then the buyers took charge, shepherding customers towards the stairs, prising people who were insistent on completing their purchases away from counters, making sure they had their own belongings and, crucially, their gas masks, with them. Lily looked round, not sure what to do, but Gladys was at her side.
‘Wait till Miss Frobisher tells us we can go. Or gives us a customer to take down.’
‘A customer?’ Lily looked horrified.
‘Don’t worry, it’s never happened yet,’ Gladys assured her.
Luckily, because of the disruption of the move, there weren’t many customers on the first floor and within seconds Miss Frobisher beckoned them over and told them to take the back stairs as quickly as they could. Lily had hoped to get away from the ear-splitting bell but another was clanging on the stairs, which with the ringing of feet on stone and the carrying of voices up and down the stairwell – some anxious, some bored, some annoyed – was even worse. And then, worse still, there was Beryl.
‘All we need!’ she cried. ‘Me and Les are going to the pictures tonight! Well, supposed to be!’
She glared at Lily.
‘I hope you’re not going to be bad luck!’
Lily’s first impression of the shelter was its size. It seemed to stretch for miles – well, it must do, if it connected in a sort of dog-leg with Burrell’s basement way down the street. She’d seen newsreels at the pictures, of course, of big air-raid shelters in London and people sleeping in the Underground’s own tunnels. She’d watched grimly as they tucked small children up with their teddy bears, tried to read in the gloom, or knit, or play cards to pass the time, and not to flinch too much in front of the camera when the air juddered with explosions on the streets above. The sirens went often enough in Hinton, because of planes flying over and back to other, bigger towns, but Lily had never had to spend a raid in a public shelter. She didn’t count the one at school, because you knew everyone; you were among friends, and the teachers were in charge, and however frightened you might have been you had to put on a brave face for the younger kids and try and keep them amused – or at least not let them get upset. And if the warning went when she was at home, their next-door neighbours had an Anderson shelter in the back garden, and she and her mum had always taken refuge there.
It had been a right performance getting it installed, Lily remembered. Their neighbours’ backyard had been concreted over, so Sid and Reg, before Reg had joined up, had helped break up the concrete with pickaxes and dig the deep hole to fit the shelter in. Lily had helped pile all the soil from the hole back on top of the shelter, and the biggest slabs of concrete and some fresh cement had been put back to make a sloping roof. Lily had wondered why – was it to make it look nicer? But Mr Crosbie, their neighbour, had laughed in a scornful way and Reg had quietly explained that no one cared about the look of the thing. It was so that any incendiaries would slide off and not burn through.
Lily had hated every moment she’d spent in there. Obviously, there was the being scared, and not just from the moment you heard the whine of the siren. Sometimes, often, she was scared even before. She couldn’t say exactly why, but it was as if since the start of the war – from the time she’d realised what it actually meant – she’d been living with her head constantly on one side, her heart beating that little bit faster, her mouth dry yet needing to swallow, her stomach turning over, the blood in her ears constantly pulsing, alert to anything that could be the sound of a plane. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the damp earthy smell of the shelter, the raw slats of wood to sit on, the battery-powered lamp which would often give out, the stink of the paraffin heater and worst of all, the bucket in the corner, which they’d all had the embarrassment of having to use. Fear played its part there as well.
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
