The Little Wartime Library, page 19
Back in the library, it took one of Ruby’s gins to calm her down.
“That man!” she fumed, taking off her ridiculous painted shoes and tossing them behind the counter. “He’s a… a…”
“Stupid addle-pated booby?” Ruby suggested.
“Don’t be disheartened,” said Mr. Pepper, “I’ll do the children’s storytime. Go and write your letter.”
Clara paused, pen in hand. What would Amber St. Clare, arch manipulator, write?
Dear Sirs,
I am writing from Britain’s only underground library, in the heart of London’s Blitz-battered East End.
It was at a house in Bethnal Green that Samuel Pepys lodged his famous diary during the Great Fire of London. Once more, we have been ravaged by fire and lost a great deal of our precious children’s books.
A whole generation of children are growing up without access to great books of the past. This is an urgent appeal for children’s classics.
All imports of books are now stopped unless it’s a charitable donation. If you have any surplus of the books on this list, then we here in Bethnal Green would be grateful.
We have lost so very much, but we have not lost heart nor hope. Books help to keep us human in an inhumane world. Don’t you agree?
She paused and nibbled the end of her pen. More flattery required.
I know Canadians to be warm-hearted and enlightened.
Yours sincerely,
A fellow librarian, Clara Button
She thought of dear Tubby. It was too late for him, but it wasn’t too late for Sparrow, Marie, Beatty and all the rest of the Tube Rats.
She labelled the letter, Chief Librarian, Public Library, Toronto.
“I’m heading to the post office,” Clara called to Ruby.
“Before you go…” Ruby held up a newspaper with a big chunk cut out from the middle, her face grimacing through the hole. “Just found it cut up in the reading room.”
“Racing pages again?”
Ruby nodded.
“And an article on Beauty Is Your Duty!”
“Oh for pity’s sake! What can our phantom paper snipper have against women making the best of themselves? We need to keep a closer eye on the reading room.”
A few minutes later, she strode past the café. For once, Dot didn’t look up and wave. She was frying liver, spatula in one hand, that book in the other. The last thing she saw as she emerged into the frosty December air was Mrs. Chumbley in the shelter office cubbyhole, where Clara could see the corner of a green book poking out from behind War Wounds and Fractures.
What had she unleashed on the women of Bethnal Green?
“It celebrates the extremes of femininity. Amber’s pushing boundaries, like so many wartime women,” Mrs. Chumbley declared later that evening in book club.
“And there was me thinking she was merrily bonking her way round old London town,” sniffed Pat. “Good luck to her. Wish I was twenty-one again with pert breasts and an eighteen-inch waist.” The women of the group hooted.
Irene sighed. “After another day worrying about whether my boys will ever come home, this book,” she hugged it to her chest, “made me the happiest I’ve felt in a long time.”
“I agree,” said Dot. “It took me out of myself.”
Everyone nodded.
“What do you think, Billy and Mr. P, as male readers?” Clara asked.
“This might surprise you, but I enjoyed it,” said Mr. Pepper. “Stories from the past are the threads that weave us into a bigger picture.”
“You’re right,” Billy agreed excitedly and Clara smiled to see him so animated. “Stories are how we make sense of the chaos of this war.”
“You didn’t think it a little too scandalous?” she probed. “They’re burning it on the streets in Boston, you know.”
“War’s reconfigured the literary landscape,” said Mr. Pepper. “The speed of change in women’s lives is astonishing. I suspect your patrons are more than ready for this.”
“Precisely! Don’t you dare deprive the women of Bethnal Green a little harmless fantasy,” implored Ruby.
“I reckon you should sneak a copy to your mum,” Pat said. “Poor Net, she could probably use a bit of fun in her life right now.”
“You’re not wrong there. Cla, do you mind if I pass mine on?”
“Course, if you think she’s time to read it,” she replied.
“Hang about, Ruby Red Lips, weren’t you planning on writing a saucy book?” Irene asked.
“Was I?” Ruby said.
