Joanna Toye - A Store at War

Mr Crosbie was a warden at the public shelter two streets away, so if there was a raid he wasn’t usually there, just twittery Mrs Crosbie and their son Trevor, who was eight, and had adenoids and sniffed a lot. Lily sometimes wondered, when the war was over and she thought about it all, what she’d remember most. She hoped it wouldn’t be smells: the smell of stale breath, and the bucket, and the graveyard smell of the shelter making her feel she was dead already, when being walled up in this tomb was the very thing that was supposed to be keeping her alive.

‘Oy! Dopey!’ Beryl waved her over. ‘There’s a space here.’

Somehow, in the crush, Lily had lost sight of Gladys, though she could see her now, lucky thing, sitting with Miss Thomas on one of the benches along the walls. Lily squeezed in beside Beryl who, relieved from her duties on the shop floor, seemed to have decided to use the hours that lay ahead to interrogate Lily. Not about her family, or where she lived, or what she was like as a person, but if she had a boyfriend, what film stars she fancied, and whether she owned a pair of stockings. Needless to say, Lily did not, but Beryl did, of course, and soon, unsatisfied with Lily’s disappointing answers, was happy to hold forth about her own likes, dislikes, and achievements. Rather too happy for Lily, especially in a public place, as Beryl divulged details of some of her past boyfriends and advised Lily on suspenders. Though she did learn one useful piece of information: in the fullness of time, and still using precious coupons of course – there was no getting round that – she’d be able to put her name down at the hosiery counter at Marlow’s for stockings to wear to work.

‘Not the best, of course, not fully fashioned,’ explained Beryl. Lily wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she wasn’t going to admit it and open herself up to more teasing. Doubtless Sid could fill her in: he’d probably had to buy them for girlfriends. ‘But at least then you can stop wearing those stupid ankle socks!’

Having to wear socks to work had been another thing that had depressed Lily about her appearance, but she’d noticed all the other juniors wearing them, Gladys included. Let’s face it, grown women were having to wear ankle socks these days, at least for everyday.

Not Beryl, who extended a stockinged leg.

‘These are only rayon, I’m working up to nylons,’ Beryl went on. ‘If I play my cards right with Les … who knows …?’

She gave Lily a sidelong, smirking look, including her in the conspiracy. Lily felt instantly sorry for Les, poor mug. He must be the one forking out for stockings already. Lily wondered how he could afford it.

So the time passed, awkwardly for Lily. Beryl prattled on, reading out snippets from the Reveille and Picture Post magazines that were being passed around. The hands on the clock passed five o’clock, then six … The ladies from the canteen came round with meat-paste sandwiches, and you could get a drink of water from a big urn if you wanted. Lily had one, but only took sips – she was sure there’d be a better arrangement than a bucket in the corner, but she was embarrassed to ask, and didn’t want to find out. But she had to admit, spending time in the shelter at Marlow’s, even with Beryl as company, was preferable to hours with Mrs Crosbie and Trevor. Though she couldn’t help thinking about her mum. She hoped she was safe in the Anderson shelter. Dora didn’t know yet about the safety precautions Marlow’s had taken, though surely she’d assume that a place with its sort of reputation wouldn’t take any risks with its staff, let alone customers. Lily had no way, anyhow, of letting her know she was all right – in fact that she felt safer here than she’d felt in any raid so far. At least she could breathe. At least she could stand upright if she wanted to. And at least there was light.

Finally, finally, Beryl turned away to torment her other neighbour, Mr Bunting, her boss. Lily saw him reluctantly put down his Just William book (‘Research!’ he’d claimed with a twinkle) to listen to Beryl’s chatter. He really was a softie, bless him.

