Secrets of the Sewing Bee

It had been six months since the bombs began to drop, and Lucky finally had his first night off. In that time, Peggy had fallen more deeply in love with him than she had ever believed possible. Against a ceaseless backdrop of nightly raids, she had seen him transform from a man held back by his own self-doubt to a gallant hero on the Home Front. When he clocked on for work each morning, shattered Lucky never mentioned what scenes he had witnessed in the mayhem of the long nights, preferring instead to stay smiling for the sake of all the workers’ morale.

No part of Bethnal Green had been untouched by war now, and their ordeal went on. Countless homes, churches, schools, factories, shops and even whole streets had been destroyed. Sal, Pat and Ivy were just some of the workers whose homes were now nothing but smoking rubble.

One night last December, so many hundreds of incendiary bombs had dropped on the borough that the Bethnal Green Road had been a solid wall of fire, with even the wood blocks that surfaced the street itself catching fire. It had burned fiercely until daylight.

In an absurd way, Peggy mused, the fact that it happened night after night somehow made it easier to bear. Unlike the poor folk of Coventry, whose devastating attacks had come at random, London knew to expect it every night, come what may.

It had been the longest, hardest winter of all their lives, but spring was stirring. Peggy had smelt it on the breeze that morning on her slow and laboured walk to work, even over the stench of burned buildings, and she had seen it in a beautiful little crop of saffron crocus pushing their way through the charred earth of a bombsite. She saw it too in the faces of proud housewives out on the streets each morning, sweeping away the glass and debris, determined never to give in, or die trying. It proved that beauty, strength and optimism could be found in even the darkest of places. The East End might be burning to the ground, but its heartbeat was stronger than ever before.

Since her injury, Peggy had found her appreciation of life all the brighter. A hot bowl of soup, a final stitch in a pair of socks she had been knitting or even a good belly laugh . . . The little pleasures were all the more vivid for having nearly lost her life, or maybe it was simply because she was a woman in love.

As Peggy waited for Lucky’s arrival, she fixed her face in the mirror over the mantel and couldn’t help but smile to herself; even the jagged scar that zigzagged down her right cheek no longer bothered her as it once had. After all, it didn’t seem to bother Lucky, so why should it her?

Her leg was now out of plaster, and the physiotherapy sessions Lucky insisted on accompanying her to were helping slightly, but there was still a long way to go and Peggy was never without a stick to help her walk.

It was funny the way things worked out. She might not have met a man who could keep her in fine style, but in these shattered war years, worries over his class had been swept aside. After all, Lucky had more class in his little finger than dishonest Gerald possessed in his whole rotten body, but she didn’t care to dwell on him.

She was blessed to be alive and in love. Lucky had saved her life, and his care of her since her injury left her breathless. Their dates had taken on an almost dreamlike quality. Wrapped in each other’s arms in the corner of a steamy cafe, huddled in the darkness of the picture house, snatched kisses in the factory yard on tea break . . . precious moments rescued from the spiralling madness of the war. Always living for the moment, for who knew what tomorrow might bring?

Thanks to May’s increasing work and Lucky working flat out, the pair had not yet met. Lucky was wearing a freshly pressed shirt in honour of the occasion, and he had even attempted to plaster back his mop of unruly dark brown curls, but the slight tremor in his hand betrayed his nerves. Peggy loved him all the more for it.

‘For you, Mrs Piper. Delighted to finally make your acquaintance,’ Lucky said nervously, holding out an exquisite flower whittled from wood. ‘I made it when I worked as a cabinetmaker on Brick Lane. It used to be my hobby,’ he grinned sheepishly. ‘I couldn’t get any fresh blooms, I’m afraid.’

May took the hand-carved gift and her face flooded with emotion. ‘Oh, Lucky,’ she said, a catch in her voice. ‘I think it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given me. Peggy’s father has talents in that direction too.’

And then the pair were off, chatting away ten to the dozen about where she had been raised in Bethnal Green and Lucky’s upbringing. Turned out May had even met Lucky’s late mother at a community-group beano to Margate one summer.

‘You feel like one of the family already, Lucky,’ she beamed. ‘I just know Peggy’s father will be thrilled to bits that you’ve found each other . . .’ May’s voice tailed off.

