Keep Smiling Through (26 page)

‘But it’s all been arranged,’ she protested.

He climbed down from the truck, slammed the door and spent a moment lighting a fag. ‘The airfield’s closed,’ he said. ‘The armoury took a direct hit, the control tower and some of the hangars are so badly damaged they’ll have to be rebuilt. The runways are full of craters and they have six funerals to arrange.’

‘Dear God,’ breathed Rita. ‘Do you have news of Barrow Lane, or the public shelter nearby? Do you know if anyone was hurt?’

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, luv. The whole town’s in uproar, but I do know the factories on the estate took a bashing, and that there were several casualties.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ she muttered. ‘Thanks,’ she shot over her shoulder as she kicked the bike into life, told Gladys to hold on tight, and raced towards Cliffehaven.

She could feel Gladys clinging to her, could hear her anxious pleas for her to slow down, but she closed her mind to everything but the need to see if Louise had come through this hellish night safely.

The devastation was clear to see as they reached the outskirts of the town. Volunteers from every service were helping to put out fires, stem burst water mains, make buildings safe and tend to the wounded. Refreshment tents had been set up by the WVS and the Red Cross, men and dogs were searching for people who might be buried in the rubble, and the air was filled with cloying, greasy smoke and the stench of burning rubber and old paint. Ambulance and fire engine crews were working at full stretch, houses were shattered, and people were wandering in dazed bewilderment through the rubble clutching the few precious things they’d managed to grab from the ruins of their homes.

Rita’s mouth was dry and her pulse pounded as she quickly dropped a quaking Gladys outside the deserted fire station, retrieved her leather helmet and sped off towards Barrow Lane.

She was almost afraid to reach her destination, for she had no idea what she might find. If the damage in the town was anything to go by, then they would have been incredibly lucky to escape, being so close to the railway line.

She reached the arterial road that linked the narrow terraced lanes and slowed the bike, letting the engine growl beneath her as she weaved through the piles of smouldering bricks, shattered door-frames and windows and toppled chimneys. The corner shop had gone, and so had the barbershop and the remains of the Italian butcher’s. Shanklin Lane and the one behind it had been flattened as if by a giant bulldozer, the windows in every other surrounding street blasted in.

Her heart pounded and she found it difficult to breathe as she realised how deserted it was. Where were the residents of these streets that smouldered beneath the pall of smoke? How come there were no wardens or policemen about? Where were the clean-up crews, the rescuers? The all-clear had sounded at least twenty minutes ago.

She reached the end of Barrow Lane and switched off the engine, chilled to the bone by what was before her.

Barrow Lane lay in absolute, abandoned silence. The gasometer no longer cast its shadow, for it had been blown to smithereens. The terraced houses had been ripped apart, shattered into a million pieces, the rubble strewn in heaps across the road. Water gushed like a geyser from a broken main and rattled against the debris of broken guttering, downpipes and shattered glass. A net curtain had become entangled in the barbed wire that hung above the remains of the goods-yard wall, and it flapped listlessly in the dawn breeze like a white flag of surrender.

Rita was in a daze as she clambered over the wreckage, her breath sounding impossibly loud in the awful silence. She stood where her home had once been, staring at the charred remains of furniture, the blasted, buckled frame of May’s beloved BSA and the solitary shoe that lay half-hidden under what was left of the garage doors. It was one of her father’s. Picking it up, she held it to her heart, staring in stunned bewilderment at the wreckage, unable to take in what had happened.

‘Get out of there! Can’t you smell the gas? This whole place will go up in a minute and take us both along with it.’

She stared at the ARP warden – at his wild, red-rimmed eyes, his soot-smeared face beneath the tin helmet and his bedraggled uniform. Her mind was frozen and his words made no sense.

He grabbed her by the arm and almost dragged her down the lane. ‘Go to the Town Hall,’ he said firmly. ‘They’ll look after you there.’

‘Louise,’ she muttered, her thoughts suddenly clearing. ‘What’s happened to Louise and all the others from this street?’

His expression became grim. ‘She probably went down the public shelter in Brook Street,’ he replied, not meeting her frantic gaze.

A terrible suspicion lay black in her heart. ‘What happened to the shelter?’

‘It got damaged,’ he said, his tone less brusque. ‘There were some casualties, but they’re pulling everyone out as soon as they can.’

