LONDON, DECEMBER 1942
Quills of orange light and yellow swords speared the sky as the sun lowered towards the horizon, the paint thinning to a soft peach hue at the edge of the frame, the dark silhouettes of London’s buildings catching the fading light. Jack’s painting was propped against the mirror on her dressing table, his other canvases leaning on perfume bottles either side, more dotted around the room. Eleanor recalled the night they’d painted together on the rooftop, and what she’d said before he had given her the picture: You have captured the colours perfectly. I shall call it The Crimson Sun.
In the weeks since he had left, she’d surrounded herself with his pictures, but they hadn’t lessened her sense of loss, the deep, gnawing ache. Even the bundle of his miniature sketches didn’t bring the same comfort it initially had. All the same, she carried some around in her coat pocket because it meant something to close her fingers around them, to think that she was touching where he had touched.
‘Come on, Ellie. Are you nearly ready?’ Cecily’s voice sounded from the other side of the closed door. ‘We’ll be late.’
‘Coming…’
The truth was that Eleanor really didn’t want to go anywhere, she would much rather just crawl back into bed, hide under the eiderdown and not get up until the war was over and Jack was home. But she knew she couldn’t do that, that Cecily was relying on her, so she pulled on her jacket, insouciantly applied some colour to her lips and grabbed her leather satchel—stopping only to check that all the supplies she needed were inside. It was larger than the one she usually carried because she had recently started taking a sketchpad, a small palette, wrapped brushes, and a selection of pencils and pastels wherever she went. They were for the detours she made on the way home from work, arriving well after Cecily had gone to bed.
The tide had turned for the sisters. Cecily was now the one in control, telling Eleanor that what she was doing would do her no good; that she needed to get more sleep and look after herself. But Cecily didn’t understand how she felt—how could she now that she had Harry?
At least when Eleanor went to the front lines here, it was as if she was closer to Jack; it was easier to picture what he saw, imagine how he felt. Earlier that week she’d been to the Air Raid Precautions depot to sketch the wardens and nurses doing their drills, and at the weekend she had ventured down to Clapham to watch the barrage balloons being hoisted on the common. She’d found herself surrounded by an ocean of them rising from the ground like eerie sea monsters, cumbersome beasts from a children’s story. The balloons were filled with helium and then tested, the wire cables checked, and then came the surreal sight of their launch, dozens of them hovering seven thousand feet off the ground, while men and women were in a tug of war, hand over hand hitching them higher.
Intimidated by the physicality of the work, Eleanor had found a quiet spot in the corner of the park where she sat and sketched. She didn’t intend to show the pictures to anyone—except to Jack when he came back—but she found solace and purpose in creating them. It had become increasingly hard to find the time, with each day filled with work for the Ministry or the committee, and following the news with a renewed interest, knowing that the papers and wireless would only reveal part of the story. At the weekly committee meetings she listened ever more intently to the members, trying to discern between speculation and fact. There had only been one very brief letter from Jack, and she was desperate for anything that would give her a sense of where and how he was.
There was a light tap at the bedroom door. ‘Eleanor, are you okay?’ her sister asked.
Cecily was waiting for her, dressed in full nurse’s uniform and thick dark cape.
‘Sorry,’ Eleanor said, mustering a smile.
‘Ready?’
‘As I will ever be,’ she said, pulling on her gloves decisively and walking past her sister and out the front door.
Once on the street they overtook the other pedestrians, walking quickly despite a thick frost that decorated the pavements and windows.
‘Slow down,’ Cecily said, grabbing hold of Eleanor’s arm. ‘We’ve seen more patients injured through accidents than war this week—this snow and ice is lethal.’
‘Alright, but if we are late we are late,’ Eleanor said, resigning herself and slowing down.
‘Well, I can’t be late to work,’ Cecily said, pulling a face.
‘I know, that’s why we’re hurrying.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘What is it today, anyway?’
‘Theatre nursing.’
‘So what are you going to do—a song or a dance?’
‘Very funny. No, it’s surgical nursing.’
‘Oh dear, that sounds much more tricky. Do you want me to test you?’
‘It’s a little late for that now. A bit of help last night would not have gone amiss.’
‘Sorry,’ Eleanor said, pouting at her as they carried on walking arm in arm.
‘Don’t worry, if I don’t know it by now, I never will.’
‘You were in the St John’s Ambulance Brigade—you’ll be fine.’
‘It is a little different, Ellie.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘How about I help you tonight?’
‘I’ve got a day off tomorrow,’ said Cecily. ‘Actually, I’ve invited Lindsay and Harry over tonight. I think Frank and Pauline might drop by too if they’re not on duty.’
‘Oh, really; can’t we have a quiet one? Just the two of us?’
‘I invited them over for you. You can’t just hide yourself away—you have a duty to your friends too, you know.’
Cecily was right. Eleanor hadn’t seen their friends in weeks, preferring her own company. She had stopped contacting them and so they had eventually stopped calling, and the worst thing about it was that she was pleased; she was getting the punishment she deserved for sending Jack away. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to be surrounded by happy couples; if he couldn’t see anyone or do anything, then it was only fair that she couldn’t either.
