was yanked open and sunlight flooded in, almost blinding her.
Blinking, she tried to make out the figure standing there against the light until the voice said, ‘Mrs Hutton. Are you all right? Are you hurt?’
‘Mr Stebbings!’
Pushing off the eiderdown and clutching the now-awake Adele to her, Brenda got shakily to her feet, already embarrassed at being found in such a situation.
‘It’s the only place I could think of to be safe,’ she explained as she came out from behind the pram, taking the hand he held out to help steady her. ‘We had a terrible air raid last night.’
‘I thought of you and the baby. There was no way I could reach you.’
Why he should say that she didn’t know. They weren’t that close as neighbours, merely passing the time of day if they met. Now he was taking it upon himself to gather up her belongings, which he bundled up in his arms as he helped her up the stairs to her flat.
In her panic to find safety she hadn’t locked the kitchen door, he opened it, guiding her inside. It was the first time he’d ever been in her flat since she and Harry moved in and she felt suddenly exposed. Not that it wasn’t clean and tidy, just that she seemed to stand stripped of all privacy. Yet his eyes hadn’t once wandered from her face to take in the place where she lived.
‘Th-thank you, Mr Stebbings,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll be all right now.’ She’d become aware that everywhere was redolent of her hairdressing trade, different to the way most homes should smell. ‘I can manage now it’s over.’
‘What about tomorrow night?’ he asked, gazing at her standing in the kitchen with Adele complaining in her arms. ‘And the next night and the next? Now it’s started I reckon it will continue.’
She felt he was about to say, ‘Until we give in.’ She leapt.
‘We won’t do that. Never.’ But she hadn’t given any thought to any following night. ‘I think I was safe enough,’ she added. ‘I wasn’t hurt and neither was Adele, apart from being scared to death. I expect most people were last night.’
She tried to make a little joke of it, giving a small self-conscious titter. Perhaps he would go now. But he hesitated.
‘It’s Hitler’s intention to try and beat us into submission, you know, and he won’t stop now.’
‘They’re not goin’ ter beat us,’ she insisted, flaring defiantly. She saw his sensitive lips give a little quirk.
‘Of course they won’t. What I had in mind, apart from Adolf Hitler, was that you and Adele need somewhere other than an old store shed. Don’t be offended, but the shop has a cellar and you’d be safe there. You wouldn’t be disturbed as I go home at night. You could take all you need down with you and leave it there. Torch, bedding, food, flask of tea, toiletries. I can supply an oil stove and I keep stocks of old books down there, so you could have a read if you want.’
He chuckled then grew serious. ‘You could make it cosy. A bed, table, chair. I’d give you a key so you could let yourself into the shop at night and let yourself out in the morning. What do you say? Safer than running to any public shelter. Safer than staying up here, and warmer than an old shed.’
How could she refuse such an offer? It was like a gift from the gods. Smiling, Brenda agreed and that very morning had him pressing a newly cut key into her hand.
Chapter Fourteen
It must have been an isolated raid for no bombers appeared the following night as everyone had expected them to, nor the next. People remained edgy and on alert, but after a week of peaceful sleep, began to relax. They sadly read of raids elsewhere in the country but thanked God it wasn’t here.
Even so, for two nights Adele slept badly, startled from sleep by every slightest bang or bump outside. It kept Brenda sleepless too, having to get up to console her every time.
Hoping to divert her, she got a little kitten. It seemed instantly to do the trick and that night Adele slept soundly with it beside her, though even that small creature took up much-needed room. Adele was fast growing too big for her cot. All that mattered was that she was more content, allowing Brenda some sleep.
Her parents had come rushing round the very next morning to see if she was all right after that night’s air raid, which people were starting to call the Blitz, in typical British fashion shortening it from the German word Blitzkrieg, meaning lightning war.
The look of relief on their faces at finding her safe and well turned to even more relief when she told them about how Mr Stebbings had given her a key so she could get into his basement through his shop if there were any more air raids.
‘That’s what I call a real Christian gesture,’ her mother said. ‘But I do wish yer lived nearer so as yer could use our shelter proper. Nothink can go wrong in them. Even in a basement, buildings could fall on top of yer.’
‘That’s it, Mum,’ Brenda chuckled happily as she made a cup of tea, ‘doom and gloom, eh? Be a Job’s comforter ter make me feel better!’
She saw the instant change come over her mother’s face as she recalled her last words of doom and gloom about Harry. Putting down the teapot she had been pouring from, Brenda put an arm about her mother’s shoulder. ‘Oh, Mum, it’s orright. We’re all goin’ ter be orright.’ Her mother smiled.