“Yeah, you told us so yourself at Rego’s remember? ‘Jam-packed full of sex,’ you said. I’m holding you to that.”
“Oh yeah, ’cause I can just see a publisher wanting anything from the likes of me,” she scoffed. “I ain’t just dropped my aitches. They’ve rolled under the floorboards.”
“There’s plenty of working-class writers, Ruby,” Mr. Pepper ventured. “Take Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole, for example.”
“Ooh, I loved that book,” said Clara.
“And how many of these working-class writers are women, Mr. P?” Ruby asked.
“But the fact that we’re discussing this book, written by a woman about a woman, a bold, enfranchised woman at that, means there’s progress surely?” Clara countered.
“Yes, but she’s American,” Ruby replied, reaching for her glass. “It’s different over there. Let’s face facts, shall we. The only publication about sex that we stock in this library by a British writer is Birth Control for the Married Woman.” She took a slug of her drink and laughed sourly. “And that’s probably written by a man. I’m no author, I’m just a library assistant.”
“Never just a library assistant,” Clara insisted, wishing Ruby could see her own potential. “I couldn’t run this place without you.”
“Thanks, Cla.” She smiled sadly. “So, come on, Irene, what’s your favourite bit? I know there’s a reason you’ve stuck a bookmark in there, you dirty mare.”
“Funny you should say that,” Irene laughed, opening a well-thumbed page. “Have a listen to this.” Irene read an impressively detailed extract on the physical attributes of Amber’s swarthy love interest.
She looked up from the page and jokingly fanned her face. “Lord, if you’re listening, please send Bruce Carlton into my life.”
“Hello,” said a deep lilting voice.
Everyone in the group started and looked to the door, where a tall man with a mop of dark curly hair and penetrating green eyes stood nervously.
“Blimey, Irene,” murmured Pat, “you must have a direct line.”
“Hello. I’m Clara, the branch librarian,” Clara said, jumping to her feet.
“Erm, I’m Roger, sorry to disturb your group.”
“Welcome, m’lord,” Ruby purred, “I know of a wench who has a mind to lay with you.”
Pat looked like she might fall off her chair from laughing. “Saucy mare!”
“Ignore them,” said Clara. “How can I help?”
“You’re that man who escaped from Jersey in a rowing boat, ain’cha?” remarked Dot.
“That’s right. I’ve just finished a talk in the theatre. Someone suggested I come to the library to find out some information on a family I used to know in Jersey.”
“Do come in,” said Clara. “We’ll try and help.”
“Please let me shake your hand,” said Mr. Pepper. “Escaping from Nazi-occupied territory is a terrifically brave thing to do.”
They shook hands and Roger shrugged.
“I’m not so sure about that. I think I owe more to good tides than courage. But listen, I wonder if you might help me track down two girls called Marie and Beatty Kolsky.”
“Marie and Beatty!” Ruby exclaimed.
“Oh, you know them,” he replied. “That’s a stroke of luck. I assumed they’d be in a children’s home.”
Mrs. Chumbley leant forward. “Why do you think they should be in a children’s home?”
“Well, after the death of their mother,” he replied, looking puzzled.
“Wait!” snapped Ruby. “The death of their mother?”
“Why, yes,” said Roger. “We heard word via the Red Cross she was killed during the first week of the Blitz. And given the girls’ ages, we assumed they’d be under local authority care.”
“Their ages?” said Clara.
“Yes. Marie is eight, and Beatty would be, let me see, twelve by now.”
Clara closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts.
“I knew something was wrong,” Ruby gibbered, white with shock. “I knew Beatty was covering up something.”
“Y-you did know their mother had died?” Roger asked.
“No,” said Clara. “No, Beatty told us her mother worked nights. She told us she was sixteen. She’s been holding down a job at a local factory.”
“But Beatty’s a child! How could you not see that?”
“It was chaos here in the months after the bombing,” Ruby said defensively. “It would be easy enough for a person determined enough to hide a secret.”
