EMMA AND MARGARET spent the better part of the day tucked in a nearby bomb shelter with everyone who had been in Boots’. The manageress sat mute with a distant stare, her hair slightly mussed, her naked lips even more pale in the absence of lipstick. She no longer looked chic.
When the all-clear finally sounded, Emma rose on legs that were stiff from sitting for too long, her joints creaking with movement. Margaret got slowly to her feet and together they staggered toward the exit.
There was a charred odor in the air, one that jabbed at Emma with pinpricks of alarm.
They climbed the short set of stairs from the shelter, nearly bumping into the manageress, who had exited first, and drew to an abrupt stop.
The city was on fire.
Brilliant red and orange and glowing gold lit an area of the city roughly three kilometers away. Above the massive conflagration, the sky was choked with black smoke that billowed from the flames in thick, dark plumes.
With such destruction, there would likely be many casualties.
“The Germans have finally come for us,” a man beside Emma said. “After all this time, we’re next.”
A shiver rattled through Emma.
It couldn’t be true. England falling to Hitler was unfathomable. But he had started in Poland with bombs and now he’d clearly set his sights on Britain.
Suddenly, she found herself grateful for the in-laws she’d never cared for, for their readiness to take Olivia into the quiet locale of their farm. Their home was set in the country in an area filled with stretches of farmland. The last place that Hitler would stage an attack.
Safe.
Amid the emergency vehicle sirens screaming in the distance and the murmur of concerned voices, the customer who’d first noticed the planes began to weep.
There was no electricity or water at the boardinghouse that night. The landlady had at least set a few candles and a pot of water in the room Emma and Margaret were sharing, for washing their faces and brushing their teeth. And for Margaret to swallow a couple of black pills from a tin labeled Bile Beans.
Emma lifted a brow. “Bile Beans?”
“Taken at bedtime to be healthy, bright-eyed, and slim.” Margaret put her hand under her chin, angling her face as she gave a beatific smile, looking and sounding like a magazine ad.
“Bright-eyed?” Emma picked up the bottle with interest.
How long had it been since she’d felt bright anything? Cooking, cleaning, ironing, mending, all the household tasks made heavier by the wartime workarounds. Not to mention her work at the canteen with the WVS and the Booklover’s Library.
“Does it give you energy?” Emma asked.
Margaret shrugged. “It seems to help. But they make one for mothers too.” She held up a finger and rummaged about in her suitcase before straightening with a magazine in hand. The pages crinkled as she riffled through them and stopped abruptly. “Here. Beecham’s Pills.”
Emma leaned closer, squinting in the dim light as Margaret handed her the magazine. Pills for the “modern mother,” the ad claimed, to help mothers stay slim, active, and never overtired.
The “never overtired” aspect was appealing, to be sure. While Emma could likely stand to lose a bit of weight, she didn’t want to rely on a pill to be slim.
“You’re so much more than your appearance.” Emma handed the magazine back. “I hope you know that.”
Margaret blinked in surprise.
“You’re kind and compassionate, like when you gently put off the soldiers who are besotted with you at the canteen. And you are always so clever, with your witty replies and how you know what books and what cosmetics will help the women who come into the library, even the dastardly ones.”
Margaret ducked her head and chuckled. “No one says dastardly anymore.”
“Readers who love Austen and Brontë do.” Emma grinned, aware her friend was trying to put off the compliments with humor. “And on that note, we need rest so we can offer our bookish suggestions to the patrons of Aldgate tomorrow.” She fell back into bed, generating a rusty creak from the springs.
Margaret blew out the candle and the accompanying cry of springs told Emma Margaret had settled into her own bed on the other side of the room.
“Thank you,” Margaret said into the dark. “For saying those things. You see me in a better way than I see myself. Like the way Jeffrey sees me. And my mum. My da...” She scoffed. “He was always more interested in ale than the likes of his own family. You should see him now, wandering about, pub to pub, ’til the taps bleed dry and they have to shove off to the next place that’s still pouring.”
“It’s his loss,” Emma replied, knowing full well the joy parenthood could bring. “And I hope your Jeffrey reassures you how much more than looks and books you really are.”
“He does his level best.” There was a grin in Margaret’s reply that made Emma like Jeffrey all the more.
