Letters to the Lost

by Iona Grey

  ‘Look at you – the belle of the ball!’ Nancy smirked as she uncapped her lipstick. ‘I won’t say I told you so, but . . .’

  ‘I know, I admit it,’ Stella sighed. ‘I should have done this months ago. I’m having such a good time, I don’t want tonight to end.’

  ‘Well, no need to worry about that just yet; the night, as they say, is still young . . .’ Nancy pressed her freshly crimsoned lips together and twisted the lipstick back into its case. ‘Matter of fact, we was thinking about leaving here and going on somewhere else.’

  ‘Somewhere else?’ Dreamily Stella slid her hands into her hair and attempted to smooth it back into its earlier sophisticated submission. Beautiful, he’d called her . . . Just like Gene Tierney. Stella knew she was a Hollywood actress, but couldn’t quite picture her face. He’d made it sound like a compliment though, and he wasn’t bad looking. Not tall and gentlemanly like Charles . . . but then maybe that was a good thing.

  ‘Yes, somewhere quieter. It’s getting very crowded here,’ Nancy said pointedly, throwing a dirty look at a girl who was jostling for a space at the mirror. ‘The Yanks want to walk down to the Savoy and take us for a drink in the American bar.’

  She said this last bit loudly as she pushed through the crush. Stella hurried after, biting her lip to stop herself from laughing at the envious stares that followed them all the way to the door.

  Outside the cold took her breath away. She stumbled, but Ron was beside her and slid an arm around her waist. His body felt completely solid and slightly damp as his sweat cooled in the night air. A bit like a sandbag, she thought hazily. They walked down The Strand. The pavements were almost as crowded as on a weekday afternoon, in spite of the fact that it was dark, which added to the surreal feeling of the evening. Up ahead Nancy was twined around Eugene – or was it Johnny? Stella couldn’t remember – and one of the Renees, the plump one with the loud laugh – had kicked off her shoes and was being given a piggyback ride by Mitch. Her pencilled-on stocking seams were smeared across the backs of her legs. Unsurprisingly they were all turned away from the Savoy by a supercilious uniformed doorman, and spilled out onto The Strand again. The Americans were belligerent and vociferous.

  ‘Jeez, we’re risking our necks for you guys – he coulda let us in for one goddamn drink!’ ‘Yeah – in the American bar, what with us being Americans and all.’

  Stella leaned against the wall of Ron’s body. She felt suddenly very tired, and her feet hurt from dancing. She was almost tempted to sit down on the pavement and take her shoes off like Irene, or Doreen, or – what was the other one called? She wasn’t sure she’d like a piggyback though, especially not the way that Mitch was swinging Irene or Doreen or whoever around, which was making Stella feel queasy even to watch. They were walking without purpose, the evening’s magic souring.

  ‘Hey – look at this! It’s a church!’

  It was Frank’s voice. He was no longer walking ahead of them, Stella saw, but had disappeared inside a bombed-out building to their left.

  ‘Careful – it might not be safe!’ one of the girls called, but the other GIs were already following him through the gaping doorway, stumbling over loose bricks and picking their way past piles of rubble.

  ‘Was a church – Jeez, not much left of it now.’

  ‘Good job by some Nazi bombardier. Ripped the whole of the inside out.’

  ‘Musta been in the Blitz I guess – ’40, ’41?’

  Ron moved away, as if following some herd instinct. Left alone Stella looked around for somewhere to sit and sank down on a slab of fallen masonry at the top of some shallow steps. It was peaceful in here, enclosed by thick walls, cut off from the rest of the city. She tipped her head back to take a deep breath, hoping it would clear the nauseous feeling that had been insidiously creeping up on her since they left the dance hall. High above the jagged, ruined walls, the moon floated on her back, beyond the reach of the searchlight beams that raked the darkness.

  ‘I don’t like it in ’ere,’ whined the disembodied voice of one of the salon girls. ‘It’s spooky, and dark.’

  ‘Hey, there’s nothing wrong with dark,’ came the husky reply. ‘In fact, dark has a lot going for it . . .’