“Of course, I apologise,” Roger said.
“No, the failure for this lies squarely with me,” said Mrs. Chumbley, who’d been sitting in stunned silence. “The occupants of this shelter are my responsibility. I’ve failed in my duties. Tomorrow I’ll inform the authorities, then hand in my notice. This is a grievous dereliction of care.”
A clamour ran over the group.
“Look, there’s time enough for recriminations,” said Clara. “I must also take some of the blame. We had our suspicions about the mother.”
“My God,” Ruby breathed. “I thought she was on the game, that’s why she was working nights.”
“But I don’t get it,” said Queenie. “Why would they go to such trouble to lie?”
“Knowing Beatty, she’d do anything to stop her and her sister being taken into care and split up,” said Ruby.
Another thought came to her. “Their father. Beatty’s been writing letters to him every week. What news?”
Roger’s eyes darkened.
“I’m afraid the States of Jersey have much to answer for when it comes to the handling of our Jewish population,” he said bitterly. “Most Jews in the Channel Islands left for England before the invasion. Those remaining found themselves subject to laws enacted at the requirement of the Germans. Jersey’s Chief Aliens Officer handed the Commandant a list of every Jewish person on the island. Those that didn’t go into hiding were shipped to the continent. One wonders if they will be seen again. You hear rumours…”
“Rumours?” Ruby questioned.
“There’s an island in the Channel Islands closest to the northern tip of France called Alderney, which contains a work camp where they send Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war, French Jews, Spanish Republicans and more.” He lowered his voice. “In Jersey, we heard tell of atrocities on this island, but no one knows for sure. Yet.”
A hush fell over the group.
“Beatty and Marie’s father hasn’t been seen since 1942. With luck, he’s in hiding.”
He shook his head.
“I have seen the Huns’ brutal treatment of their Russian slaves close up. To them, they and the Jewish are Untermenschen, subhuman.”
“Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people,” murmured Mr. Pepper. “It was Heinrich Heine, a poet, who said that many years ago.”
Billy’s face crumpled. A look of pure hatred flickered over his usually placid features.
But Clara didn’t have long to dwell upon it, for all of a sudden, a memory from that morning flashed through her mind.
I can’t come to the library this evening.
“Marie wanted to talk to me this morning. I was too busy. Has anyone seen them today?”
“They didn’t come to storytime,” said Mr. Pepper.
“Did they know I was coming to the shelter?” Roger asked.
“Yes, it was widely advertised,” said Ruby.
“They’ve gone!” Clara cried.
As one, the group stood up and made for the door, copies of Forever Amber tumbling to the floor.
“We’ll terrify them if we all charge up en masse,” said Billy. “Clara and Ruby. You go.”
By the time they reached the Kolsky girls’ bunk, their worst fears were realised. The bunks had been stripped of bedding.
“No!” Clara cried, gripping the metal edge of the top bunk.
All that remained were their library tickets, neatly placed side by side.
16
Ruby
Two weeks later and with just days to go until Christmas, there was still no trace of the missing Kolsky sisters.
It was the coldest winter that Ruby could ever remember, yet despite this, the end of the war was so close, she could virtually touch it. Dim-out, instead of blackout, meant the faint glimmer of home lights shone through the Christmas fog. Every evening, shelterers gathered round the tree at the bottom of the escalators and sang carols by candlelight. Hope was fragile, but it knitted the shelter together like a soft blanket.
Running in parallel to this, in spite of the freezing grip of winter, or perhaps because of it, Forever Amber fever had caught fire.
Rumours about “that mucky book” swept through the shelter. Factory girls sat huddled in stairwells reading extracts out loud, housewives neglected their steps, secretaries kept it in their desk drawers for sneak peeks. Even her mother, who, by her own admission, “wasn’t one for the books,” had taken to reading it when Victor was out.
“What is it about this book, Cla?” Ruby mused as she added Belle Schaffer from bunk 854 to the waiting list.
“Cla?” Ruby touched her arm and she jumped.
