by Mary Nichols
‘Sorry?’ he queried, not quite understanding.
‘Yes. The house took a direct hit. They wouldn’t have known a thing about it. I’m very sorry, sir. If there’s anything I can do …’
‘Do?’ he repeated dully, clambering back onto the road. ‘No, there’s nothing you can do. Where were they taken?’
‘I don’t know. Go to the ARP post, they’ll have records.’
His feet took him there, but his mind was on another plane altogether. He did not even notice he was still carrying the gnome.
He sat on a hard chair in the warden’s office, drinking tea and smoking while the man on duty searched the records. ‘There were so many and we could not identify them all, so most of them were cremated,’ he said, flicking through files.
This brought Harry out of his stupor long enough to ask, ‘You mean they haven’t got a proper resting place? I can’t go and see where they’re buried?’
‘Ah, here we are. Mrs Julie Walker and son, George Walker. Their bodies were taken by Mr Donald Walker for burial. Is that your father, Sergeant?’
‘Yes.’ Why couldn’t he wake up, why couldn’t he be decisive? All he felt was guilt that he had left his wife to cope on her own, red-hot fury with the Luftwaffe for what they were doing and a burning desire for revenge. It bubbled inside him with no way out.
‘I should go and find him, Sergeant.’
‘Yes.’ He put the tin mug which had contained the tea on a desk already stained with rings, and stood up. ‘Did he say where he was taking them?’
‘He gave his address as Islington, but as for where your wife and son are buried, I couldn’t say.’
They hadn’t moved yet. His parents, and presumably Millie too, had been in the thick of the raids themselves. He thanked the man, hoisted his kitbag on his shoulder and went to the door.
‘Do you want this, sir?’ the man said, holding out the gnome. Absent-mindedly, he took it and set off for Islington, wondering what he would find when he got there. If anyone on the Underground wondered why an airman in uniform was clutching a broken garden gnome, they did not comment. People were doing all sorts of strange things nowadays, hanging onto bits of a past life.
The Islington house was still standing, though several of the windows were broken and covered with plywood. He went in by the kitchen door to find his mother wrapping crockery in newspaper and packing it in a tea chest. She looked up when he entered and flew to him to hug him fiercely, saying his name over and over again.
He was so exhausted, both mentally and physically, he could hardly stand. He disengaged himself from her embrace and almost fell into one of the kitchen chairs, dropping his kitbag on the floor. ‘I didn’t know where you were,’ he said, putting the broken gnome on the table. ‘I hoped you’d all made it to the country.’
‘No, there was a snag about getting the electricity laid on. We’re going this weekend.’ She put the kettle on the stove. ‘Have you been home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you know the worst. I’m sorry, son.’
‘They said they wouldn’t have known what hit them.’
‘No, there is that.’
‘Where are they?’
‘We buried them together in Highgate Cemetery two days ago. There weren’t many people at the service, just the family. There were so many burials and cremations after that dreadful night, we were lucky to get it in. Couldn’t wait for you to come home because we didn’t know when that would be, but we knew you would want her to have a proper send-off. We wrote but I suppose you were already on your way home.’
‘Yes, you can’t rely on the post. I often used to get no letters for days and then a whole bundle would arrive at once.’ He paused and tried to pull himself together. ‘What … how … did she look?’
‘Julie? I didn’t see her. The coffin was already nailed down. Your father saw her and said she looked peaceful. George too.’
‘That’s a relief. You hear such dreadful tales …’
‘I know. Don’t think about it.’
‘What about you and Dad and Millie and Dorothy? Are you all OK?’
‘Yes, thank God. The factory’s a mess but all the machinery was moved a few days earlier, which was a blessing, and no one was hurt. Your pa’s there now, seeing everything’s secure before we leave. He’ll be home later.’
‘That’s something anyway.’ His response was automatic, made without thinking because his thoughts were in such a muddle. Julie, his beloved Julie, and his precious son were dead. He would never see them again, never hear them laughing, never praise, never scold, never again cuddle up in bed with her and feel her soft body in his arms. He just could not take it in.
‘How long are you here for?’ his mother asked.
‘Seven days. Can you put me up?’
‘Of course. You can help with the move. Did you bring your ration card?’
‘Yes.’ He bent to his kitbag and extracted the card to give to her, then he stood up. ‘I’m going up to the cemetery.’
‘If you must, but if the siren goes, you take shelter. The raid that took Julie was only the beginning. We’ve had one – more than one – every day and night since. It’s terrifying. I shall be glad to get out of it. Losing Julie and George was bad enough, I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you or to Roly.’
‘He’s all right, is he?’
‘So far. He rings when he can but he doesn’t say much. The telephone lines were down but they’re back now, thank goodness.’
‘I’ll be back in time for supper.’ He picked up the gnome and let himself out of the house.
There were several new graves in the cemetery, some with flowers on them, some with nothing except a simple wooden cross with a name on it. Julie and George had been buried together and there was one wreath on it from all the family. He had paid an exorbitant amount for a bunch of colourful flowers at the station and knelt to lay them on the mound of freshly turned earth beside the wreath. Then he stood the gnome in front of them. ‘Goodbye, sweetheart,’ he murmured on a choking sob. ‘You’re safe now in heaven. God keep you both.’
