Joyce woke to find Adela already dressed and cleaning her teeth in an enamel mug. She touched her gently and Adela winced as if scalded.
‘Be of stout heart...’ she said, echoing Beth’s recent sentiments.
‘Don’t...’ she snapped. ‘My family are in the hands of the Nazis and I am here, so please... Just don’t.’
She threw her toothbrush down onto her bunk and stalked off up the platform. Joyce went to follow, but felt a small hand rest on her shoulder.
‘Leave her, darling. She needs her space,’ Mitsy said.
Joyce felt her tears rush her like a wave. ‘Oh, Mitsy, it’s you. What am I to do? What if she’s right and the Nazis have Dorotha and her family and they’re imprisoned in some... some awful ghetto...?’
‘There’s nothing you can do but keep going,’ Mitsy said simply. ‘When a woman faces yet another challenge, she squares her shoulders, sticks out her chin and says to herself, “Come on then.”’
Joyce stared at the diminutive lady in front of her, nudging eighty, bombed-out and yet endlessly defiant. She must have risen early to paint on her trademark red lips and set her hair in curlers.
‘How do you do it, Mitsy? Always stay so upbeat?’
Mitsy glanced upwards.
‘Every day I wake up is a gift from God. I’m alive this morning when millions around the world don’t have that privilege. The day stretches ahead like a blank page. A story yet to be written.’
‘But don’t you fear death?’ Joyce ventured.
‘Not a bit, dear heart.’ She smiled softly and held on to the bunk to steady herself. ‘Death is not the extinguishing of the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.’
‘That’s beautiful,’ Joyce breathed.
‘Not my words, alas. They were written by the Indian poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore. My late husband and I met him on our travels in Bengal. Wonderful man.’
Joyce shook her head in amazement at the many lives of Mitsy Bouvoir, before dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. And now I must be off. Lilley and Rosie have talked me into helping out at a rest centre in Camden. Then we’re heading to Hampstead Tube for a shower.’ She winked. ‘Terrible snobs at that shelter but the facilities are a cut above!’ She rummaged in her bag. ‘Oh, by the way, dear, was this you?’ Mitsy pulled out a copy ofThe Swiss Cottagerand pointed to theLonely Hearts column.
Mitsy Bouvoir. I fell in love with you when I watched you alongside Lillian Gish in the 1916 silent movieDaphne and the Pirate. You are still every bit as luminescent. Yours admiringly. A fan.
Joyce grinned. ‘A little before my time, Mitsy.’ She winked. ‘Why, you have an anonymous underground admirer.’
‘Get away with you,’ Mitsy said, shrieking with laughter. But Joyce saw the little spring in her step as she sought out Lilley and Rosie and linked her arm through theirs. The three redoubtable women walked up the platform, trailing laughter like ribbons. It was a welcome glimmer of light in the darkness.
Joyce went in search of Adela and found her deep in conversation with Dore. By the look on her face, her mood hadn’t much improved, and Dore looked pretty gloomy too.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked him.
‘That obvious? I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Joyce, but they’ve cut our funding.’
‘Who?’
‘The powers that be. The insurance for the library roof doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of repairs, and with the whole council already under enormous strain, they’ve told us themobile library will have to close. They’ll be withdrawing the fuel allowance.’
‘When?’ Joyce asked.
‘Two, three months tops.’
‘This is, how you Brits say? Codswallop!’ Adela exploded. ‘What was all that claptrap at the opening about the travelling library being an essential service?’
‘The council is a many-layered bureaucratic beast,’ Dore lamented. ‘Red-tape officialdom should come with a public health warning. I’ll try my hardest to get a stay of execution but the powers that be play a masterful game of “It’s the other man’s job”.’
Joyce felt a charge of defiance run through her and squared her shoulders. ‘Well, we will just have to make sure that we offer the best service we possibly can over the next couple of months, and fight for a stay of execution.’
