Blitz - Book 4 of the Poppy Chronicles

by Claire Rayner

  Even when she went home to find Goosey sulking and the house undusted and unswept – Goosey’s usual form of reprisal when she felt she had been at all put upon – and took a sleeping pill and went to bed, desperate for the peace of sleep, she still saw Jessie’s face staring at her. And Robin’s. And she felt deeply at odds with herself and everything and everyone else that was in her world.

  25

  Robin was still seething when she got back to the hospital. How dare her mother speak so? How dare she try to interfere in her life that way? I’m twenty-one, Robin thought furiously, twenty-one and she still carries on as though I were an eleven year old. It’s too much –

  Somewhere deep inside her mind a little voice whispered at her – but she’s frightened. David’s at sea in the most dangerous area, and she’s frantic, and Joshy and Lee are away and she’s got a lot to cope with – but the angry Robin refused to listen. Her mother had no right to speak to her so. Mothers were supposed to be caring and supportive and never like that. Robin was close to tears of anger and a sort of fear as she reached the last hundred yards or so that lay between her and the hospital courtyard. Things were difficult enough without her mother showing her clay feet this way –

  There was a good deal of traffic along the Whitechapel Road, buses and lorries of course, but some private cars too, and she had to wait on the corner of New Road for two of them which were waiting to find a hole in the traffic and turn left, when she saw her, and all her anger, which had begun to subside, came back in a rush.

  Was her entire family against her? What had she done to deserve it? And her sore eyes filled up with stinging tears, and she bent her head, hoping the little red car would speed past her without its driver noticing her.

  It didn’t. As she crossed the road and began to hurry on to the hospital, the small red car which had been about to turn out into the traffic stopped, and the window was wound down.

  ‘Ye gods,’ Chloe said. ‘What’s happened to you then? You look as though you’ve been in a prizefight.’

  ‘I was out in last night’s raid,’ Robin said, and couldn’t resist the spiteful dig that rose to her lips. ‘While you were no doubt snoring safely at home in Bryanston Square, I was looking after people in that awful raid.’

  ‘Oh, do tell!’ cooed Chloe. ‘The little heroine, are we? When do you get your George Cross, then?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Chloe. If you can’t say something decent – ’

  ‘ – then don’t say anything at all. For God’s sake, you don’t have to quote Goosey at me. Where are you going now, then?’

  ‘To bed,’ Robin said nastily. ‘As soon as you stop gassing on in this stupid fashion and let me go.’ And the question she hadn’t meant to ask, the question she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask, was there, spoken, and she hated herself for letting the words out. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

  Chloe smirked. As far as Robin was concerned that was the only word for the expression that flitted across her face.

  ‘Oh, just bringing Hamish back,’ she said with studied nonchalance. ‘He had nights off, you know, and he’s due back tonight.’

  ‘Really?’ Robin said, knowing perfectly well what Hamish’s off-duty was.

  ‘Mm. So last night he – urn – stayed over at my place. He’s madly sweet, you know. Terribly naive and inexperienced, but awfully sweet –’ And she let her lips curve into a reminiscent smile, never taking her eyes off Robin’s face.

  Her meaning was unmistakable and Robin felt the pain in the middle as surely as if she had been hit by a piece of shrapnel. It’s none of your business, the secret part of her mind howled at her, none of your business. You don’t own him and anyway there’s nothing special between you. He’s just a friend, only a friend, and not a very close one at that. But she didn’t believe the small voice. She believed Chloe, who was still looking at her with that smirk on her face and Robin had to tighten her hands into fists inside her cape to stop herself hitting out at her. She’d never done that even when she’d been a child and Chloe had been hateful to her. She wasn’t going to start now, please don’t let me lose my temper now.

  ‘If you say so,’ she managed to say, though her lips felt stiff and unmanageable. ‘But I haven’t time to stand and chatter, I really must get to bed. See you again, no doubt.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Chloe said sunnily and let in her clutch. ‘Bye, darling! By the way, how’s Poppy and Co.?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Robin said, desperately needing to get away before she lost all control and the tears of fury that were rising in her throat like sharp points of shattering glass overwhelmed her, and she moved a little sideways to get round the car and escape, and Chloe watched her and then laughed.