‘Only that we know now for certain that he wasn’t on the doomed vessel that sank, thank goodness. Despite that, we still have no news of his whereabouts, but I pray every day, and in my heart, I feel he is still alive.’ She touched her chest lightly and sighed deeply.

‘Anyway,’ she said, a touch more brightly, ‘I dare say you young lovebirds would like a little privacy. I shall fix you some tea.’

When the door clicked behind her, the couple moved towards each other, arms outstretched. Swallowed into his strong physical embrace, once again Peggy marvelled at the effect Lucky had on her. She still remembered the first time she had felt it, all those months ago on the stairwell at Trout’s, when the slightest touch of his hand had sent ribbons of electricity shooting through her.

Lucky sat down and perched nervously on her mother’s chaise longue and Peggy giggled.

‘Come here,’ he grinned, holding out his hand, and Peggy snuggled in beside him. Usually, being with Lucky made her feel so safe, but talk of her missing father had unnerved her.

‘Oh, Lucky,’ she cried, ‘what if this war never ends? What if my father doesn’t come home, and we never marry? What if you get killed on duty tomorrow night? I’ll be left with nothing.’

Lucky’s grip tightened. ‘I can assure you, Peggy Piper, I ain’t going nowhere. You hear me?’ He tilted her face up and gently kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘You’re going to wake up next to this face for the rest of your days, and your father will be there to walk you down the aisle.’

Silhouetted against the flickering fire in the hearth, Lucky looked so solid that Peggy instinctively believed him. She was in the arms of the man she loved and nowhere on earth felt safer.

Tenderly, she reached out and touched his war-wearied face. ‘What keeps you going?’ she asked.

‘You,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘I loved you from the very first moment I set eyes on you. That you now love me too is extraordinary to me, so you see, to have hope in your heart pays off.’

Suddenly, the music playing softly from the wireless in the background died. The young couple didn’t say a word, for they both knew what it meant. A moment later, the sirens began.

‘Jerry’s come early tonight,’ Lucky groaned, rising to his feet, as May walked in with a tray of tea.

‘Please don’t go out tonight, Lucky,’ Peggy begged. ‘It’s your night off.’

But even as she was saying the words, she knew nothing on earth would stop him joining his team in the ARP.

‘I’ll see you and your mother down the Tube first,’ he promised, as May handed him his coat and tin helmet.

Silent tears started to slide down Peggy’s cheeks. She was helpless to stop them.

‘You can’t possibly say that,’ she said, her face wet with tears. ‘My father was there one minute, and the next he was gone. The same could happen to you.’

Lucky moved quickly across the room, the broad sweep of his shoulders swallowing her in his embrace. ‘Listen, angel,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘All I can offer you is my love. That love and the will to return to you is what will keep me safe tonight. All right?’

She gazed up at him, large eyes glittering with tears, and nodded. Never had she felt so deeply in love, or so afraid.

Outside on the streets, for speed’s sake, Lucky scooped Peggy into his arms, while May carried a ready-packed attaché case containing all their important documents and a bundle of bedding for the night, and they strode in the direction of the Tube with hundreds of others. It was such a familiar routine by now that they could almost do it with their eyes shut, but something she saw made Peggy urge Lucky to stop. Sequestered down a tiny cobbled yard, hidden from the street, was a mulberry tree, its ancient, gnarled trunk lifting green branches up to the skies.

A wide grin creased Lucky’s cheeks as he paused to gaze up at the branches of his favourite tree. ‘Well, I’ll be . . . Come on, let’s get you and your mum to safety.’

Dolly looked around the packed ward of the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green and shuddered. She had a deep fear of this old red-brick building ever since coming to visit her father here. He had drawn his last breath right here in this very hospital, and the fact that her physician ordered her to come here for her regular tests felt like a bad omen to her.

She tapped her fingers impatiently against the iron frame of her hospital bed as she waited to be seen by a doctor. She could ill afford to be cooling her heels here, not when she and the rest of the girls had so much work on for the sewing circle that she should be getting on with down the Tube. They had only just received word that their pen-pal sailors on board HMS Avenge would be getting leave in three months’ time, and at her instigation, the girls had started sewing a quilt with all their names and those of their sailors woven into it, to present to them as a keepsake. She had hoped to get it finished that evening.