Rita was trembling as she stood before him clutching her father’s shoe. ‘Casualties?’ she rasped through a tight throat.

‘A few. We won’t know until we’ve got everyone out.’ He placed a kindly hand on her arm. ‘I wouldn’t go there, luv,’ he said. ‘Best you head straight for the Town Hall.’

Rita backed away, shaking her head. ‘I have to find Louise. Have to make sure she’s all right.’ Still clutching her father’s shoe, she ignored his shouts, climbed onto the Norton and almost fell off as she attempted to steer with one hand and took a corner too swiftly. With the shoe tucked inside her jacket, she forced herself to remain calm and focused. It would be very stupid indeed to kill herself now after the night she’d just been through.

She reached Brook Street to find it in chaos. The blast had toppled the old tenement building into a heap of smoking rubble, and the rescue workers were desperately trying to get to the people trapped in the shelter beneath it. Those lucky enough to have already been rescued stood in bewildered, tearful huddles as babies cried, wardens tried to restore order and a shrouded stretcher was carried over the wreckage to be placed almost reverently beside two others.

Rita’s fear for Louise was all-encompassing as she looked at those stretchers, but as she warily approached them, she was stopped by a warden. ‘There’s nothing you can do for them, dear,’ he said, his eyes red-rimmed with weariness.

‘I’m looking for my mother,’ she managed through her tears.

‘She’s not here,’ he replied softly. ‘Two little kids and an old man lie under those sheets, God help them.’

Rita took a deep, shuddering breath, sad for the lives lost, but thankful it wasn’t Louise. She turned back to the milling crowd that waited by the entrance the rescue workers had dug into the rubble. They seemed determined to stay there, heedless of the wardens’ furious shouts to leave. ‘Louise,’ she yelled. ‘Louise, where are you?’

There was no answer, and she pushed her way through the confused, stunned onlookers. ‘Have you seen Louise Minelli?’ she asked everyone she passed. But they shook their heads, their muttered replies barely intelligible – they were too shocked and afraid to be able to comprehend her urgency.

‘Louise, where are you?’ she called, close to tears. ‘Louise.
Louise!
’

‘I’m here.’

Rita spun round and gathered her into her arms. ‘Oh, Mamma, I thought I’d lost you,’ she sobbed. ‘The house is gone, there’s nothing left of Barrow Lane, and I thought – I feared . . .’

‘It’s all right,
cara mia
. We are both alive, and that’s all that matters.’

Rita heard the aching weariness in Louise’s voice, the hitch of sharp-edged fear, and drew back. Louise regarded her with eyes dull with shock. She was barely recognisable beneath the coating of dust and grime. Her greying hair was straggling from its pins, her skin was as pale as putty beneath the sooty smears, and her hands shook so badly she almost dropped the precious bag of treasured letters and photographs.

Rita put her arm round her. ‘Come, Mamma, we’ll go to the Town Hall and get a cup of tea.’

Louise remained stock-still as if planted to the shattered pavement. The tears rolled down her face, leaving tracks in the soot that had settled there. ‘But how will Tino and Roberto find us now we have no home?’ she whispered in Italian. ‘They will not know – they will think we have forgotten them.’

‘No, Mamma, the authorities will make sure we get their letters. They’ll know how to find us.’

‘You promise?’

Rita nodded and gently steered her towards the abandoned Norton. Taking the bag from her, she quickly placed it in the second pannier with their gas mask boxes.

‘It’s a long walk into town, and you’re exhausted,’ she said softly. ‘Will you agree to me driving you there?’

Louise, who had always refused to have anything to do with the motorbike, wordlessly perched side-saddle as they did in Italy, and clasped her arms round Rita’s waist. ‘Don’t go too fast,’ she said, resting her head wearily on Rita’s shoulder. ‘The road isn’t safe and I don’t want you getting hurt.’

‘No, Mamma,’ she replied. ‘Whatever you say.’

BEACH VIEW AND
the surrounding houses had escaped the worst of the bombing, but nearly every window had been smashed by the blasts, the gas, water and electricity were off, and all the telephone lines were down. Camden Road had come through unscathed, but one of the smaller hotels on the seafront had taken a direct hit and the debris had made the buildings on either side unsafe.

