The Girl With No Name (9 page)

‘We haven’t time to keep changing buses,’ Lisa told him. ‘We have to pay the bus fare.’

‘Waste of money,’ Harry said.

‘But, Harry, we can use the money that lady gave us.’

‘You can if you like,’ said Harry. He gave her a sixpence from his pocket and flagged down a Shoreditch bus.

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ asked Lisa apprehensively.

‘Oh, all right,’ Harry said with a sigh, ‘but I ain’t paying no fare.’

They scrambled on to the bus and headed up the stairs. When the conductor came, Lisa paid her fare, but Harry, having been through his ‘no money’ routine was put off at the next stop and so it was that Lisa found her way back to Kemble Street alone. It was almost dark and bitterly cold. Flakes of snow, drifting down from the leaden sky, were already laying a cold carpet on the freezing ground. As she approached number sixty-five she saw Uncle Dan coming up the street towards her.

‘Lisa!’ he cried. ‘Thank God! Where on earth have you been? Your Aunt Naomi has been frantic with worry.’

Lisa knew that if she’d been returning from Hilda’s house she’d have been coming from the opposite direction, but she said it anyway. ‘I was at Hilda’s.’

‘No, you wasn’t,’ Dan said angrily, ‘cos Naomi went round to bring you home when it started to snow. The Langs ain’t seen you and weren’t expecting to.’ He gripped her wrist. ‘So, where’ve you been then? You been out all day and we been out looking for you.’

Lisa had never seen Uncle Dan angry and tears sprang to her eyes. She let him pull her indoors and found Naomi and Mary in the kitchen. Both women leaped to their feet and Naomi grabbed Lisa and hugged her close.

‘Lisa, where’ve you been? I’ve been so worried.’ Feeling strong arms around her, Lisa’s pent-up tears flooded down her cheeks. She clung to her foster mother and cried; cried for her family, cried because Dan was angry with her, cried because Harry had left her on the bus, cried because Naomi was holding her, cried because she couldn’t stop.

‘There, there,’ Naomi soothed as she held the child tightly till the sobs died away, ‘it’s all right. You’re safely home. As long as you’re safe. But, Lisa, you’re freezing cold. Here, come to the fire and get warm.’ Naomi pulled a chair to the fireside and Lisa sank gratefully into it. Mary went to the stove and set some milk to heat. When it was hot she filled a cup and handed it to Lisa.

‘There you are, get that down you. You’ll soon warm up.’

Lisa cradled the cup in her chilly hands and sipped the milk, feeling it course down inside her, warm and comforting. Clearly they were all waiting for some sort of explanation. Lisa didn’t want to tell them about Harry, Harry was her secret and one that she hugged to herself, so she settled for a half-truth.

‘After I have the letter from Cousin Nikolaus I need time to be alone. I walk a little and then I take a bus. When I get off I am lost.’

‘And you’ve been wandering about all day?’ Dan sounded incredulous.

‘I look at places,’ Lisa said. ‘I see Trafalgar Square with Nelson.’

‘Gracious, child, you’ve been miles!’ exclaimed Naomi.

‘I ask for bus to Shoreditch and a lady told me the number and gave me the money.’

‘Well, you’re safe home at last.’ Mary entered the conversation for the first time. She had realised that they were getting a very edited version of Lisa’s day, but she was also aware, more than Naomi and Dan seemed to be, that Lisa had needed the day on her own to help her come to terms with the disappearance of her family. It would, Mary knew, take a long time for the desolation that had engulfed Lisa to lessen and it would always be there within her, like a faded bruise that doesn’t hurt unless you press it.

‘I’d better go,’ Mary said. ‘We’ll be opening up soon and Tom will be wondering where I’ve got to.’ She got to her feet and reached down to give Lisa a hug before letting herself out.

Naomi said to Dan, ‘You’d better go and tell the Langs that she’s home safe and sound. They’ll be worrying, too.’ Dan nodded and, putting his coat back on, went out into the night.

‘You must be very hungry, Lisa,’ Naomi said, happier to deal with the practicalities of life. ‘I’ve got fish for tea and I’ll make some chips. Would you like that?’

‘Yes, please, Aunt Naomi,’ Lisa replied and watched as her foster mother prepared the meal.

