Even in Warsaw, such a small city compared to London, he had not felt comfortable, but he knew that he had to get to know the Polish community here; to find out where his fellow exiles congregated, which backstreets were home to the refuges and Polish clubs. If there was any chance that he was to be of help or find his brother, he had to make himself known to the Polish resistance here. Bartek had told him that was how it worked. His plans hadn’t included being sidetracked by a child, but Robbie reminded him so much of his nephew Roman; they had the same scrawny build, a tangle of constantly moving limbs. Even when the security guard had hold of him, Robbie had continued bouncing up and down nervously on his toes, arms and legs wriggling just as Roman would have done. Janek hadn’t known Bartek for long, so it was a relief that he’d been able to persuade him not to involve the police.
They were approaching Bloomsbury Way when Robbie stopped dead.
‘I really need to go now—someone’s expecting me.’
‘You have to come, it was the deal.’
‘I didn’t make the deal, it was your deal.’
‘We can always go to police if you prefer?’
‘Is it much further?’ the boy asked again. ‘I’m really tired.’
‘It is very close, just around that corner.’
Janek pointed ahead to where the line of trees formed a semicircle of green before disappearing around the crescent.
‘Alright, just a few more minutes,’ he said grudgingly. ‘It had better be worth it.’
Robbie may have been smaller than Roman but he was just as gutsy; chutzpah his mother would have called it. And as they turned the corner into Bloomsbury Square he saw Robbie’s eyes widen at where a bomb crater in the centre had been transformed into victory gardens, and where a scattering of people were tending the plots, weeding and watering even though it was nearly dusk.
‘You brought me here for this?’ Robbie said sullenly.
‘Yes, you can help.’
‘There are victory gardens everywhere . . . I can go to one a lot nearer if I want to. What’s so special about this one?’
‘If you are patient, I will show you.’
The boy was right, there were lots of victory gardens—even the Tower of London had given over its moat for allotments—but Janek knew the men that came here. Some he had worked with at London and North Eastern Railway, and he knew that they would keep an eye on Robbie if he asked them to.
Robbie wandered ahead with Spoke, exploring the raised beds of recycled timber and the low brick walls.
‘These are salvaged from the rubble, aren’t they?’
‘That’s right,’ Janek answered, glancing over at the other people in the garden, disappointed that Stefan and Josef weren’t among them.
It was just five o’clock, so there were only a handful of people absorbed in their quiet industry before the office workers arrived. A woman in the dark grey dress and beret of the Women’s Voluntary Service worked alongside a quick-moving figure that Janek recognised from his long black jacket and rows of shiny brass buttons to be a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service. He nodded as the man looked up. A few yards further on a group of young women talked and laughed as they worked; they could have been the image from one of the billboards advertising women in headscarves and dungarees digging for victory. Thankfully he could see that they had read their pamphlets and knew what they were doing, scraping the heavier soil away from the roots so that it didn’t suffocate the growth.
Spoke sniffed the ground and pawed at the edge of a bed so Robbie tugged at his collar, pulling him away.
‘Here, boy.’
The dog barked and then turned around a few times, looking for a moment as if he were chasing his own tail, and then he curled up, snout nuzzling into his paws, dark eyes looking back at Robbie.
‘Good boy.’ Robbie looked up at Janek. ‘I’m still waiting,’ he said. ‘What did you bring me all the way here for?’
‘I told you: there are some people I want you to meet.’ Janek scanned the pavements around the square as he spoke, hoping to see his comrades, but there were only anonymous office workers. ‘And I wanted to show you this,’ he said, pointing to the gardens. ‘If you ever feel tempted to go back to The Savoy, or any other hotel, then you should come here instead.’
‘I can take stuff?’
‘Only if you help to grow it.’
Janek scanned the gardens again. The light was beginning to fade; there was probably only half an hour of daylight left. It was annoying that the men hadn’t shown; he needed to give them tools and he wanted to introduce them to Robbie so that they could look out for him. Then the boy could leave and it would be the last Janek would need to see of him.
‘I suppose your friends don’t like you very much either.’
Janek looked down at him, slumped across his dog; Robbie was barely double its size and clearly shivering.
‘It’s disappointing that you do not meet them. It’s what I had hoped for, but perhaps we try again another day.’
‘Can I go then?’
‘Not yet—first you come to the railyard with me. You can warm up and I will show you how to earn a meal.’
Chapter Five
HOW TO KEEP CHEESE:
Wrap in margarine or butter paper, hang in a
piece of muslin in a cool, airy place. This hardens
the cheese and makes it more economical in
use. Use the rind for flavouring sauces, etc., but
remember to remove it before serving the dish.
Ministry of Food, War Cookery Leaflet No. 12
As soon as she heard the dawn chorus Maggie was up and dressing, planning where she should look. The streets around the school were the first places to search, although she hoped to find Robbie in the school storeroom, tucked up in his blankets asleep, unaware of the concern that he had caused, Spoke snoring at his side.
