It was astonishing, I thought, as I clambered up the few steps from our neighbour’s Anderson shelter, how quickly we’d all got used to something that would have seemed unimaginable a year ago. I couldn’t believe that I’d slept through what Mrs Gold, our neighbour, told me had been another bad raid.
‘I barely slept a wink,’ she’d said when I’d woken. ‘Didn’t drop off until I heard the all-clear.’
I straightened up, hearing my spine click in a very satisfying fashion, and looked round. Things weren’t as bad here as in the East End, but the bombers seemed to follow the railway line that ran along the backs of the houses and we’d had some hits. I could see smoke in the distance and the air felt gritty with brick dust. But the houses in our street were still standing.
‘Thank you,’ I said to Mrs Gold who had followed me out of the shelter and was blinking in the dim early morning light. ‘I’m working tonight so I won’t be here.’
‘What about Nelly?’ she asked, brushing a bit of something from the arm of my coat – I’d learned very quickly that it was better to wrap up warm when I was spending the night in the shelter.
‘She’s worked an extra night shift,’ I said. ‘Someone on her ward was bombed out so she had to cover while the other nurse got herself sorted. But she’ll probably be home now actually.’ I checked my wristwatch. ‘Gosh it’s much later than I thought. I can’t believe I slept so well.’
Mrs Gold, who was barely ten years older than me but who treated Nelly and me like her daughters, clucked fondly. ‘You work so hard, you girls,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised you’re tired.’
She grinned at me, adjusting one of her curlers under her hairnet. ‘Right, must get on. Don’t want those chaps in the office to be forced to type their own awfully boring documents, do I?’
I smiled back, taking in her innocent gaze. I was fairly sure Mrs Gold wasn’t actually “just a typist” like she claimed, because I’d seen her with some very important-looking papers, and she was often away for long periods of time. But I didn’t argue. Instead I waved as she hurried off up the garden path towards the kitchen where I could see Mr Gold making tea. I’d not even heard him get up and leave the shelter, I’d been sleeping so deeply.
Still feeling slightly snoozy, I went up the side passageway round the side of the Golds’ house and out on to the front street. We had a side door out to the back garden, but I liked to go in at the front after a night in the shelter. I liked to see what had happened while we were safely tucked away at the bottom of the garden.
Now I marvelled again – as I seemed to every morning – at the resilience of London and its people. It was just like a normal day, if you pretended you couldn’t smell the smoke in the air, and see the rubble at the corner where last night’s raid had taken out three whole houses and half of the Evans family’s home, in the street next to ours, leaving their living room sliced clean in two.
A bus rumbled past – more normality, even though it was covered in dust – and I stepped back to avoid being splashed as it drove through a puddle, and then I headed up our path, feeling in the pocket of my coat for my key so I could let myself into our maisonette.
‘Nell?’ I shouted, bending down to pick up the post from the doormat.
‘In the kitchen,’ she called.
I took off my coat and hung it from the bottom of the bannister, then went to find Nelly. She was sitting in a chair in the kitchen, still wearing her outdoor clothes, with her face streaked with dirt and her eyes red with tiredness.
‘Letter for you,’ I said, handing it over. She took it and glanced at the front then dropped it on to the table. ‘Bad night?’
‘Just never-ending.’ She sighed. ‘I need to go to bed, but I’m running on adrenaline.’
‘I’ll make you tea,’ I said. I filled up the kettle and lit the hob with a match. ‘Why don’t you have a bath – see if that relaxes you?’
Nelly shook her head. ‘Too much effort,’ she said. ‘I’ll have my tea, then I’ll have a wash and go to bed.’ She frowned at me. ‘You should get your head down later if you’re on nights now.’
‘I’m going to work early to help with the blankets,’ I said. We had a bewildering lack of blankets at the hospital and it seemed to be a full-time job to sort them out and allocate them to wards. I’d heard friends at other hospitals talk about nurses going into bomb sites and taking them. We’d not got to that stage yet, but I sometimes thought it wasn’t far off. ‘Aren’t you going to read your letter?’
Nelly sighed. ‘No point. I know what it says.’
‘How can you know if you’ve not read it yet?’
‘Because my mammy writes the same thing every time,’ she said. ‘She tells me how it’s so peaceful in Dublin, and you’d barely know there was a war on, and Dr Connalty says there’s a job for me at the Sisters of Mercy hospital whenever I want one …’
I grinned at her. ‘Maybe this time she’s written to say you’re doing a grand job here in London and you should stay as long as you want.’
Nelly laughed. ‘Maybe.’
‘She’s just worried about you,’ I said softly. Even though Nell’s mother sounded overbearing and fussy, I knew it was because she loved her daughter, and I envied Nelly’s family connections. She had brothers and sisters all over Ireland, and relatives in America, and she was always getting letters and once – thrillingly – a parcel from her sister in New York with stockings and a lipstick inside. I’d got the occasional note from Billy of course, and then I’d got the telegram, and now I got nothing.
Nelly got up from the chair with a groan. ‘I’m going to sleep,’ she said. She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you later?’
‘You will.’
I waited until she’d gone into her bedroom and then I took the letter from her mum and put it in the drawer in the sideboard, where I put all the other envelopes that came from her home and that she didn’t open. I knew Ireland wasn’t involved in the war and that Nelly’s mammy was safe in that way, but I also knew bad things happened in wartime too, and that perhaps Nelly would want to see her mother’s handwriting one day, and read her caring words.