‘I see,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Well, I thought I was here to look after you. I hope you aren’t passing on any of your intelligence to high command—I would hate for Father to recall me if he knew I wasn’t doing my job properly anymore.’
‘Don’t worry, your mission was accomplished,’ Cecily said, smiling.
Maybe Eleanor’s sister didn’t need her quite so much after all. And it would be good to lighten their parents’ load—especially with the ongoing concern over Francis’s rehabilitation.
‘Anyway, this is me,’ Cecily said as they reached the corner of Craven Road and Gloucester Terrace. ‘I’ll see you tonight. And don’t forget about supper.’
‘I’ll try to be there, I promise,’ Eleanor called as Cecily walked away, casting a withering glance over her shoulder.
Eleanor fully intended to make the evening gathering, despite the busy day ahead—there was the committee meeting to prepare for and paperwork to complete for the newly redecorated restaurants in south-east London. She was due to visit the last one that morning and file the report in the afternoon—but as soon as she arrived at Portman Square and found Clive idling in the parked car outside, she made her decision.
‘It’s a supply problem,’ she told him as they drove towards Richmond. ‘If we can get the younger generation trained and ready, then we shall not run out of pictures, and we know that will be to everyone’s advantage—don’t we, Clive?’
‘Yes, it certainly will, miss, and the younger the better,’ he said, nodding.
It had been preying on her mind for some time that they hadn’t made it to the orphanage as she had promised. She had twice planned a visit and then had to rearrange it for one reason or another.
There was so little that one had any control over with this damned war that to make a small promise and keep it really seemed nothing at all. Nevertheless, Miss Short looked quite flustered when Eleanor arrived, and quickly showed her through to a small room at the back of the orphanage, where the children were having morning tea. Bare floorboards and cracked windows were doing a poor job of keeping the cold out, and the children were trussed up in their coats and scarves like the Christmas turkeys that very few of them would be having in a couple of weeks. They were eating egg sandwiches and yawning, and the smell made Eleanor suddenly feel quite nauseated; she really would need to have a word with Clive about his driving.
‘Good morning, children,’ she said, but they just carried on eating.
Miss Short looked apologetic and smiled. ‘Come now, children. Remember your manners. Say good morning to Miss Roy.’
‘Good morning, Miss Roy,’ they chanted, voices barely audible.
Eleanor stood smiling at the front of the class, recognising one or two faces—Isaac and Sally were still here—but mostly they were a different batch of children from the ones at the garage and altogether more timid. And now that she was here she wasn’t sure how to begin; she had looked forward to seeing them again, imagining their faces lighting up as they had before, so that she hadn’t paid much attention to what she was actually going to do.
Then she remembered Isaac’s special colours: when they had met in the garage, he’d told her that he wanted to paint his father’s new motorcycle, how its body was a British racing-car green and how the chrome gleamed like the icing on a cake. And how his father would never have the chance to ride it now.
She unpacked her satchel, placing the palette and brushes on the desk in front of her. She was dismally low on paint and had considered putting in a special order with Supplies but decided it wouldn’t be looked on very favourably when paint was desperately needed elsewhere.
Getting down on her knees so that she was level with them, she spoke in a soft, low voice. ‘Now, last time we met, Isaac had an idea of what he would like to paint, so maybe the rest of you could spend a few minutes thinking about a picture that you would like to paint.’
One boy lay sprawled across the floor just in front, eyes fixed under one of the chairs, while the younger ones cast their eyes about thinking, as if the corners of the room might hold the key.
A moment passed and then one of the girls shot her arm up. ‘Please, miss…’
‘Yes—’ Eleanor glanced at Miss Short.
‘Daisy,’ Miss Short whispered.
‘Yes, Daisy?’ Eleanor asked.
‘How do you know what to paint?’
A simple enough question, but Eleanor struggled to find an answer; it was an instinct to her, but how could she explain that to a child? ‘Well, Daisy, you look around and see what takes your interest. And then you think how you might like the shape and the colour of it to appear, how you might paint it the same or make it look different on the page.’
‘Is that all?’ a young fair-haired boy said.
‘It can be that simple to decide, but it’s a whole different story actually completing your picture,’ Eleanor replied.
‘Why?’
‘Well, there are a lot of important decisions to be made. As the artist, you have to choose how to start your picture,’ she said with a smile. ‘Do you copy the shapes or the colours? Do you use the same colours or chose your own and use your imagination?’
‘How, Miss Roy?’ Daisy asked.
‘Give them an example,’ Miss Short advised quietly.
Eleanor thought for a moment and then told them about seeing the barrage balloons being hoisted—how they were filled with helium and how she imagined them to be sea monsters.
Daisy smiled when she finished. ‘How many brushes do you have?’
‘Have you got the green paint?’ Isaac said, coming forward.