She had spent most of the night awake, trying hard not to imagine the worst, her mind drifting between sleep and thoughts of where he might be; fallen down a shaft or caught stealing by the police and shivering in a freezing cell. She regretted not going to look for him last night. It didn’t matter whether she had known him for a year or a day; she should have tried to find him straight away.
Walking quickly south along Danbury Street, she glanced away when she heard a door open; she usually said hello to her neighbours, but today she didn’t want to be distracted from her search. She hurried past the white Georgian townhouses, peering into their basements, just in case Robbie had decided to shelter there and gone to sleep. But the lower ground patios were empty and the blacked-out panes of glass in the large rectangle windows gave little clue as to what lay inside.
As she reached the end of the row and turned into Noel Road, the dark red brick of the school came into view, and for a brief moment she was surprised not to see children funnelling down the steps and through the doors, or playing games in the playground at the side. It only lasted a second, but the feeling that things were not as they had once been gave her a real physical jolt. She was accustomed to her job and had grown used to the all-female camaraderie that existed at work and almost everywhere else that she went now. Female workers populated the shops, the doctors’ practices had been taken over by nurses’ surgeries and, where schools still existed, female assistants had replaced the male teachers. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on how things once were, though, when the streets were filled with children, when their homes were not in rubble, and when the people who had been in her life only a year ago were still alive.
The cooing of pigeons on the ledge of a second-floor window brought her back to the present and, as she got closer, they took flight, lifting up and over the houses opposite to take refuge elsewhere. She watched for a moment, relieved that at least some creatures were able to get away. Her next breath made her feel lighter, more optimistic; perhaps it was the familiarity of her old school but she felt suddenly hopeful of finding Robbie again.
Once in
side, though, the long corridors echoed only with the sounds of her footsteps, and when she called out his name, hers was the only voice that came back. It took her ten minutes to search the whole school; he wasn’t in the storeroom with Spoke; in fact, the room felt icily cold, as if no one had been there for a while.
Outside the sound of the morning traffic was beginning to build and she knew she couldn’t be late for work again, but there was the canal at the back of the school still to search. She hadn’t been near the canal since she was a child and Ernest had died—but it was a natural place to take Spoke for a walk and so she would have to look.
She hesitated at the top of the steps, her heart thumping loudly as her panic rose. The stone was damp and slippery from the foggy morning air and she took a deep breath, then descended, taking the steps slowly, before running down to the path that ran alongside the water. Her heart felt like it might burst from her chest; she had looked everywhere for Ernest but she hadn’t found him in time. She hadn’t seen the dark outline floating on the surface. If only she had; if only she’d looked harder, stayed longer.
There was a shallow mist rising from the water this morning, making it look even more ominous, and she pulled her coat tighter around her, feeling the cold creeping between the layers of her thin uniform. Beyond the low-lying fog she could just about make out the shapes of the buildings and the irregular outline of trees that lined the other side. There was no way of telling if Robbie was there; she would have to walk up and down both sides.
‘Robbie!’ she shouted.
A dog barked back at her and she turned in the direction of the bridge.
From under the archway a small mongrel trotted into view. Was it Spoke? He looked about the same size. But then a tall figure emerged, a lone dog walker; it was a man, not a boy.
Turning back along the path in the direction of Duncan Street, Maggie followed the canal around to where the lock separated the upper and lower levels, and where the powerful wooden barriers and metal winches stood idle. The buildings on either side, once primarily industry and offices, were now makeshift homes for the growing number of Londoners who had lost theirs. The wide covered doorway of the building nearest to her was boarded up but still allowed enough room for a mother and her children to shelter there.
‘You got some food, love?’ The woman’s voice was a whisper as she extended her hands out towards Maggie.
A baby’s head was just visible, a soft white dome poking out from under the layers of dark fabric wrapped around the woman’s body. A boy a little younger than Robbie was slumped against the doorframe while a small girl, no more than a toddler, clung to her mother’s legs.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie started.
‘My little ’uns are real hungry.’
Then Maggie remembered the dried fruit in her pocket and pulled out the screwed-up brown paper bag. She had got into the habit of drying fruit recently to give to the canteen workers as a quick snack between meals.
‘Thank you, love,’ the woman said, almost snatching the bag from Maggie in her haste. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Maggie.’
There were only a few pieces of pear left but it might as well have been a whole basket of fresh pears for the woman’s reaction.
‘Oh, thank you, Maggie. I’m really grateful to you . . .’
‘Your children should enjoy them, they’re juicy and sweet.’
The boy chewed and swallowed his instantly while the little girl concentrated hard as she held the fruit in her mouth. Maggie imagined the child pressing the rough skin against the roof of her mouth with her tongue as Maggie herself used to do, squeezing the flavour out of the sugary crystallised flesh.