  ‘Try not to be too hard on your friend Hamish,’ she said lightly. ‘Poor darling – didn’t know what hit him! Putty in the old hands, wasn’t it –’ And this time she did put the car into motion and went, leaving Robin standing there as it disappeared into the traffic heading west along the Whitechapel Road.

  Somehow she managed to get herself into the hospital grounds and on her way to the Nurses’ Home without anyone she passed noticing how distressed she was. Chloe and Hamish – it didn’t bear thinking of; and therefore she wouldn’t think of it, she wouldn’t, no matter what. It wasn’t important, anyway; why should she worry about it? Let him do as he chose. If Hamish wanted to play at tomcats with her sister that was his affair. Nothing to do with me, Robin told herself, struggling to believe it. Nothing at all to do with me –

  She turned the corner by the emergency dispensary unit that had been set up in a Nissen hut after the original one had been damaged in a raid, her head down and the tears running down her cheeks. Her eyes stung dreadfully and her face seemed to be flaming as though someone had set a match to her cheeks. She didn’t see him until she almost ran into him.

  ‘Robin!’ Hamish said and put out a hand to hold her shoulder. ‘What happened to ye? They told me where you were last night when I called in at the porter’s lodge – let me see – ’

  She lifted her face and glared at him. ‘What do you care?’ she snapped and tried to get past him, needing to be alone in her own room where she could let out all the confused feelings that were pounding in her own aching head.

  He dropped his hand and said in a clearly startled voice, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said what do you care? You were having a great time with my sister – my half-sister – while I was out in that raid. What do you care about me or what happens to me?’

  He took a sharp little breath. ‘I thought we were friends,’ he said. ‘That’s why I – ’

  ‘So did I,’ she snapped. ‘Now I know better.’

  Why am I talking this way? the little voice in her mind whispered. Why let him know how hurt you are, how angry, why make a fool of yourself? Where’s your pride, for God’s sake?

  ‘Now you –’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll need to explain.’

  ‘I saw Chloe,’ she said and had to work hard not to shout it. ‘Outside. Just brought you back, I imagine. Glad to hear it was all so – oh, leave me be. I’m going.’ And she pushed past him and went running across to the Nurses’ Home, her cape flying behind her, leaving him standing staring after her with his face as still as a piece of his native hillside.

  Chick was in her room when she got to the Nurses’ Home and Robin stood at the door and said tightly, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Mm?’ Chick looked up from the book she had on her lap as she sat curled up on Robin’s bed. ‘Oh, it’s your Anatomy and Physiology book. Lost mine. I’m just mugging up on the arteries that supply the kidneys ready for the test next week. I’ve done no work at all, what with all the gadding about I’ve been doing. I thought I’d try to get something into my thick head before I went to bed. There’s sure as hell no time to do any swotting on duty –’ She stretched and yawned and then, half-way through, stared at Robin and said, ‘Hey – what are you doing here anyway? I thought you s
aid you were going home till your eyes were better?’

  ‘Changed my mind,’ Robin said shortly. ‘Listen, do you mind? I want to go to bed. I’m tired – ’

  ‘You’re more than that,’ Chick said and sat up more erectly, staring at her. ‘My child, you are in a state of – well, tell me what happened to get under your skin this way. I’ve never seen you so screwed up. And it’s not just the eyes I’m talking about either – ’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing!’ Robin snapped. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all – ’

  ‘Oh, sure, that’s all,’ Chick mocked. ‘Come off it, ducky. This is me, the old Chick, still selling at the old stand, remember? Don’t try and tell me I’m a fool who can’t see beyond the end of her own nose, on account I won’t stand for it. Something’s got under your skin very badly and I insist you tell me – ’

  ‘Chick, go away!’ Robin said and stamped her foot and burst into loud and uncontrollable tears.

