He was joking, of course; she’d already told him there wouldn’t be one for the time being, that Eadie was her priority now, and he’d not tried to convince her to stay at Partridge—or claim custody, as she’d feared he would. Whatever feelings George had about his son, he kept to himself, and Alice knew that at least he and his wife found some comfort in their granddaughter.
Theo nudged her and indicated to where Julian Huxley, the director of the zoo, stood on the top step, gazing out over the terrace as he straightened his jacket and prepared to speak.
Alice scanned the crowd too, and she shivered, as she often did in public places, when she thought she caught sight of Rupert’s tall, dark-haired image. They’d had a memorial service for him, and he had been mourned, but a body had never been found, and the idea clawed at her that one day he might reappear.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to London Zoo, or Regent’s Park Zoo, as some of you know it . . .” The director waited until the crowds had quieted down and he had most everyone’s attention. “It’s not often that we assemble in groups, for good reasons these days, or above ground—”
A murmur of laughter rippled through the crowd.
“—so, it is with absolute pleasure that I stand before you tonight to congratulate the zoo community—and by that, I mean everyone, the workers, the visitors and the animals—on the magnificent achievement of taking us through this wretched war thus far. It’s your stories in here that are a reminder of what we can do when we set our hearts and minds to it.”
An animal gave a screech of approval in a nearby enclosure, and another wave of laughter swept through the audience. Penny, Michael and their children stood at the front listening, and Olive, Elizabeth and Joe Stevenson were there somewhere too. Tommy, Ursula, Emily and other Partridge employees were scattered through the crowd, as was Mr. Vinall, the penguin keeper. Even the book group had turned up—apart from Marjorie and Terrance, who’d stopped attending meetings when they’d discovered Alice’s status as an unmarried mother. It hadn’t mattered; new members had joined the group, and the esprit de corps had remained, as had Rex, charming as ever and without showing any prejudice, or that he was put out at being part of the subterfuge, which Alice suspected he had rather enjoyed.
“We know that these stories are resonating with young and old, and I’m told that the public have enjoyed reading about the exploits of our new arrival, the mona monkey, and hearing how Joseph the python has recovered from pneumonia. And I’m sure you will all be relieved to know that the four escaped parakeets have returned.”
A cheer went up, and he waited until the noise abated before he carried on.
Alice knew every story and every page by heart, and she’d read them all to Eadie. She’d told her about Peter the brown bear, who put on rather unusual physical displays, and Pollyanna, the only reindeer in the zoo, as well as the ever-popular Ming, the panda who had returned from Whipsnade.
The book had reportedly already created favorites among visitors, with some enclosures particularly crowded, including that of Peter the five-foot alligator. He was initially a temporary guest, on account of being moved from the Hammersmith apartment he’d shared with his owner, Miss Thelma Roberts, and an Amazonian crocodile. Apparently they were quite the socialites, featuring regularly on shopping expeditions as well as fundraising at charity events, but judging by his popularity now, he might have to become a permanent exhibit alongside the aardvark called Adolf and the axolotl named Mussolini.
“Of course, it’s not just the animals we are grateful to,” the director continued. “There are many, many, zookeepers and staff, past and present”—he caught Alice’s eye—“who have helped over the past few years. Directors, curators, researchers, superintendents, surgeons, clerks and gardeners, accountants and secretaries—too many names to mention, but all of whom carry out very important tasks. Without their help and dedication, we would not have been able to keep our gates open, or keep the animals safe.”
Alice glanced at the display of books, thinking back to all the stories that had been included, far more than she’d intended to, but they were all so extraordinary, from the sixteen-year-old boy-keepers, barely more than children themselves, to the full-page photo of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill at the zoo with one of the cubs from his pet lion, Rota.
“And now we have this wonderful book to treasure, to extend the pleasure that our visitors get from our zoo. It’s important to carry on giving people some much-needed escape from the cruel realities of war. So, I extend my thanks to Miss Cotton”—he smiled broadly at her—“and to Theo and George, and the team at Partridge Press for giving us this testament to the importance of the animals and their keepers. I extend those thanks to the public too. Without your patronage, your donations and your sponsorship, none of this would be possible. So, thank you all,” he said, eyes traveling across the crowd, “from me and our staff and our wonderful menagerie.”
There was a long and rapturous applause, and Theo had to wait for the noise to die down before he could whisper in Alice’s ear, “Aren’t you glad we mixed those books up now?”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. And I’m very glad you came all that way to bring it back.” She smiled, even though inside she felt anything but calm. Theo had been due to return to New York, but he’d come up with a proposition that Walter had approved, and now it seemed she wouldn’t have to imagine her life without him for the near future.
She stared at him in the moonlight, until he turned and caught her looking.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said, blushing, as she noticed Ursula standing under a tree with Bridget. Alice hadn’t told her friends the good news about Theo yet, and she made her way across the lawn toward them.