Three other girls also got up from their chairs and came to look at the materials Eleanor had placed on the desk.
Now she could see Daisy properly, she noticed her cardigan buttons were mismatched; the top two were without their buttons and the bottom two without their holes. There was something equally unkempt about the girl: her hair was fine and fair but matted into clumps, her fingernails were black and her complexion was pale, her skin dirty in places. And there was something about her fragility that reminded Eleanor of her own sister, how Cecily had also seemed more vulnerable than the other children.
‘Enough for all of you,’ Eleanor answered, fuelled by a rush of emotion. She suddenly felt teary, the children exposing a susceptibility that she had been keeping inside. ‘This cold weather always makes my eyes water,’ she murmured, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. Then she remembered the few prints that she had ready for inclusion in the War Artists’ picture books that were being printed the next day.
‘I have a treat for you,’ she said, bending down too quickly and becoming unusually dizzy. When she recovered, she showed them a picture of a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force opening the air vent from a barrage balloon as it sank to the ground, then a picture of two Wrens transmitting a message in Morse. But the children didn’t respond. Next she chose a picture of servicemen working at RAF Fighter Command Station as it came under attack from enemy bombs, and they just gazed at it as if mesmerised by the flames.
‘How do these pictures make you feel?’ she asked, not yet ready to give up.
‘Sad,’ said one boy.
‘Frightened,’ said a girl.
Eleanor glanced at Miss Short, who grimaced.
‘Lonely?’ Daisy said.
Oh dear, it wasn’t going at all how Eleanor had expected—so much for her mother and father’s belief that she would make a good teacher, that she was a natural. It was harder than she’d thought. What would Jack have said if he was here now; how would he have tempted them out of their shells? She wondered how he had earned the trust of those children in the attic.
Then she felt for the bundle in her pocket. Jack wasn’t there to help her, but his pictures were. She took out the miniature sketches, the representations of London and their life. They weren’t faceless depictions of war but the parks and gardens they had walked in, the shops and cafes they’d visited, and the people in their neighbourhood. There weren’t any uniforms or soldiers, or battle scenes or devastated buildings; there was no evidence of war, only communities.
She leaned closer to Daisy. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘these other pictures might frighten you because of what’s going on around us now, but these—’ she passed around the small pieces of paper ‘—these show that the important parts of our neighbourhoods haven’t changed.’
The children handed the pictures to each other, heads bent in concentration.
Daisy clung on to the images for longer than the others did. ‘I can paint our garden before they dug it up for the shelter,’ she said.
‘I’ll paint my old dog, Gladstone,’ a boy suggested.
Eleanor glanced at Miss Short, who appeared more relaxed.
‘Good,’ Eleanor said, ‘you have the idea now. So who is going to help me fill these jars with water?’
Several hands shot up.
‘And who is going to give out the paper?’
Sally stretched her hand so high that her bottom lifted off her chair. ‘Can I, miss?’
‘Yes, Sally. Of course.’
Eleanor split the paint onto saucers and set them out for the children. ‘Now, Isaac,’ she said, coming up behind him, ‘I’ve got something special for you.’ She opened another palette to reveal a dark green paint and, in the hole next to it, a gleaming silver white.
His face broke into a wide smile. ‘How did you get it like that?’
‘It’s a trade secret,’ she said playfully.
She really couldn’t tell him that she’d mixed pearl dust through the paint, giving it an iridescent quality; the dust was expensive at the best of times, let alone its premium now for industrial use—as well as for beautifying the necks of Britain’s upper classes.
Eleanor didn’t know how the morning would go after her shaky start, or if the children would enjoy it, but there were some amazing results. Isaac’s depiction of his father’s motorcycle was remarkable despite the wonky wheels. Gladstone, the family dog, was coloured with all the brown and white irregularity Eleanor would expect from its eight-year-old owner, and the suburban garden that Daisy painted was complete with vegetable patch and flowerbeds boasting large yellow heads of sunflowers.
When the lunch bell rang and it was time for Eleanor to leave, Miss Short seemed reluctant to say goodbye. ‘You know, I’ve not seen the children so calm and happy in quite some time.’
‘That’s wonderful—I shall leave you the paints and what paper there is left. Perhaps you can try giving them another lesson?’
Miss Short shook her head. ‘It’s really not the same,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the first thing about drawing.’
‘That doesn’t matter, it seems they just need some encouragement.’
‘But they respond so well to you!’
‘You know that I can’t commit to coming again,’ Eleanor said in the slow, deliberate voice she had reserved for the children. ‘What with the restaurants I have to visit and the work for the committee, there just isn’t enough time. I would love to, really I would.’
‘I understand,’ Miss Short said, ‘but will you think about it?’
The children were lining up, eager to show Eleanor their work, and she took turns responding to each one. Sally gave her the picture of her bus and begged her to keep it, and Daisy clung to her arm as she tried to leave. So despite the draughty room, and her concern about the children’s futures, she felt warmed—it was the first time since Jack had left that she felt at peace, and that something really mattered.