  It took Chick almost half an hour to sort her out. She got her undressed and into the bath and then into bed, scolding her all the while, but without any real opprobrium, for all the world like a younger version of Goosey, Robin thought at one point, and then brought her a cup of cocoa from the little gas ring at the end of the corridor, together with one for herself. And then flopped down on Robin’s bed, making her push her legs to one side, and glared at her with affectionate reproval.

  ‘Okay, little one, spill it,’ she said and when Robin started to shake her head in refusal, lifted one imperious hand. ‘You’ll have to tell me everything as well you know, so you might as well get on with it, and then we can both get some sleep.’

  And Robin, knowing when she was beaten, and filled with the languor that comes after a great emotional flood of the sort she’d just been through, told her. Of Poppy’s behaviour first of all, for that still hurt, and then haltingly of what had happened with Chloe and Hamish.

  ‘So there you have it,’ she said at length. ‘I feel – oh, it’s hard to explain. I just thought he was a friend, that’s all – ’

  ‘Rather more than a friend,’ Chick said. ‘Love and all that, I reckon. It does get in the way, doesn’t it? Spoils some good friendships – ’

  ‘No –’ Robin protested, but Chick shook her head.

  ‘Listen, ducks, will you? You’re in a great state on account of Hamish curled up with your sister. Sorry, half-sister. It’s really got under your skin – and that wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t want to curl up with him yourself – ’

  Robin’s already red face got hotter. ‘I never thought of him that way,’ she protested feebly.

  ‘Maybe you didn’t, not with your head. But your body did, didn’t it? Bodies can be a goddamned nuisance, take it from me.’ Now it was Chick who looked a little pink. ‘That cousin of yours – ’

  ‘Mm?’ Robin looked at her, glad to be distracted from her own tale of woe. ‘What do you mean? Daniel?’

  ‘Daniel,’ Chick said. ‘As smooth as butter and then some. And rather on the gorgeous side, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Robin said and Chick laughed.

  ‘I guess when it’s a relation you don’t notice it. Take it from me, he’s pretty as guys go. And very pushy – ’

  Robin looked alarmed. ‘I hope he’s not – not –’ and again Chick laughed.

  ‘Oh, don’t fret! I can take care of myself. It’s just that –’ She shrugged. ‘I’m just glad I can talk to Harry now and again.’

  ‘He’s still seeing you then?’ Robin was deeply grateful for the turn the conversation had taken. The more they talked of Chick’s affairs, the less they’d talk of her own.

  ‘In a vague sort of way. He’s really rather nice in his own dour fashion. Getting him to talk is like walking over a ploughed field in high-heeled shoes, mind you, but it’s worth the effort you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ Robin said and managed a smile. ‘Yes, I think so. Listen, tell me more tonight. I must get some sleep and then I want to get up early and go over to the Nursing Office and arrange to go on duty tonight. My eyes don’t bother me too much, and I know they’re short in Cas. Especially now that Meek’s gone to her new post – ’

  ‘Alleluia, praise the Lord,’ said Chick. ‘Without her we all do much better, believe me. They’ll never let you go on duty tonight. You look as though you ought to be in the sick bay.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, I’m fine. Just a bit sore is all. Are you going then?’

  ‘If you promise me you won’t fret any more over this business with your – with Hamish and Chloe.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Robin said knowing she lied. ‘Go on now.’

  ‘I’ll go.’ Chick got to her feet. ‘But I’m not leaving it at that. I’ve got a feeling about your half-sister.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Robin with sudden malice in her voice.

  ‘Not like yours,’ Chick said. She had reached the door now. ‘I think she’s a born troublemaker. I think she’d say anything to upset people, just for the hell of it. Really spiteful – ’

  ‘Is Churchill Prime Minister?’ Robin said wearily and put her cup on her bedside table, so that she could slide down in bed. It felt very welcoming and sleep was beginning to creep into her.

