‘Whoever it is, is smitten,’ Adela said.
‘Somebody is having a jolly good laugh at my expense.’
‘I don’t think so, Mitsy,’ Joyce said. ‘Whoever it is seems terrifically keen.’
‘I suppose at my age one ought to be grateful, but the only man close to my age is old Ted Rogers in bunk 101, who snores like a freight train and has feet that smell of ripe cheese.’
They were all still laughing when a shadow fell over the platform.
‘Harry,’ Joyce exclaimed, jumping to her feet. ‘Thank goodness.’ She thought back to the previous evening, when she’d urged him to stay safe before he gunned off in the direction of West Ham Council offices to warn them yet again about the mothers and children sitting in the bombed-out school.
‘Did those mothers get off all right?’
He shook his head and stifled a yawn.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been on heavy lifting all day. I’m going to head down there now with Dore to check. If they are still there, this’ll be their third night, and there’s only so far nerves will stretch.’
‘Why don’t you stay a while and rest?’ Joyce suggested. She could see the muscles in his neck, bunched and knotted. His dark hair was smattered with plaster and he smelt faintly of cordite.
Harry led her to the far end of the tunnel, so that it was just her and him in the shadows. He cradled her face softly in his hands, sending electricity racing up her spine. She studied his face, taking in the lopsided smile, the broken nose and the faint scar on his chin. He was about as far from a matinee idol as it was possible to be. But to her, Harry Harding was perfect. Radiant, beautiful even.
She could hear her mother’s voice. ‘Stepney? Really, darling...?’ She would never see what Joyce could. A man who risked his life to protect cathedrals, books, strangers. A man who boxed and wrote poetry. A man she was fast falling in love with.
‘You sure I can’t tempt you to see in New Year’s with me and a soggy Spam sandwich?’
He laughed, his gravelly voice filling the space between them. ‘Tempting.’
Gently, he rested his forehead against hers. ‘Believe me, Joyce, there’s nothing I’d rather do than see in the new year with you, but I know I won’t be able to rest. Not when all hell is breaking loose up there.’ He gave her a weary smile.
‘So will you be content with a kiss and a promise that when this war’s over, I hope to be able to see in every single new year with you?’
Joyce looked into his silver eyes, hooded with exhaustion, and slid her arms around his neck. ‘Every single year, until the end of time,’ she murmured, surrendering to his kiss.
As the pair embraced in the shadows, Joyce realised that their relationship was progressing at a dizzying speed, but why wait? The spectre of loss was all around them. Life. Love. Libraries. The very things most at peril were surely the things most worth fighting for.
The old year passed and the new year crept in on a bank of freezing fog. Joyce and Adela both woke early on the first day of 1941, but with one thought. At five a.m., the station lights were still dimmed. Mitsy lay gently snoring in her bunk, Library Cat and Missy curled up at her feet, but Joyce could tell from Adela’s breathing that they were both as wide awake as each other.
‘Shall we go back to South Hallsville School and see if those mothers and children were evacuated?’ Adela said quietly, so as not to wake the other shelterers.
Joyce hesitated. ‘I don’t think in your condition...’
‘Don’t you dare. I’m fighting fit,’ she said in a fierce whisper. ‘I want to make myself as useful as I can, while I can.’
Joyce was desperate to see if the people in the school had been transported to safety, too, and a selfish part of her wanted to see if Harry was all right.
‘Come on then.’
They dressed quickly, then splashed their faces with cold water in the station loos, before heading to the garage.
As they drove to Canning Town, the question slipped out of Joyce’s mouth, settling like powder on the dashboard.
‘Who’s the father?’
Adela’s hand tightened over the gearstick.
‘I can’t talk about it.’
They both stared ahead at the road and fell back into silence.