  There was a shriek, which was immediately followed by a giggle, trailing off into a muffled moan. In the thin moonlight Stella could just make out two figures locked together against the wall. She looked away quickly, but once her eyes adjusted she became aware of another couple, the girl propped against the ledge of a glassless window, her legs wrapped around the man’s khaki back. From the pale gleam of her hair Stella could tell that it was Nancy. Stella stood up, a peculiar feeling churning in the pit of her stomach. She jumped and gave a little cry of alarm as an arm closed around her waist from behind.

  ‘Cold?’

  Ron’s breath smelled of beer and cigarettes more than chewing gum now. It was warm against her neck.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Here, let me take care of that.’

  He pulled her into his body, rubbing his hands up and down her back. Heat radiated from his touch and she was glad of it. It seemed to spread from her back down into the cradle of her pelvis. She closed her eyes and submitted to it. She was so tired. Behind her eyelids the world was spinning, so that she suddenly remembered a carousel she’d been on once at the fair on the front at Southend. It had been a school outing, and Miss Birch had bought them candyfloss and allowed them two rides each. Nancy had dragged her onto the swinging chairs first, and then she had chosen the carousel with its painted horses and gleaming barley-sugar twisted poles. She remembered gripping tightly, holding on for dear life as the fairground spun and the faces of the people watching blurred and the music of the organ swelled inside her head. She’d wanted it to stop, to get off, but she was terrified that if she opened her mouth to speak she’d be sick.

  Ron’s mouth found hers in the dark. His kiss was hard and determined, so different from Charles’s. Charles. The thought of him jolted her back from the dark vortex in which she’d been spinning. She tried to pull away but Ron’s hand was clamped on the back of her head, his tongue jabbing against hers. She couldn’t breathe. More desperately now she fought against his kiss, trying to twist her head away and wrench herself out of his grasp, trying to cry out to him to stop. Nausea rose in her throat, like on the carousel; she could see the smudged faces again, spinning around on the inside of her skull. Gathering all her strength she placed her hands against Ron’s chest and pushed him away.

  He swore viciously as he half-fell backwards, unable to keep his footing on the rubble-strewn ground. As he fell he instinctively made a grab for her and caught hold of her wrist. She yanked it free and ran, tripping and stumbling down the steps in her haste to get away from him.

  Behind her his voice echoed off the ruined walls. ‘Hey – Hey! Cock-teasing bitch – what’s the matter with you?’

  She burst out onto the street, retching, pressing her hand to her mouth. A bus was lumbering into the stop at the corner of Aldwych and she forced her trembling legs to run towards it.

  I don’t know, she thought despairingly, watching the cheerful clippie girl approach. What is the matter with me? For a little while he’d made her feel beautiful, desirable, just like Gene Tierney. All this time . . . all these lonely months, she thought that was what she wanted.

  But now she’d got it she just felt dirty.

  9

  2011

  It was amazing to be clean.

  Again and again Jess pressed the button to release another two minutes of steaming water, long after she’d rinsed the last of the cheap shampoo out of her hair. She’d paid three pounds she couldn’t afford to use the shower at the leisure centre and, tipping her face up and letting the water run down it, she decided it was worth every extravagant penny.

  It wasn’t just the shower and the shampoo: she’d also splashed out on soap and deodorant. The fifty pounds was half gone now and she knew that she had to decide what to do. Lea
ving the library the other day she’d picked up a leaflet from a rack by the counter about ‘Housing Advice and Action Services’. It gave details of emergency shelters and temporary hostels in the district, as well as how to apply for more long-term accommodation. One of the shelters was only a couple of streets away from the library and, feeling more positive than she had in a long time, she’d walked round there. As she approached she could see a small group of men huddled in the overhang of the porch outside, smoking. With their angular faces, narrowed, suspicious eyes and hunched shoulders they reminded her of the people Dodge hung out with. She’d kept walking, her heart jumping.

