Survivor (23 page)

The bombing went on all night. There
were lulls, now and then, during which people rushed to use the lavatory and empty
the bucket the small children had been using. Some of the children fell asleep, but
for the adults there was no respite.

Iris took it upon herself to be the tea
maker. Alfie, the red-headed boy who had spoken to rescue workers earlier, played
snap with some of the children. One elderly woman propped herself up against bales
of cloth and knitted. Mariette asked her how she could do it when the light was so
bad.

‘I’ve been knitting all me life,’ she said. ‘I don’t
need to look any more. Me old man used to say he’d put needles and a ball of
wool in me coffin with me. But he died two years ago, so I knits fer all me
neighbours’ kids now.’

At 6 o’clock in the morning, the
all-clear finally sounded. But no one rushed to leave the cellar.

Iris offered to make another round of
teas before they braved the outside world. ‘If you come back tonight,’
she yelled out, ‘all bring a cup. And if anyone’s got a big tray or
teapot, bring that too.’

Mariette went out into the yard. She
wanted fresh air, but there wasn’t any with the dust swirling about and the
fumes from all the fires. Her dress was filthy, she suspected she might have got a
few nits in her hair from the children, and she was sure she must stink. But, above
and beyond that, she’d had enough of being kindly, brave and helpful. It
wasn’t in her nature to be like that for long.

She wanted to get home, to wallow in a
hot bath and then sleep for eight hours. But she didn’t know how she could
leave here without it looking like she was running out on everyone.

As she stood there in the swirling dust,
to her surprise Johnny came walking through the gate.

He looked bone-weary and was still in
his uniform, which even at a distance stank of wet wool and fire. ‘So my spies
got it right,’ he said, his soot-blackened face breaking into a wide smile.
‘I was told that people were sheltering in my uncle’s factory. They said
a girl was in charge who spoke funny! Thought it might be you.’

Mariette laughed. ‘I speak funny,
do I? Am I glad to see you! It must have been terrible out there.’

‘The worst,’ he said.
‘I’ve been on duty for thirty-six hours,
and it never let up once. But I had to check you were
all in one piece.’

‘As you can see, I am. But let me
get you a cup of tea and something to sit on.’

‘If I sat down now, I’d
never get up,’ he said. ‘Is my uncle about?’

She had to admit he’d gone home
before the air raid.

Johnny whistled through his teeth.
‘What a bleedin’ hero he is,’ he said.

Iris came out then with a mug of tea for
him. ‘I saw you, Johnny, from the kitchen. I ’spect you’ve seen my
’ouse is gone?’

‘Yeah, my sympathy,’ he
said. ‘But after the sights I’ve seen just walking up here, you are one
of the luckier ones.’

‘Me and the kids would be dead, if
it wasn’t for Miss Carrera,’ Iris said. ‘If it ’ad been up
to your uncle, the factory would’ve stayed locked up. None of us along the
street knew where we was supposed to go to when the siren went off. That bully boy
of an air-raid warden is always quick enough to report anyone showing a chink of
light at the window, but ’e never came near yesterday when we needed
’im.’

‘You must report him then,’
Johnny said. ‘And you can go to the nearest air-raid shelter anyway. But maybe
my uncle will let the cellar be used all the time now. Actually, he’ll
probably have no choice, it’s a lot safer down there than in some of the
shelters the government threw up. One down the road got a direct hit, and everyone
in there was killed. But I don’t want to talk about sad stuff, I came to see
Mari.’

Iris put her hand on her hip and made a
comic face. ‘She’s Mari to you then? Something going on here I ought to
know about?’

Mariette giggled. ‘No, we’re
just friends.’

‘Well, the poor bloke looks done
in, so I don’t think you’ll
need a chaperone,’ Iris retorted, then turned on
her heel and walked back towards the kitchen.

‘How she can be so cheerful when
she’s homeless with four children, I don’t know,’ Mariette said.
‘I’d be in pieces.’

‘There’s a lot like her
around here,’ Johnny said. ‘Born with steel in their spine.
There’s women down the road digging in the rubble with their bare hands to
find their loved ones. But give us a kiss, if you can bear to touch someone so
dirty?’