It was a wonderful morning having them here. Outside on this lovely warm sunny day some debris littering Bow Road was being cleared by council workers; a fire engine stood idle further down with the firemen coiling hoses from a smouldering, half-demolished shop some way off towards
Mile End Station. No one had been hurt. The manager and his family who lived above it had gone to visit friends, she heard, and remained there during the raid. But Monday’s papers did tell of civilian casualties, of considerable fires started in the City, of scattered bombing of East End suburbs – to Brenda, hiding alone in her shed, the air raid had sounded far worse than it was.
She went round to Harry’s parents that afternoon to see how they had fared with the bombed shop that much nearer to them. She found they’d only lost a few tiles off the roof and suffered a few broken windows. These had been prevented from blowing in by the criss-cross strips of gummed paper the Huttons like most people had stuck on them to prevent injury from flying splinters. In the Huttons’ case it showed that it worked.
Trying not to mark the contrast in warmth between her own parents and them, she stayed to tea at their insistence as they discussed their individual experiences last night.
Mrs Hutton grew tight-lipped when Brenda mentioned Mr Stebbings’ offer. ‘You hardly know the man, yer can’t accept the key to his place.’
‘I thought he was being generous, thoughtful.’
‘It depends on what you mean by generosity and thoughtfulness. Your Harry wouldn’t be all that ’appy ter know some strange man’s offering yer a key to ’is premises.’
‘I suppose Harry would be happier if I got killed or wounded in that rotten little shed,’ Brenda snapped back, and saw the lips tighten still more.
‘A basement ’as to be better’n that,’ her father-in-law put in hastily, and to Brenda’s immense satisfaction he returned his wife’s glare with one of his own, shutting her up.
Hurriedly changing the subject, Brenda came out with her method of consoling Adele after the trauma of last night. Her mother-in-law, recovering from her husband’s glare, looked at her as if she had admitted to voluntarily harbouring a horde of vermin.
‘A cat! You’re giving yerself trouble ’aving a cat, Brenda. Cats breed like rabbits. There’s too many in London as it is. What d’yer want a cat for?’
‘For Addie. She needed something ter take her mind off the other night. She’s been terrified. And anyway, it’s a kitten.’
‘Kittens grow into cats.’
‘I know. But Addie needed something to make her feel better.’
‘You could of got ’er a little toy. Something furry.’
‘You can’t get toys that easily now.’ Toys had all but disappeared from the shops. There had been an appeal earlier in the summer to everyone to surrender kitchenware and anything with aluminium in it to help make more planes. It was hardly the time to go out buying toys when it wasn’t even Christmas or a birthday. And anyway she couldn’t have afforded one. She wondered if Mrs Hutton might offer but she didn’t. They were no more able to afford such things than she even if they could find anything other than from those who were turning to selling handmade items.
Instead she said darkly, ‘Harry won’t be pleased. He hates cats. And what you going to feed it on, all this rationing and everything?’
But it was her choice. She was doing a lot more of her own choosing lately. It was her home, like Mum had said. Harry was back there only occasionally.
Obviously it was not his fault; he couldn’t help being away in the forces. He hadn’t been given leave since coming back from Dunkirk, as if those few days had been considered adequate reward for what he’d gone through.
She wrote once a week to him and he wrote back as regularly, telling her to look after herself and how much he loathed not being with her at this terrible time, and he sent his love to her. She treasured his letters and sighed over his absence and longed for him to be here. But he wasn’t and it was up to her to make the decisions now.
The week went on and still all was quiet. Churchill had sent their own bombers over Berlin as a reprisal. German bombers did reciprocate but they aimed at places like Merseyside and Liverpool. And while she sympathised with the people there, having had a taste of it herself, she couldn’t help the feelings of relief that settled in her breast.
It was pure joy being able to leave Addie to her own devices safe in the other room happily playing with her kitten, which she had named Petty – her own interpretation of Brenda’s description of its pretty tortoiseshell coat – while she put up a customer’s hair for her.
Absently going along with all the young woman had to say about herself, Brenda allowed part of her mind to dwell on what Harry might have to say about the kitten, which in turn set her longing for him and wondering when his next leave would be.
A letter was due from him. She could rely on him telling her in it if he would be coming home, giving her time to clear away evidence of her work. The kitten would have to take its chances, but one day she would have to confront him with what she was doing.