I could really do with a bath myself, but I didn’t have time if I was going to help with the blankets before my shift started. I settled with a proper wash in my bedroom, even though the water was cold and made me shiver. I found a clean uniform dress in my wardrobe and folded it up neatly and put it in my bag – I’d get a fresh apron when I got to the ward.
Then I went into the kitchen to look for some food. There wasn’t much choice. Nelly and I still hadn’t really got to grips with rationing and because we ate at odd times, we were often left with empty cupboards. Luckily there was half a loaf in the bread bin, so I stuck a couple of slices on the end of the toaster fork and toasted it over the fire, warming myself up at the same time because I was still shivering after my wash.
I worked in South London District Hospital. It wasn’t far from where we lived. Before the war I had often cycled to work, but now I was usually too tired so I normally jumped on the train for two stops. We worked long shifts and we’d doubled the number of patients we looked after since the bombing started. We were a casualty clearing hospital now, and took in people who’d been injured in air raids. Most of them were local, but sometimes if it had been an especially bad night, we got casualties from Central London too. They would arrive in specially converted buses, because there weren’t enough ambulances to transport all the patients.
With my bag packed and my tummy full, I finished my cup of tea, and left a note for Nelly saying I’d see her later, put on my coat and a hat because there was a definite nip in the air now, and headed outside to walk to the station.
I’d not walked more than a hundred yards, when someone fell into step beside me.
‘All right, Elsie?’
My heart sank. It was Timothy Jackson – an old schoolmate of my brother Billy. As far as I knew, he and Billy had only really been acquaintances, but Jackson – as everyone always called him – seemed to think they had been great pals.
I scowled at my feet and then turned towards him – still walking – and forced a smile. ‘Hello.’
‘Are you off to work?’ he said, keeping pace easily with my quick stride, despite the flat feet that he’d told me had kept him from enlisting on medical grounds. ‘You’re not due at the hospital until later, are you? I thought this was your first night shift?’
I felt a tiny shiver of unease. How did he know my shift pattern? Jackson always appeared when I was out and about and it wasn’t the first time I’d suspected he was watching me. But Billy had always said he was a nice enough bloke. A bit of an oddball, perhaps, but harmless. I found him more sinister than strange, but I didn’t want to be unkind.
‘I’m doing some extra work for my matron,’ I explained, quickening my steps a little bit and loosening my top button because walking so fast was making me sweat.
‘You’re not overdoing it are you?’ Jackson’s expression darkened. ‘I don’t want you wearing yourself out.’
‘I’m fine.’ I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to say it was nothing to do with him, and anyway, weren’t we all worn out right now with the bombs dropping every night and Nelly working extra shifts and us all just doing what we could for the war effort?
‘Billy wouldn’t want you tired out.’
‘I need to catch a train, Jackson. It’s been lovely to catch up.’
‘Because I promised him, didn’t I? That I’d look after you.’
I stopped walking so suddenly that Jackson kept going for a couple of paces before he realised, and then scurried back.
‘Are you all right, Elsie?’
‘What do you mean you promised Billy you’d look after me?’
Jackson scratched his nose. ‘It was the last thing he said.’
‘Unless you were at Dunkirk, then I very much doubt that.’
My sharp tone didn’t seem to bother Jackson in the slightest. ‘The last thing he said to me.’
‘What?’
‘He was here, actually. Or maybe a little bit further down the road, more towards the bus stop …’
I glared at him and this time he did understand. ‘Anyway, he was going to catch the train, and he was in uniform, all smart, with his kit bag on his shoulder. And I said was he going to the war, and he said yes, and I wished him luck and he said thank you, and then I said I’d look after you for him, and he said I’d better.’ He took a deep breath and looked at me, triumphant. ‘And then he got on the train.’
The train. I glanced round and with relief, saw the smoke of the approaching engine. ‘I have to go,’ I said to Jackson. ‘My train is coming.’
I hitched my bag further up my shoulder and took to my heels, running down the street in a most unladylike fashion to the station. I got to the platform and straightaway the train pulled in. I hurried aboard, slamming the door shut behind me and slumping on to an empty seat. How dare Jackson lay claim to my brother’s final words? I thought. I wiped my clammy brow and leaned forward to open the window as the train chugged across the bridge over the road. Down below I saw Jackson standing where I’d left him, shielding his eyes from the low autumn sun and scanning the carriages, clearly looking for me.
I shrank back into my seat, for some reason not wanting him to spot me. And then I chided myself. He was being nice, I told myself. He was just lonely. After all, there weren’t many men his age around now, his parents had moved away shortly after war was declared, and I knew he didn’t have siblings. Perhaps we had more in common than I liked to think. I should be kinder to him. More understanding.
I leaned my head against the firm seat back and closed my eyes, thinking about Billy. I wondered for the hundredth time what his final thoughts had been. If he’d said any last words. Had he been scared, I wondered, when the German bomb landed on the beach as he was waiting to escape? Or had he not had a chance to be frightened before the darkness took him? I’d had a letter from his commanding officer, but he’d not been with Billy when he died. He simply said he’d been a fine young man and a credit to his fellow soldiers. It was true, I was sure. Billy was a hard worker. Brave and steady.
But I remembered how frightened he’d been when our mother died, a few years ago. How for a minute, his stoic expression had dissolved and his eyes had filled with tears. Back then, I’d put my arms round him and promised him we were a team and that he’d be all right because he had me by his side. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being scared in France, looking out to sea as the little boats came to their rescue and feeling hopeful, not knowing what was round the corner. Or worse, bleeding and in pain, frightened and all alone. I sighed. I would never know what was in his head when he died, and I was going to have to come to terms with that.