The Little Wartime Library, page 13
“Clara, darling… You can’t believe how worried I’ve been. There’s talk of an invasion. I came as soon as I heard there was an incident at Bethnal Green. ARP man at Grove Road mentioned a woman fitting your description had been brought here.”
“Please don’t alarm yourself,” Billy said. “I was on the site and I can assure you there were no German pilots there. Talk of an invasion is just a rumour.”
She glared suspiciously at Billy.
“Do I know you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She pursed her lips.
“I do. I’m sure I’ve met you before.”
“I have one of those common faces, I expect,” he said, laughing uneasily. “I’ll leave you two in peace. Clara, I’ll see you at the library later.”
He turned and Maureen stared after him.
“He seems awfully familiar,” she remarked once he was out of earshot. “Shifty eyes.”
“He’s just a friend, and honestly, you really needn’t have troubled yourself to come all the way here from Boreham Wood.”
“Clara, we’re still family! Even if you have turned your back on your own mother.”
Clara sighed. Her mother and mother-in-law had clearly been talking.
“I haven’t turned my back on her,” she protested. “I love her but she can’t ask me to choose between her and the library. It’s not fair.”
“Your mother and I are in agreement. You’re not thinking straight. You haven’t been for a while now, since…”
“Duncan’s death? Well, is it a surprise! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just so tired.”
“I can see and that’s why you must come and live with us.” Maureen touched Clara’s shoulder with a gloved hand, baring her teeth into a smile. “It’s not safe here. It’s what Duncan would’ve wanted.”
Clara stared at a blackbird tugging a helpless worm out of a small allotment in the grounds of the ambulance station.
“We’ve been over this, Maureen. I-I have a job and friends, a life here in Bethnal Green.”
Maureen’s face hardened, her little pink mouth puckering. How quickly the veneer of concern wore off. “Which is more than my son has,” she hissed. “Do you even miss him?”
“W-what? How could you say such a thing?”
“Well, why are you still working in that public library?”
“That library is my life!” Clara exclaimed.
A bitter laugh burst out of Maureen.
“Your husband ought to have been your life. Perhaps if you hadn’t put your job before all else, it all would have ended differently.”
Clara stared at her, gobsmacked. The feathers were quivering on top of Maureen’s ridiculous hat.
“Oh yes, you’re probably pleased how it’s all turned out. It means you get to stay on at the library. You’d have had to leave your position when war ends, but now he’s dead you’ll get to stay on; oh yes, it suits you very well, doesn’t it, madam?”
Clara couldn’t breathe. The heat snaking round her throat was like invisible fingers.
“I miss him every day,” she managed at last. “The library is my solace, but it’s not the reason Duncan’s dead.”
“Possibly not, but it is the reason my grandchild is dead. If you’d been at home resting, like we all told you, instead of working late in that library, you wouldn’t have got caught up in the bombing.”
Her face was full of angry triumph as she thrust the knife in deeper. “You wouldn’t have lost the baby.”
Clara felt a small twist of relief. There now. She’d said it. They’d always skirted round the edges of this, both Maureen and her own mother, but they’d never come right out and said it.
“I think you’d better go,” she said quietly. The blackbird gave up on the worm and took flight, the black of its wings scratching the eggshell blue of the sky.
“He was my son, he had a right to be a father and have a happy life.”
“Do you think that a single day passes when I don’t imagine ‘What if?’ I lie awake at night trying to imagine what our baby would have looked like.”
Clara closed her eyes. Saw again the charred and sodden piles of books, Peter’s body pinned under the bookcase, and in the harrowing days that followed, the never-ending bleeding.
“The library is the only thing keeping me alive.”
Maureen seemed to deflate.
“I’m sorry. Please, just come and live with us, where you’ll be safe.”
Clara thought of her mother-in-law’s suffocating home, its privet hedges, its quiet respectability. To Maureen, books were ornaments to show her neighbours she’d made it. Books she felt one ought to have on display, sealed off behind glass doors in a cabinet. Duncan had told her once that she never read them, but dusted them copiously, scolding his father if he dared to get one out and read it.
Clara would always be at odds in a home like that. She shook her head.
Maureen sighed.
“Think it over, dear. I’ll be back soon and see if you haven’t changed your mind. And remember, Clara…”
“Yes, I know. Dignity in silence.”
10
Ruby
Ruby woke in a strange hotel room with the mother of all headaches.
“Eugh,” she groaned, peeling her head off the pillow.
Her dirty blonde curls fell over the sheets. Her bra and blouse were draped over a pair of shoes in the corner of the room, as if they’d been fired there by a cannon.
“You know how to paint the town red,” drawled a voice.
She turned over and opened one eye. Eddie lay with his arm behind his head, languidly smoking a cigarette.
“Time?”
“A little after five a.m. I have to haul ass if I’m gonna make my train.”
He leant over and kissed her slowly on her naked shoulder, trailing kisses down her arm, and groaned.
“Boy, do I not want to leave you. I want to stay here all day making love to you.”
“Why don’t you then?” she said, smiling provocatively and pulling him towards her by his dog tag.
