The Girl With No Name (21 page)

‘Enemy alien? You’re joking me!’

‘Heinrich Schwarz, by order of His Majesty’s government you are to be interned as an enemy alien for the duration of hostilities,’ intoned one of the policemen.

‘Not Heinrich Schwarz,’ pleaded Harry in desperation, his English beginning to desert him. ‘Harry Black, fire-watcher’s runner. There last night. Ask down at the docks.’

It wasn’t the right thing to say. Until now the constable holding him had had some sympathy for him. Surely a scruffy kid like this wasn’t an enemy. But now he said he’d been at the docks, well who knows what he’d been doing down there... Fire-watching, he said, but he could just as easily have been fire-
raising
. An enemy alien indeed!

‘Sorry, lad,’ his partner was saying, ‘but whatever you’ve been doing, you got to come along with us.’ He turned to Mr Pate. ‘You got all his documents ready, have you?’

‘Oh, yes, officer.’ Mr Pate rushed back into his office and scooped up a file from his desk. ‘Everything here and in order. Passport, immigration papers, ration book, school report. Job information...’

‘What my boss say when I don’t come?’ demanded Harry. He felt he could mention his job again now that he knew the police were not there because of anything to do with Mikey Sharp.

‘He’s got his own ID card, of course,’ Mr Pate went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘All you need, I think.’

One of the policemen took the file and walking either side of Harry they led him out into the road. As they marched him along to the police station in the next street, people watched curiously, wondering what the young lad had been doing. Scruffy-looking bloke he was, clearly been up to no good.

Later that afternoon the news reached Mikey Sharp that Harry Black had been arrested by the police. Mikey swore vociferously, wondering what the lad had been doing, his mind racing as he tried to decide which, if any, of his deals might be at risk. Later still, he was able to heave a sigh of relief when another of his sources told him that Harry had been arrested as an enemy alien. His arrest had nothing to do with Mikey or any of his various businesses and Harry Black was erased from his mind. He’d ceased to exist.

*

Naomi had been plucking up courage to speak to Dan about herself and the baby. The Luftwaffe had put in an appearance every night since that first fateful Saturday. Dan was out on the streets until the small hours, while still trying to make a living from his taxi. As a volunteer he was not obliged to turn out every time the sirens went off, he was not a paid fireman or auxiliary, he went because he felt he must, but as the raids continued he became more and more worried about Naomi left at home in the cellar. She now had Shirley for company, but even so, he knew only too well if the house received a direct hit as the Langs’ had, she could be killed outright, or buried alive in the cellar. Each of them hovered round the subject they both had been considering, neither wanting to broach it.

‘I’ll speak to him this evening before he goes out,’ Naomi had promised Shirley.

‘Well, you’d better,’ said Shirley firmly. ‘Cos if you don’t soon I’ll be going without you. There’s nothing here for me now and I ain’t staying for Hitler’s pleasure. I’m off! I’ll keep out the way while you tell him, but you got to tell him tonight, or I’ll be gone.’

So, when Dan came in from his day at the wheel, he found Naomi on her own in the kitchen.

‘We got to talk,’ she said, almost as soon as he was through the door. She was dreading the conversation and knew if she didn’t launch into it straight away she’d put it off again.

‘So we have, girlie,’ he agreed. ‘But a cuppa first, eh?’

Naomi poured him the tea and a cup for herself and they sat either side of the table, sipping it, each waiting for the right moment to speak.

Finally Naomi said, ‘Dan, I been thinking...’

‘Yeah? What about?’

‘About me and the baby.’

‘So’ve I,’ said Dan, and it was he who took the plunge. ‘I think you should be getting out of London and quick. This bombing ain’t going to stop and you need to be out of it, you and the baby.’

Naomi could have cried with relief. She didn’t want to go, but if they both agreed she ought to, it would be a great weight off her mind.

‘I don’t want to go,’ she said, ‘but...’

‘You’re going,’ Dan told her. ‘I been thinking about it ever since... the bombing started.’

‘But what about you?’ Naomi asked. ‘Will you come with me? The baby wants a father, too, you know.’

‘Naomi, love, you know I can’t. I have to do my bit here in London.’

‘You did “your bit”, as you call it, in the last war,’ Naomi said bitterly. ‘Ain’t that enough?’

