word. I’ll get work and you and Em will come over.’ He smiled and she knew he was picturing it, right now, in his head.
But it was no good.
‘Joe, we live here . This is our home. What we gonna do in Ireland?’ She hated that she had said it out loud when she had wanted so much to keep the thought to herself, and she saw the determination slip for a moment from his face. He squeezed her hand though he made no attempt to answer her question.
But what would they do in Ireland? This was her home and it made no difference that her mother was from a Northumberland coalmining town that Nancy had never set foot in, that her father had deserted her before her birth. What mattered was that she had been born in the upstairs room of a boarding house in Shoreditch and London was in her blood: Stepneyand Shoreditch, Mile End and Poplar, Spitalfields, Aldgate and Bethnal Green, Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road and Brick Lane and Cable Street and Vallance Road, Victoria Park in the east and Bishopsgate in the west—these places were the perimeter of her world.
‘Once we’re there, we can go anywhere,’ Joe said, turning to her, looking into her eyes, pleading with her to see what he saw, for he had seen the world from the deck of a ship and it held no fears for him. ‘We could go to America.’
And it was a measure of the love she felt for him at this moment that she returned his look and said, ‘Alright.’
So that was it: they would go to America.
After that they spoke no more. The bombing did not let up and it was like the early days of the Blitz, back in ’40 and ’41, but Nancy found it no longer mattered what happened to the city above for she had already left it.
‘It’s time,’ Joe said.
Nancy watched in a sort of fog as Joe scanned the sea of bodies, scanned the entrance to the platform, scanned every face. Then he turned back to her and held her tightly for a minute, he touched his hand to Emily’s cheek, and he was gone. She did not watch him go, she would not look. It was worse than seeing him go off to the war, worse than seeing him return to his ship, worse than knowing he might end up dead at the bottom of the sea, blown up, captured, drowned; it was worse than all this.
I cannot bear it, she thought, but I will bear it and Joe will send for us and we will go to America.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’d almost given you up,’ Lance said, ushering Diana inside.
‘I know. There was a bomb on the line at Neasden.’
‘Oh, bad luck,’ he said, as though she had lost a button from her coat or left her umbrella on the train. ‘Well, you’re here now. I was just about to go out, actually, so you timed it well.’
Only in wartime could almost four hours late be described as timing it well.
Lance was in the same light grey, wide-lapelled suit as before, a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. But the tan had faded and there was no sign of the silk scarf. His hair, as black as before, was swept back from his face and ruffled as though he had run his fingers through it. It needed a cut, was too long, somehow, for England in the winter, though Diana had a sense he was unaware of this. The soft felt hat lay before him on the desk of the small office. For it was a small office. She had not known what to expect—his flat, perhaps, or a room in a lodging house. But this was an office-cum-storeroom with boxes of all shapes andsizes lining three of the four walls from floor to ceiling. A small gas heater and a battered filing cabinet, two folding chairs and a packet of sandwiches, half eaten, on the desk completed the picture. Lance swept the hat and the sandwiches to one side and pulled out one of the chairs for her, removing yesterday’s newspaper which lay open on it.
‘Sit, sit,’ he said, indicating she should take the seat. ‘Cuppa?’
He located a kettle and two cracked white porcelain cups minus their saucers and disappeared through a doorway at the rear of the office into a second room from where,
But it was no good.
‘Joe, we live here . This is our home. What we gonna do in Ireland?’ She hated that she had said it out loud when she had wanted so much to keep the thought to herself, and she saw the determination slip for a moment from his face. He squeezed her hand though he made no attempt to answer her question.
But what would they do in Ireland? This was her home and it made no difference that her mother was from a Northumberland coalmining town that Nancy had never set foot in, that her father had deserted her before her birth. What mattered was that she had been born in the upstairs room of a boarding house in Shoreditch and London was in her blood: Stepneyand Shoreditch, Mile End and Poplar, Spitalfields, Aldgate and Bethnal Green, Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road and Brick Lane and Cable Street and Vallance Road, Victoria Park in the east and Bishopsgate in the west—these places were the perimeter of her world.
‘Once we’re there, we can go anywhere,’ Joe said, turning to her, looking into her eyes, pleading with her to see what he saw, for he had seen the world from the deck of a ship and it held no fears for him. ‘We could go to America.’
And it was a measure of the love she felt for him at this moment that she returned his look and said, ‘Alright.’
So that was it: they would go to America.
After that they spoke no more. The bombing did not let up and it was like the early days of the Blitz, back in ’40 and ’41, but Nancy found it no longer mattered what happened to the city above for she had already left it.
‘It’s time,’ Joe said.
Nancy watched in a sort of fog as Joe scanned the sea of bodies, scanned the entrance to the platform, scanned every face. Then he turned back to her and held her tightly for a minute, he touched his hand to Emily’s cheek, and he was gone. She did not watch him go, she would not look. It was worse than seeing him go off to the war, worse than seeing him return to his ship, worse than knowing he might end up dead at the bottom of the sea, blown up, captured, drowned; it was worse than all this.
I cannot bear it, she thought, but I will bear it and Joe will send for us and we will go to America.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’d almost given you up,’ Lance said, ushering Diana inside.
‘I know. There was a bomb on the line at Neasden.’
‘Oh, bad luck,’ he said, as though she had lost a button from her coat or left her umbrella on the train. ‘Well, you’re here now. I was just about to go out, actually, so you timed it well.’
Only in wartime could almost four hours late be described as timing it well.
Lance was in the same light grey, wide-lapelled suit as before, a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. But the tan had faded and there was no sign of the silk scarf. His hair, as black as before, was swept back from his face and ruffled as though he had run his fingers through it. It needed a cut, was too long, somehow, for England in the winter, though Diana had a sense he was unaware of this. The soft felt hat lay before him on the desk of the small office. For it was a small office. She had not known what to expect—his flat, perhaps, or a room in a lodging house. But this was an office-cum-storeroom with boxes of all shapes andsizes lining three of the four walls from floor to ceiling. A small gas heater and a battered filing cabinet, two folding chairs and a packet of sandwiches, half eaten, on the desk completed the picture. Lance swept the hat and the sandwiches to one side and pulled out one of the chairs for her, removing yesterday’s newspaper which lay open on it.
‘Sit, sit,’ he said, indicating she should take the seat. ‘Cuppa?’
He located a kettle and two cracked white porcelain cups minus their saucers and disappeared through a doorway at the rear of the office into a second room from where,
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