‘Who ever are you talking to?’ Sarah asked, as she joined her young friend. ‘Here, I thought you’d like a hot drink. It’s bitterly cold up here. Almost too cold for snow.’
‘There’s a soldier down below. It looks as though things are starting to happen. What do you think they will do with the bomb?’
Sarah shuddered. ‘I dread to think. It’s not a job I’d like to be doing. You hear such things about bombs going off at the wrong time and lives being lost.’
Both girls looked at each other and backed away from the edge of the building, then burst out laughing. ‘You shouldn’t listen to what people say. Your nan’s always reminding us that careless talk costs lives,’ Freda said seriously, after their laughter subsided. ‘All the same, it’s a dangerous job and not one I’d like to do.’
‘Me neither – not that it’s women’s work, even though a woman lost her life six months ago on Erith Marshes while that bomb was being disposed of,’ Sarah said thoughtfully.
‘Now who is being careless with their talk?’ Freda reprimanded her friend. ‘You never know who is listening. What if Hitler found out that over a dozen people were killed that day?’
‘Pot and kettle,’ Sarah said, giving her mate a playful nudge.
‘My God, it’s so hard keeping mum, isn’t it? At least the only people likely to be listening are the army chaps down below.’
‘And do you both think they need to dwell on what could happen . . . ?’ a voice said from behind the friends.
‘Oh, Betty. You frightened me half to death. We didn’t mean any harm,’ Freda said, as Betty put her arms around the two girls’ shoulders and gave them a friendly squeeze.
‘The army’s arrived. I wonder how long this is going to take. I have a daughter I’d like to get home to and we do have a shop to open in the morning.’ Sarah sighed.
‘That’s why I’ve come up to see how the land lies. The fire seems pretty serious,’ Betty said, as she turned to face the top end of Pier Road, where firefighters were valiantly trying to get the flames under control in the burning buildings. ‘We are almost surrounded by danger,’ she said with a shudder.
‘How about you tell me who you are and where you’ve come from? I have a feeling you aren’t related to any of our party guests, are you?’ Maureen said, as she sat down opposite the young girl and watched her tuck into the leftover sandwiches. ‘You can start with your name. I can’t keep calling you Girl, can I?’
The girl nodded her head but didn’t make eye contact with Maureen.
‘You’d also be the little mouse we thought was eating the food we left in the warehouse, wouldn’t you?’
The girl looked up at Maureen for the first time. ‘I’m sorry, but I was hungry.’
Maureen reached across the table and patted her hand. ‘No one blames you for that. I’m just relieved we don’t have rats,’ she added.
The girl smiled. ‘Me too. It’s scary here at night on my own. The building makes some strange noises. That was nice. Thank you,’ she said, pushing the empty plate to one side and reaching for the remains of a cup of tea. ‘I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I had nowhere else to go.’
Maureen could have cried. What had happened to this world if a young girl was hungry and had nowhere to live? She’d make sure there was a happy ending to this girl’s story if it was the last thing she ever did. ‘Now, how about you start right at the beginning and tell me everything about how you came to be here in Woolworths when you should be home with your parents? And I mean everything, if you want me to help you,’ she said seriously. ‘I promise nothing nasty will happen to you.’
The girl looked trustingly into Maureen’s eyes. ‘My name is Jessie. I don’t have any parents and I’ve nowhere else to go.’
Maureen felt sad Wasn’t it bad enough they all had to put up with this awful war, not knowing from one day to the next if they and their loved ones would survive? And here was a kid with nothing. ‘Where did you live before you arrived here and how did you come to choose Woolworths to hide away?’ she asked gently.
‘My mum died and I had no one else to live with who I trusted. I had no choice but to run . . .’
Maureen felt a shudder run through her body. ‘What do you mean by “trust”?’
‘We lived with a travelling fair and after Mum took ill I had to do her job or we’d be kicked out. I was eleven when she first took poorly. I’m fourteen now,’ she added, seeing Maureen’s questioning look.