It was some time before he could bring himself to get up off his knees, but it was other people walking along the path behind him, talking loudly to each other, that roused him. He could not stay there, he had to leave her. He murmured goodbye again and blundered along the path and out of the gate.
The siren went when he was nearly home. He looked up at the sky. It was growing dusk and he could see no aircraft, though a drone in the distance told him they were on their way. Already the searchlights were criss-crossing the sky. He shook his fist upwards in a futile gesture of fury and went indoors to see his mother preparing to go into the Anderson shelter. She was carrying a large bag containing goodness knows what, a blanket, a pillow and a lantern. He took them from her and accompanied her into the shelter. Safe in Canada he had had no real idea of what his family were enduring, but he learnt some of it that night, as he sat drinking tea from a flask and listening to the noise. It was then, lying on a bunk usually occupied by his father, the tears finally flowed.
That bitch, Rosie Summers, had scarpered owing him money and Ted did not like that at all. It had all been going so swimmingly too. He had a nice little business with more and more customers wanting what he supplied. At first he had bought the stuff, but that seemed a daft thing to do when the blackout and the air raids which drove everyone into shelters made it easy to filch things from bombed and abandoned houses, shops and warehouses. He had hired a garage to store it all and had left Chalfont’s to concentrate on what had now become his main business. Looting was considered a heinous crime and earned dire penalties, but he felt safe enough because Rosie was doing all the front-running. She didn’t know how he acquired the stuff and he often spoke of its cost and the need to make a bit of profit to put her off the scent. Now she had disappeared.
He did not doubt that if he could get into her lodgings, he would find some of the last consignm
ent of goods he had given her, and maybe the cash too, but her landlady had refused to let him into her room, though he cajoled and pleaded and offered her money and half a dozen eggs. ‘It’s more than my life’s worth,’ she had told him. ‘She’s likely staying with her friend, Julie. She does sometimes.’
Julie Walker’s house, he had discovered when he went there, had received a direct hit and she had been killed outright with her baby, so he couldn’t question her. ‘Was Mrs Walker the only one in the house?’ he asked the warden.
‘She wasn’t in the house, she was in the Anderson shelter and there was only her and her baby.’ Another dead end and his scheme to get Julie in so deep he would have her at his mercy had been foiled by the Luftwaffe.
Chalfont’s was moving to Hertfordshire and some of the staff had already gone, but when he went to the factory and asked Donald Walker if Rosie was one of them, he was told she had been expected to go, but hadn’t reported for work since the raid on the seventh. ‘She had a weekend off and should have returned to work the following Monday,’ he was told. ‘We have reported her missing.’
And so was his money. ‘When I catch up with you, I’ll have you for this, Rosie Summers,’ he told himself.
Ted wasn’t the only one searching for Rosie. Her parents were sick with worry. Rosie usually telephoned them every Sunday afternoon just to let them know she was all right, but two Sundays had passed with no call and no letter. They had rung the factory but the phone had been cut off, which worried them even more. They had tried all the hospitals in and around Southwark but no one by the name of Rosemary Summers had been admitted to any of them. ‘We have several patients too ill to tell us their names,’ Stuart was told by someone at St Olave’s Hospital, which was one of the receiving hospitals for local casualties. ‘But they’ve usually got their identity cards or ration books on them, so we know who they are.’
‘Could they have cards and books belonging to someone else?’
‘Anything’s possible with the way things are at the moment.’
He had rung off and turned to his white-faced wife. ‘They weren’t very helpful. There’s nothing for it, I’ll have to go down and find out what’s going on.’
‘Then I’m coming too.’
‘Better not. It’s too dangerous. There are air raids all the time.’
‘I don’t care. If you think you are going to leave me here to worry, you’ve got another think coming, Stuart Summers. If you go, I go.’
The young lady in the hospital bed was finally coming out of her comatose state and the nurse designated to watch over her called the ward sister. ‘She’s stirring, Sister. I saw her eyes flicker.’
‘Good. Now perhaps we’ll find out who she is.’
The patient had been dug out of the ruins of the Linsey Street shelter with a broken left arm and left leg, abrasions to her face and a bump on the head. The broken limbs had been plastered and would heal and so would the grazes, but the head injury was worrying. They did not know what to expect when she regained consciousness, if she ever did. She might be living the rest of her life as a cabbage. She had no means of identity on her when she had been brought in, but that was hardly surprising, since almost everything and everyone about her had been blown to smithereens. Bags and papers had been scattered everywhere and there was no way of telling which body they belonged to, even supposing you could piece together the bodies. In any case the chaos as the ambulance crews dashed back and forth ferrying casualties meant possessions frequently became separated from their owners.
Sister stood and looked down at the still form in the bed, watching the flickering of the eyelids, waiting with a fixed smile of reassurance until the eyes opened fully. They were forget-me-not blue. ‘Hallo,’ she said.
‘Where am I?’