She’d nearly reached them when Mr. Stilwell, the ex-naval sign-writer, stepped out in front of her. “Miss Cotton, might I have a word? I just wondered if there was anything you might do to help us. You see, there is a downside to all this publicity.”
“Oh, really, what appears to be the problem?” she asked, as she stroked Eadie’s back.
“Well, apart from the cockatoos and parakeets showing off and taking to the woods at Hampstead, there are ongoing problems with people damaging cage labels and noticeboards—and stealing the nameplates. They are taking them as souvenirs!”
“Oh, dear, I see what you mean. That would be a problem. You wouldn’t want to mix up your animals, would you?” She tried to hide her amusement as she thought about all the chaos that could ensue. “Well, I really don’t know what I can do to help.”
“When you reprint the book, can you put in a note, something asking people not to take things when they visit?”
“I could try, but wouldn’t it be best if you put up a notice at the entrance?”
“We did,” he said, glancing down at his shoes, circumspect.
“And what happened?”
“Well, someone stole it.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, struggling not to laugh.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her and smiling. “That’s my problem.”
“I’ll see what we can do.”
“Thank you, Miss Cotton, and you make sure you bring Eadie back when she’s old enough to ride the camels.”
“I certainly will, Mr. Stilwell. Please excuse me, I just need to catch a friend before she leaves.”
When Alice joined the couple midway through their conversation, Ursula was saying, “. . . you know these keepers really are a mine of information. One was just telling me you can hypnotize a lobster. Alligators too, apparently.”
Theo appeared from the crowd and came to stand beside Alice.
“Did you know that they’re using the webs of black widow spiders to manufacture precision instruments in the United States now?” he said.
“That’s remarkable,” said Bridget, “but how?”
“The strands are as strong as steel or platinum
wire, so they can use them in telescopes,” he said, smiling.
“They wouldn’t have much luck here at the zoo—all the poisonous insects and reptiles were destroyed on the first day of war,” Alice replied.
“Well, now that we know it’s safe . . . can I have a cuddle?” Ursula said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Alice replied. She lowered Eadie into Ursula’s arms. Her daughter was asleep, ebony lashes resting on her rosy cheeks, air whistling through lips puckered into a bow.
“Would it be terribly selfish of me to say I’ll miss you?” Ursula said, looking up at Alice with moist eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere! You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“But I thought”—Ursula glanced at Theo, then lowered her voice—“didn’t he ask you to go with him?”
“Yes, but he’s changed his mind. We’re staying.”
There hadn’t been the chance to tell any of them about Theo’s agreement with Walter, and the plan to buy him out. According to Walter, three thousand miles away wasn’t far enough for the man who had jilted his daughter.
“That’s wonderful,” Ursula said with a grin. “You wouldn’t want to deprive the publishing world of such immense talent.”
“I know. And besides”—Alice looked at Bridget and back at her friend—“you do get to meet such interesting people.” Ursula gave Eadie an affectionate squeeze and handed her back to her mother.
Theo moved closer to Alice, placing his arm around her, and when she turned her head toward him, he kissed her tenderly on the lips. When he pulled away, she gazed longingly into his eyes and smiled, then they both looked out over the zoological gardens at the sun-burnished trees and the citrus skies.
Alice clutched Eadie tightly, her skin pricking with happiness, and knew that at last they were safe. And as the night pressed away the last band of gold on the horizon, she felt Theo’s hold tighten, and she shivered as a feeling passed through her, a sensation she barely recognized: one of yearning, which filled her with such overwhelming force that she couldn’t have prevented it if she’d tried.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you’re anything like me and you like to know the truth behind a story, then you are probably reading this before you’ve read the novel—except on this occasion, you really should turn back and read the book first, as it contains spoilers!
There is a belief that stories find you, and that was the case with this novel. It started with a family secret from a few generations ago that I needed to try to understand. How could someone sell their own flesh and blood? What I discovered was that selling babies was much more commonplace than I’d thought, and although I vaguely knew about the baby farmers from the turn of the twentieth century, I’d had no idea that the practice of selling and trading babies and infants had carried on for so long—or that the wartime conditions made it so much worse. Discovering how the legislation to protect them was postponed because of the outbreak of World War II just confirmed my belief that it was a story worth following.
While researching my previous novels, Maggie’s Kitchen and Eleanor’s Secret, I came across fascinating material about the role that books played during wartime, as well as the challenges faced by the publishing world. Books became more important than ever: for soldiers to read while waiting, to distract the public during raids, and for readers to understand what was happening to their world, as well as for escapism in general. But the industry faced a battle to overcome the shortages and challenges to produce these books as demand grew.
A great deal of truth and real events are woven through my story, from the bombing of the publishing industry in Paternoster Row in 1940 and the fact that the larger publishers really did offer affected smaller publishing houses peppercorn rent, to the book schemes in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as the Armed Services Editions and the Forces Book Club.