‘No, girl, it ain’t, and you know it ain’t.’

It was as Naomi had feared. Dan wouldn’t leave London with her, but difficult as she would find it and much as she would hate it without him, she wasn’t going to change her mind.

‘I knew you’d say that really,’ she admitted, ‘so I’ve got a plan.’

Dan, who’d only considered the first hurdle, that of getting Naomi to agree to go, hadn’t thought of how it would all be achieved, but Naomi was more than a step ahead.

‘Shirley’s got a cousin, Maud. She lives up in Suffolk in a little village. Shirley’s going to stay with her and she says I can go too. There’s room for both of us.’

Dan stared at her. ‘I see you got it all sorted,’ he grunted.

‘No,’ Naomi snapped, ‘I ain’t said I’m going yet, but Shirley can’t wait to go. Her house here has gone, she’s nothing to keep her and her cousin has offered her a home.’

‘And you?’

‘Shirley told her cousin that we’d given her a place to stay when she had nowhere else, and she wants to do the same for me and the baby.’

‘It’s all very quick,’ Dan said a little sulkily.

‘It might be the difference between being the quick or the dead!’ retorted Naomi, suddenly cross. She had plucked up the courage to broach the subject and though Dan had got in first, and agreed, he didn’t seem keen on the plans she had made. Having decided to go, she wanted to leave quickly, before the Luftwaffe intervened and made it too late.

‘Of course,’ Dan said sheepishly, ‘you’re right. I’m just being stupid. It’s just, well... I’m being stupid.’

Naomi went over to him and enveloped him in a hug. ‘No, darling Dan, you could never be that. I don’t want to leave you, you know that, but my first thought has to be for the baby. If something happens to me it won’t ever be born. I can feel it moving inside now and I know he, or she, is a real person. I have to protect them.’

‘It’s not just the baby,’ Dan reminded her as he returned her hug. ‘I want you to be safe, too. When will you go?’

‘Shirley’s going tomorrow,’ Naomi said.

Dan felt as if something had hit him in the chest. Tomorrow! So soon! But he forced a smile to his lips and said, ‘Then I think you should go with her. I could come and see you in a week or so, just to see you settled in.’

It was decided. They both hated the idea, but they agreed it was the right thing to do. Shirley came back in and as they ate their tea together, Dan asked where her cousin Maud lived.

‘Just over the Suffolk border,’ she replied. ‘A place called Feneton. Train direct from Liverpool Street. Don’t take long to get there.’

By the time the sirens were howling it was decided. The two women would leave for Feneton tomorrow.

‘I’ll try and ring my cousin tomorrow and tell her we’re both coming,’ Shirley said.

‘She’s on the telephone?’ Dan sounded surprised.

‘Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll give you the number and you’ll be able to talk to Naomi and hear how she’s getting on.’

Dan was on the doorstep, but there was no sign of Harry, despite his promise to come firefighting again.

‘Perhaps he’ll be there already,’ suggested Naomi as she hugged Dan tight and kissed him goodbye.

‘Doubt it,’ said Dan. ‘He’d’ve been here by now if he was coming. Bit of a fly-by-night, if you ask me.’ He turned back before he doused the hall light so he could open the front door. ‘Down to the cellar with you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

It was another broken night with two alerts. The drone of the bombers overhead forced Naomi and Shirley back down into the cellar.

‘If I hadn’t decided to come with you already,’ Naomi said, ‘I certainly would’ve after tonight.’

‘An’ I’d’ve gone without you if you hadn’t,’ Shirley replied, as she instinctively ducked at the crump of a distant bomb. ‘I’ve had enough of this!’

‘All I want is unbroken sleep,’ cried Naomi. ‘I’m so tired!’

Once she’d made her decision to go earlier that day, she’d been to the factory and seen the boss.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she told him. ‘I’m being evacuated.’

He’d looked her up and down as if assessing the truth of the statement, but the sight of her expanded waistline convinced him and all he said was, ‘Oh well, we need more babies now, I suppose.’

When she got home again she went into Lisa’s bedroom and closed the door. It was cold and miserable. Suddenly she pulled Lisa’s case out from under her bed and opening the drawers packed everything into it. The last thing she put in was the letter. This time she realised that the photo of Lisa’s family wasn’t there. She must have had it with her when she died, thought Naomi. So in a funny way they were all together at the end. She closed the case and carried it down to the cellar.