“’Cause I don’t want to get court-martialled.” He gently lifted a curl of her blonde hair and ran it between his fingers.
“In another life, in another world, oh baby… You are something else, Ruby Munroe.”
She looked at him. God he was young. Surely only twenty-one at most. Reluctantly, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and pulled back the blackout blinds. A lacy dawn light filtered in and washed his body with pearlised light. She watched him pad round the room naked, retrieving items of his clothes, peeling her bra off his shoe with a wry smile. His body was a thing of glory, so smooth and strong, and she watched him unashamedly.
She thought back to last night or what she could remember of it. Gin and It cocktails, the beautiful bare-breasted tableaux at The Windmill theatre, hot sweaty jitterbugging at the Lyceum, then tumbling back into this hotel room and ripping each other’s clothes off. Utterly shameless indulgence. She pictured Clara’s shocked expression as she left the library yesterday on Eddie’s arm and tried to see herself as others viewed her. She knew it’d be half the way round the shelter by now, but she didn’t care. Let others judge. She’d take hussy over housewife any day.
Clara would say she was a woman of the times, but in truth, this is who she had always been, the times just happened to suit her.
“That was worth eight hundred Gone with the Winds,” Eddie said as he finished buttoning up his shirt.
Ruby swung her legs out of bed and, wrapping the bedsheet around herself, peeked her head out of the doorway to check no one was using the shared toilet next door.
“I just need to spend a penny. Wait a minute.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” he laughed. “But just one quick kiss before you spend it!”
Grinning, he made a grab for the sheet, but she ducked out of the way and teasingly blew him a kiss before she ran to the lav. Afterwards, she washed her hands, and tried to open the door, but it was jammed shut.
“Come on,” she muttered, rattling the doorknob. Bloody Blitz. There wasn’t a door in all of London that opened properly after the nightly pounding. Suddenly the tiled walls seemed to press in on her and she was aware of the confined space she was trapped in. There wasn’t even a window. Fear trickled down her throat.
“Calm down,” she told herself, trying the handle again, but the panic was taking hold, swelling in her chest, hot and greasy. Everything was too small… too cramped. Even her own skin suddenly felt tight. She stretched her arms out as if to somehow push the walls apart, but the toilet was tiny; there wasn’t room to swing the proverbial cat. She rattled, then banged her fist over and over on the door. “Help!” she screamed, her face inches from the door. “Can anyone hear me?”
Silence. The walls seemed to be closing in; she imagined them crushing her skull.
She closed her eyes, saw bodies tumbling, tangled limbs, people piling up one on top of the other. Logic told her that was the Tube, not here, not now, and yet…
“Let me out!” she bellowed. With a superhuman strength, Ruby yanked the door handle and it came clean off in her hand. She looked down at the handle in her hand and claustrophobia exploded, squeezing the breath from her lungs, sending black stars bursting through her head.
“Help me,” she whimpered. The floor rushed up as she sank down onto the tiles.
Suddenly, a blast of cool air. In one fluid movement, Eddie scooped her into his arms.
“It’s all right, you’re safe,” he soothed as he carried her up the corridor and laid her down gently on the hotel bed. “You’re safe.” He kept up his mantra as he reached over to the bedside table for a glass of water.
Shakily she drank and as she recovered herself, Ruby felt more exposed than she had ever felt in her life.
“I’m fine,” she muttered, drawing back from him.
“No you’re not,” he said bluntly, but his kind eyes seemed to be filled with concern. “What in the hell just happened?”
Ruby pulled her knees into her chest and stared out of the window. Pink and orange ribbons of light began to streak over the rooftops.
“You better get going, don’t want you getting court-martialled on my account.”
“Not until you talk to me.”
Something inside Ruby buckled. It was all just so bloody exhausting holding it together. Trying to be strong all the time.
“I get these…” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Episodes.”
He said nothing, just kept on stroking her head.
“It started after my sister died down the Tube last year.”
“I’m sorry, Ruby, I had no idea.”
“Yes, it was an accident.” Bitterness laced her voice. “Well, I say an accident, but actually it could have been prevented.”
“Tell me,” he persisted.
“One night folk were queuing up to come down after the sirens went. My sister Bella included…” She tailed off, tightened the sheet around her.
“Go on,” he said gently.
“Then there was an explosion. It made the most fearful noise. Course everyone pressed forward, thinking they was under fire from some new form of warfare, desperate to get underground.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t even really be telling you this, we were warned not to speak about it.”
“Ruby sweetheart, where I’m going, do you really think that matters?”
“S’pose not.” She sipped her water, drew in a shaky breath. It felt strange speaking openly of this, like she was betraying someone, though who she didn’t know.
“The crowd started filing down the steps. A woman carrying her baby tripped and before she could get up, other people fell over her. One after one, they piled up on top of her. The steps were wet, uneven and slippery; just one tiny lightbulb lit the stairwell. They went down like dominoes.”
A shadow fell over Eddie’s face.
“Soon hundreds of people were trapped on the stairwell. I could hear the screams from the escalators as I ran up from the library.” She covered her eyes against the image and choked back a sob. “It was chaos. Bodies all tangled up, crushing the life out of each other.”
