‘You must miss your mother,’ Laura said.
Mary shrugged. ‘I don’t remember ever having one. She died when I was two. You can’t miss what you don’t know, can you?’
‘What about your father?’
‘I don’t remember him either.’
After the pie Laura took them out into the garden, round to the north side to the rain butt where they watched as she scraped the ice and frost off the top. They brought it into the house where she showed them how to crush it, then mix it with milk, cornflour and honey from Mr Reynolds’s hive. They ate it from dishes in front of the inglenook fireplace and Laura nodded when Chris asked if the slates were in place in the chimney ready for the evening. He and Mary were frightened that the firelight would beckon to bombers which might fly overhead.
They stayed in all afternoon, playing snap and dominoes, laughing at Laura who lost, watching as she fell asleep in front of the fire, whispering, not shouting, ‘Snap’. And then they just sat sprawled in chairs, feeling the heat of the fire, listening to it crackle and Chris almost told her about his father because he didn’t want to lie to Mary but he did not because neither did he want to lose her.
CHAPTER 10
Helen walked through the streets, glass crunching beneath her feet, shrapnel lying on the ground still warm from the afternoon raid. She thought of Chris’s letter telling her of his conker swaps and was glad that normality existed somewhere.
She was tired, more tired than usual today. The warehouse behind the bank had been hit last night. The coffins had gone up in flames and the plate glass windows of the bank had shattered from the blast and the heat. Water had poured in from the fire hoses which had been used to stop the bank from burning. Helen had arrived in the morning to see Mr Leonard in boots and coat, his bow tie immaculate and his face red with fury, standing on a chair directing the staff as they brushed at the water, the glass, the dust which filled the banking hall.
He had handed a broom to Helen, pointing to his ground floor office which he felt she, as his secretary, should deal with but she had passed it back to him, telling him he should do that himself while she helped in the bucket chain which was bailing out the basement strongroom. She had not listened to his protests but had smiled as Joan and the others turned away to hide their laughs because Mr Leonard did not care to deal in practicalities. He had come in from another branch to take over the position of manager two months ago when Mr Aster, Dr Schultz’s friend, had been killed during a raid. He always wore a bow tie and would not allow gloves during office hours, though he wore them himself. He hated Germans and Jews.
All day there had been no gas or electricity and daylight was kept out because the windows had been boarded up, the hammering piercing their headaches. They had been cold and wet and the dust had hung in their hair and throats but by eleven o’clock in the morning the bank was open for business, though Mr Leonard had complained that his hands were quite ruined.
‘In spite of your gloves?’ Helen had asked.
The accounting machines were out of operation and most of the typewriters were no longer serviceable. All entries had to be made by hand in the light of candles whose flickering was reflected in the pools of water which remained in some areas of the banking hall. All letters had to be handwritten and as they worked, the frost cut through the staff so that they felt sick with cold.
Helen had gone out to a café and arranged that jugs of coffee should be sent into the staff, sending one in to Mr Leonard who smiled until she told him that she had billed it to the bank. He did not protest, though, but insisted on Helen staying late to finish urgent correspondence. Tit for tat, she thought as she passed dark shops, walking in the middle of the pavement, feeling her way past sandbagged lampposts, Belisha beacons, and other pedestrians.
A lorry had given her a lift this far, the driver asking if she knew where he could find a Christmas tree for the second festive season of the war. Helen had shaken her head, not knowing. She did not want to know either because she would not be able to see Chris. Mr Leonard had refused her request for leave which was why she had thrust the broom at him. He knew, of course, that Heine was German but now she was fighting back.
Number eight Warden Post was on her right; she could see it quite clearly now that the wind had carried the clouds clear of the moon. It was bright and the clouds had almost gone. A bomber’s moon, she thought, and then the air raid siren rose and fell and the man walking behind her increased his stride as she did, hurrying towards the Underground station which was just ahead. The planes could be heard beating in the air and she ran. Joining all the others who pushed into the entrance of the station and down the steps, but she wanted the District Line and so she turned, forcing her way through the people, taking the route she needed, then on down the corridor.