Much of the detail about London Zoo—or Regent’s Park Zoo, as it was often called—is based on real events, animals and people. It really was a miracle that the zoo survived as well as it did, and that it provided a respite for visitors and servicemen. I’ve used some of the animals’ real names as a way of honoring them, from the well-known ones such as Rota the lion, who was given to Mr. Churchill as a gift, and Peter the alligator, who was rescued from his Hammersmith home after a bombing raid and removed to the zoo for safekeeping, to the aardvark called Adolf and the axolotl named Mussolini.
As well as the institutions I mention in the Acknowledgments, I visited locations in Brighton, Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia, Primrose Hill and Chelsea, as well as London Zoo.
The “Gates,” or the Gateways Club in Chelsea’s Bramerton Street, really was a hub for LGBTIQ+ people to socialize during the 1930s and ’40s, and it has a fascinating history during wartime and beyond.
And while I didn’t make it to Book Row in New York, it is also an authentic location. Although it’s now reduced from seven blocks of bookshops to two, it’s still full of a million stories—and ink, dust and promises—and I can feel a research trip coming on!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, many fiction and nonfiction books have played key roles in my writing process, as well as libraries, museums and archives, and I’m indebted to each and every one of them and to all the individuals who helped. Among them were the State Library of New South Wales, the UK National Archives, the Museum of London, the Foundling Museum, the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Police Heritage Centre.
I’m particularly grateful to Ann Sylph and Sarah Broadhurst, librarians at the Zoological Society of London, for opening up the magical and dusty world of their wonderful zoo. Thanks also to Wiktoria Uljanowska at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, and to Mick Clayton, the print workshop manager at the St Bride Foundation, Fleet Street, London, for sharing his printing secrets and his wonderful demonstration, and to Dan Robertson, curator of local history and archeology, Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museum.
Some of the books I consulted in writing this novel include: Diana Athill, Stet: An Editor’s Life (London: Granta, 2000); Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig, Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1978); Toby Faber, Faber & Faber: The Untold Story (London: Faber & Faber, 2019); John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Croom Helm Ltd, 1988); Lara Feigel, The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Andreas Feininger, New York in the Forties (New York: Dover Publications, 1978); Robert Hewison, Under Siege: Literary Life In London 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977); Valerie Holman, Print for Victory: Book Publishing in England 1939–1945 (London: The British Library, 2008); Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II (New York: Mariner Books, 2015); Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador, Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004); Alan Munton, English Fiction of the Second World War (London: Faber & Faber, 1989); Iain Stevenson, Book Makers: British Publishing in the Twentieth Century (London: The British Library, 2010).
Background research and context came from countless newspaper and magazine archives, including The Times (London), The New York Times, The Bookseller and the Daily Mail. The character of Olive Melville Brown was inspired by the Daily Mail journalist who followed the baby-farming stories, and the headlines on this page and this page are borrowed from articles she wrote in 1943. Extracts on this page are adverts or notices from local newspapers of the time, and the report on this page was taken from an actual newspaper article for authenticity, but the names have been changed.
I would also like to acknowledge the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division/Mary Evans Picture Library for the use of the Franklin D. Roosevelt quote in the front of the book. The quote on this page is from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
I am grateful to Gillian Green for recommending the memoirs of Diana Athill, who was an inspiration for Ursula, although not her sexual orientation, and to Kristine Pack for helping with Americanisms. Thanks also to Dr. Rebecca Overton, general practitioner, and Clare Jordan, clinical midwife consultant, for medical information on Alice’s physical and mental well-being following the birth and trauma.
Sincere thanks to Christa Munns for her encouragement and to Kate Goldsworthy for her thoughtful editing, both of whom helped me write the best version of this story. Heartfelt thanks to Annette Barlow for putting her faith in me for a third time. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Allen & Unwin who, like the team at Partridge Press, all play such an important role in creating and selling books. I owe huge thanks to Danielle Dieterich and all those at Putnam who have worked so hard to produce this novel for US readers, as well as for the divine cover.
My love and thanks to Tina Cook, Lisa Blacklaw-Taylor, Jacqueline Beecham and John Lydon for reading early drafts of the manuscript and for their valued feedback. A final thank-you to my glorious grandmother Ellen Mary Taylor, who passed away on November 30, 2019, at the age of ninety-eight. She was an inspiration for my writing and the keeper of our family secrets, and will be dearly missed.
POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
Some of the most popular books of 1942–1943 in the UK and US, according to The New York Times and The Bookseller, include:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith, Harper & Brothers, 1943
The Provincial Lady in War-Time, E. M. Delafield, Macmillan, 1940
The Battle of Britain, Ministry of Information, 1941
Bomber Command, Ministry of Information, 1941
Coastal Command, Ministry of Information, 1942
Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1942
When We Meet Again Page 28
