‘Out of the question. We have problems enough of our own.’
Joyce noticed the suitcases in the hallway.
‘I’ve called my sister in Wokingham. She’ll have us, but there’s no room for her,’ her mother muttered, flicking her gloves at Adela. ‘Give her a cup of tea, then send her on her way.’
Joyce closed her eyes, anger and exhaustion scorching through her. ‘I’m not leaving London, Mother.’
‘What? Don’t be ridiculous, dear. We’ll be bombed to smithereens if we stay.’
‘I said, I’m staying. I have my job at the library to consider.’ She thought of the bravery of the people in the shelter the previous night. ‘I’m not abandoning London.’
Her mother’s eyes glittered hard. ‘You can and you will, Joyce Kindred. You cannot risk your life for some bloody novels.’ Her eyes sized up the Star of David necklace at Adela’s neck. ‘And this... this... Polish woman. It’s her lot that brought the war to our doorstep in the first place.’
Joyce’s brain suddenly felt clear, a single chord resonating through her mind.Stay.If she evacuated with her mother, a lifetime of dusty church halls, jam-making and whist drives awaited. A lonely old maid in a Buckinghamshire market town.
Virginia Woolf’s voice whispered in her ear.It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m staying.’
Dorotha sounded in the other ear.You’re always apologising. Even when it’s not your fault.
‘Actually, Mother, no, I’m not sorry.’
Her mother looked at her in disbelief, the feather on top of her Sunday best hat quivering. ‘Fine,’ she spat eventually. ‘Then I wash my hands of you. Stay and you will likely perish, along with this... Jew girl.’
Joyce stepped back as her mother collected her cases and walked past her, leaving a faint odour of moth balls and ignorance in her wake.
In a way, Joyce was grateful for her mother’s spite. For too long, her grief had been her passport to rudeness.
‘Goodbye, Mother,’ she said softly, as the door slammed shut and the frame rattled accusingly.
She mustered a smile. ‘Right then. How’s about we have a wash, and then I’ll fix us a nice cup of tea.’ Library Cat wriggled out from under Adela’s coat and leapt lightly onto the floor, padding up the corridor to the kitchen, making herself perfectly at home.
One hour later, fortified with tea so strong you could stand the spoon up in it, the pair made their way to Camden Central Library. It was now Sunday morning, when they were usually closed, but under the circumstances, she felt sure that Hildegard would want her in, if nothing else to check that the building was still standing. She was surprised to find a small crowd of people outside the entrance.
‘Ooh terrific, you’re opening. I hoped you would,’ said a middle-aged woman clutching the hands of two children. ‘As Hitler’s been paying us such close attention, I feel sure he won’t forget us again tonight,’ she joked, ‘so I thought to myself, better get mine and the kids’ library books renewed so we’ll have something to read in the shelter.’
‘Ooh,’ said another lady, whom Joyce recognised as Queenie, a local charlady, ‘my Ernie’s working nights at St Pancras Station, so I’ll be on my own in the Anderson, and I need a good read, take me out of myself. Can you recommend anything?’
The exhausted, febrile crowd all began chattering at once.
What I need’s a good Agatha Christie. Got any Georgette Heyer? You can’t hear the bombs when you’re lost in a good book. Give me a good murder to get lost in, and I won’t hear a thing.
Their excited voices washed over Joyce as she unlocked the door to the library. She barely had time to hang up her coat before more people started arriving. All morning, she worked flat out, stamping, shelving, recommending books to people, who came in grey-faced with exhaustion and left hugging a book, as if that alone could hold back the Nazi raiders. It was the busiest they’d been since the outbreak of the war.
Adela was a great help, providing a steady stream of tea and even chatting to library patrons to recommend books she’d enjoyed. There was an atmosphere Joyce had never felt in the library before. Purpose. Urgency. She felt, notgoodexactly – she was far too exhausted for that – but fulfilled, as if the work she had done that morning would make a difference to people.
By midday, she had finally got to the end of a long queue of patrons, when a man briskly strode in through the double doors. He was small and perfectly round, with a smile that seemed to fill the library. He wore an immaculate pin-striped suit with a quarter of an inch of white cuff on show, bushy white hair that, despite liberal application of pomade, refused to lie flat, and brown eyes that twinkled knowingly.
‘Bravo, bravo. This is precisely the Dunkirk spirit I was hoping to see here today,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Councillor Dore Silverman,’ he said, pumping her hand in his. ‘Delighted to meet you. Have you been busy?’
‘Rushed off my feet.’
He bounced up and down on the soles of his feet. ‘I predicted as much. Libraries will become an emergency service in thesetroubled times, and we must be ready to react. Stress brings out the best in some people, and you are, I sense, Miss...?’
‘Kindred.’
‘You are one of those people, Miss Kindred.’
