‘I cut it,’ Joyce announced, self-consciously patting the side of her new hairdo. ‘Or rather the hairdresser did. Apparently, it’s called the Victory Wave.’
Joyce still couldn’t believe she had been talked into having her long hair cut, dyed blonde and the front pinned into two voluminous rolls that framed her heart-shaped face. The stylistat the Bond Street Beauty School had also plucked her eyebrows and painted her lips the colour of a pillar box with something called Homefront Ammunition. Apparently, it was no longer considered risqué to have red lips. Who knew! The Yardley stylist had assured her she was, in fact, doing her patriotic duty.
‘My dear, the slightest hint of a drooping spirit yields a point to the enemy,’ the stylist had chuntered on. ‘Never must careless grooming reflect a “don’t care” attitude... We must never forget that good looks and good morale are the closest of companions.’
Joyce felt sure her mother and Hildegard would have something to say about that. But she had to admit, she did like the overall effect and, seeing as how the former and latter were now tucked away in the countryside, she couldn’t see the harm.
She wasn’t alone in her transformation.
‘War agrees with you, Annie,’ Joyce remarked, stepping back to appraise her friend. ‘You look wonderful.’
Annie’s glossy chestnut hair was scooped back under a red headscarf, and she wore beige slacks and a crisp white shirt. Her lips were, if possible, an even brighter red than Joyce’s.
‘Same old rig-out,’ she joked, tapping out a Black Cat cigarette from a packet.
‘Yes. But the lips, very femme fatale.’
‘Beauty is our Duty, or some stuff and nonsense,’ she quipped, lighting her cigarette. ‘Also, apparently Hitler hates women wearing lipstick.’ She blew out a long stream of smoke through red lips. ‘So, you know, all the more reason... Now come in. You must be famished after that journey. And oh gosh, you must think me so rude! Hallo hallo,’ Annie gushed to Adela. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’
‘And I’ve heard so much about you!’ Adela replied. ‘Or rather, the Secret Society of Librarians.’
‘Joyce been boring you about us, has she?’ Annie winked as she led the women in.
Inside, despite the lateness of the hour, the library was heaving with a mix of servicemen and -women and evacuees.
‘We open until eight p.m. now, to allow people to change their books between shifts,’ Annie explained as she wove through the library to the staff room.
‘Annie, dear heart, we’d love to stay longer, but it’s taken us the best part of a day to get here,’ Joyce explained, ‘and ideally we need to get back to London before Jerry does.’
She flicked a nervous look at her wristwatch.
One month on from the start of the Blitz, as it was now known, and life in London had transformed itself into something of a routine. Nightly, Londoners huddled down against the onslaught, and when the all-clear sounded, usually just after dawn, folk staggered, shell-shocked, from their hiding places. Civilians crawled out from brick shelters, cupboards, church crypts, railway arches, or muddy trenches in the park.
Joyce and Adela spent the nights in the Anderson at the end of the garden, which they had made cosy with two camp beds, a stove and a bookshelf, before emerging every morning into the dawn of an uncertain day. Despite this, they were the lucky ones: they hadn’t been bombed out. Yet. The government had also finally seen sense and officially opened the Tubes for shelter. The Battle for the Underground had been won by the people. Thousands of Londoners now called a dusty underground tunnel home.
‘How’re you coping?’ Annie asked. ‘You’re so brave staying in London.’
‘Not brave at all,’ Joyce insisted. ‘We just have no choice but to get on with it. We take each day at a time, don’t we, Adela?’
Adela nodded, and Joyce felt a rush of love for the young woman she had come to regard as something of a surrogate sister. After that first wobble, Adela had never complained, not once, doing her bit in the library and with the housework andcooking at home. She even volunteered for fire-watching in the borough. Thanks to a diet that seemed to consist entirely of tea and jam sandwiches, Adela’s gaunt face was filling out and, despite the bombings, she seemed surer of herself. The fear Joyce had harboured at Adela being a burden had never materialised and, looking back, she felt somewhat ashamed. Mind you, their world had, as Jo predicted, been turned on its head.
‘If you want to see real bravery, you should look at Clara.’
Annie’s face fell. ‘I wrote to her after the funeral. I had a nice letter back, too nice really. She talked a lot about the library and nothing else.’
Joyce sighed. Peter’s funeral had been awful. Clara had choked her way through her eulogy before shaking hands with every one of the 150 people who attended. Peter had been a popular librarian, his kindness and social idealism remembered alongside his soft voice and charming manners.
‘Nothing shattered his belief that public libraries were an essential service to the people of the nation,’ Joyce said. ‘He told me once: “Good books provided through libraries helped fill up the soul of the people.”’
‘It worked for me,’ Adela said. ‘He lent meThe Secret Garden. It must have been the last book he ever issued.’
‘Which makes you very special,’ Annie said softly. ‘We’ll just have to be there for Clara as much as this bloody war permits.’
Joyce nodded. ‘I get over to Bethnal Green whenever I can. She’s thrown herself into setting up this library underground in the Tube shelter. They salvaged over four thousand books from the library and are building a library along the tunnels.’
‘Which is a genius idea,’ Annie pointed out. ‘But I worry she’s driving herself so hard at the risk of her not allowing herself to grieve. You know what she’s like.’
‘Sensitive. Kind. Puts the happiness of all others over her own?’ Joyce asked with a wry smile.
