Home for Christmas

Tilly gave him a wan smile. She knew he had wanted to cheer her up, but as far as she could see from the terrible damage being inflicted on the city, their own fighter planes didn’t seem to be doing very much to stop London being blitzed by German bombers. Not that she was going to say so, of course. She was far too patriotic to do that.

Being patriotic, though, did not mean that there were times when she didn’t feel afraid.

All the occupants of number 13, with the exception of Sally, who was on duty, had spent the last two nights in their Anderson shelter in the garden, all of them pretending to sleep but none of them actually doing so, Tilly was sure. They had lain in their narrow bunk beds, listening to the dreadful noises of the assault on the city. The worst, in Tilly’s opinion, were those heart-stopping few minutes when all you could hear was the approaching relentless menacing purring sound made by the engines of the German bombers coming in over the city. Your stomach tensed terribly against what you knew was going to happen when the bombs started to fall. She could feel herself holding her breath now, just as she did at night when she lay there waiting for the full horror she knew was imminent: the whistle of falling bombs; the dull boom of huge explosions, which shook the ground. Somewhere in the city houses were being destroyed and people were being killed and injured. In Article Row they had been lucky – so far – but she had seen at work what was happening to those whose families and homes had been blown apart by the bombs: numbed, disbelieving white-faced people visiting their injured relatives; or even worse, those poor, poor people who came to Barts hoping against hope that the loved one who was missing might be there and alive.

Tilly, like everyone else in the department, had had to put her normal routine to one side because of the work involved in recording the details of the patients now flooding into the hospital.

You could see the tension in people’s faces. When you were out on London’s streets, crunching through the broken glass littering the pavements, you hardly dared to look at the fearful shapes of the destroyed buildings – and certainly not towards the river, where the docks had been bombed night after night and where, in the morning, some of the fires were still burning. If you heard a loud sound fear automatically gripped you, but you pushed it aside because you had to, because you didn’t want Hitler thinking he was beating down your spirit, knowing how afraid you really were.

‘Oh ho,’ Ian warned, interrupting Tilly’s thoughts, ‘here comes Nancy. Nancy likes to keep us all in order,’ he told the American. ‘She’s a bit of a stickler for making sure that none of us does anything that might lower the tone of the Row. Isn’t that right, Tilly?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’ Tilly was forced to admit ruefully. ‘Nancy likes to disapprove of things. She’s also a bit of a gossip,’ she felt obliged to warn Drew.

‘She certainly is.’ Ian pulled a face. ‘When I brought my cousin home with me the night she’d been bombed out, Nancy was on the doorstep first thing the next morning wanting to know who she was and if Barb knew she’d stayed the night. Lena soon put her right and told her what was what.’

‘I’d better go,’ Tilly told Ian. ‘Mum will be wondering where I am.’

‘It sure was nice to get to meet you,’ Drew told her with another smile.

He seemed a decent sort, Tilly acknowledged as she hurried towards number 13. Not that she was remotely interested in young men, not since Dulcie’s elder brother, Rick, had taught her the danger of giving her heart too readily. That had simply been a silly crush, but it had taught her a valuable lesson and now she intended to remain heart free.

In the kitchen of number 13, Olive, Tilly’s mother, was trying desperately not to give in to her anxiety and go to look out of the front window to check if she could see her daughter.

Although it was unlike Tilly to be late home from work, normally Olive would not have been clock-watching and worrying, but these were not normal times. When the Germans had started bombing London night and day almost a week ago, they had bombed normality out of the lives of its people, especially those poor souls who lived in the East End near the docks.

As a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service Olive had already been to the East End with the rest of her local group under the management of their local vicar’s wife, Mrs Windle, to do whatever they could to help out.

What they had seen there had made Olive want to weep for the occupants of what was the poorest part of the city, but of course one must not do that. Cups of hot tea; the kind but firm arm around the shaking shoulders of the homeless and the bereaved; giving directions to the nearest rest centre; noting down details of missing relatives to relay to the authorities, the simple physical act of kneeling down in the rubble of bombed-out houses to help shaking fingers extract what looked like filthy rags from the carnage, but which to those pulling desperately at them were precious belongings – those were the things that mattered, not giving in to tears of pity for the suffering.