It was warm on the platform and camp beds were already set up for the night, row upon row with women guarding two or three until the family arrived. So few children, Helen thought, standing and watching. So few men out of uniform. She smiled as two women danced to an accordion player. They lifted their skirts, kicking their bare, mottled legs high as three sailors whistled and clapped.
Joan spent each night in her local station with her mother, she had told Helen. It was safer, more fun than on their own. More women were dancing now, their laughter ignoring the raid above them which was pulverising the city, perhaps their homes, but what else could they do? What else could anybody do? Helen watched as an old woman took out her Thermos flask and poured tea into a cup, tilting back her head and drinking. Helen watched as she placed it on the ground, taking her paper packet of sandwiches from a shopping bag on her camp bed, tearing the bread and scrape of butter into bits before eating them. She looked up at Helen and smiled, holding out a piece to her.
‘’Ere you are, dearie. Have some bread and butter.’
Helen smiled back, shaking her head. Knowing that the woman would need it for herself because she would not move from here until the morning.
She walked along, away from the blankets which hung from a wooden frame around the toilet buckets. The stench was still strong down at the other end of the platform and it was too warm, fetid. She undid her coat. A train came and although it was not hers the draught it caused was welcome and she wondered how these people could bear the airless stench once the trains stopped for the night.
She put her hands in her pockets and eased her feet in their boots and thought that anything was better than being crushed beneath the rubble of your home.
Her train came then and she could find no seat but did not expect to. She hung on the strap, feeling bodies close against her, hot and heavy, but when she reached her station and the fresh cold air she was sorry to leave the company of others.
The raid was over but the sky burned red as she knew it would. Rescue lorries ground past her as she walked on down deserted streets which had not been hit tonight. But there was still time. Yes, there was still plenty of time.
There were gaps in the terraces where houses had once been and through these she could see that the warehouses in Mill Street had been hit. She could see and hear the flames leaping high into the sky and then there was an explosion and she ducked instinctively, knowing it must be the spirits exploding. She held on to a lamppost, watching as more fire engines clanged and roared down the street towards the conflagration.
She saw more flames shoot into the air and the timber yard which stood close to the warehouse caught fire. Then there was a whoosh as the draught from the flames sent timbers up into the air to fall and set other areas alight. Over to the right a man ran past telling her the gas station was ablaze and that burning rats were running from the warehouse, and now Helen wanted to get home, to shut the door on all this, not to have to see and hear the destruction. And so she ran, knowing as she did so that there would be another raid, and another and another, and perhaps, next time, she would burn.
She ran until the breath pumped in her chest and hurt her throat. It was light no
w from the fires and she jumped over hoses which curled across the road and round people who came to stand and look. The road ahead was cordoned off and so she turned right, then left, but her way was blocked by an ARP rescue lorry which roared as it backed up to a pile of smouldering rubble. She turned again, crossing down a narrow footpath, then out into Kendle Street but she was walking now because her legs were weak and she wished that there was someone at home waiting for her.
She could not hear the sound of her footsteps against the noise of ambulances, rescue lorries, fire engines. She passed old women who pushed food from baskets into the mouths of rescue workers who could not stop to eat or drink. Further along a dead fireman lay on the pavement. Further along still a queue was forming at the Town Hall for missing relatives. She wanted to go up and shake them. Tell them to go away because there would be another raid and they would be dispersed and have to begin queuing all over again. But she did not because it happened every night and they all knew it did.
She looked at her watch. It was nine o’clock. She had left work at seven and not eaten since midday. Her mouth tasted sour and dry. She wanted to get home before it all began again. She started running once more down a street where no fires burned but it was darker because of this and so she slowed, moving out past a car slewed into the kerb, but a hand caught her arm and stopped her. She swung around, her hair in her eyes, her breath shallow. She pulled but could not break free.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m a doctor.’ The man’s voice was calm and so Helen stood still. She could not see his face clearly because his back was to the burning sky.