‘You couldn’t stay with the fair?’
Jessie shook her head vehemently. ‘No, not with that man there. I took off in the middle of the night while the fair was on the move so he couldn’t follow me.’
Maureen frowned as she reached out and took the girl’s hand. ‘Did he hurt you, love?’
‘No, I wouldn’t let him. I kept avoiding him and all the time Mum was alive I was either running her stall or caring for her, but he was hanging about trying to talk to me and give me things. I know he’d done it to some of the other kids who lived with the fair and he wasn’t going to harm me. All the time I had my mum I was safe but afterwards I was always scared and had no one to look out for me.’
‘Was it just . . . was it just young girls . . . ?’ Maureen didn’t quite know how to put her thoughts into words.
‘What you mean is, did he just chase after kids?’
‘Well, yes . . .’
‘No, he liked all kids as long as they were kids and not older kids, if you get my meaning?’
‘But you’re fourteen.’
Jessie became angry. ‘But look at me. I’m small and scrawny. I don’t look fourteen. You thought I was younger. He ain’t one for numbers. He just likes what he sees and that made none of us kids safe.’
Maureen had never felt such anger building up inside her. ‘Why did you not tell someone? The police or the man who owns the fairground, perhaps?’
‘I don’t think the coppers would have believed a scruffy kid off the fairground. Do you?’
‘But the owner . . . surely . . . ?’
Jessie stuck her chin out defiantly. ‘No, it was safest just to run. I knew within days of Mum being buried that I had to be on the move. She’d always told me to think of myself first and to stay safe whatever the situation. Besides, the fairground owner would never believe his own son could do such things, not that the awful man would ever confess to what he got up to.’
Maureen got up and hugged the girl so tight the youngster had trouble breathing. ‘You’re safe now. I’ll make sure you never come to any harm,’ she declared, trying hard not to think of the unexploded bomb only yards away and the fire raging at the end of the street.
Chapter 8
‘God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay . . .’
The cheerful crowd in the cellar of F. W. Woolworth joined in with Maureen as she encouraged them all to sing some well-known Christmas carols together. Having lived with the war for over two years, they weren’t allowing the small problem of an air raid to get in the way of their Christmas celebrations. Ignoring the one morose chap who commented that they were likely to still be in the cellar come Christmas Day, the cheerful people of Erith continued to enjoy their party. It had now been four hours since the air-raid siren had sounded and some of the guests were slightly worse for wear after sharing the beer supplied by the Woolworths staff and the spirits brought along by the old soldiers.
There had been constant demands to use the toilet and, rather than allow so many people to take advantage of the galvanized metal buckets curtained off at one end of the cellar, Betty had made the decision to permit small groups at a time to be escorted to use the staff facilities. Vera and young Mary had organized this, continuously urging people to hurry through the store and upstairs to the staff quarters whilst issuing them with the tin helmets usually worn by those on firewatching duty. Although she complained about climbing so many stairs, Vera proved to be perfect at cajoling the men to get them back to the safety of the cellar.
Maureen sighed. The all-clear had not yet sounded and she knew that everyone was getting rather fidgety. There was a limit to how many sing-songs they could have. Old bones were getting stiffer by the minute. She’d even thought about getting their guests up onto their feet to do the hokey-cokey for exercise’s sake, but there wasn’t room for everyone to stand up at the same time. ‘What’s up, Mary?’
‘She says her waters have broke. Mum’s in a bit of a panic. She says as how the women have babies quick in our family. It’s as easy as shelling peas. She can’t really ’ave it down here, can she, Mrs Gilbert?’