  The jet of water dwindled again, and reluctantly she reached for the towel. It was the small, scratchy one from the hook in the bathroom at Greenfields Lane, and it brought the whiff of mildew into the bright cubicle. As she scrubbed herself dry her thoughts slipped into the same worn groove in which they’d circled all weekend. She was like a prisoner endlessly checking the walls of her cell for a means of escape and finding nothing.

  To get somewhere decent to stay she needed money. To get money she needed a job, and to get a job she needed somewhere to live. Even if she managed to find a job that didn’t require her to submit a CV or application form, she’d need to make herself look half decent.

  Towel-drying her hair she caught sight of her face in the little mirror on the cubicle wall. Beneath the halogen lights her skin looked dull and greyish, with red scaly patches on either side of her nose and on her forehead. That’s what happened when you washed with soap and didn’t use moisturiser. She peered closer. Her eyebrows, which she’d been plucking into fine, sophisticated arches since she was fourteen years old, had lost their shape and crawled across her forehead like black caterpillars. She gave a little groan of disgust and despair. Where did tweezers fit on her list of priorities?

  But at least she had some clothes now, thanks to the kind lady in the posh charity shop. Not that leopard print leggings, a pink jumper with KITTEN emblazoned across the chest in sequins and several t-shirts with stuff like ‘I want candy’, ‘WTF’ and ‘Wild’ written on them were exactly what she would have chosen, but she was glad of them. There’d been other, more practical things too. The shoes, for a start, which were a godsend, a little floral shift dress, a denim mini-skirt and a navy cardigan, both of which she was wearing today beneath her leather jacket. In them she felt like someone different from the girl who’d let herself become Dodge’s creation, Dodge’s punchbag, and from the one who’d hidden beneath a borrowed trench coat. It was a good feeling.

  It was Sunday morning, and the foyer of the leisure centre teemed with children. A birthday party was assembling, the kids racing around, fuelled by an excess of excitement. The host’s dad was easily identifiable by his air of barely contained desperation as he tried to marshal them. The smell of coffee fought with chlorine, making Jess’s mouth prickle. It came from a smart-looking café on the mezzanine overlooking the pool, where parents could pretend to watch their kids’ swimming lessons while reading newspapers and drinking the kind of frothy, fancy stuff that Jess couldn’t pronounce or afford. Resolutely she squashed down temptation and headed for the door.

  Just beside it there was a vending machine. She stopped, looking at it wistfully. Paper cups, powdered milk, bitter instant coffee . . . but it would be hot and she had the beginnings of a sore throat. Guiltily, before she could think herself out of it, she was feeding coins into the slot.

  As the last one was swallowed up, the automatic doors to outside swished open, admitting a blast of winter air, and a man. Glancing up as she went to press the button for coffee Jess saw that he was tall, with dark hair and broad shoulders; rugby type, she thought absently in the split second before recognition hit her.

  Shit. The guy from the house. She looked away sharply – not before she’d seen him notice her, but just in time to realize that the button she’d pressed was for tea not coffee. With the speed and urgency of a pinball ace she pounded the coffee button, which released a second cascade of hot water with no cup to catch it in.

  She jumped backwards, out of its scalding stream. When it stopped there was a moment of agonized silence, in which the noise and movement of the leisure centre foyer behind seemed to have been suspended, as if someone had pressed pause. Only the two of them remained. They looked at each other.

  Then he spoke, and reality resumed.

  ‘Are you all right? Those machines ought to carry a health warning, and not just for their revolting coffee. Bloody dangerous, boiling water. Did it go all over you? You need to—’

  ‘It’s OK. I’m fine. It didn’t—’

  ‘Was it coffee? Probably did you a favour.’ His smile was gentle, but his eyes held hers, and searched them. ‘I – actually, I think we’ve met before. The other day – Greenfields Lane, wasn’t it? I’m Will Holt. Look –’ he dragged a hand through his mop of untidy hair and gave her a sheepish look, ‘I’m supposed to be doing an hour in the gym before I head off for a family lunch, but in truth I’d rather boil my own head. You wouldn’t let me buy you a coffee to replace this one, would you? The stuff in the café upstairs isn’t too bad, if you can put up with the screaming children . . .’