‘What about the feeding centre on Upper Street, have you been there?’ Maggie asked. ‘They’ll surely give you something.’
‘I haven’t got a pram and this one can’t walk far.’
Maggie moved closer, wanting to see the baby, but the girl huddled up to her mother, blocking her way.
‘I could help if you like. I’m looking for someone now but I can come back.’
‘Would you? Would you really do that?’
The woman sounded so desperate Maggie considered putting off her search for Robbie altogether and taking the woman and her children right away, but then she thought about him being out on the streets all night and alone.
‘Yes, of course I will,’ she promised. She was about to leave when she thought to ask, ‘You haven’t see a boy, have you? He’s about the same size as your son, with brown hair and lots of freckles.’
The woman shook her head.
‘Never mind.’ Maggie bit her lip. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I’ve found him.’
The clamour of the kitchen came as a relief when Maggie arrived later that morning, the rumble of machinery and the potent smell of a warming Irish stew a welcome contrast to the scorched and dismantled streets outside. She hadn’t been able to find Robbie and there was an empty doorway where the woman and her children had sheltered when she returned to help. Now she didn’t know what had become of any of them.
Eliza came hurrying towards her.
‘Maggie, watch out for—’
But before she had a chance to finish, Mr Ferguson appeared behind her, index finger summoning Maggie towards the cold store.
As soon as she entered she could feel the atmosphere change, not just a result of the drop in temperature and the strong smell of food trapped in the stone floor beneath, but because of the cold glare coming from Mr Ferguson.
‘What can you see, Miss Johnson?’
His eyebrows were raised but he didn’t look around, so she had no clue what he was referring to.
She scanned the top shelf: boxes of leeks and carrots at one end, the carton of eggs at the other. A large parcel wrapped in brown paper on the next shelf down, the wheel of cheese on the shelf below that.
‘I can see carrots, leeks, bacon, eggs . . .’ she replied hesitantly. ‘What should I be looking for?’
‘That’s the point: you can’t see it because it’s no longer there!’ he announced, almost triumphantly.
It was then that Maggie felt the first pang of regret. She had known in her heart of hearts that he would notice; he was too crafty and mean not to. And she knew that if she had asked him if she could take it, he would have said no. But she had taken it anyway, knowing it to be wrong yet thinking that for some reason it would be okay because of her good intentions—something he wouldn’t understand. What she didn’t know, though, was what to say to him now; she had never been a convincing liar.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Ferguson, what is no longer there?’
‘Come now, Miss Johnson—the cheese!’
‘There’s a new wheel of cheddar right there, Mr Ferguson,’ she said, pointing.
‘You know very well that I am not talking about the new wheel, but about the old piece that was there last night at the end of the shift but was not there when I came in this morning.’
‘Oh, that small end piece?’ Maggie said. ‘I thought that it had gone far too hard and waxy to use. It hadn’t been wrapped properly on account of us not having enough brown paper before the deliveries came today.’
‘Waste, Miss Johnson.’ He shook his head. ‘It is not good enough. What are we responsible for now? Making do.’ His face had become flushed and even the usually pale wobbly folds of his neck had taken on a rosy tinge. ‘You could have used that in any number of sauces or gratins.’
Maggie’s regret and fear at being found out were overtaken by an overwhelming impulse to laugh. She thought about the delicious leek gratin with the crisp cheese and breadcrumb topping that she and her landlady had shared.
‘You’re right, Mr Ferguson, point taken,’ she managed to say. ‘I won’t let it happen again.’
‘Good. That kind of waste is not what I expect from my supervisors, Miss Johnson. It demonstrates poor judgment and management skills.’
Maggie gaped at him, speechless, as she struggled to summ
on an appropriate response. Maybe she should tell him the truth; that she had taken it for Robbie, to give the child his first hot meal in weeks? No, she thought. That might do more harm than good.
‘Is that all, Mr Ferguson?’
‘Yes,’ he said, straightening as if in a vain attempt to give himself more authority. ‘But it’s the last time I shall speak to you about such matters.’
Eliza was elbow deep in potato skins by the time Maggie rejoined her and began to help scoop the peelings into the pig bin.
‘So what was that all about?’ Eliza asked.
‘He wanted to know what happened to the cheese.’
‘Oh, Maggie, not the cheese again! I’ve told you it’s high time those mice stood on their own four feet and began fending for themselves!’ She giggled.
‘It’s not funny, he’s serious this time. I think he’ll sack me if he gets half a chance.’
‘Well, you know what I think . . .’
‘Yes, I do, thank you.’
‘It should be you who’s doing the hiring and firing, Maggie. Think about it: you’d be your own boss, no one to order you around.’
‘Enough,’ Maggie said, cutting her off. ‘Best we just get on with this rather than give him any more reason to complain.’
Maggie’s Kitchen Page 6