‘Of course I can bear it,’
she laughed, and moved closer to put her arms around him. He did smell terrible, his
uniform was soaked and his lips were blistered from working so close to the flames.
But all she could think of was how glad she was to see him, and what a brave man he
was.

‘That’s breathed new life
into me,’ he said when she broke away. ‘Sorry I messed up your
dress.’

She looked down at herself and saw that
along with the dirt she’d noticed earlier, it was now black with soot from
hugging him. ‘It will wash, and you must go and get some sleep. But thank you
for coming, I was worried about you.’

‘This wasn’t how I intended
it to be,’ he said sheepishly, hanging his head. ‘I wanted to take you
out and show you a good time, both of us dressed up to the nines. I wanted a sweet
romance with you.’

Mariette’s eyes prickled with
emotional tears. She hadn’t given much thought to what she wanted with him,
but a sweet romance sounded perfect.

‘Our time will come,
Johnny,’ she said. ‘I’d rather have a dirty but brave man than a
slick weasel just out for himself.’

Mariette paused in the letter she was
writing home, torn between telling them the exact truth and a watered-down version
to save them any anxiety.

She couldn’t say she went dancing
with Johnny every time he got a night off, not without explaining who he was, and
admitting that Noah and Lisette hadn’t met him. If she made light of the
bombing, they’d think she was hiding the true facts. But, by the same token,
if she said how it really was, they would worry about her safety.

They already knew that since the
beginning of the Blitz she had dropped to working two days a week for Mr Greville,
and spent the rest of the week in the East End doling out clothes to bombed-out
families and helping them fill in forms to be rehoused. She suspected it must have
been quite a shock to her parents as the Mariette who had left New Zealand
wouldn’t have volunteered for anything unless there was something in it for
her. But they didn’t express surprise, only pride in her putting others before
herself. Mariette was the one to be surprised that her parents’ approval meant
so much to her.

In previous letters she had told them
little stories about some of the people she’d got to know, but writing about
people being bombed out, with sons or husbands missing or prisoners of war, was
getting a bit too depressing.

She certainly wouldn’t tell them
she wasn’t frightened by
air raids
any more, because that implied she was still reckless, so it was easier to write
bland, everyday things, about shortages of food, the irritation of the blackout, and
funny stories about some of the girls she’d met through Rose who had become
land girls. Most of them were frightened by all the farm animals, even the chickens.
To find they were expected to muck out stables and pigsties, learn to plough, and
live in a place where having a bath meant heating up kettles, was a rich seam of
comedy – although she wasn’t sure it would sound as funny in Russell. And
perhaps Mog and her mother had never met posh, privileged girls to understand how
drippy they could be.

Rose hadn’t become a land girl,
but she had taken her accounting skills to the Ministry of Defence to do her bit for
the war effort. The department had moved out to somewhere in Hertfordshire and she
lived there too. It was some kind of hush-hush work she was doing, but Mariette
liked to tease her by claiming she believed her friend requisitioned lavatory paper
and bars of soap for the troops. Rose laughed at this, which made Mariette suspect
she was actually using her fine brain for something really worthwhile. On the few
occasions she’d seen Rose lately, she seemed very happy – despite hardly ever
seeing Peter – and it made Mariette wonder if there was another man in her life.

The house seemed very big and empty now
with Rose gone. Noah was either writing articles about how the war was for ordinary
people, or out doing his bit with the Home Guard. Lisette had gone back to nursing
at the local hospital. But then, Mariette wasn’t home much either; on the days
when she helped out in the East End, more often than not the sirens went off, and
she ended up staying the night in a shelter.

She couldn’t remember how many
dead bodies or body
parts she’d
seen now after air raids. Or how many people she’d comforted when they’d
lost loved ones. She’d taken children whose parents had been killed to stay
with relatives; she’d written letters to husbands in the forces to tell them
their wife and children were seriously injured in hospital. Just last month, when it
was bitterly cold, she’d found an old man dead outside the office in Baker
Street. People must have seen him in the doorway as they went by but thought he was
a tramp, sleeping off the effects of too much to drink. The ambulance men said he
died of cold.