‘In St Olave’s Hospital, Bermondsey. You were in a shelter that was bombed. Can you tell us your name?’
‘It’s …’ She stopped suddenly and tried again. ‘It’s gone. My name has gone.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘How can I forget my own name?’
‘Easily, my dear. You have sustained a nasty bump on the head, as well as the other injuries, and temporary loss of memory under those circumstances is not uncommon. It will come back.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Unfortunately, no. You were pulled out of the rubble of the shelter on Linsey Street after it was destroyed by a bomb. There was nothing on you; certainly nothing arrived here with you.’
‘Bomb?’
‘Yes. There’s a war on and we’re being bombed. Do you remember that?’
‘I remember being very frightened. And noise, a lot of noise and darkness.’
‘That’s something, I suppose.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Over three weeks now.’
‘Hasn’t anyone been looking for me?’
‘There have been several people looking for lost relatives who came and saw you, but unfortunately you did not belong to any of them.’
‘What about other people in the shelter? Didn’t any of those know me?’
‘There weren’t many survivors and those that did get out said you were a stranger and not one of the people who usually used that shelter. You may have just been visiting the area when the siren went. Do you remember anything about yourself?’
‘I’m trying, I really am. I suppose I must have had parents, brothers and sisters, a husband even …’
‘You are not wearing a wedding ring.’
She felt her wedding ring finger which was sticking out of the plaster that encased her broken arm. ‘Oh, no husband, then.’
‘But you have given birth, though not recently.’
‘I’ve had a child? What happened to it?’
‘We don’t know. There were no unidentified children in the shelter. It may have been stillborn some time ago, or it might have been adopted or put into a home, since you’re not married.’
‘A home?’ She was silent, struggling to recall something, anything that might help. ‘That rings a bell. I seem to remember something about a home and lots of children. And the seaside. Was the home at the seaside? Oh, why can’t I remember? Surely I must have loved the child. I would not have put it in a home unless there was no alternative.’
‘Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do, especially if the father won’t face up to his responsibilities and your parents were not prepared to help.’
‘That would have been cruel.’
‘Yes, but some people are strict like that. Of course, you may not have had parents alive. It would have been a struggle to manage in that case.’
‘But I must have tried. Are you sure my memory will return?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘When?’
‘That I cannot tell you. In a day or two, a week, maybe longer. The brain is a funny thing and we don’t altogether understand how it works.’
‘What have you been calling me?’
The sister smiled. ‘C10. It’s the number above your bed.’
‘What will happen to me now? Where will I go? I can’t even remember where I live.’ The blankness of her mind was worrying, but it wasn’t exactly blank; her brain was going round and round trying to grasp at something, anything, to tell her who she was and where she came from.
‘You will have to stay in hospital until your plaster comes off and then you will need exercises to get your muscles working again. If you still cannot remember after that, you will be rehoused, but until then we are moving you to another hospital away from the bombing. We need the beds here for new casualties. With every raid there are more and more. We are rushed off our feet.’
‘When will I go?’
‘Tomorrow, by ambulance.’
‘What’s the date?’
‘Friday the twenty-seventh of September.’
‘I shall have to remember that.’
‘Oh, I think you will. It’s only your past you have lost.’
Only my past, she thought a
s the sister left her. Her past was what made her who she was; without it she was nothing, a number. C10. What sort of person was she? How had she come to have a child and not be married? Did that mean she was wicked? Had she loved the child’s father? Why hadn’t they married? Was it a boy or a girl? How old would he or she be? Come to think of it, how old was she? Had she got a job, employers who might wonder why she had not reported for work? Why had no one come forward to claim her? If only someone would come she might not feel so isolated and frightened. She nagged and nagged at her memory until she was exhausted and fell asleep.
The next day she was put in an ambulance with three other patients and driven to the King Edward VII Hospital at Windsor, and C10 had become Seaton. She had been asked to choose a Christian name and tossed a few about in her head to see if they jogged her memory, but when that failed, decided on Eve. After all, Eve was the first woman and she had had no past. The name Eve Seaton was written at the head of her notes and it was as Eve Seaton she was admitted.
The couple who faced the matron at St Olave’s were distraught with anxiety. They had come all the way from Scotland searching for their missing daughter. He was silver-haired, with a neat grey moustache; her hair had a blue rinse. Both were more smartly dressed than most of the people who came and went into the hospital. What with the high price of clothes and the dirt and dust which seemed to cover everything these days, the population of the bombed areas was looking decidedly shabby.
‘Small build, fair hair, blue eyes, age twenty-four,’ Matron repeated, taking the snapshot of Rosie she had been offered and squinting at it in the feeble light of her office. It had been taken on their last holiday before the war and Rosie was in a bathing costume and laughing into the camera. ‘It could be her, but it’s a different hairstyle.’
‘You mean she’s here?’ Angela asked eagerly. ‘She’s here and you don’t know her name?’
‘She didn’t know it herself.’
‘Didn’t?’ Stuart seized on the past tense, dreading to hear the worst. ‘You mean she’s not here now? You don’t mean she’s … she’s dead?’