‘You too. I’m falling for you, Joyce Kindred.’
And I you, she thought. She wanted to tell him how no one had ever read her poetry or kissed her like that, but there wasn’t time.
Instead, Joyce jumped out the car and watched as he gunned off down the road, in the direction of the eerie orange haze.
She walked down the out-of-use escalator into the darkness of her subterranean home, pondering on the peculiarity of the world. Her life was such a dichotomy. Romance and danger, all wrapped up in the same breathless heartbeat.
Dore was rushing up the other side of the escalator in a tin hat, with a bucket of sand and a stirrup pump.
‘Fire-watching on the station roof,’ he puffed, by way of explanation. ‘Joyce. You must get down the tunnels without delay.’
‘I shall, but please, Dore, I’ve just come from the most frightful scene. South Hallsville School in the docks is full to bursting with women and children. Many are injured and it’s desperate down there.’
‘I’ll make some calls, my dear, see what I can do. Now get to safety, please.’
At the bottom of the escalator, Adela was waiting for her. Joyce took one look at her face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My sister and parents. They’ve been taken by the Nazis!’
‘What . . . How can you possibly know that?’
She thrust a piece of paper into Joyce’s hand.
‘It’s a Red Cross telegram from Dorotha’s boss at the library in Lódz. Read it.’
As Joyce started to read, she felt like a balloon that had slipped from its string and was floating untethered.
‘Family moved. Address unknown.’ She swallowed.
‘But that doesn’t mean . . .’
‘L-library now in German hands,’ Adela stammered, jabbing a finger at the final line in the telegram. ‘He’s talking about my family.’
12
Joyce
London, 30 December 1940
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
Bulletin No. 19
War has wiped out the north–south divide. Hitler didn’t forget us. Now gone: Coventry cathedral, our sixteenth-century Palace Yard, hundreds of shops, homes, and my library. Joyce, Clara and Jo, I can look you in the eye and say, ‘I understand’.
I’ve lost so much, but not my status as a librarian.
Now it’s my turn to fulfil our promise.
When people can’t get to the books, we deliver books to the people!
Tomorrow, I start delivering books from the smaller regional libraries on my bike.
Be of stout heart, SSL.
Your Beth
The evening of the twenty-ninth and early hours of the thirtieth of December 1940 raged on in a firestorm of blood, smoke and chaos. News of the unparalleled destruction had filtered down to the bowels of the Earth. Jerry hadn’t just hit the docks, but also the square mile of the City of London, with barbaric ferocity. In just three hours, tons of high explosives and thousands upon thousands of incendiaries had been dropped on the City, many of which had landed on or around St Paul’s Cathedral. Thanks to the efforts of the Watch, who’d extinguished the incendiaries before they’d erupted into fires, the mighty cathedral and its iconic dome lived to see another day.