‘There’s a man in there, down in the basement.’ He was pointing to a house which no longer had a front, just floors which hung limp and wallpaper which was torn. ‘He’s not good but we can’t get to him. We’re too big.’
The doctor pointed again but this time two ARP wardens – one of them Mr Simkins – came over and guided her to the building over scattered rubble, glass and shrapnel, showing her a small gap at the base of the destruction.
‘Can you get down there, Helen? Talk to him, see how he is? We can only hear noises.’
Helen stood there, the dust from the fallen masonry making her cough. I’m going home, she wanted to say. I want a drink. I want a hot cup of tea. I’m cold and I want to go home. And I don’t like the dark. I don’t like the dark.
‘Be a good girl,’ the doctor said, taking her arm again.
I’m not a girl, she wanted to say as he started to take her coat off, pulling it from her arms because there would not be room for her to pass through the gap while she still wore it. I’m not a girl, she repeated to herself, I’m a woman of twenty-seven but then women of that age shouldn’t be frightened, should they?
‘You’ll need to go in head first. We’ll hold your legs, drop you as far as possible. Call to him, see what it’s like down there.’
Mr Simkins took her arm. ‘It’s Frank, the grocer,’ he said.
She went, of course, head first down into the dark where the air was so full of dust she thought she would die, feeling the bricks scrape her legs and she cried out. ‘My coat, put it under my legs.’ She could feel them pushing it between her skin and the bricks, and the pain eased but it had made her cry.
Down into the dark and it was her mother’s cupboard again, coming and closing itself around her and she cried, silently. It was dark, so dark.
‘Call Frank,’ the doctor said. ‘Call him, see how he is.’
‘How can I see? It’s dark. Pitch dark, you bloody fool.’ Helen shouted these words and anger drove the fears away. Along with the anger came surprise because she seldom swore. Ladies didn’t, did they? ‘Send down a torch, for God’s sake.’
‘Ssh, Helen,’ Mr Simkins said. ‘Don’t disturb anything. We don’t know how safe it is.’ He paused and Helen felt the blood coming into her head. She closed her eyes. There was a scrabbling sound and then something cold brushed her face and she opened her eyes, seeing the beam of weak light catching the particles of dust, those same particles which caught in her eyes, her nose, her mouth. She gripped the torch, feeling the string round the handle.
‘Don’t take the string off. You might drop the torch,’ M Simkins called.
She could hear grunts still and turned the torch towards them. There were just bricks and beams and one arm and one leg visible.
‘Frank, Frank, it’s me, Helen. How badly are you hurt?’ There was no proper reply, just grunts and gurgles, but if they lowered her just a little more she could reach down and touch the hand and perhaps move the bricks.
‘Drop me a little further,’ she gasped, the dust thick in her mouth. Her ankles were breaking. ‘Shall I move the bricks? All I can hear are grunts.’ She started coughing now and her legs bucked as she did so and she dropped the torch, but it was still on its string so the doctor pulled it up and it was dark again.
She called ‘Pull me up. Pull me up.’ And now she was screaming because it was so dark and there was a man grunting, but he wasn’t a man, he wasn’t Frank any more. She had seen the blood as the torch swung, the bones and his head and knew why he grunted. They pulled her up but she couldn’t stand, just sat with her head in her hands. And then she was sick and her mouth was sour as she told them again and again what she had seen.
The doctor wiped her face and held her head and told her he wanted her to go down again and give Frank an injection because no one should bear that sort of pain. But she couldn’t. How could she go back down into the dark? How could her mother make her? How could this man make her? Where was Heine, why wasn’t he here helping her? Keeping her safe. He had promised, hadn’t he? She lifted her head. There was still the noise of the flames, the timber, the ambulances but up here at least there was some light.
It was dark down there. Didn’t they know that? It was dark and there was a man with no face, grunting and gurgling, and she wanted to go home to her flat but there was no one there, was there? God damn it, there was no one there.