From the window of her pretty bright kitchen with its duck-egg-blue walls, and its blue-and-cream-checked curtains, Olive could see out into the long narrow garden, most of which Sally had converted into a vegetable patch. But it was their earth-covered Anderson shelter that drew her attention. They had spent the last four nights inside it, and would probably be inside it again tonight, unless by some miracle the Germans stopped dropping their bombs on London.

Where was Tilly? No air-raid sirens had gone off during the last couple of hours, so she should have been able to get home by now, even given the delays in public transport the bombing had caused. Perhaps she should go and check the street outside again?

Olive had just walked into the hall when she heard the back door opening. Quickly she hurried back to the kitchen, relief flooding through her when she saw Tilly standing there.

‘Oh, Tilly, there you are.’

‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late, Mum,’ Tilly apologised immediately, seeing her mother’s expression.

The resemblance between mother and daughter was obvious. They both had the same thick dark brown curls, the same sea-green eyes and lovely Celtic skin, and even the same heart-shaped faces, although Tilly was already nearly an inch taller than her mother.

‘I was just walking into the Row when Ian Simpson called me over to introduce me to an American reporter he’s got lodging with him.’

‘An American?’ Olive’s voice held a hint of wariness. America was a neutral country and had not taken sides in the war, unlike the British Dominions, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, who were all offering ‘the mother country’ support in their fight against Hitler.

‘Yes,’ Tilly confirmed as she went to give her mother a hug.

Olive put down the knife with which she’d been about to resume scraping the thinnest possible covering of butter onto some slices of bread.

‘I thought I’d make up some sandwiches to take down to the Anderson with us later, unless Hitler gives us a night off.’

‘Huh, fat chance of that,’ Tilly responded. ‘We’ve had three air-raid warnings already this afternoon, but at least we’ve got the hospital basement to go to. We’re ever so busy, Mum,’ she added, ‘and if you could see some of the poor souls we’ve had come up to our office, looking for family they’ve lost . . .’

Tilly’s voice broke, and Olive hugged her tightly, smoothing Tilly’s curls with a loving hand.

‘I know, Tilly. Our WVS group went over to the East End today. Everyone’s doing their best, but no one expected that there’d be so many made homeless so quickly. All the rest centres that haven’t been bombed have been overwhelmed. They’re trying to get more opened as quickly as they can, but the conditions in some of the shelters people are using are so squalid and unhealthy . . .’ Olive released her daughter to look at her. ‘I should have sent you away out of London, Tilly. It would have been much safer for you.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ Tilly told her determinedly, adding when she saw her mother’s expression, ‘I’m not a child any more, Mum. I want to be here, doing my bit. It wouldn’t feel right, running away and leaving it to others. Only this morning Miss Moss, the office manager, said how hard we were working and how proud she was of us. And, anyway, where would I go? We haven’t got any family I could go to. Besides, I want to be here with you, and I know that you wouldn’t leave.’

It was true, Olive was forced to admit. She would never leave London whilst her house was still standing. Olive was very proud of her home and of living on the Row, in the small area that took such a pride in its respectability and its standards. People who lived on the Row felt they had made something of themselves and their lives, and those were things that no one gave up lightly. But much as she loved her home, Olive loved her daughter more, and she knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep Tilly safe.

‘Where are Agnes and Dulcie?’ Tilly asked, wanting to divert her mother’s anxious thoughts.

Of the three lodgers, Agnes was the closest in age to Tilly, though her start in life had been very different. Abandoned on the doorstep of the small orphanage close to the church, Agnes had no mother that the authorities had ever been able to trace, nor any other family. Because of that, and because of Agnes’s timid nature, the kindly matron of the orphanage had allowed Agnes to stay on well beyond the age of fourteen when most of the orphans were considered old enough to go out into the world, employing her to help out with the younger children in order to ‘earn her keep’. When it had become obvious that the country could be going to be at war and the orphanage had had to evacuate to the country, Matron had managed to get Agnes a job with the Underground, and Olive had been asked to take Agnes in as one of her lodgers. By the time Agnes had plucked up the courage to come to see Olive, because of a mix-up Olive had already let the room to Dulcie. Olive had felt terrible when she had realised how vulnerable and alone Agnes was, and very proud of Tilly when she had insisted on sharing her room with the girl.

When Agnes had been taken under the wing of a young underground train driver, both she, and then romance, had bloomed, and the young couple were now going steady.

Olive smiled as she reflected on Agnes’s quiet happiness now, compared with her despair the first time she had seen her.

