‘It was not my choice. He told me that if I did not lay down with him, he’d have me deported.’
‘W-what...?’ Joyce spluttered. ‘I’m going to kill him. I’ll throttle him with my own bare hands. Wait. How long did this go on for?’
‘Whenever he was home. When they evacuated to the countryside, I took my chances and ran to you that night all those months ago.’
Joyce thought back to the evening she had found Adela huddled on her doorstep. If only she’d known what she had really been running from.
‘How . . . How could he?’ she stammered.
‘Men like him, with their power and wealth, they take what they want.’
‘We must report him to the authorities. H-He can’t get away with this.’ Joyce’s words were tumbling out, rage mushrooming inside her.
‘And what do you think will happen, Joyce? Don’t be so naive. I’m a young Jewish refugee. He’s a member of Parliament. Part of the establishment.’ She shook her head. ‘There are good men, men like Dore and your Harry, who see women as equals, then there are men like Mr Barclay-Miller, who see people like me as chattels to use as they wish.’
There was nothing Joyce could say to that, for she knew Adela was right.
‘And so, you see I have no choice but to give this child up for adoption. And why my family must never, ever know.’
In the tiny little mobile library, where people sought enlightenment and escape, both so sorely missing from a world at war, Joyce wrapped her arms around her friend and never wanted to let go. The absolute injustice of it. Adela had come to England fleeing Nazi persecution in search of safety, and instead she had been betrayed and molested in the worst possible way.
‘Come on,’ Adela said, pulling away. ‘It’s Mitsy’s birthday party and we promised we wouldn’t be late.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Joyce sighed. Her emotions felt too big for her body, and were threatening to dangerously bubble over. She cast a last glance around her tiny library, and then locked up.
Underground, the pair were surprised to find a party already in full flow.
A second before they descended underground at Swiss Cottage Station, the sirens had gone off. It was some measure of how battle-hardy Blitzed Londoners now were, and how loved Mitsy was, that a bombing raid was not about to stop them celebrating the eightieth birthday of their underground matriarch. After seven months of nightly bombardment, they were living in a state of febrile exhaustion, their lights dimmed, but a long way from beaten.
‘My darlings,’ Mitsy exclaimed, when she spotted the girls. Mitsy was resplendent in a black tuxedo, top hat and red lipstick. Missy, her dog, had a matching top hat, and she’d wrapped a feather boa around her walking stick.
‘You can take the girl out of showbusiness...’ Joyce joked.
‘Precisely. Now go and help yourself to some punch.’ She gestured to a trestle table next to a makeshift stage built on the station platform. ‘But be warned, darlings.’ She tapped a hip flask in her jacket pocket. ‘It’s got a little extra poke in it.’
The girls filled up their glasses and Joyce spotted Harry weaving through the partygoers towards them.
‘Oh super. Do you have the night off?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, Joyce, no.’ He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. He smelt brackish, of leather and smoke. He’d worked in so many bomb sites over the past eight months that the odour of them seemed to cling to him.
‘We’re probably in for another hammering this evening, so I’d said I’d put in a shift with the Watch. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll definitely be coming with you down to Devon. I’ve requested the day off.’
Harry had been the only person beside Joyce and the society to whom Adela had divulged her secret, which was some measure of the man.
‘Are you sure? You look like you need rest more.’
‘I’ll rest when I’m dead.’
He tried to smile, but it never quite reached his eyes. Joyce’s heart ached. It wasn’t so much what he said, but she could tell what he’d witnessed that night in the school had rubbed him raw. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever recover. It wasn’t just West Ham Council’s grievous dereliction of duty, bungling officials who had sent the coaches to Camden Town instead of Canning Town. It was the senseless loss of so many innocent children that demolished him. It didn’t matter how many times she told him there was nothing more he personally could have done, he held himself accountable. He hadn’t uttered or written so much as a word of poetry since that night, as if a part of his soul had calcified.
After twelve days of digging, the authorities had finally ordered that the crater be sprinkled with quicklime and concreted over, entombing generations of families for ever. For many in the tight-knit community of Canning Town, the horrific memory would never be so neatly covered over.
He turned and left and she wanted to call out. ‘Come back. Please rest a while... I love you...’ Instead, she watched him stride towards the station exit, shoulders tensing as he braced for another night in the inferno.
Anger simmered. How could men like Barclay-Miller sit at home in their steel-lined dugouts in safety, while good men like Harry risked their lives nightly? She had heard that the Ritz hotel in the West End of London even had its own Blitz butler, who brought hot-water bottles and brandies to wealthy hotel residents sheltering in their underground ballroom.
The banging of a spoon against a tin cup shook her out of her reverie.