Wally, the ARP warden, had gleefully told them about the enemy plane crashing into the pier, which was now a twisted, charred iron skeleton sticking out of the sea. He seemed almost to delight in being the bearer of bad news as he described the damage in the town, and on the factory estate; the loss of life at the Brook Street shelter and the devastation caused to the airfield. But, frustratingly, he didn’t know any of the details about what had happened to the men and women at the RAF base and had left Anne even more frantic for news of Martin and Cissy.

‘I wish to heavens I could go out to the base,’ she muttered, ‘but as a civilian I’m forbidden to go near it – and I wouldn’t be of much use anyway.’ She paced the kitchen, unable to settle to anything. ‘If only he could telephone.’

‘I’ve always found that it’s best to keep busy at times like these,’ said Mrs Finch. ‘Your mother would be calling on the neighbours to make sure they’re all right, and then turning her hand to cleaning this place as if her life depended upon it.’

Anne nodded, unable to speak for fear it would unblock the dam she’d desperately erected to stem the great tide of fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

Mrs Finch looked up at Anne and smiled tremulously as she handed her the broom. ‘I’ve sent Ron to check on the neighbours, and Lady Sylvia has gone to the hospital to see if she can lend a hand there. Let’s make a start on clearing away all the broken glass before someone cuts themselves.’

Anne fumbled for the broom, but her mind was numb, her hands shaking too badly to keep it from clattering to the floor. She stared at it in dumb despair, unable to retrieve it.

‘Come on, Anne, dear. Sit down and have a cup of tea. You’ll feel better with something inside you.’ Mrs Finch gently led her to the chair by the range and pressed her into it before pouring the last of the tea from the flask. They’d all forgotten to fill the kettle before they’d rushed for the Anderson shelter.

Anne felt sick and disorientated, the sleepless night and the worry over Martin and Cissy exacerbating the effects of that terrifying raid. Yet she sipped the over-sweet, stewed tea obediently in the hope it might calm her, and tried to garner warmth from the meagre fire in the range. She was cold to the core and couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

‘Your father should be back soon and then perhaps we’ll know more,’ soothed Mrs Finch as she retrieved the abandoned broom. ‘He’s bound to have spoken to one of his pals who were manning the searchlights by the airfield.’

‘I want my mum,’ murmured Anne, the tears sliding down her face. ‘I miss her so much.’

‘There, there, dear. Don’t cry.’ Mrs Finch perched awkwardly on the arm of the chair and held her close. ‘Your mother will be home very soon.’

‘It’s so hard without her here,’ Anne managed, ‘and I’m terrified something will happen to her – to Martin and to Cissy – and that I’ll never see any of them again.’

‘I know it’s hard,’ soothed Mrs Finch. ‘But we must keep faith that they’ll come home safe and well.’

Faith was such a small word, but it held a universe of meaning Anne found impossible to comprehend while the dark fears haunted her. She placed her trembling hands protectively round her distended belly, feeling the baby move beneath her fingers as she prayed fervently for her family to be spared.

‘I don’t see why we can’t go to Beach View,’ said Louise as they came to a halt outside the grey, forbidding building that had once been the local asylum. ‘Peggy has always said we’d be welcome should we need somewhere, and this place makes my skin crawl.’

‘I’ve already explained several times, Mamma,’ Rita said wearily. ‘They don’t have any room.’ Rita climbed off the motorbike, took the box of emergency rations they’d been given at the Town Hall from Louise, and helped her off the bike.

‘I don’t mind sleeping on the floor, or in the dining room on the couch,’ Louise continued. ‘Anything’s better than staying here.’

Rita didn’t voice her deep concern over Martin and Cissy, but she kept seeing that red glow which had lit up the sky to the north of Cliffehaven, marking the almost complete destruction of the airfield where six people had been killed. Beach View could well be a house of mourning, and this was not the time to go begging for shelter.

‘They’re using the dining room to feed everyone,’ she said firmly, ‘and Cissy will be sleeping on the couch when she’s on leave. At least, here, we’ll have beds.’

Louise looked as if she was about to argue, then gave a sigh of defeated weariness and distress. ‘Tino and me worked so hard to make a success of the café,’ she sobbed. ‘We’ve lived there all our married life, raising our children and making plans for the future. How is it that everything can be wiped out so swiftly, Rita? What have I done to deserve losing my home and my family?’