As Mum said, she was her own mistress now. But it wouldn’t make life pleasant having to tell him that this was her decision and he would have to like it or lump it. Easy for Mum to say; more easily said than done. And of course there’d be his mother putting in her two penn’orth, shoving a spanner in the works, voicing her opinions as if she personally owned the flat.
It must have been providence, thinking all this as she listened to her client, for next day Harry’s letter dated the fifth of September came, a very brief one. In fact he wrote, ‘I’ll make this short, love,’ after saying he was well, hoping she was too. ‘Got ten days’ leave but don’t get too excited. Tell you why when I get home. All I’ll say for now is we’ll have to make the most of it because it might be a time before I get any more leave. Be home Saturday midday.’
In mad haste she cancelled all her hair appointments for the next ten days and settled herself down to wait.
He was home. He looked in much better health than when last she’d seen him. Naturally thin as he was, even so he had filled out a little, his cheeks less gaunt, his brown eyes all sparkling. It felt so good to have his arms round her, to touch him, to feel the warmth of him, his breath on her cheeks, the sound of his voice, so resonant for a slim man. She fell immediately to pampering him, hovering over him, seeing him put on his civvies which she had pressed and aired that morning, taking joy in seeing him play with Addie. Addie took it all in her stride, still knowing her daddy. There were times when Brenda feared Addie might forget him, with him being away from her so often. But not a bit of it.
To her relief he made no comment about the kitten, apart from brushing it away if it came near, accepting her explanation for getting it.
It was only as she dished up the dinner she’d cooked for him, a piece of scrag-end of lamb bought on her own ration book – he’d handed his to her on arrival and this she would use for another time – made into a delicious stew with carrots and onions, potatoes and an Oxo cube, that he set down his knife and fork and looked soberly at her.
‘I’d better get this orf me chest, Bren. Yer know why I’m on leave – on such a long leave, don’t yer?’
Something in his tone set her heart thumping heavily, sickeningly. So far she had managed not to question anything, only too glad to have him home. Now he didn’t have to tell her: she knew. She’d known the moment he’d entered, but had refused to acknowledge the signs.
‘Embarkation leave.’ She whispered the words as though speaking any louder would have her dissolving in tears. Those tears were very close compounded since his arrival, held back only by the hope that what she was thinking had to be mere imagination.
She saw him nod dismally. ‘Why d’they always spring it on yer like that? We ’ad an inklin’ somethink was in the air. Signs, little fings yer notice, but there always is lots of bleedin’ rumours flying about. Yer get so as not ter take too much notice of it or yer’d go barmy. Then, wham! Yer’ve got embarkation leave. Report back at so-and-so and off yer go. Ain’t told where. But it’s overseas and that’s about all we know, me old love. It’s a bugger!’
‘Oh, Harry . . .’
Her appetite had left her. She watched as he bent his hea
d to eat his food, eating quickly, and she knew why – so that he wouldn’t betray the feelings that would have choked him had he not used his gullet to stuff the food down.
She watched him clear his plate, push it away from him, sit back, pat his stomach and smile at her as if all he’d said a short while ago hadn’t been. ‘That was scrumptious, me old darlin’, absolutely top hole. I always tell everyone what a bloody luv’ly cook you are. Yer should see some of the rubbish we’re given . . .’
He broke off suddenly, and to avoid the desperate look on his face she leaned forward to put a spoonful of mashed potato into Addie’s mouth.
‘I’m sorry, luv. I didn’t mean ter . . . It’s a real bloody bugger!’ he repeated with venom.
For the rest of the day they avoided speaking of all it implied. ‘We’ll make the most of it, eh?’ he suggested cheerfully. ‘Me mum an’ dad’ll ’ave Addie round their place and we’ll go up West, see a show, or the pictures.’
She agreed that she’d like that, looking forward only to bedtime when she’d make the most of him, enough to last for whatever length of lonely time he would be away from her. Tonight and every night, until he was plucked from her by those wooden-faced, insensitive, heartless powers-that-be. Maybe from such intense lovemaking would come another baby. It would be such a consolation for his absence. Yes, she wanted another baby.
In the afternoon they made a dutiful visit to his parents. His mother hugged him as though this was the last she’d ever see of him, insisting they stay to tea, to which Brenda said they already had a tea waiting for them at home. So instead she plied him with cakes that she’d made, urging him and his father to smoke a cigar instead of their cigarettes, and clutching Adele to her with all the passion of someone expecting the child soon to be orphaned. Brenda found herself hard put to control herself and was glad when they finally came away.