Mr Greville had a new factory now, out
in Berkshire, and much of the office work was done from there too. He’d made a
fuss when Mariette told him she wanted to help out in the East End, but in fact it
had all turned out for the best because Doris could run the Baker Street office
almost single-handedly. Greville only came in on Mondays, when he dictated all his
letters to Mariette, and she typed them the following day.

He’d found the new premises
shortly after that first terrible air raid, and took on new machinists in the same
area. All the employees in the East End had been astounded when he gave them all an
extra five pounds in their last pay packet. Clearly, he felt bad about laying off
people who had worked for him for years. But, as it was, most were happy enough to
go into jobs at munitions factories, or become clippies on the buses, as it paid
better. That extra five pounds meant a great deal to all of them, though, and they
talked about it for a long while afterwards.

The cellar of the old factory was now a
real air-raid shelter, complete with wooden bunks and a proper washroom. The
workroom above was used as a rest centre during the day, and it was here that
Mariette worked. People donated clothes, bedding and household equipment to the rest
centre, and those who’d lost everything could find whatever
they needed. It was also open to everyone in the area;
they could get a cup of tea and a sandwich and talk to people who could help them
with any problems they had. Homelessness was the worst problem, and no one seemed to
know how to tackle it. There just wasn’t enough housing stock available to
shelter these people. Some went down into the underground stations each night,
others camped out in schools and church halls. Then there were other people who just
stayed in a badly damaged house, hoping they could get it repaired.

The factory cellar was Mariette’s
first choice as a shelter in an air raid as so many of the old staff used it too.
Some nights, it was almost like going to a party with everyone mucking in, sharing
food and drink and inventing games to pass the time. They laughed about how scared
they’d been during the first few air raids, and the other girls would tell her
little stories about the adventures and romances they’d had since then.

It was astonishing how blasé everyone
had become about the danger. After fifty-seven consecutive nights of bombing they
spoke knowledgeably about the difference between high-explosive bombs, incendiary
devices and parachute bombs, as if they had always been part of their life. Young
lads of eleven and twelve had been roped in to put out small fires caused by
incendiaries, using a bucket and a stirrup pump, to save calling the Fire Brigade.
And they did it with speed and thoroughness, taking pride in being useful. People
would spend the night in a shelter, often going home in the morning to wash and
change, only to find their house had been bombed. Yet they didn’t sit down and
wail, they went off to their work as if nothing had happened. Shops too carried on,
even without windows. Mariette had seen one such place with a big sign reading
‘More open than usual’.

Again and again Mariette was reminded of
what Morgan
had told her about East
Enders. They were the most resilient of people. They took anything that was thrown
at them on the chin, laughed in the face of calamity, stuck together like glue,
cared for each other’s children, shared everything they had, and when one of
their number was bombed out, they all rallied round.

People took risks, running home in the
middle of an air raid to get their knitting, or call on a neighbour who hadn’t
come to the shelter, or check they’d turned the gas off. They all seemed to
have the same fatalistic idea that, if a bomb had their name on it, there was
nothing they could do to avoid it. Nearly everyone she knew had had very close
shaves. Mariette had flung herself down on the ground one night when she heard a
bomb coming, covered her head and said a last frantic prayer. But it landed thirty
or so yards away from her, and the only damage had been to her coat, which was
covered in brick dust.

Johnny was a fatalist too. He would tell
her hair-raising stories about being trapped by a ring of fire, truly believing
these were his last few moments of life, then suddenly and miraculously something
would happen. A wall would fall down and create an exit. Or someone on the outside
of the ring of fire would turn their hose on the flames hard enough to create a gap
for the trapped men to jump through to safety. Once, when he was trapped with four
other men, they pulled up a manhole cover and climbed down into the sewers to emerge
stinking to high heaven several streets further on. He said that each time he got
lucky, he wondered when his luck would run out.

Mariette talked about him sometimes to
Noah and Lisette, but only ever as her friend the fireman, Mr Greville’s
nephew, not as a sweetheart. But that was what he was – her sweetheart – and their
relationship was just as Johnny said, a
sweet romance. She hadn’t had sex with him, just
kissing and holding hands, cuddling and laughing together. It was almost like being
eighteen again, innocent and trusting, yet burning to see him, without the guilt
that she was doing anything wrong. In a world that was, at times, both cruel and
nightmarish, he made her feel safe. But she still felt unable to tell Lisette and
Noah that Johnny was more than just a friend, because she knew they wouldn’t
approve. And there was no point in making them anxious when even she had no idea
where this little romance was going.