‘Do you know when I can expect to be discharged?’ Dolly asked a passing nurse politely.

Flossy had grown to love the Underground even more than her own tiny digs. It was hardly surprising really. It might not be everyone’s idea of a dream home from home, but to her, her little patch of space in the pits represented safety and companionship. She had come from a solitary room with a single gas ring to a place of total community spirit.

As she waited for Peggy, Dolly and the rest of the girls to join her in their usual spot, she gazed about the place with a sense of belonging she had not once felt in all her years in the children’s home. It was astonishing. You could barely recognize the place from that first desperate night they had sheltered down here on bare concrete, when the bombs had started to drop six months ago. Gone were the rubble and discarded railway sleepers, and in their place light, warmth and organization had sprung up. Since the government had sanctioned its use as a shelter, the home secretary had stayed true to his word and transformed the rest centres and Underground shelters.

Bethnal Green Tube had been scrubbed and fumigated, the walls whitewashed and an extractor fan fitted to deal with the damp. The latrines were now partitioned off from each other, and thanks to regular maintenance, you didn’t need to put a bag over your head any longer or have smelling salts to hand when braving them.

A shelter committee had been formed, and an ARP lady built like a tank ruled over the children who slept down there with a rod of iron. The tiny tea station had been replaced with a warm and bustling canteen staffed by a smiley lady called Alice, who made the best bacon sarnies Flossy had ever tasted.

The Salvation Army band toured regularly, playing uplifting hymns, and the WVS were on hand to sell cheap cups of tea, bundles of wool and knitting needles, and had even arranged a children’s crèche to give mothers a much-needed break. Groups to rival the Victory Knitters were being formed nightly. From bingo to book groups, there was no excuse to be bored underground.

There was even a doctor’s quarters and first-aid post that reeked of Jeyes Fluid, and regular hygiene inspections meant the outbreaks of disease Vera had gloomily predicted had yet to occur. Flossy had spotted the odd rat, but you couldn’t have everything.

Rumour had it they were even planning triple bunks, a library and a shelter theatre. Flossy couldn’t wait for that. Yes, she adored Tube life. Frankly, she was in awe of the local community, who had seamlessly taken the camaraderie on the streets up above and sunk it deep down into the subterranean town below. It might have been a town devoid of natural light, but the Underground was an important safety valve. Flossy knew the neighbourhood could not have gone on much longer as it was without it.

In the early evenings, gangs of kids roamed for miles up the tunnels playing kiss-chase, she and the Victory Knitters would get down to some serious knitting, and impromptu sing-songs would burst into life. Now they felt truly safe, the sewing circle’s output was prodigious and they were churning out socks and gloves at a rate of knots!

At around 11 p.m., the lights would dim and the station would settle down for the night. At dawn the following morning, the mass of sleeping bodies would wake, and Flossy and the rest of the girls would quietly go about their business, emerging blinking into the light to get a quick wash and breakfast before clocking on for work. So much for refusing to come out! Chance would be a fine thing, Flossy thought to herself – Vera would give them what for if they were a minute late, bombs or no bombs.

The transformation had breathed fresh heart into all the girls, and she felt proud as punch of the small part she had played in it. Almost as proud as she was of her blossoming relationship with Tommy!

While she waited for her friends to join her underground, she couldn’t resist sneaking a quick peek at his latest letter, which had arrived at the factory that morning. Most of the women had ripped theirs open there and then, dissecting them accompanied by great hoots of laughter and lewd innuendo, but Flossy still preferred to read hers in private.

Opening it ever so carefully, she found she couldn’t wipe the daft grin from her face. Could there be a greater pleasure than the promise of an unread letter? The oceans between them rolled away as she read.

My dearest Flossy,

We’re all so proud of you women back home. For the first time since I lost my wife, I find myself thinking of another woman. You, Flossy Brown. You are prettier than I could ever have imagined. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the socks and gloves, but the sight of your beautiful face, well, that warms my heart more than anything. Your photo is the best gift by far, and I shall cherish it.

One good turn deserves another and so I enclose my own photograph. Sorry it’s taken so long, but I had to wait until we were granted twenty-four hours’ shore leave, and, well, to be honest, I hesitated, being that much older than you.

