and had not taken sides in the war, unlike the British Dominions, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, who were all offering ‘the mother country’ support in their fight against Hitler.
‘Yes,’ Tilly confirmed as she went to give her mother a hug.
Olive put down the knife with which she’d been about to resume scraping the thinnest possible covering of butter onto some slices of bread.
‘I thought I’d make up some sandwiches to take down to the Anderson with us later, unless Hitler gives us a night off.’
‘Huh, fat chance of that,’ Tilly responded. ‘We’ve had three air-raid warnings already this afternoon, but at least we’ve got the hospital basement to go to. We’re ever so busy, Mum,’ she added, ‘and if you could see some of the poor souls we’ve had come up to our office, looking for family they’ve lost . . .’
Tilly’s voice broke, and Olive hugged her tightly, smoothing Tilly’s curls with a loving hand.
‘I know, Tilly. Our WVS group went over to the East End today. Everyone’s doing their best, but no one expected that there’d be so many made homeless so quickly. All the rest centres that haven’t been bombed have been overwhelmed. They’re trying to get more opened as quickly as they can, but the conditions in some of the shelters people are using are so squalid and unhealthy . . .’ Olive released her daughter to look at her. ‘I should have sent you away out of London, Tilly. It would have been much safer for you.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ Tilly told her determinedly, adding when she saw her mother’s expression, ‘I’m not a child any more, Mum. I want to be here, doing my bit. It wouldn’t feel right, running away and leaving it to others. Only this morning Miss Moss, the office manager, said how hard we were working and how proud she was of us. And, anyway, where would I go? We haven’t got any family I could go to. Besides, I want to be here with you, and I know that you wouldn’t leave.’
It was true, Olive was forced to admit. She would never leave London whilst her house was still standing. Olive was very proud of her home and of living on the Row, in the small area that took such a pride in its respectability and its standards. People who lived on the Row felt they had made something of themselves and their lives, and those were things that no one gave up lightly. But much as she loved her home, Olive loved her daughter more, and she knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep Tilly safe.
‘Where are Agnes and Dulcie?’ Tilly asked, wanting to divert her mother’s anxious thoughts.
Of the three lodgers, Agnes was the closest in age to Tilly, though her start in life had been very different. Abandoned on the doorstep of the small orphanage close to the church, Agnes had no mother that the authorities had ever been able to trace, nor any other family. Because of that, and because of Agnes’s timid nature, the kindly matron of the orphanage had allowed Agnes to stay on well beyond the age of fourteen when most of the orphans were considered old enough to go out into the world, employing her to help out with the younger children in order to ‘earn her keep’. When it had become obvious that the country could be going to be at war and the orphanage had had to evacuate to the country, Matron had managed to get Agnes a job with the Underground, and Olive had been asked to take Agnes in as one of her lodgers. By the time Agnes had plucked up the courage to come to see Olive, because of a mix-up Olive had already let the room to Dulcie. Olive had felt terrible when she had realised how vulnerable and alone Agnes was, and very proud of Tilly when she had insisted on sharing her room with the girl.
When Agnes had been taken under the wing of a young underground train driver, both she, and then romance, had bloomed, and the young couple were now going steady.
Olive smiled as she reflected on Agnes’s quiet happiness now, compared with her despair the first time she had seen her.
‘Agnes said this morning that she had volunteered to stay on at work this evening now that London Transport has agreed to open Charing Cross underground station as a shelter if there’s an air raid.’
Tilly nodded. There had been a good deal of pressure from people, especially those who were suffering heavy bombing raids, to be allowed to take shelter in the underground where they felt they would be safer than in some of the other shelters. After initially refusing, the authorities had changed their mind when Winston Churchill had agreed with the public, and certain stations were to be opened for that purpose.
‘What about Dulcie?’ Tilly asked.
‘She’s been dreadfully worried about her family, especially with her sister being missing, and them living in Stepney, although she’s pretended that she isn’t. She went over to the East End this afternoon.’
‘With that ankle of hers in plaster, and her on crutches?’ Tilly protested, horrified. ‘Especially now that she’s been told she’s got to keep the plaster on for an extra two weeks.’
Dulcie hadn’t liked that at all, Olive acknowledged ruefully, although when the hospital doctor she had seen before she had been discharged into Olive’s care had told them both that it was because Dulcie’s ankles were so slender and fine-boned that they wanted to take extra care, Dulcie, being Dulcie and so inclined to vanity, had preened herself a little.
‘It’s all right,’ Olive assured her daughter. ‘She hasn’t gone on her own. Sergeant Dawson has gone with her. He’s got a friend who’s a policeman over there who he wanted to look up, so he said that he’d go with Dulcie and make sure that she can manage. She should be back soon, but you and I might as well go ahead and have our tea.’
As she spoke Olive glanced towards the clock, betraying to Tilly her concern for the lodger whom initially Olive had not been keen on at all.
‘She’ll be all right,’ Tilly comforted her mother. Olive smiled and nodded in agreement.
What Tilly didn’t know was that Olive’s concern for Dulcie wasn’t just because of the threat of the Luftwaffe’s bombs, and her broken ankle. It had shocked and disconcerted Olive when she had visited the small untidy house in Stepney to tell Dulcie’s mother that Dulcie had broke her ankle after being caught in a bomb blast, to recognise that Dulcie was not being sharp or mean when she had said that her mother preferred her younger sister, but that that was the truth. Olive knew that, as the mother of an only and beloved child, she wasn’t in a position to sit in judgement on a mother of three, but she had understood in an instant, listening to Dulcie’s mother, that the deep-rooted cause of Dulcie’s chippiness and sometimes downright meanness to others was because she had grown up feeling unloved by her mother.
And yet despite that, since the bombing had started and in spite of Dulcie’s attempts to conceal it, Olive had seen how anxious the girl secretly was about her family, living as they did near the docks, which were the target of Hitler’s bombing campaign.
Being the loving, kind-hearted person she was, Olive was now concerned that Dulcie might be hurt by her visit to her old home. Olive had seen for herself when she had gone there on Sunday that Dulcie’s mother was beside herself with anxiety for her younger daughter, whilst in contrast she had hardly shown any concern at all for Dulcie.
Not that Olive would discuss any of this with Tilly. Dulcie’s home situation was her private business until such time as she chose to air it with the other girls in the house. She hadn’t said anything about her concern for Dulcie to Sergeant Dawson either, their neighbour at number 1 Article Row, though he would have understood that concern, Olive knew. He and his wife had, after all, had more than their fair share of personal unhappiness through the loss of the son who had died as a child. Mrs Dawson had never really recovered