Shirley saw her coming down the stairs and said, ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s Lisa’s things,’ replied Naomi. ‘I’m going to put them in the cellar. They’ll be safer there if... they’ll be safer there.’

‘What you keeping them for?’ Shirley asked.

‘This war has to end some day and when it does, who knows, Lisa’s family might come looking for her.’

‘I thought you said they was dead.’

‘We don’t know where they are, but I know there’s a cousin in Switzerland and if they don’t come to find her, well, I’ll send it all back to him.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Shirley said, her tone making it clear that she thought it all a waste of time. ‘I’d have thought some kiddie round here could have made use of them clothes.’

Naomi didn’t answer. She knew Shirley was probably right, but even so she went down the steps and put Lisa’s case at the far end of the cellar, against the outside wall. She stood for a moment looking at it and then abruptly turned on her heel and went back up to the kitchen.

When Dan got home, once again in the early hours, he found Naomi sitting up in bed waiting for him. Though he was dog-tired, they didn’t sleep, but lay in each other’s arms savouring every moment together, each realising that they didn’t know when they’d be together like this again.

‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ Naomi begged him. ‘I know you think you have to go out every night, that London needs you and perhaps it does, but you won’t forget that I need you too, will you, Danny?’

Dan drew her even closer, burying his face in her hair. ‘You’re everything to me, girl,’ he murmured. ‘It’s only because I love you so much that I can bear to let you go.’

The morning dawned, dull and grey. A cold wind had sprung up, driving away the lingering smoke of night-time fires. Naomi put the last of her things in a suitcase, together with the few tiny baby clothes she’d managed to buy in the market, all carefully folded. Dan went and fetched the taxi and the two women climbed into the back of it.

‘Have you really got enough petrol to spare?’ worried Naomi.

‘Enough to take my wife and her friend to Liverpool Street station,’ Dan replied. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘I can probably pick up a fare from there.’ He had been thinking of the last time they had been to Liverpool Street to collect Lisa and was determined that Naomi wasn’t going to face that recollection alone.

As they drove through the streets Naomi was horrified at the devastation. She knew, of course, who didn’t, that the Blitz had been battering London relentlessly for weeks, but she hadn’t ventured out of her own area and the reality and extent of the destruction was brought home to her for the first time. Buildings blown apart, their contents still clinging to sloping floors, craters in the road causing traffic to divert round them, one street closed where an unexploded bomb lay, threatening, lethal; another where a fire, reignited by the freshening wind, swept through the ruins of somebody’s home.

‘How will we ever survive all this?’ she cried out in dismay. ‘How can we bear it?’

‘We can, because we must,’ Dan answered firmly. ‘Just keep on saying “We ain’t going to let the buggers win!”’

They reached the station and Naomi and Shirley clambered out of the cab. Dan put their luggage on the pavement. Shirley had little more than a capacious handbag in which she had stowed the few clothes she had managed to buy since the fire. Almost everything else she’d owned had gone up in flames with her house. She and Dan had crept into the burned-out shell of her home and she had managed to retrieve a few precious items the fire had not consumed, but as she left for Feneton her world was packed into a bag she could carry over her shoulder.

Dan walked with them, carrying Naomi’s case as they went to the ticket office and then to the platform. There wasn’t a train for Feneton for another half-hour. Naomi turned to him and said, ‘Go now, Dan. I ain’t any good at goodbyes.’

He put down her case and gathered her into his arms. ‘Look after yourself, girlie,’ he said gruffly. ‘Look after yourself and the little ’un.’

‘I will,’ promised Naomi, her voice breaking on a sob. ‘And you, Danny. We need you safe.’ And for a long moment they clung together.

‘Don’t you worry about me,’ Dan said as he let her go. ‘I’ll be up to see you, soon as I can.’ He laid a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. ‘Thanks for taking her with you,’ he said. ‘Good luck!’ and then without a backward glance he strode away.

The two women sat down on a bench and waited for their train. Naomi dashed away her tears, determined to be brave. All around her the world was falling apart, people were being killed, losing their loved ones, losing their homes. Why should she be any different? She was travelling to a place of safety, she was carrying a much-wanted baby within her, she was luckier than many who had lost everything.