I make the age gap ten years, but age suddenly seems unimportant. If my life so far has taught me anything, it’s that we should grab our happiness where we can find it.

I know I’m not the most handsome of fellas, Flossy – in fact, my sisters call me ‘Face Ache’ – but if my photograph doesn’t make you want to run for the hills, perhaps you might be there to greet me when I return . . . ?

Yes, Flossy, that’s right. We’ve been granted shore leave for this coming June. Please say you’ll be there, waiting on the quayside, because I have something very important to ask you.

I know this sounds corny, but the only thing that brings me any measure of joy is the knowledge that the world is round. So wherever I am, dearest Flossy, I know I will always be sailing back to you.

Yours in hope,

Tommy xx

Flossy felt her heart quicken as the photograph slipped out from between the folds of the envelope and she turned it over.

He had lied in his letter, for he was handsome. Quite dashing, in fact. Gazing back at her was a strong, proud man who radiated goodness. His wide smile was brimming over with sincerity, and his eyes, though baggy with exhaustion, sparkled with warmth. Flossy couldn’t help herself and traced her finger over the dimples creased into his smiling cheeks.

‘Face Ache indeed,’ she murmured. Far from it! Tommy was definitely what Daisy would term ‘a catch’. She didn’t want to run for the hills; in fact, she wanted to run straight into his arms!

Nothing on earth would keep her from being there to greet him and find out what he wished to ask her. Carefully, she tucked the letter and photograph into her cardigan pocket, and a small pang of sadness surfaced. If only she was closer to unravelling the truth over her mother, then life would be about as good as it could be under the circumstances. No more had come of the mystery parcel, and Peggy was as clueless as she was.

‘Aye-aye, no prizes for guessing whose letter you’re hiding away there,’ screeched a voice. Flossy jumped and looked up to find Sal, Daisy, Kathy, Pat and all the others tottering down the platform towards her, their faces emblazoned with mischievous grins, flasks of hot tea and bundles of bedding and sewing in their arms. They were followed closely behind by Peggy and May.

‘Your sweetheart’s coming home on leave,’ said Daisy with a wink, as she plonked her bundle of bedding down next to Flossy. ‘Betcha can’t wait to meet him.’

Flossy felt herself blush pink, but she couldn’t find the energy to deny it as Daisy playfully whistled the tune to ‘There’s a Boy Coming Home on Leave’.

‘Spill the beans,’ grinned Peggy, as she allowed her mother to help her down onto the floor of the pits.

‘Stop teasing her, all of you,’ said Pat. ‘I think it’s lovely. I can’t wait to meet all the boys off HMS Avenge. If I was twenty years younger, I’d be greeting mine with a great big sloppy kiss an’ all.’

The group’s raucous laughter echoed up the tunnel, but when it died down, Flossy realized something. ‘Where’s Dolly?’ she puzzled.

‘She said she was going to catch up with a mate and shelter further up the line at Liverpool Street Station tonight,’ remarked Pat, as she took out the part of the quilt she had been piecing and her sandwiches.

‘Don’t know why she’s bothering,’ sniffed Sal. ‘I’ve slept on every platform on the Central Line, and trust me, Bethnal Green’s the best.’

‘That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?’ murmured Flossy. ‘Especially as she seemed so keen to try and get this quilt finished.’

‘Give her some space, eh, love?’ said May tactfully. ‘She does do an awful lot for you girls at the factory and the Victory Knitters. She’s running herself ragged at the moment.’

‘That’s true,’ said Sal. ‘She’s got a rattling cough. I heard her in the lav coughing her guts up the other day.’

‘It’s not the shelter throat that gets me,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s the bleedin’ snorers. Some fella on the wireless reckoned he’s done a survey and one in seven people sleeping underground snore.’

‘Yeah, well, he obviously ain’t been down Bethnal Green. This Tube’s full of the seventh person,’ Sal bantered back, to a gale of laugher.

‘Come on, enough of this moaning. Let’s have a good old sing-song while we finish this quilt,’ suggested Pat. ‘Let’s not wait for them to entertain us. Let’s entertain them.’

With that, she struck up a rousing version of ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’; before long their neighbours joined in, and in no time at all the song could be heard reverberating up and down the underground tunnels. Flossy smiled and joined in the chorus as she sewed.