That evening, when Lisa had gone to bed, Naomi said, ‘Where do you think she got to then?’

Dan shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I was worried sick,’ Naomi admitted. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her now.’

‘Nor could I,’ agreed Dan. ‘We’re her family now and we’re lucky to have her.’

Lisa settled back to school after the Christmas holidays. She missed Harry, who had started his job as an errand boy, but her friendship with Hilda was strengthened with his departure. Several children who had been evacuated in September had returned home when the expected bombing had not happened. The numbers at the school increased. New classes were formed and after consultation with Miss May, Miss Hammond made sure that Hilda and Lisa were left together while Roger and his cronies were placed in a parallel class. She knew that being German in a London school at this time was not easy for Lisa and that Roger in particular had been making life difficult for her.

Just occasionally Lisa would find Harry was waiting for her round the corner after school. He had changed, suddenly far more grown up than he had been, no longer a boy, but a streetwise youth with a knowing look on his sharp-featured face. He always seemed to have money in his pocket and would often bring Lisa a bar of chocolate.

‘Well, I got wages now, ain’t I?’ he replied when Lisa remarked on this. ‘All right, are you?’ he always asked. ‘No more trouble with them Nazis?’

‘No, they leave me alone now. Other, younger kids to bully.’

‘Well, you just let me know.’

He told her very little about his new job, though she asked him what he had to do.

‘Just take messages for my boss, mostly,’ he replied vaguely. ‘Parcels and that, deliveries, you know.’

‘But what do you deliver?’

‘Stuff the boss wants delivered, of course,’ snapped Harry. ‘He’s got a supply business. I don’t know what he wants delivered, do I? I just do what I’m told and he pays my wages.’

‘You still at the hostel?’

‘Yeah, for now. May have to move soon. They need the space for younger boys, them still at school.’

Together they would walk towards Kemble Street, passing the park, where there was now a sandbagged anti-aircraft installation, above which two barrage balloons tugged at their moorings. War was all around them and yet left them strangely unaffected. No bombs, no gas, no invasion, but high awareness of the possible ‘enemy within’.

Esther Lang had warned both her children and Lisa not to speak German anywhere they might be overheard.

‘There’s so much talk of a “fifth column”,’ she said, ‘you know, German spies who may have infiltrated themselves into English life, people will be very suspicious if they hear you speaking German. English only from now on.’

Harry knew, too, that speaking German was asking for trouble.

‘Never going to speak it again,’ he told Lisa. ‘Not my lingo. I’m English now. Heinrich Schwarz don’t exist no more, just plain Harry Black.’

Lisa agreed with him and unless they were entirely alone, they spoke only English together. Even so there was still the bond between them; they had known what it was like ‘before’. Lisa had written to Cousin Nikolaus again, but had received no reply and Harry was her only link with her previous life.

War was sweeping through Europe both on land and at sea. British troops had been sent as an expeditionary force to support France and Belgium. Despite the valour of the Royal Navy, British merchant ships bringing much-needed food to Britain were being sunk by the German U-boats. Rationing was introduced in January, of butter, sugar and bacon, and Naomi took all three ration books to be registered at the local shops.

Life at home with the Federmans had settled into a comfortable routine, Lisa going happily enough to school each day. Naomi had started work in a nearby clothing factory where they made service uniforms. She spent most of her days sitting at a sewing machine, putting sleeves into uniform jackets for the army. It was very boring work, but she enjoyed the company of the other girls and the camaraderie within the workshop and it pleased her that she was doing valuable war work. Dan had agreed that she should take the job, though he didn’t really approve of his wife going out to work.

‘It’s a poor show if I can’t keep my own wife,’ he said when she told him what she wanted to do.

‘You know I wouldn’t if there wasn’t a war on,’ she replied, ‘but I want to do my bit like everybody else, don’t I? Everyone has to do something.’

‘I know, girlie, and I’m proud of you! But just while the war’s on, eh?’

Uncle Dan was out with his taxi. As a cabbie at the outbreak of war, his livelihood had been restricted by the immediate introduction of petrol rationing. However, the government, realising that taxis were an important form of transport, allowed the cabbies three gallons a day, so he was still able to ply his trade. As petrol rationing bit harder, more and more people were giving up their cars, putting them up on blocks; public transport of all sorts was needed and he was just able to make a living.

