‘Yes, they gave us ten minutes to get out. Mama had to decide what to take with the barrel of a gun pointed at her head.’
Joyce swallowed.
Adela gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Do you know what Mama took? A framed family photo, our candlesticks and baby teeth in a glass jar. Of course, my sister took as many of her books as she could cram into her bag.’
Joyce smiled and felt a wash of love surge through her. ‘I would have expected nothing less of Dorotha.’
‘Me, Mama, Tatus and Dorotha found ourselves in one room,’ Adela went on, haltingly. ‘Until they managed to get me out. I have deserted them.’
‘You haven’t,’ Joyce insisted. ‘They wanted to get their youngest child to safety. You’ll see them again.’
‘You don’t know that, Miss Kindred. Especially not if they are in this ghetto place.’
Just then a tiny miaow sounded from Adela’s bag. A pink nose appeared.
‘Adela?’ Joyce gasped, as Library Cat wriggled out of her bag and hopped onto her lap.
‘I’m sorry. She burrowed into my bag when the first plane flew over. I noticed her at the WVS van.’
‘That’s all right. I suppose it’s you, me and Library Cat now.’
The rest of the night crawled by in a haze of disbelief, the air filled with the distant thud and crump of explosives as London was pulverised.
The bombing never seemed to abate, and the shelterers’ fear gave way to gallows humour.
‘Any expectant women?’ called out an ARP man from the door to the station.
‘Give us a minute, mate,’ called back a wag. ‘We’ve only been here a couple of hours.’
From across the ticket hall, someone else started up a defiant chorus of ‘There’ll Always Be an England’, and many shelterers, including Joyce, joined in, their voices rising to compete with the bombs. The sounds of an accordion drifted up from the tunnels. People were showing their defiance in the face of terror, and Joyce’s heart swelled with pride.
By the time the all-clear sounded just after dawn, her entire body felt bent out of shape, and the wooden tread of the escalator step had carved deep grooves into the flesh on her legs. She desperately needed a pee, a good wash and a strong cup of tea.
They began the walk back to Camden in exhausted silence. Adela clutched Library Cat in her arms like a comfort blanket. She showed little inclination to get away, perhaps sensing Adela was her best hope of survival.
The area around the station was blanketed in thick smoke, which even the rising sun failed to penetrate, and the streets were coated in powdered glass. Buildings lay in smouldering, twisted ruins, like a giant fist had come down from the sky and punched holes into the sides of houses.
Everywhere they looked were signs of unimaginable destruction. Historic buildings that had stood since the Great Fire of London lay in ruins. But despite this, Londoners were showing their mettle. Groups of housewives were out sweepingup glass, trying to create order out of the chaos. A young woman in an apron with cherry-red lips handed out mugs of cocoa to exhausted fireman still battling the fires. Teenage messenger boys on yellow bikes zipped through them all.
In that moment, Joyce longed to share all that she was seeing with Dorotha, to let her know that her suffering in Poland was finally shared. And to tell her that she would keep Adela safe. Her absence and lack of letters was like a mournful hand pressing down on Joyce’s chest.
Where are you? Are the Nazis in your library? Are you looking at scenes like this?
‘Joyce, look.’ Adela’s voice snapped her back.
They paused to look in horrified fascination at a house that had been sliced perfectly down the middle like a piece of cake. One side of the living room was covered in a rose-patterned wallpaper, with what looked like a half-consumed cup of tea on the dresser. The other side was a pile of charred timber.
ARP, policemen and civilians worked side by side, frantically digging their way through the heavy concrete slabs; but, without heavy lifting equipment, they were making slow progress. Joyce spotted a child’s arm protruding from the heap of rubble, but there was little that she could have added to the rescue efforts, so she swiftly pulled Adela away before the girl saw it too. She knew she and Adela would only have been in the way.
By the time they turned into Unwin Terrace, Joyce breathed a sigh of relief to see relatively little damage beyond a few blown-out windows. She pushed her key in the lock.
‘Best keep Library Cat under your coat just for a bit. Mum’s allergic,’ she said as they walked in. How futile it sounded in the moment.
Her mother was already in the corridor by the time she’d opened the door.
‘Thank goodness,’ she exhaled, holding the back of her hand to her forehead. ‘Where have you been...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Adela. She’s a refugee from Poland. We’ll be looking after her.’