Even after all these months, it was still an astonishing sight to behold, and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A jumbled mass of humanity, pressed up against each other, all with different jobs and roles to play above ground, but each night, deep underground, singing one song. She couldn’t wait to tell Tommy all about it when she finally met him in the flesh.

Three hours later, the quilt was nearly finished and half the station dwellers were asleep, with the rest settling down for the night as the station lights dimmed.

Dear Tommy,

I am intrigued and cannot wait to hear what it is you wish to ask me. Of course I shall be there to greet you. Your age does not matter. Not to me, at any rate. I am counting the days. I too shall cherish your photograph.

Impulsively, and because despite her new-found confidence Flossy found she was still too shy to tell Tommy that she thought she loved him, she signed the back of her sweetheart’s letter with the acronym ‘ITALY’, for ‘I trust and love you.’

She popped it in the envelope and quickly sealed it before she could change her mind.

Warm and dozy, Flossy was drifting on the periphery of sleep, slipping into a delicious dream about the moment she greeted Tommy, when a lone voice pierced the shelter, startling her back into full consciousness.

Dolly had never felt so terrified or vulnerable in her life. Please God, was it not bad enough to be so ill without the German Army trying to hasten the process? She had been waiting to be seen by the doctor when the bomb had hit.

Immediately the wards had been plunged into darkness. Closing her eyes, she could still hear the patients’ terrified screams ringing in her ears. Images came to her like snapshots. A nurse pushing her through the wards in a wheelchair, breathlessly steering her past piles of smoking timber and fallen masonry. Every door they had tried to exit had been ringed with fire. All had been confusion and fear.

The situation had been so desperate, but not once had the nurse entrusted to get Dolly out safely wavered, even when escape had seemed impossible. At one stage, they had no choice but to discard the wheelchair, and with Dolly leaning heavily on the nurse, they had followed a stream of frantic patients and taken the dark steps to the basement so that they might seek shelter there. Dolly had finally lost her cool when they staggered down into the room and straight into six inches of filthy, freezing water.

‘It’s flooding,’ she had howled in despair, as the swill of dirty water soaked into her shoes. ‘Oh, please God, Nurse, what are we to do? If we stay here, we’ll drown. If we go up there, we’ll burn.’ Hysteria clamped her heart. ‘I can’t die in here!’

The nurse gripped her firmly by the shoulders. Her kindly brown eyes had not once left Dolly’s, and her voice was firm but reassuring.

‘Now you listen here, Miss Doolaney. No one is dying on my watch. You hear me?’

Dolly allowed herself to be led back up the steps into a ward fast filling with smoke. Finally, from out of the ash clouds, a fireman had emerged and guided Dolly and her nurse to safety.

That wonderful nurse had not stopped holding her hand and murmuring reassuring words of comfort, even as they stepped out into the hospital grounds and saw the firemen’s hoses trained on the burning hospital roof.

A solid wall of fire bellowed and roared into the night sky, while enemy planes droned overhead. Unable to bear it a moment longer, Dolly had buried her head into the nurse’s shoulder with a strangled sob, as the roof finally gave way and crashed into the wards below with a gut-wrenching boom.

A few hours on, and by what Dolly could only conclude had been some kind of miracle, the entire hospital had been evacuated to Parmiter’s School, a hundred yards away. Except it was the strangest kind of hospital Dolly had ever been in. Every window in the school hall had been blown out, over a hundred patients lay in makeshift beds, and teams of doctors and nurses worked diligently by the light of dimmed hurricane lamps.

The large-scale evacuation had been a masterclass in dogged determination and British grit, and by 3.30 a.m., Dolly was stunned to see a normal routine returning, with the WVS on the scene dispensing hot tea and the ARP working hard to salvage what they could from the hospital and bring it to the school.

‘I honestly don’t know how I will ever be able to thank you, Nurse,’ Dolly whispered, so as not to disturb her fellow patients. ‘You’re my guardian angel. I feel so foolish for losing my head like that in the basement. If it hadn’t been for you, well, I don’t think I’d have made it out of there alive.’

‘Nonsense, Miss Doolaney,’ scoffed the nurse, with a self-deprecating smile. ‘Of course you would have.’ She glanced about before leaning closer to Dolly. ‘Don’t tell Matron, but truth be told, I’m glad I had you by my side. I don’t mind admitting I was shaking like a leaf when the roof caved in.’