  She was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking. ‘I don’t think – I mean, I can’t. I’ve got to—’ She was backing away. ‘Sorry.’

  And she turned, and the doors slid open to let her escape.

  10

  1943

  Stella awoke with a jolt.

  For a second she was disorientated, and gasped with relief when she realized that she was in her own bed. In her fragmented dreams she had been back in the church, stumbling over rubble, forever trying to reach the street she couldn’t see. She lay very still. Her body felt clammy and dirty beneath the smooth, clean sheets. Her mouth was dry, her tongue glued to the top of it, making her crave a drink of water. But when she went to sit up it felt like her brain had been scooped out of her skull and replaced with rocks.

  No light seeped in around the edges of the blackout, but she could hear the faint song of a lone bird and from that deduced that it must be nearly morning. In the charcoal gloom she peered down at her watch and let out a whimper of horror. Her wrist was bare. The watch given to her by Roger and Lillian with such ceremony at Christmas was missing.

  Her hand was shaking so violently she had trouble switching on the light, but when she finally managed, its comforting glow failed to reveal the watch, dashing the hope that she’d taken it off in her drunken state last night. ‘Oh God,’ she moaned softly, pushing the hair back from her forehead as her mind spooled backwards. There was a clear memory of putting it on as she stood here in the bedroom with Nancy before going out, and then . . . In the dance hall, she’d looked at it in the ladies’ cloakroom. She had a sudden flashback to being in the ruined church, when Ron had grabbed her wrist. It must have fallen off then, and she’d been in no fit state to notice.

  Desperately her thoughts scuttled backwards and forwards, but could only discover one possible way out: she’d just have to go back and look for it, and be home again in time for church. She pulled on an old tweed skirt and a woollen jumper of Charles’s that she’d shrunk in the wash and, treading quietly, went to the bathroom where she gulped down mouthfuls of water and then splashed her face with it. The cold, on top of the arctic temperature and the icy linoleum beneath her feet, made her gasp and set the rocks in her head grinding together. In the small mirror her face was waxy-white and the thought of going out into the frozen dawn was almost enough to make tears of self-pity spring to her eyes. She held them back with the thought that she’d brought all of this on herself.

  It was no more than she deserved.

  *

  The bus was full of munitions workers heading for the early shift. Stella found a seat near the back and alternately dozed and fought back nausea. The sky was the soft mauve grey of a pigeon’s breast as she got off on The Strand and the ruined church looked tranquil in the
melting pink light, but she was trembling as she went through the door at the end of the broken nave. Memories of last night surfaced like fish from a murky pool.

  Inside all was chill and shadowed; the tentative rays of the new day’s sun hadn’t yet reached in here. There was a bleak kind of beauty to the shattered stone pillars and gaping, glass-less windows. Beneath her feet was a mosaic of broken marble – the pattern of the black-and-white squares still discernible beneath the layers of dirt and sprouting weeds. It must have been the aisle. Brides would have stepped where she did now, satin-shoed, silk train slithering across the polished surface as they walked to the altar.

  She looked up, towards the chancel, and froze.

  Someone was standing there. A man, head bent, as if in prayer. He was in uniform – unmistakably American – the cut of the tunic making his shoulders appear very broad, his hips narrow. He was standing right beside where she’d sat last night; the place where her watch was most likely to be now. She hesitated, clammy with sudden panic, torn between the temptation to turn around and slip quietly out again before he saw her, and the need to complete the task she’d come all this way to do.

  But before she could decide he’d turned round, and she saw at once that he hadn’t been praying at all. In his hands was a black, rectangular box – a camera – down into which he must have been looking to frame a shot. His face registered no surprise as he saw Stella, but a grave smile momentarily touched his mouth as he walked towards her.

  ‘Morning, miss.’

  ‘Morning.’

  To her relief he passed her. She stood perfectly still, the throbbing in her head marking the seconds while she waited for him to leave. But instead of heading straight to the door he walked along the wall, trailing his fingers reverently across the stone as if he were reading something there. Then he looked up, past her, towards the spreading pink of the sky above the jagged walls.