At last Lily was free to look around. Though there was no aircraft noise that sounded close by, still less any bombs, Gladys was sitting stock-still and staring straight ahead of her. However bad the raids might be for Lily, she reflected, how much worse for Gladys, every one a reminder of what her parents had gone through. Miss Thomas was chatting to Miss Frobisher, she saw, Miss Frobisher as immaculate as ever, her skirt and jacket still looking crisp, her stockinged legs crossed, though in a concession to the situation, she’d kicked off her shoes. The other Childrenswear saleslady, Miss Temple (Lily couldn’t imagine ever feeling familiar enough with them to think of them as ‘girls’), was sitting not far away. She must have come down with a couple of customers. They had their coats with them, and handbags; the older woman had a couple of parcels. They looked like a mother and daughter, the girl not much older than Lily. They were holding hands, and tightly, Lily noticed.

She was just thinking about her own mum again, and that at least she had Sid with her, who’d be some comfort, and would talk sense about Lily being bound to be safe, when it happened. It came out of nowhere. One minute there was a hum of chatter from the hundred and fifty-odd people in the room, the next there was the sound of a plane and a terrific tearing, screaming sound, followed by a massive chest-constricting thump. Somehow, deep down as they were, however many floors of concrete and steel of Marlow’s were above them, it rocked people back in their seats and almost winded them. The lights suspended from the ceiling shook, flickered and went out, before coming back on again in time for Lily to see the girl opposite – the one who’d been holding her mother’s hand – jump up and start screaming.

‘Violet!’ Her mother tried to pull her down again. ‘Violet, it’s all right. We’re all right! Stop that!’

But Violet couldn’t. She stood there, shaking and screaming, screaming and shaking, all eyes on her, her mother trying hopelessly to calm her. Miss Frobisher wriggled her feet back into her shoes and got up to try to help, Miss Thomas following behind. A couple of other salesladies crowded round, offering a handkerchief dipped in water and smelling salts. Soon the girl was surrounded by well-meaning do-gooders, who were doing no good at all. Lily couldn’t bear it. Jumping up, she crossed the floor, found a way through the crowd, grabbed the girl’s shoulders, and shook her, hard. Violet stopped screaming momentarily, then started again. Without hesitation, Lily raised her hand and slapped her. Violet took a step back, opened her mouth to scream, then raised a hand to her face and sank down into her seat. Her mother put her arms round her and leant her head against hers as the girl started to cry. Then, apart from Violet’s sobs, there was a deathly silence broken only by the far-away clanging of fire engines as they rushed to the scene of the blast. Lily slowly raised her head and met Miss Frobisher’s eyes. Miss Frobisher shook her head. Lily put her own hands to her face, both of them. What had she done?

‘You’re all right! Oh, Lily! Thank God!’

Lily’s face was pressed to her mother’s shoulder, against the old plaid dressing gown with its frayed yellow piping. It smelt of her mum, of lily of the valley talc, of camphor, of home.

It was nearly midnight. The raid, or the danger to Hinton at any rate, had been over by ten, but it had taken Lily over an hour to get home in the blackout, trying and often failing to pick out the now patchy luminous paint on the kerbs. She stumbled a few times, often finding her way more by the glow of lit cigarettes than anything else. There weren’t many of those – though enough for her not to feel scared – but at least there were some people about, trapped in town, perhaps, like she had been, by the raid. She was more shaken by what she overheard. The bomb had dropped near Tatchell’s, the only decent-sized factory in Hinton, that had made carburettors and speedometers for cars before the war and was now making aircraft parts. But if it had been aimed at Tatchell’s, people were wondering, why not a bigger payload? Why only one bomb? Everyone had an opinion or had heard something different. The plane had been winged by an ack-ack gun … no, it had been hit in the fuselage and been leaking fuel … no, it was the pilot; he’d been wounded, so had hit the button to offload the last of his ordnance and headed for home … No one knew for sure and they probably never would, unless the plane had come down somewhere this side of the Channel, so what was the point of guessing, thought Lily. It was a sign of how tired she was that she didn’t care. She was usually the first to want to know; to try to make some sense of the nonsense of it all, death dropping from a summer sky on to a blameless row of houses and a pub, apparently … a few more lives and families destroyed. Again, rumour had anything between two and twenty dead, plus, people speculated, those dying, injured, trapped, survived …