Dolly wasn’t sure about that, but she was certain of one thing: every nurse, doctor, fireman, ambulance driver, WVS lady and ARP chap working so diligently on this dark night was a true hero. Gazing about the makeshift hospital in awe, it dawned on Dolly that, despite the threat of tyranny and constant destruction, the bombings had also brought out the very best in people. The East End had found its soul. This was the time to be alive!

She turned back to the nurse with a grateful smile. ‘Well, I shall be writing to your matron and the town hall when I get out of here to tell them of your courage . . . When will that be, anyhow?’

‘But please, Nurse, I need to leave now. I’m absolutely fine,’ Dolly insisted, struggling to sit up. ‘I was only here to have some routine tests when I got caught up in the blast.’

‘You need to wait and be seen by a doctor before I can discharge you,’ she insisted. ‘And as you can see, they are all busy. Please, Miss Doolaney, I urge you to try and rest. You’ve had quite an ordeal.’

Dolly slumped back against her pillow as the nurse left to tend to her next patient. She knew the nurse was right, but her mother would be worried sick about her, and she had to be home in time to clock on for work. She had told the girls she was visiting a friend at another shelter. As she gazed about the dimmed room, she shook her head. In her heart, she knew this was madness. How long could she go on concealing this before events forced her hand?

‘Dolly . . . Dolly, is that you?’ came a shaky voice through the gloom. ‘Why, I mean . . . what are you doing here?’

Lucky’s soot-smeared face gazed down at her, concerned, from under the rim of his ARP helmet. ‘I don’t understand. Are you helping out with the WVS? Are you injured?’

Dawn was breaking when at last Lucky escorted Dolly back through the shattered streets to her home, his strong arm looped protectively round her shoulders the whole way. By the time they reached her doorstep, he had extracted the whole truth from her, and she, in turn, had the promise that she would be the one to tell the girls.

A pale spring sun struggled to break through the smoky air as the pair faced each other.

‘I won’t betray your secret, Dolly,’ he whispered, his face flickering with concern as she staggered slightly. ‘But I think you need to tell Archie, sooner rather than later.’

Steadying herself by holding on to the blackened brick surround of her door, Dolly straightened herself. ‘I have my pride, Lucky. It’s about all I have left. I don’t want anyone’s pity. Besides, there’s nothing anyone can do to help me,’ she shrugged, without rancour.

‘It’s not a case of pity. We all care about you, Dolly,’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t understand why you’re keeping it from them. They’ll want to look after you, that’s all, see you’re safe.’

Dolly’s blue eyes teemed with emotions so nuanced Lucky could not divine their meaning.

And then, because she could see a man’s brain could never truly hope to fathom a woman’s, she touched him lightly on his broad shoulder and smiled softly. ‘I appreciate your concern, Lucky, truly I do. Peggy’s a lucky lady to have you, and don’t worry – I shall tell them. When the bombs stop. Until then, you say nothing.’

Without saying another word, she turned and walked through the door, shutting it heavily behind her. Once inside her bedroom, Dolly slid her hand under the mattress and felt comforted to feel the slim package still there in its hiding place. The time was drawing near.

Less than five minutes’ walk away, Flossy was also arriving home after her night underground in the Tube for a quick wash before she clocked on, but when she turned the corner to her street, she found a crowd of people gathered there.

Her heart picked up speed and she began to run. When she neared them, she saw precisely what they were looking at.

A strangled wail escaped from her lips. The house where she rented the top-floor bedroom was sliced clean in two, with the four houses to one side nothing but a smoking hole in the ground. The air was thick with the burning stench of exploded lyddite. All around her, her neighbours stood sobbing and dazed.

Every morning that Flossy emerged from the Tube she had half expected to be greeted by this sight – it was, after all, always someone’s turn to cop it – but now that it had actually happened to her, Flossy felt bereft. She had so little in the world and all that she owned was in that tiny attic bedroom.

To anyone else, it was a fleapit, a hot, stuffy bedroom in a house that smelt of damp and cooking cabbage. But to Flossy, it had been her sanctuary, the first place she had ever really had to call her own.

