‘Yes, that’s right... I know it’s a little unconventional, but the library has been quiet of late. Lots of our patrons,through no fault of their own, aren’t able to reach the library. They’re all working longer hours in wartime work.
‘Also,’ she stumbled gamely on, ‘there are many housebound, elderly and lonely people in Camden who’d value a mobilelibrary service. So...’ She blew a loose strand of hair from her eyes. ‘I thought, if people can’t come to the books, should we not take books to the people?’
‘Out of the question!’ Hildegard retorted, before the question had barely left Joyce’s lips. ‘We’re in London, not the rural regions. If people want a book, they can jolly well get off their bottoms and come and get it.’
Virginia Woolf whispered slyly in her ear.It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.
‘But—’
‘Besides, I dispute your claim we’re quieter,’ Hildegard interrupted. ‘Every time I come out of my office, it seems another D-class reader is checking out some Mills & Boon rubbish.’
‘Mills & Boon isn’t rubbish,’ Joyce protested hotly. ‘It’s well-crafted and researched.’
‘Perhaps,’ Hildegard mused. ‘Even the most foolish book is a leaky boat on a sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.’ She had an almost evangelical zeal about self-improvement. Enjoyment be damned! ‘However, when it comes to some of our patrons,’ she prattled on, ‘we should be doing them a real service if we prevented them from reading at all.’
Joyce closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Hildegard was buttoning up her tweed jacket and preparing to leave for the evening, the conversation clearly over.
‘You’re undone, Miss Kindred!’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your hair!’
Joyce touched the strand of fair hair that had fallen loose from her bun.
‘Smarten yourself up. And no more fanciful ideas! You’d do well to remember your place.’
With that, she stomped across the library, calling over her shoulder, ‘Remember the blackout blinds before you lock up. We wouldn’t want anyone to see a light in the library, would we?’
Joyce nodded, blinking back tears and glancing down at the report she’d spent the past twelve months preparing about her idea for a mobile library, ever since she had first mooted it with the Secret Society. Itwasa good one. She knew it. If she was being honest with herself, she’d been a coward, sitting on the report all these months, trying to summon the bravery to share her big idea.
When the Ministry of Information had issued a circular recently to all libraries asking how they intended to rise to the challenges of war and continue and even extend their library provision, she had finally galvanised herself to take action. For all the good it had done her. Joyce sighed, feeling like a discarded dishrag.
The problem was that her ‘place’, as Hildegard March had reminded her, was at the bottom of the pile. Maybe she ought to face facts. She was a library assistant who still, aged twenty-one, lived with her mother in an unassuming terrace in St Pancras and spoke to Virginia Woolf in her head. Like her literary heroine, she longed to write great novels, pioneering streams of consciousness, but frankly, the well was dry.
Joyce thought to the evening that stretched ahead. Cold meat supper at six, followed by an evening spent sitting by the fireside with her mother, listening to her stream of invective about the neighbours’ shortcomings. Frankly, Joyce couldn’t care less whether the women of her street took down their nets to wash weekly, or scrubbed their doorsteps. When had her mother become so judgemental? Her father’s death had possibly been the catalyst. No one ever talked about how Charles Kindred died, and to this day he remained an enigma, staring back blankly in an army uniform behind a glass frame.
Joyce often felt she’d sacrificed the best part of her youth to keep her mother company, listening to her daily grumble in their stultifying terraced house. She loved her job here in Camden Library but she wasn’t exactly breaking ground. There had been no romance, no grand adventures. Just dependable, reliable bookworm Joyce. With her long, mousy-brown hair always tied back in a bun, cardigans and sensible lisle stockings, she realised, somewhat depressingly, that she probably fitted every stereotyped image the general public had of a librarian.
If only she had some of Dorotha’s chutzpah. Even at library school, Dorotha had been the bravest of them all; always ready to challenge authority and question why women patrons weren’t allowed to take out more romance novels, if that’s what they desired. Dorotha fought for what she believed in. War had only sharpened her edges.
I am risking my life to send this letter.
Dorotha’s voice echoed in her ear, and Joyce felt a deep chasm of pain. Dorotha’s desperate bulletin a year ago had indeed been the last proper letter they had received from their founder. There had been two Red Cross messages in the year since then, bland news that testified to her suspicions of Nazi censorship. The humanitarian organisation message service was restricted to twenty-five words, but it was better than nothing.
They had at least been able to oblige Dorotha’s last request, though, and with a flurry of meetings, Joyce had acted as a guarantor for Adela, saving her from Poland just in the nick of time. Guilt bloomed. If only she had been able to save Dorotha too.
In the nearly eleven months since Dorotha’s sister had been in England, Joyce had scarcely seen her. Adela’s new employers seemed to be keeping her very busy as a housemaid, and although Joyce had tried to regularly check in with her, there was little she could do in the face of paid employment.
It felt like there were two wars: the one raging over the Channel and their war here, at home. Blackouts and powdered eggs were irksome, yes, but they were hardly worth documenting. In contrast, the news from the Continent was terrifying. In the last three months, German troops had smashed through the Maginot Line and, one by one, Europe’s nations had fallen. Even dear sweet Jersey, land of milk and honey, was now occupied. They hadn’t heard a thing from Grace since the news broke.
But while there may have been bloodshed and horror lapping at their shores, none of it permeated the tranquil rhythm of Joyce’s beloved library.
Now, she pinned up the blackout blinds as her boss had demanded, locked the doors and left, grabbing her secret book bag as she did.
Outside, the September evening felt surprisingly soft and warm for the time of year. Friday evening and the pubs were full, patrons spilling out on the pavement, laughing and supping pints, shirtsleeves rolled up. The air smelt of beer and coal smoke. A group of red-lipped Wrens and tall, blond RAF aircrew in blue laughed outrageously at a joke, clearly tight.