Tears slid down her pale cheeks.
“I tried to get her out, Eddie, I tried to find her, but I couldn’t.”
She stared down at her useless hands.
“Every leg or arm I tried to pull free was stuck fast. People suffocated to death in front of me. Can you imagine? I watched the life trickle out of them…” She broke off sobbing and he pulled her into his chest. “And I knew that somewhere in that ghastly mass of bodies, gasping for breath, was my big sister.”
“Oh, Ruby…”
“I failed her,” Ruby sobbed. “I think these… episodes, if that’s what you call them, are my punishment.”
“No…” He pulled back bewildered. “How can you possibly think that?”
Ruby dried her eyes. “Because it’s true.”
For a long time, Eddie held her in silence.
Eventually outside they heard the clanking of a bucket.
“The chambermaid’s here. Eddie, you really have to go.”
He pulled back, his face etched with despair.
“How can I leave you now, Ruby? After what you’ve just told me.”
She smiled sadly. “Because you have no choice.”
He gave her a last long, lingering kiss before sighing and resting his forehead against hers. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
They both knew where he was going. There seemed little point wishing him good luck. Nothing she could say would come close to touching the surface of what fear and adrenaline must already be starting to galvanise inside him.
“I’ll write, baby. Then when I get—”
She silenced him by pressing her finger to his lips and shaking her head.
“Let’s remember this for what it was, Eddie.” She kissed him again softly on the forehead. “A glorious night. And I’m sorry if I brought you down.”
He cradled her face in his hands. “Hell, Ruby, you have nothing to apologise for. You are astonishing. Brave, funny, beautiful…”
He trailed off and stared hard at her, as if trying to imprint the memory of her into his mind.
“So long, Ruby Munroe.”
“So long, Eddie…” To her shame, she realised she didn’t even remember his surname. He would always just be Eddie. Gone with the Wind Eddie.
After he’d left, the hotel room suddenly seemed stripped of its glamour and revealed itself for what it was. A cold, down-at-heel Piccadilly hotel room. Ruby dressed, tried her best to clean her teeth with her finger and checked out, smiling brazenly at the night receptionist who, by 1944, had seen too much to be shocked any longer. She walked slowly to Piccadilly Circus and glanced up to where the statue of Eros usually stood. The god of sensual love had been evacuated to Egham and now the plinth was sandbagged and empty. Seemed an appropriate metaphor for wartime love.
Ruby joined the queue at a WVS mobile canteen. She pushed her hand through her tangled curls and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the canteen window. Eyes smudged with last night’s eye black, lips stained with residue of Renegade Red. Her vulnerability of earlier had gone, bolted back in its usual place.
The expression on the WVS lady’s face said it all.
Ruby knew her kind. Haughty. Judgemental. Lipstick and paint make a girl what she ain’t. How many times had she heard that? Well, bugger the lot of them.
“What can I get for you?” Predictably her voice was laced with a chill. God, who needed men when women could be such harsh critics?
“Tea, ta. Strong and sweet.” She knew it was naughty, but she couldn’t resist. “Like the Yank I had in my bed last night.”
Grinning, she took her tea and sauntered off. She took a sip and winced as it scalded the back of her throat. It was dishwater but it would take the edge off her headache. Was she drinking too much? Possibly, but who wasn’t these days! Everyone drank to soften the edges. It was virtually de rigueur in wartime. The only problem with having a drop was that the next morning, it was harder than ever to silence her demons.
As she neared the Underground, a newspaper vendor was hollering the day’s news. “Incident in Bethnal Green. Witness reported unmanned missile.” Ruby dropped the tea and ran down to the trains.
She found Clara in the library and knew straightaway she had been caught up in the bombing.
“Hell’s teeth, Cla, you look awful.”
“Oh, thanks, you don’t look so clever yourself.”
Ruby hugged her fiercely before pulling back.
“What happened?”
Clara shook her head. “I wish I could tell you, it all happened so fast. I know one thing, I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for Sparrow.”
Ruby stared at her best friend. “My God,” she breathed. To her embarrassment, she burst into tears. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
“Come on now, Rubes, this isn’t like you. You’re the strong one.”
“I know…” She thought of her mum’s battered face, her confession to Eddie earlier. “Promise me you ain’t going nowhere, Clara.”
“I’m staying right here, I promise. Now go and put your face back on and fetch us a cup of tea while you’re at it. Me and Mr. P are gasping.”
“You’re the boss,” Ruby replied.
“Oh,” Clara grinned. “And I guess there’s no need to ask whether you had a good time last night?”
“Saucy mare,” she laughed throatily, flicking a stray paperclip at her.
Ruby nipped to the lav, repaired her lippie, cleaned up her smudged eye makeup and felt restored enough to engage in some mild flirtation with some ARP men queuing at the station café. By the time she returned to the library, she felt more like her old self.
Beatty was standing at the library counter, five books in front of her ready to be stamped as Clara plucked her ticket from the wooden tray.
“Didn’t you only get The Secret Garden out a couple of days ago?”
Beatty smiled radiantly, touching a red, white and blue Union Jack silk scarf tied round her head.