He was pleased that he still had his cab. Other taxis had been requisitioned to be converted into fire engines or ambulances.

‘Cabs are built strong, see,’ Dan explained to Naomi. ‘Old Malcolm, you remember Old Malcom?’ Naomi nodded. ‘Well, he’s had his took away and they’ve stuck a ladder on the roof and put hoses in the luggage space. Part of the fire brigade now!’

‘But what about Malcolm?’ Naomi asked. ‘Does he still drive it?’

‘No, he’s too old. A specially trained bloke does now. Some of the other drivers still do, cos they have the Knowledge. They know quick ways to get to places, specially if the roads get blocked, so they’ve been trained as auxiliary firemen, then they can drive their cabs.’

Naomi came home at the end of each day tired and stiff, so Lisa always helped make the family tea in the evening. When she got home from school she would peel potatoes or prepare vegetables and when Naomi got in the two of them would work companionably in the kitchen, often listening to the wireless.

Lisa’s English had come on by leaps and bounds and she could now hold a proper conversation and with extra help from Miss May, she was learning to read and write English too. One evening Dan came home with the
Daily Mirror
. He sat down at the kitchen table and spread it out in front of him.

‘Now then, Lisa, me duck,’ he said. ‘You come and read the paper to me.’

‘I can’t,’ Lisa said in dismay, ‘it’s too hard.’

‘No it’s not,’ Dan insisted. ‘Come on, girl, sit here by me and we’ll do it together.’

Reluctantly Lisa drew up a chair and looked at the paper. Dan chose a short article about the importance of carrying gas masks and hesitantly Lisa began to decipher it. It was slow going, but with much reference to the dog-eared dictionary which still sat on the mantelpiece, together they worked their way through to the end.

Dan was full of praise and Lisa was delighted that she had managed to read so much of it on her own. From then on, if Dan got home early in the evening, they would choose an article in the paper and read it together. Gradually Lisa realised that she was beginning to think in English and though she still had to resort to the dictionary to find the words she needed, it was far less often.

She took on the family’s mending as her particular chore and often sat by the fire in the evenings listening to the popular programmes on the wireless as she darned Dan’s socks, mended tears and sewed on buttons. Lisa liked sewing and she was pleased to be able to do something that really helped Naomi. Ever since her day out with Harry, when she’d been so late home, her relationship with Aunt Naomi and Uncle Dan had changed. She missed her own parents and Martin with an almost physical ache, but she knew that, though they never put their feelings into words, Naomi and Dan had grown fond of her and she returned that affection and felt secure within it.

The cold, wet spring finally gave way to a warm May. More rationing had been imposed and the news from Europe was getting blacker and blacker. The Nazi war machine was roaring its way through Belgium, driving into the Netherlands and attacking France. Everything fell before it and by the last week in May the British Expeditionary force was cut off from the main French army and hemmed in at the port of Dunkirk. The British government decided to try and rescue as many of their fated army as possible and an armada of over eight hundred ships, large and small, set off for the coast of France. For nine days the navy, fishermen and many volunteer sailors repeatedly crossed the channel to pluck the stranded soldiers from the harbour and the beaches of Dunkirk.

The Federmans and Lisa followed the news of the evacuation on the wireless. The whole country seemed to hold its breath as, under almost continuous German artillery fire and Luftwaffe attacks, more and more soldiers scrambled aboard the rescue ships and made it to the safety of the English shore. The French held the Germans at bay, allowing over three hundred thousand troops to be saved, and it wasn’t until 4 June that the Germans hoisted the swastika over the devastated port.

Sitting beside the wireless like millions of others, Lisa and her foster parents listened as Mr Churchill broadcast to the nation, promising that whatever the state of war in large tracts of Europe, Britain would fight to the end. ‘We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets... We shall never surrender.’

His words were echoed on the front page of the
Daily Mirror
the next morning under the headline WE NEVER SURRENDER. Lisa pored over the paper when Dan brought it home, reading of what was being called ‘the miracle of Dunkirk’.

‘Will the Nazis come here now?’ she asked Dan, fearfully.