The sounds of the street outside filled the ensuing comfortable quiet with the cry of emergency sirens that had been running for hours.
“Can you still see the flames?” Margaret asked in the darkness.
Emma, whose bed was next to the window, drew back the blackout curtains. Though any light in their room was impossible with the electricity still out, the act of drawing back the curtains felt strangely wrong after over a year of keeping the windows blacked out.
In the distance, the East End glowed with flames.
She turned to look at Margaret and found her friend’s face illuminated by the flickering golden light. Margaret had managed to still roll her hair into pin curls earlier by candlelight and a milky sheen of cold cream glistened on her skin.
Emma let the curtain drop. “Do you think what happened to Poland will happen to us?”
Just like pulling back the blackout curtains after constantly being told to keep them secure over the windows felt wrong, so too did voicing her fears aloud. But Emma didn’t have to stay strong and positive for Olivia now. There was something freeing about putting her concerns into words, to see what they felt like when liberated from ricocheting around in her mind.
“Or Belgium, or France...” Margaret said softly. “We shouldn’t expect any different.”
No, they shouldn’t. And that was what worried Emma most.
The following morning, the sky was still hazy with smoke, leaving the air difficult to breathe. Ash drifted around them like a fine dusting of snow and clung to their hair and coats.
“Hundreds dead, many more injured,” a boy in a cap called as he held up a paper. The hooded lanterns the paperboys wore clipped to their buttonholes at night were glowing even now in the daytime to make them visible in the smoggy air. “Find out all the details about yesterday’s bombing of the East End.”
An ambulance drove by, attracting the attention of every person it passed, their gazes lingering longer than usual.
“Do you think hundreds really died?” Margaret asked.
Emma looked back toward the East End and the thick, unnatural clouds of smoke. Her stomach wrenched. “Yes, I do.”
The manageress had assumed her polished poise once more. “I’m sure what happened yesterday was an extraordinary circumstance. You are, of course, allowed to return to Newark if you prefer.”
“Nottingham,” Margaret corrected her.
“And we’re perfectly fine to remain,” Emma lied, wishing for nothing more than to return to her small flat on Mooregate Street.
Home wasn’t all Emma wanted. She longed to share a pot of tea with Mrs. Pickering again, and have Olivia there with her, snuggled into the corner of the couch with Tubby, a book in front of her face, her high-pitched giggle sounding when she read parts she found funny. Parts Emma knew Olivia would tell her all about later.
The manageress smiled tightly. “Very good. As you can see, patrons are already streaming in, ready to distract themselves with a good book from this...messy business.”
“Messy business” was hardly a way to describe hundreds dead and injured and likely thousands who were now homeless. Despite her cavalier demeanor, she nearly jumped out of her skin when someone dropped a book by accident. Evidently she was not as unaffected as she claimed.
The day went on without incident until that afternoon when the air raid siren blared through the crowded library. This time, there was no condescending comment suggesting Emma and Margaret could go to a shelter if they felt they needed to. Now people shoved and pushed their way to the exit, including the manageress.
This time they were all sequestered in the shelter for only two hours, but it was enough to set everyone on edge. Most subscribers did not return to the Booklover’s Library after the all-clear, likely returning home instead, and the manageress wasn’t the only one jumpy now. Everyone seemed to be anxiously anticipating another air raid. Another bomb.
And still the fires in the East End raged on.
This was not how London was supposed to be. Margaret had been to the Piccadilly branch of the Booklover’s Library a year before and had been eager to show Emma the parts of the city she knew. The cosmetics counters, of course, but also the theaters, the restaurants, the museums, the tea shops, and all the sights from Big Ben to Buckingham Palace.
The palace was something Emma had dreamed of seeing, to witness so grand an estate and know the king and queen resided within.
Except that exploring the grandeur London had to offer didn’t feel right anymore, not when so many were suffering with loss and homelessness.
They didn’t even bother going to a restaurant, opting instead to queue for fish and chips in a newsprint cone, laughing about how Emma’s father used to count the meal as one of the few he could “cook.” And though Margaret claimed the fried food wasn’t as good as before the war, the greasy fare was delicious. And fast, affording them the opportunity to return to the boardinghouse before the blackout.