Her bed and mattress, now dripping wet and coated in thousands of slivers of glass, were balanced precariously out of the top floor of the ruined house. Every item she owned had been wrenched violently from its pride of place and was now lying shattered on the pavement.

Flossy spotted her spare work pinny, which she had carefully washed and hung out to dry the previous evening so it would be ready for work this morning, now wrapped round the top of a gas lamp, and a doily she had spent weeks crocheting in the home was a sooty, pulverized mess in the gutter next to a set of someone’s false teeth.

A flash of yellow caught her eye in the landslide of dull grey debris. Cautiously, Flossy picked her way over the rubble, taking care not to lose her footing, and tugged at a piece of yellow fabric trapped beneath a pile of charred bricks.

‘Oh no!’ she choked despairingly, as it came loose in her hands. For clutched in her pale fingers was the cheerful little rag doll she had received at the orphanage on her ninth birthday. Her corn-coloured plaits were scorched black on one side, one of her button eyes was missing, and the stuffing spilt out of a tear in her sodden gingham dress. A dull ache spread across Flossy’s chest. It was pathetic really. It was only a child’s toy, not a life, but in that moment, Flossy felt like she was losing her grip on everything: her past, her present and her even more precarious future.

‘It’s not safe there. Come down immediately,’ she ordered. ‘They’re about to start sealing this site off.’

Wordlessly, Flossy scrambled back down the wreckage, still clutching the doll. Once she was safely back on the road, she started to shake, either out of shock or cold, stuffed the remains of the doll in her bag and trudged to work feeling like she scarcely had the strength to pick her feet up off the floor.

Flossy held her tears in until she got to Trout’s. It was early and no one would be there yet, so she planned to go and wash in the toilets and try and find a cup of tea somewhere, but when she opened the door to the fifth floor, she was surprised to find Dolly already there.

The tea lady whirled round, and even in her shock, Flossy was taken aback at how exhausted she looked. She had shadows under her eyes like bruises, and her bloodless lips were thin with exhaustion.

‘Don’t,’ Dolly smiled weakly. ‘I know I look a sight. I sheltered with my mate up at Liverpool Street last night, but it’s not a patch on Bethnal Green and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I gave up trying at dawn and came here instead. What you doing in so early, sweetheart?’

Flossy tried to speak, but no words came, only the tears she had been holding in. By the time the whole story came out, Dolly had led her upstairs to the canteen, put the kettle on and was drying her eyes with a clean hanky while the water boiled.

‘Forgive me,’ Flossy said, sniffing as she twisted the hanky between her tiny fingers. ‘I feel so selfish complaining when goodness knows how many people will have died last night. Did you hear the Chest Hospital was bombed? How awful to be in hospital with a raid going on!’

‘Was it? No, I didn’t hear,’ Dolly murmured, rising abruptly to turn off the whistling kettle. ‘But you’ve lost your home, love, and that’s important. A home is . . .’ She paused and gazed at Flossy through the steam. ‘Well, it’s the shape you’ve grown, ain’t it? But you mustn’t worry. I’ll ask Archie to telephone the home and inform your welfare worker, and I’ll take you down the town hall at dinnertime and we’ll get you sorted. We’ll apply to the Mayor’s Relief Fund for a cash advance so you can get clothes and look into new housing. I’d say stay with us, but looks like we’ll be down the Tube every night for the foreseeable.’

‘Honestly, Dolly, I hate to be a burden,’ Flossy replied. ‘I rather like the Tube, anyhow, but I would be glad of your help sorting myself out. Those forms are bewildering.’

Dolly finished making the tea and placed it gently in front of Flossy. ‘There you go, my darlin’. Tea’s a great healer.’

‘What would I do without you, Dolly?’ Flossy sighed, smothering a yawn and curling her fingers round the warm mug.

‘You’d find a way,’ Dolly said, gently removing a stray hair from her face.

‘Maybe,’ Flossy replied dubiously, ‘but thank you all the same for patching me up.’ Suddenly, she remembered her rag doll, and reaching under the table, she pulled the battered old doll from her bag. ‘I rather think she may be beyond patching up, though,’ she remarked sadly. ‘I’ve had her since I was nine.’

Dolly’s jaw clenched, her expression unreadable as she picked up the fragile remains of the toy. ‘We’ll see about that.’

Eleven