Maureen gasped. The cellar most certainly wasn’t the right place to give birth to a baby. Apart from the fact the low-ceilinged room was packed to the gunnels with people, so there wasn’t any privacy for the young woman, it was none too healthy in the fuggy atmosphere created by cigarette smoke and the irritating smell of beer and body odour. The ideal place would be the small room next to Betty’s office where there was a single iron-framed bed, which was used if staff were under the weather and needed to rest before being taken home. However, at this moment another young woman was tucked up under the rough army-issue blanket, hopefully sleeping off the distressing aftermath of losing her much-wanted first child. What a predicament.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Betty declared at the sound of the all-clear, as the sirens sprung into life one after the other with the news spreading up the Thames to London. ‘That was a long one. Now I must go down and ask the army what is happening. We really need to get our guests out of here and safely back to their homes and beds. It’s not far off midnight and we have a busy day’s trading tomorrow.’
Sarah groaned. She knew there was so much still to do, clearing up after the party in the cellar. They dare not leave the safe room messy, as Sod’s law said there’d be another air raid tomorrow and the cellar was the only safe place to take their customers. It may be the day before Christmas Eve, but Hitler was not likely to honour the festive season. All she wanted to do was get home and hug her daughter and husband. Georgina was bound to be tired and fractious by now as she was never happy being in Ruby’s air-raid shelter, even if that was where she’d been born just over a year before. Her husband, Alan, would have been off duty long before the air-raid siren sounded so at least he’d have taken over care of their daughter, and Ruby’s neighbour would have been back with her own family rather than taking care of Georgina. ‘That sounds wonderful,’ she said to her boss, even though she wondered how they could get out of the road with an unexploded bomb at one end and a fire raging at the other.
‘Excuse me, ladies, may I ask what’s happening up here?’
Sarah, Betty and Freda turned to see the Woolworths store inspector dusting down his suit jacket after climbing up onto the roof.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Freda muttered quietly to her friends. ‘I’d completely forgotten about that man.’
‘Me too,’ Betty whispered back. ‘I have no idea what he’s written in his notebook or if it is a favourable report on Erith Woolworths and its manager.’
‘You do have a very good view from up here,’ the man said, turning to look at the fire. ‘Oh dear, that doesn’t look very good,’ he added, reaching for his notebook and scribbling furiously whilst juggling a small torch in the same hand as his pencil.
‘Mr . . . Mr . . .’ Betty gave up trying to think of his name. ‘I’m aware I’ve not dedicated enough of my time to entertaining you this evening, but if you’d like to accompany me to my office I’ll see what I can do to appease that now the all-clear has sounded. It is still not safe up here, what with an unexploded bomb just down the road.’
‘Oh, I say!’ the man exclaimed, taking a step backwards, which caused him to wobble precariously close to the edge of the roof. ‘I’ve not come across this in my line of work before. Is it safe?’
Sarah tried hard not to snort with laughter, which caused her to cover her mirth with a pretend sneeze. ‘I suppose not,’ she spluttered, thinking of how his job would be mainly to turn up and put the fear of God into the staff before going away to write a damning report on how they could all work much harder.
‘Let me escort you back downstairs,’ Betty offered, taking the man by the elbow and steering him firmly towards the slope of the roof that took them back down to the staffroom window. ‘I would like to show you the facilities I’ve created for my staff. Have you seen the room I keep for those who feel poorly whilst at work?’
The man put his hand over his mouth and tittered. ‘I’ll say. There was a woman in there lying down.’
Betty sighed. She’d forgotten that they’d settled Maisie in the sick room to rest. She really needed to speak to someone in charge of the unexploded bomb so she could arrange to get her poorly friend home to her husband, David. Then he could call the doctor to make sure that the girl was over her distressing experience. Maisie needed more than anything to be with her loved one right now. ‘That will be one of my supervisors. Maisie is a little under the weather,’ she explained, trying not to give too much away about the girl’s delicate situation. She didn’t feel the man would be able to cope with a full explanation.
He turned to her as he stepped through the open window. ‘No, this woman was more than a little under the weather – she was in labour,’ he sniggered, placing one hand over his mouth again as he laughed.