She was crying but it was inside and it was hurting her.
Mr Simkins helped her up, handed her the torch.
‘Be a brave girl,’ he said.
But Mrs Simkins wasn’t brave, was she, Helen wanted to shout. She had left London, hadn’t she? She had left and gone to live where bombs don’t fall.
She took the syringe and listened as the doctor told her what to do when she got close enough to the arm. They held her legs again as she eased through the hole, her arms out before her, dropping down into the darkness, breathing the stifling air, the dust, hearing no crackling flames, just those grunts, and then the torch was lowered on the string. She caught it, using the light to guide herself back to the rubble, but she had to release it to move four bricks, slowly, carefully, hearing the creaking above her, feeling a sudden fall of dust, but nothing else moved. She groped her way forward. The torch swung round and round on its string, its light not reaching this far and so she felt over the jagged mortar, the splintered wood. She touched a hand. It was still warm and fingers closed around hers and the grunting stopped, just for a moment.
The crying inside her stopped too then, and so did her fear of the broken head and face and it was Frank who held her hand and for a moment they gave one another strength.
Then his groans began again and she talked through the dust in her throat. She talked of the shop and Christoph; the shrapnel he had swapped; Mary, the friend he had made. ‘They’re both outsiders you see,’ she murmured gently as she plunged the needle into his arm, pressing the morphine into Frank.
Mr Simkins called, ‘Shall we bring you up now?’
The blood was pounding in her head but it was not until the grip on her hand relaxed and the grunts ceased that she called, ‘Yes, bring me up.’
The rescue team was there as she was dragged back through the hole and the doctor took the syringe from her, checking her carefully, making her sit, but this time she was not sick. This time she waited, breathing in the cold air,
heavy still with the smell of burning and floating with ash fragments.
‘Will someone be worrying at home?’ the doctor asked. ‘Shall I drop you off?’ He turned as an ambulance stopped and a nurse called to him.
Helen shook her head. ‘No. I shall be quite all right. You’re needed again,’ she said, clambering to her feet, moving out of the way. She waved to Mr Simkins as he answered a call across the street. ‘Shall I wait?’
Mr Simkins turned. ‘No, Helen, you get back. This’ll take all night. Get your head down before the next wave comes.’
The flat was dark and cold but she did not light the fire. There was no point. There would be another raid soon. She lit the gas under the kettle, cut sandwiches, rinsed out the Thermos. Then she shook her coat out of the window, clearing it of brick dust, and did the same to her skirt. Her lisle stockings were torn and her legs grazed but before she stepped into the bath she poured water over the tea in the strainer. It had only been used once this morning and so was not too weak. She filled the Thermos and used what was left for a cup now, sipping hastily as she did so because the sirens might go and she must get clean today for the first time.
After her bath she put woollen stockings and socks on and then her boots. There was a candle in the upturned flowerpot in the Anderson from last night for warmth but she would need matches and so she put them in her pocket. She was talking aloud, listing her shelter provisions but that was better than the sound of nobody’s voice. She had missed the nine o’clock news but the wireless was playing music and that was some sort of company. She did not put on the light in the sitting-room but instead eased back the blackout. Her hair was still wet from her bath and lay cold on her neck. She picked up a towel and rubbed it. Marian was coming tomorrow for lunch.
How was Frank? She paced to the kitchen, pouring more boiling water on to the tea leaves, drinking as she walked, frying rissoles in the pan. Listening, always listening for the siren, for the planes, and she was glad Christoph was not here but she missed him and paced again to push away the ache. She sat down and wrote to Heine by the light of the red sky and the moon, telling him of Chris swapping shrapnel for sixers, and for a moment she could smell the rotten conkers which they had found in the park beneath the tree. She told him of the bank because she hoped he would laugh, and of Marian coming tomorrow because it was Saturday and they had the day off. She told him she missed him and loved him, because she did, but she did not tell him that she wished he was British and that they were the same as everyone else. She told him she was so glad he wasn’t here, that he was safe.
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