Thea couldn’t find our billeting papers that had Charlotte’s name and address.
She didn’t know where Mum was. She didn’t know where you were.
And she was leaving for Wales the next day.
Thea took the letter and we left our demolished neighborhood. We had to walk a little bit before she was able to hail a taxi that could take us to her hotel.
The air raid sirens started again as we were getting out of the taxi cab. I think we spent the night in the hotel basement. That part is a bit foggy.
In the morning, Thea called Gramps and Granny. They talked for a little while, Thea in hushed tones. Then she called the widow Mum worked for, and I heard her ask if she could please try to get word to Mum that I would be at my grandparents’ house. The next thing I remember, I was on a train withThea and her mother. They took me to the Oxford railway station on their way to Wales, and Gramps and Granny met us there.
I recall Thea telling Granny that Mum worked for a widow named Mrs. Billingsley whom Thea had called that morning. The widow’s butler would try to locate Mum and let her know where I was.
When Thea knelt to say good-bye, I flung my arms around her neck and held tight.
Your grandparents will take good care of you,she said.They are your family, Julia. They will help you find your mum.
I tightened my grip around Thea’s neck.
She had to pry me loose.
I crumpled to the pavement as Thea, crying into her handkerchief, walked away. Gramps lifted me into his arms.
I really don’t remember anything else of that day, just Thea—the last link I had to the life I knew—growing smaller and smaller in my field of vision until she was gone.
My hand hurts, Emmy.
Everything hurts.
I must stop for now.
Thirty-six
June 18, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I had to take a few days off from the journal. Spilling everything about the bombing like that sort of took the breath right out of my lungs. I’ve been in a bit of a mental wasteland for the last few days—trouble concentrating at work, not sleeping well, things like that. Dr. Diamant told me this might happen and not to worry. It’s perfectly normal to need some time to sort out these memories that I’m dredging up. That hasn’t stopped Simon from worrying, unfortunately. He called Dr. Diamant and said that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I don’t know what Dr. Diamant told him but Simon said all right. All right. All right. Three times. Somehow she convinced him this was still a good idea. And so I am back.
It’s two a.m.
I can’t sleep, so I may as well write to you.
It’s hard to fully recall those first few days with Gramps and Granny. It’s almost as if there are rooms in my mind where all these memories are kept and some of those rooms have no doors. I know the memories are there but I’ve no way of getting to them. When Granny called Mrs. Billingsley on Monday, two days after the bombing, she was told Mum hadn’t shown up for work that day. Mrs. Billingsley had sent her butler to our flat to make sure Mum was all right, but he’d found our street bombed and our flat empty. All of the flats on our side were empty. He found no one to even ask if they’d seen her. The butler had taken it upon himself to check with the hospital, but there was no record of an Annie Downtree having been admitted.
Gramps and Granny were worried about me because I wouldn’t speak; the only time they heard my voice was when I screamed in my sleep. Granny told Gramps she wanted to take me to America to get me away from the war. Other family members of Oxford instructors had been evacuated to Connecticut under a private scheme, to the homes of Yale professors and staff members. Granny begged Gramps to see if she and I could go, even though everyone else had already left many weeks before. Gramps didn’t like the idea because of the U-boats patrolling the Atlantic. One ship full of evacuees, mostly children, had already been torpedoed.
But Granny insisted. She had to get me away from the war or she’d lose me like she lost Neville, just in a different way. I heard her say this.
We were at the docks at Liverpool just two days later, boarding a ship that would take me away from England for nearly five years. I don’t think Granny had any idea that’s how long we would be away. I don’t think anyone knew the war would last that long. On the passenger manifest I was listed as Julia Waverly. Granny said my father would want me to have hislast name since he had been taken from me so early in my life. I didn’t want a new last name but I was unable to argue that point. By the time I was able to speak my mind, I had been a Waverly for almost as long as I had been a Downtree and it didn’t seem to matter as much. Being a Downtree would not bring you back. I have been Julia Waverly ever since.
What I remember of the crossing is the swaying of the ship like a cradle being rocked, but I also remember there being alarms, and donning our life vests as U-boats were in the area and at any moment they might close in on us and blow our ship to bits. I remember Granny having to cram my arms through the vest as I fought and kicked. I also remember her pacing the floor by my cot in our stateroom. I can still see her shoes going back and forth; just her shoes, because I am under the cot. I remember dreaming that it’s not dead cats I see on Thea’s back steps; it is you and Mum and Neville.
The first few weeks after we arrived are a blur. Less than a blur. Those memories are in one of the rooms with no door. I think it’s odd that I can remember the smell of acrid smoke, the feel of broken glass under my shoes, and the open-eyed stares of those cats, but I can’t remember the first weeks of my life in tranquil America.
There was no war there, no sandbags or barrage balloons or running for cover. We lived on the third floor of a brick colonial situated on a peaceful tree-lined street with a Yale professor of history, Dr. Bower, and his wife, Florence. Their twin sons, Charlie and Randall, were in the United States Army Air Corps, training to be pilots. Granny had the bigger of the two rooms, furnished with a lovely canopied bed, but she often slept in the armchair in my room. At least for a while she did.
My room reminded me of the room you and I shared at Aunt Charlotte’s. It was nestled in the corner with a slanted roof that I could touch where it met the wall. After I had settledin, I would lie in my bed, close my eyes, and imagine that I was back at Aunt Charlotte’s and you were just a few feet away. This was how I fell asleep every night for many, many nights—imagining you were in a bed next to me and that we were safe at Charlotte’s, the brides box on the nightstand between us along with my book of fairy tales.