Betty led the man to her office. She would settle him there with her ledgers and then call Freda down to make some tea and find him a biscuit. The inspector had made no attempt to question her about the day-to-day running of the Erith store, which she found rather confusing, although he had made notes as he’d chatted to their guests and used the Brownie box camera that hung around his neck on a leather strap. She’d then be free to step into the dark road outside the store and find out what was happening with that wretched bomb, after she’d checked what was happening in the sick room. Giving birth, she thought sadly. If that were only the truth, they’d all be overjoyed for Maisie. Opening the door to the office and ushering him in ahead of her, she was surprised to see Maisie sitting at her desk. She looked up and beamed at her boss.
‘’Ello, ducks. I got shoved out of the other room as it was needed by young Mary’s sister. So, I thought I might as well sort out the staff duty rotas for the New Year.’
Betty frowned. Something didn’t seem right here. ‘Why, is there something wrong with Mary’s sister?’
‘She’s ’avin a baby,’ Maisie said blankly.
Betty felt so sad for the young woman sitting in front of her. This could not have come at a worse time. ‘But Maisie, you need to rest . . .’
Maisie raised her hand to stop Betty saying more. ‘I’m fine thanks, Miss Billington. There’s no need to worry about me.’ She gave a brittle laugh as she called her boss by her full name, rather than using her friendlier Christian name. ‘It looks as though I’ll be remaining at Woolworths for the foreseeable future. You won’t need to find a replacement for me after all.’ Maisie got to her feet and reached for the edge of the desk to steady herself. Her hands shook as she grabbed it.
‘Now, whatever you say, I know you are not well, Maisie. Sit yourself down right now. I’ll take Mr . . . Mr . . . to the staffroom and have Freda bring you some hot tea. Once this unexploded bomb has been dealt with we’ll have you packed off home to bed. You are not to do any work,’ she added sternly.
Betty left the room, ignoring Maisie’s protests of ‘Bomb? What bomb?’
Walking across the passage from her office to the staffroom, followed by the inspector, Betty asked Freda to send in hot tea to Maisie and have Sarah sit with her. ‘When you’ve done that perhaps you’d help Mr . . . Mr . . . and answer any questions he has about our branch. I really must get downstairs and find someone in charge of this bomb or we’ll be in here until Boxing Day at this rate.’ She showed the m
an to a seat and headed downstairs, pulling a bunch of keys from her pocket. She’d also need to do something about the cellar full of people, she thought to herself.
‘Hello, Alan. It’s a bit on the late side to be out walking the youngster, isn’t it?’ Sergeant Mike Jackson said, giving the man a quick flash of his torch as he recognized the approaching figure, dressed in the uniform of an RAF pilot, pushing a large pram.
‘Hello, Mike. I could say the same of you. I suppose the air raid kept you late on duty?’ Alan said to the affable policeman, who lived just across the road from his wife’s nan,, Ruby. ‘It kept our Georgina awake for hours. I thought I’d wrap her up well and walk round to meet Sarah and the rest of the family. They should be out of Woolworths now the all-clear’s sounded.’
Mike was in the high street and had been chatting with a group of soldiers, who were busy putting up wooden barricades in the middle of the road. ‘Blimey, I’d forgotten there was a do on up at Woolworths. Hmm, there might be a problem with that,’ he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Alan felt his stomach lurch. ‘What’s the problem, Mike, and what’s all this about?’ he asked, waving his free hand at the nearby soldiers. ‘My wife, my mother and many of my friends are up there,’ he said sharply, pointing to where the high street met Pier Road. ‘Don’t tell me they’re in danger? I can see from here there’s a fire further up the road and Woolworths isn’t in danger, so why aren’t they out of the store and starting to walk home?’ Alan felt the fear rise up into his throat, making him impatient for answers and speaking just a little louder than usual. ‘Come on, man, spit it out,’ he demanded. ‘What’s the problem? I’m going up there right now to find out.’
Carols at Woolworths Page 6