Back in New Zealand, when she had first
fallen for Sam, she thought she knew what love was. She soon discovered how wrong
she was, and still smarted at what Sam had put her through. Then along came Morgan,
who showed her how wonderful lovemaking could be and made her think this was true
love. But then he’d turned brutal and made no attempt afterwards to explain
why. Gentlemanly Gerald had put her on a pedestal, but all she felt for him was
friendship.

Johnny was completely different from the
other men. He could communicate in every possible way, from the tender way he
smoothed back her hair, to the expression in his eyes, his laughter, and even his
silences. He had a knack of turning up just when she most needed him, yet he would
never be a doormat in the way Gerald had been. He didn’t make sweeping
promises, he didn’t even talk about the future, but perhaps that was because
he flirted with death every night fighting fires. They always had so much to talk
about, but so little time together.

Did she love him?

It certainly felt like love when her
heart leapt to see him lounging against the factory wall in the morning after
another night of bombing. Sometimes he was still in a wet uniform, face all grimy,
but on other mornings he’d washed,
shaved and was in civilian clothes. Almost always he was
exhausted, though. But he’d said more than once, ‘If I only saw you
after a good night’s sleep, I’d never get to see you.’

Their romance was all snatched moments.
An early morning cup of tea together in a steamy café while, out on the streets,
people were sweeping up broken glass and rubble from the night before. Or an hour in
the afternoon, when they’d walk together, trying to pretend the cold wind
wasn’t cutting them in two, knowing that as darkness fell he’d have to
go back to the fire station.

Yet there was something very unreal
about their relationship, almost as if they were characters in a film. She had
confided in her cockney friend Joan about this.

Joan just laughed. ‘Well,
I’d call the film a bleedin’ melodrama. You dole out old togs, Johnny
puts out fires. You come from the posh end of town and ’e comes from the rough
end. You never get long enough together to find out if you’re suited. On top
of that, you’ll be going ’ome to the bottom of the world when and if
this sodding war ends. Not sure I can see a ’appy ending, ducks.’

There had been a lull in the bombing in
the New Year because thick fog, or snow, deterred the bombers. There had been a few
nights when she and Johnny had put on their best clothes and gone dancing in the
West End. For a few hours, while he held her in his arms, the horror of war was put
aside and they could be the way sweethearts used to be before the war.

But as soon as the skies cleared, and
the moon shone down on the Thames, the bombers were back, following that shining
silver ribbon to guide them into central London to destroy more of the capital.

Tonight, there had been no air raid. St
John’s Wood hadn’t seen the massive destruction that had taken place in
the east
and south-east. People around
here made a big deal of the few sticks of bombs that had dropped, but in fact it was
next to nothing. The cellar under the house was very comfortable as a shelter but
Mariette had been in it only four times, and on those occasions the closest any bomb
came to the house was 300 yards away.

Mariette turned off the bedroom light
and pulled back the blackout curtain to look out. As always, searchlights scanned
the sky for bombers approaching. She smiled, knowing that Noah was manning one of
those lights on Primrose Hill. He was out most nights now, and he seemed to enjoy
it. That was another odd thing about the war: people did seem to be happier having a
part to play. And, despite all the hardships they had to endure, it was said there
had been no suicides during the Blitz.

But in two days’ time, on 8th
March, Noah wouldn’t be manning searchlights, Lisette wouldn’t be
dressing wounds, and Rose would be back here all dressed up ready to go to the Café
de Paris to celebrate Mariette’s twenty-first birthday. It was Rose’s
suggestion because it was not only the place to go in the West End, but it was also
considered the safest as the dance hall was four floors below Leicester Square.

Hanging on the wardrobe door was
Mariette’s new evening gown, a slinky body-clinging dress made of silvery-grey
silky velvet that flared out behind into a fishtail. Noah had bought it for Lisette
in Paris during the early twenties. But Lisette insisted she was far too old at
fifty-six, and too thick around the waist, to ever wear it again. She had been
delighted that it fitted Mariette perfectly without any alteration.