‘Agnes said this morning that she had volunteered to stay on at work this evening now that London Transport has agreed to open Charing Cross underground station as a shelter if there’s an air raid.’

Tilly nodded. There had been a good deal of pressure from people, especially those who were suffering heavy bombing raids, to be allowed to take shelter in the underground where they felt they would be safer than in some of the other shelters. After initially refusing, the authorities had changed their mind when Winston Churchill had agreed with the public, and certain stations were to be opened for that purpose.

‘What about Dulcie?’ Tilly asked.

‘She’s been dreadfully worried about her family, especially with her sister being missing, and them living in Stepney, although she’s pretended that she isn’t. She went over to the East End this afternoon.’

‘With that ankle of hers in plaster, and her on crutches?’ Tilly protested, horrified. ‘Especially now that she’s been told she’s got to keep the plaster on for an extra two weeks.’

Dulcie hadn’t liked that at all, Olive acknowledged ruefully, although when the hospital doctor she had seen before she had been discharged into Olive’s care had told them both that it was because Dulcie’s ankles were so slender and fine-boned that they wanted to take extra care, Dulcie, being Dulcie and so inclined to vanity, had preened herself a little.

‘It’s all right,’ Olive assured her daughter. ‘She hasn’t gone on her own. Sergeant Dawson has gone with her. He’s got a friend who’s a policeman over there who he wanted to look up, so he said that he’d go with Dulcie and make sure that she can manage. She should be back soon, but you and I might as well go ahead and have our tea.’

As she spoke Olive glanced towards the clock, betraying to Tilly her concern for the lodger whom initially Olive had not been keen on at all.

‘She’ll be all right,’ Tilly comforted her mother. Olive smiled and nodded in agreement.

What Tilly didn’t know was that Olive’s concern for Dulcie wasn’t just because of the threat of the Luftwaffe’s bombs, and her broken ankle. It had shocked and disconcerted Olive when she had visited the small untidy house in Stepney to tell Dulcie’s mother that Dulcie had broke her ankle after being caught in a bomb blast, to recognise that Dulcie was not being sharp or mean when she had said that her mother preferred her younger sister, but that that was the truth. Olive knew that, as the mother of an only and beloved child, she wasn’t in a position to sit in judgement on a mother of three, but she had understood in an instant, listening to Dulcie’s mother, that the deep-rooted cause of Dulcie’s chippiness and sometimes downright meanness to others was because she had grown up feeling unloved by her mother.

And yet despite that, since the bombing had started and in spite of Dulcie’s attempts to conceal it, Olive had seen how anxious the girl secretly was about her family, living as they did near the docks, which were the target of Hitler’s bombing campaign.

Being the loving, kind-hearted person she was, Olive was now concerned that Dulcie might be hurt by her visit to her old home. Olive had seen for herself when she had gone there on Sunday that Dulcie’s mother was beside herself with anxiety for her younger daughter, whilst in contrast she had hardly shown any concern at all for Dulcie.

Not that Olive would discuss any of this with Tilly. Dulcie’s home situation was her private business until such time as she chose to air it with the other girls in the house. She hadn’t said anything about her concern for Dulcie to Sergeant Dawson either, their neighbour at number 1 Article Row, though he would have understood that concern, Olive knew. He and his wife had, after all, had more than their fair share of personal unhappiness through the loss of the son who had died as a child. Mrs Dawson had never really recovered from the loss and was now something of a recluse. Olive felt rather sorry for Sergeant Dawson, who was by nature a friendly and sociable man – kind, as well, as his offer to escort Dulcie on her visit to see her mother had proved. Dulcie might insist that she could manage perfectly well on her crutches, but Olive had had awful mental images of the air-raid siren going off and Dulcie, all alone, being knocked over in the rush to reach the nearest shelter.

‘I saw Sally just before I left work today,’ Tilly informed her mother once they were seated at the kitchen table, with its fresh-looking duck-egg-blue, pale green and cream gingham tablecloth, trimmed with a border of daisies, eating the simple but nourishing meal of rissoles made from the leftovers of the special Sunday roast Olive had cooked in celebration of Tilly’s birthday, and flavoured with some of the onions Sally had grown in their garden, served with boiled potatoes and the last of the summer’s crop of beans.

‘She said to tell you that she doesn’t know when she’ll be home as she’s offered to sleep over at the hospital whilst they are so busy. They’ve had to bring back some of the staff who were evacuated to the temporary out-of-London hospital Barts organised when war was announced.’