When they returned, they were grateful to find the electricity and water restored. Emma filled her bath all the way to the black line someone had taken the time to paint inside the tub and savored the luxury of the warm water she hadn’t realized she’d taken for granted. When she returned to their shared room, she found Margaret with something green and wet on her face as she tamed her hair into pinned coils for perfect curls the next day.
“Feel better?” Margaret asked, having already bathed earlier that night.
“Much.” Emma sighed and pulled the towel free from where she’d wrapped it around her wet hair. “Do you think they’ll send us home?”
“Well, it’s certainly hard to learn with everyone flinching at every little sound.” Margaret separated a kirby grip with her teeth and focused on the round mirror as she pinned another twist of hair into place. “You want to go home, don’t you?”
Emma secured her robe around her pajamas and sat on the edge of her bed. The springs of the mattress gave a tired groan. “I’m worried about Olivia with my in-laws. I know she’s safe, but they’re so...cold.”
“Can they really be that bad?”
“At first I thought they were just different from my own father. Then I realized they simply didn’t like me.” Emma shrugged. “Not that you’ll need to worry about that. I’m sure Jeffrey’s parents love you and will make wonderful in-laws.”
“I’m sure I’ll find out.”
Emma raised her brow. “Does that mean you’ve decided to set a date for the wedding?”
“I didn’t say that.” Margaret laughed. She twirled a section of her blond hair and then stared at the pin for a long moment before securing it into position. “Honestly, I’m scared. What if I don’t like being a housewife? I can’t go back.” She turned in her seat. “Did you like it? Being a housewife?”
“I was so young...” And Emma really had been. At only seventeen, she really was still more an adolescent than an adult. “I thought it was exciting at first. And marriage gave me purpose after my father’s death. Then we had Olivia and my whole world was her. I didn’t have time to consider if I liked my life or not. Then Arthur died...” Emma sighed. “I was lucky he had funds set aside that I could live on for a time. And that he’d insured himself so Olivia and I could receive our pensions.”
She didn’t add that the money was barely anything she could live on or what a chore it was to collect. Every Tuesday, the day allotted to widows at the post office, she was able to trade in their pension orders to receive their stipends. Even then, Emma would only receive her money until she turned seventy and Olivia until she was fourteen.
“I suppose being a housewife is how I’ve spent most of my time as an adult.” Emma shrugged. “Until I started at the Booklover’s Library.”
She was about to say how much she enjoyed her time working there when the shrill cry of the air raid siren filled the room.
“Again?” She groaned in exasperation.
Margaret leaped up. “I can’t go out like this.” Half of her hair was in curlers, and the other half was a veritable puff of uncoiffed frizz. Her blue eyes were wide in her green face and her robe hung open, revealing her pink silk nightgown beneath.
If the bombing hadn’t been so terrifying the day before, the scene might have been hilarious.
Emma handed her damp towel to Margaret. “Scrub your face with this.”
While she scoured at the green mask, Emma grabbed Margaret’s red fedora. When her friend lifted her head from the towel, skin pink from the hard scrub, Emma dropped the hat on Margaret’s head.
A sharp rap sounded on the door. “This place will go up like a tinderbox if it’s struck,” the landlady warned, her voice fading down the hall as she knocked on the next door.
That was all the encouragement Emma and Margaret needed as they shoved their feet into the nearest shoes they could find and ran down the stairs while drawing the belts of their robes snug round their waists.
People poured into the street in various stages of dress. Some in robes and pajamas like Emma and Margaret, others still in their attire from the day. Several people had pillows tucked under their arms, or small sacks of personal effects they wanted to keep safe.
Collectively they rushed into a brick building that was several feet thick and took the stairs down into the shelter partially submerged in the dirt. Emma couldn’t help but glance at the mortar, noticing it was as thin as in Nottingham.
Everyone crowded in, filling the space quickly until the air was damp and warm with the proximity of so many people. Too many people.
Panic squeezed against Emma. The room was little more than a case of bricks scantily held together with a scrape of mortar.
If a bomb was to hit, they would all be dead.
“If they’d just open the tube stations for us, we wouldn’t have to do this,” a woman said with a scoff to whoever would listen.
“Wait.” A man put his forefinger up, silencing the woman. In the resulting quiet came the familiar throb of plane engines.
Emma’s pulse thrummed faster, harder, and the bombs began to fall.