“Sorry,” she sighed, breaking off from shelving. “I just can’t stop thinking about the girls. They’re not safe, not with these rockets and they still haven’t caught that rapist!”
She shuddered. “I can’t bear to think about it. Now we know about their mother, I feel like I have to take responsibility.”
“They’ll turn up, Cla,” Ruby insisted.
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’ve got Billy and his brigade looking. The East London Advertiser ran a front-page article on them. Even the Tube Rats have got search parties going.”
Ruby looked around the library. It was nearly closing time on a Saturday. Apart from a couple of loiterers and an odd-looking bloke huddled over the Daily Mail in the reading room, it was quiet.
“The theatre’ve got a Yuletide party on for the shelter kids tonight. Everyone’ll be in there,” she mused. “Why don’t you get off home and get some rest? I can finish up here.”
“Thanks. Billy finishes his shift in an hour, and he’s promised me he’ll come out looking. There’s a café owner over at Mile End who told him two girls matching Beatty and Marie’s description come in most evenings. I want to be there. Just in case.”
“Is there any danger whatsoever of being attended to?” interrupted a voice.
“Sorry,” said Ruby. “How may I help?”
“I loathe books,” snapped the man who had just appeared at the desk, removing his bowler hat, “which is to say novels, chiefly.”
“Well, we have a reasonable stock of non-fiction,” Clara said.
“I doubt you’ll have anything of the calibre I like to read. I’ll just take The Times into your reading room.”
“As you wish,” Ruby said, raising one eyebrow as he settled himself next door.
“Queer fish,” she mouthed to Clara. “Go on, you get off.”
By 7 p.m., Ruby decided to close early. By the sound of the noise from the theatre next door, the children’s Christmas party was warming up.
“Library’s closing. Time to finish up now, please, folks.”
She walked through into the reading room and stopped in her tracks. The abrupt gentleman was still absorbed in his copy of The Times, but the other man was engrossed in something entirely different.
He was pretending to read his newspaper, but both his hands were under the table, his right arm moving vigorously up and down.
“Unbelievable,” Ruby murmured. Calmly, she returned to the counter and picked up the sturdiest hardback she could find before returning.
“Any harder and you’ll yank it off.” The man looked up, not at all fazed at being caught masturbating in the library. Instead, he leant back in his chair and pulled his coat open. He smiled and waited for the ensuing shock, but instead…
“I’ve seen bigger,” Ruby remarked and, raising Forever Amber up in the air, she brought it down with a crack on the top of his manhood. He crumpled like a paper concertina.
His face registered the pain as he bent double on the floor of the library. Ruby grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Fortunately, he wasn’t a big man in any sense of the word, so she was able to drag him from the library.
Mrs. Chumbley was just escorting Father Christmas into the theatre to surprise the kids as Ruby wrestled the man out onto the platform.
“Mrs. Chumbley, just the woman,” she puffed. “Would you help me eject this man from the shelter? I caught him playing with himself in the library.”
“Perfect nuisance,” she retorted, shooing Father Christmas into the theatre before any kids saw.
Mrs. Chumbley didn’t need telling twice and rolled up her sleeves. It was a terrific shame his knees cracked so many escalator stairs on the way up, and that he landed face down in a stagnant puddle outside the Tube.
“Don’t want that kind of member in the library,” Ruby sniffed.
Ruby and Mrs. Chumbley were still laughing as they clattered back down the stairs to the Underground.
“We’ve earned ourselves a quick sharpener, what say you, Mrs. C?” Ruby asked as they walked into the library.
“What did you hit him with?” Mrs. Chumbley asked as Ruby poured them both a slug of brandy.
“Forever Amber.”
They dissolved into laughter once more, Mrs. Chumbley laughing so much she had to sit down and wipe her eyes with her sleeve.
“Hang about,” said Ruby, scanning the counter, “I left the copy here.” She placed a hand on the counter where she’d left the hardback before grappling the man out of the library.