  ‘So I’m going to do a bit of research,’ Chick said. ‘Sleep well, ducky. See you tonight,’ and she was gone, closing the door softly behind her, and Robin slid into sleep almost at once, worn out with the pain of her eyes and last night’s exploits and the emotional maelstrom that had followed. She tried to think about what Chick had said and what she might mean but couldn’t catch her own thoughts; they kept sliding away into dreams of flames and the sight of St Paul’s Cathedral outlined in crimson against a black sky.

  Poppy sat at the kitchen table, hunched over a cup of cocoa, staring at the blackout that covered the big window. Its thick stuffy folds seemed to echo her mood, and she wanted to bury herself in it. To be able to sink into blackness, to have no painful dreams, no fears that twisted themselves into hideous images of death and disaster as she slept – that was the only sort of bliss she could imagine.

  Upstairs Goosey was sleeping. She’d been in her room all day, and Poppy, when she had climbed the steps to the front door and gone into the house to stand and listen to the silence had thought for a while of just leaving her there to sulk, and then had sighed.

  She couldn’t do that to the old thing. She’d meant no harm, after all. Just moaning on about the laundry; and it was difficult for her, because wasn’t she too fretting over David? Oh, David, prayed Poppy, standing in the hall in the cold winter light, come home safe, please come home safe. I need you so much, don’t let them drown you. And so terrified was she by the word that had come into her mind that she ran upstairs to speak to Goosey as though she could run away from her own thinking.

  The old woman was sitting in the chair beside her window staring out at the garden when Poppy had followed her knock on the door by immediately putting her head round it and at first wouldn’t speak. But eventually Poppy had coaxed her round and she had wept a little and sniffed a lot and then opted to go to bed, though Poppy insisted that she eat some supper first.

  ‘I’ll bring you something on a tray,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure what but – ’

  ‘There’s a bit of cheese in the box,’ Goosey said, looking animated suddenly. ‘It would toast up lovely on a bit of bread –’ and she had sniffed again and mopped her old eyes and crept into bed, and Poppy had gone down to make her supper.

  Now she sat in her silent house, almost straining her ears to hear some sort of comforting sound from outside, but there was just the hiss of the coals on the fire and the faint murmur of the kettle lid on the hob as steam lifted it in a steady rhythm, and she sighed and tried to pretend there wasn’t a war on at all, that this was the ordinary old days when she’d been busy of course, but it had all been so comfortable and easy; and she couldn’t. The layer of fear that was always there at the bottom of her belly these days woul
dn’t go away, and while it was there no amount of effort to exercise her imagination could possibly help her.

  She dozed a little, sitting there at the table, her head propped on her hand and her empty cocoa mug in front of her, and dreamed again; this time it was Robin she saw, running through leaping flames with her cape streaming behind her like a crimson wing, and then she saw it wasn’t just crimson on the inside but on the outside too, and the colour came from burning – and she woke suddenly to stare sightlessly at her quiet kitchen, trying to banish the image that was still there in front of her eyes.

  Quite what made her do it she was never to know, and in years to come she was to think about it often; all she knew now was that while she sat there willing the image of Robin in flames to leave her memory, she had a sudden urgent need to go to Jessie.

  She could see her staring at her, standing there in the middle of her kitchen with her red arms dusted with flour and her face glowing with the reflection of her pink blouse, and Bernie standing behind her looking sullenly at Poppy, and she had to go and see her. Perhaps after all she’d been unduly unkind to her this morning; she wanted Bernie and his hateful black-market dealings out of the business’s premises, of course, and that was reasonable enough, but she needn’t have been so short with Jessie, so very hard.

  And she got to her feet almost without realizing she was doing so and headed for the hall to pick up her coat and hat and scarf and go back to Cable Street. It was dreadful to leave the people you loved in a bad temper at any time, and perhaps worst of all now, when all around them all was so fluid, so ever-changing, so desperately constantly dangerous.

  She closed the front door gently, praying Goosey hadn’t heard it, knowing she’d worry if she had, and then set off at a jog for the Bayswater Road and the first bus that came along. A train from Marble Arch, that was what she wanted, and then Aldgate East and the chance to tell Jessie she was sorry to have upset her this morning.