The Last Lifeboat, page 10
She took a deep breath. ‘My husband died. Earlier this year.’
For once, Elsie was speechless. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. What a nonsense I am, going on and on.’
‘You weren’t to know. People assume he’s away fighting. It’s easier not to correct them.’
‘I hope he didn’t suffer. You hear such awful things, don’t you? You poor dear. And with two young children.’ Elsie shook her head and reached for Lily’s hand as the rising wail of the air-raid siren cut through the silence.
The two women looked at each other.
‘Best get our things,’ Elsie said.
Lily nodded. ‘Best get our things.’
1 February 1940
The dreaded papers arrived. Can’t stop looking at them, can’t actually believe this is happening. The cold weather and short days don’t help. Might as well be in blackout the whole day. Even the snowdrops were late this year. Find myself wondering if I’ll see them come up next year – and other murky thoughts. Picked a few to put on the spot where the dog was buried, and had a good cry. We’ve agreed not to cry in front of the children. I spend a lot of time outside.
Mass-Observation, Diarist #6672
13
SS Carlisle. September 1940
Alice was surprised at how readily she accepted Howard’s invitation. It somehow felt like the most natural thing in the world to have coffee with him, as did their agreement to meet again after lunch the next day. Being at sea lent a lighter air to conversations that might otherwise have been weighed down with expectations and awkward arrangements. The fact that they were on a ship made it almost impossible not to meet again.
Talking to Howard was easy and uncomplicated and took Alice’s mind off the magnitude of her task. He was full of amusing anecdotes and interesting facts. The children were especially charmed by his seemingly endless repertoire of games and magic tricks to cheer them up when they were glum. Everyone loved Uncle Howard. Eleanor Heath got in a flap whenever she spoke to him, and Beryl Barnes flushed scarlet if he so much as looked at her, but Alice felt strangely calm in his company, as if she’d reconnected with a long-lost friend. They discovered they had lots of things in common: both schoolteachers, both the middle child, both bookworms. She lived in Whitstable in north Kent. He lived in Whitby, North Yorkshire, ‘although originally from Portrush in Northern Ireland,’ he said. ‘But let’s not allow that to spoil the symmetry!’ They found the coincidences amusing. Alice found the easy connection between them increasingly hard to ignore, although when Beryl remarked on it she scoffed, insisting they were just enjoying each other’s company.
‘He’s very charming, but I’m too busy with the children for “romantic inclinations”, as you put it.’
Beryl didn’t believe her. Alice wasn’t entirely sure she believed herself.
As the wind strengthened during the first two nights, seasickness among the evacuees kept all the CORB escorts busy. For most of the children, it was their first time at sea, and the rolling motion of the ship saw them laid up in their cabins, a bucket within reach. Barley water was dispensed with abandon by the escorts, even though many of them were suffering too, Alice especially.
‘The up and down isn’t so bad,’ Alice said as she offered Howard the ginger biscuit that had been served with her coffee. She couldn’t stomach it herself. ‘It’s the side to side that gets me.’
‘It’s the swell,’ he explained. ‘The continuing motion of waves, like the ripples you see when you drop a stone into water.’ He moved his hands in exaggerated dips and curves to emphasize his point.
Alice’s stomach turned somersaults. ‘Would you mind if we went outside?’
The bracing sea air helped a little. She stood at the railings and took deep breaths, her eyes on the horizon.
Howard stayed with her. He didn’t suffer himself and found everyone else’s seasickness mildly amusing. ‘It’s some feeling though, isn’t it? Steaming across the Atlantic. The wind in your hair. The power of the ocean all around you.’
Alice understood the sentiment, despite her nausea. The static nature of her life in Whitstable already felt so stifling in comparison. The continual sense of forward motion was invigorating, even if her stomach couldn’t keep up.
Howard rubbed his hand over the iron railings. ‘She’s a good ship, this one. A gentle old soul.’
Alice laughed at the notion of a ship having a soul. ‘You’ll be telling me it has a family next!’
‘I’m serious! And it probably does have a family – a sister ship, at least. All ships have a personality. Some are tormented. Others are like unruly children. This one feels like a kind grandparent, as if it knows it is taking children from danger to safety.’
Alice’s gaze strayed to the reassuring lights from the other vessels in their impressive convoy. ‘I hope this old soul keeps us safe.’
‘You’re not nervous, are you?’
‘A little.’
‘Don’t be.’ Howard nodded toward the large naval destroyer on their left flank. ‘We’re in very safe hands. The might of the Admiralty watching over us.’
His voice was calm, reassuring. He was right. They were very well protected.
‘Do you mind me asking why you volunteered?’ he asked. ‘I spectacularly failed my conscription medical. Seems that I have a weak heart. And flat feet, although they don’t worry about that as much as they did in the other war.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice offered. ‘About your heart. And your feet.’
It sounded so funny, they both laughed.
‘I’m not sorry. I’d rather be here than over there, although I probably shouldn’t admit that. Not quite the right thing to do, is it? Admit to being afraid of fighting.’
Alice thought about Walter and felt a sudden pang of homesickness, for him and Kitty.
‘Well?’ Howard prompted. ‘What about you? Don’t tell me you have flat feet as well!’
Alice stalled. There were so many reasons that had led her here. ‘I felt that it was something I could do, something I’d be suited to. And because …’
‘Because?’
She took a deep breath. ‘It sounds silly, but I wanted to do something different. Something unexpected. Something brave.’ She heard the echo of Kitty’s words as she looked at Howard. ‘And here I am, trying not to lose my dinner over the railings! Not so brave after all.’
Howard laughed. ‘Nonsense. You’re here, aren’t you. That makes you brave in my estimation.’
She didn’t know what to say to that.
Reluctantly, she let go of the railings. ‘We should probably get back to the flock. Pity I can’t stay out here until we get to Canada.’
‘Pity we have to turn around and sail straight back to England when we get there. I’ve always wanted to see Canada. The Rockies. Niagara Falls. In fact, maybe I will, when we’ve shipped all the evacuees across the Atlantic, after the war.’
Alice smiled to herself. Another coincidence. A painting of Niagara Falls hung in her father’s study. He’d promised he would take her there one day.
‘What will you do?’ Howard asked as they made their way back to the deck door. ‘After the war? When things get back to normal?’
Alice couldn’t think that far ahead. Her plan to apply for a teaching position at a prestigious boarding school now felt like a barely heard whisper. Her other, intensely private, ambition to own her own bookshop, now nothing but a fanciful dream. ‘I can hardly think beyond tomorrow! It’s impossible to think about life after the war when we don’t even know how long the war will last, or what the outcome will be.’
‘Ahh. A pessimist! Finally, we discover a difference. I’m entirely the opposite. War makes me impulsive. It makes me want to plan and do things I’ve always wanted to. I refuse to let it make me bitter and angry. If we do that, they’ve already won.’ He pointed towards the ocean. ‘There’s a whole remarkable world out there, Alice. Let’s make a pact.’
‘A pact?’
‘That we won’t go back to the lives we’ve left behind, that we’ll stay curious, keep moving forward. “If adventures will not befall a lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”’
Alice smiled at the quote. ‘A fan of Austen, I see.’
‘A fan of my sister. She must have read Northanger Abbey at least a dozen times!’
The look of wild enthusiasm on Howard’s face was so unexpected and exhilarating and infectious that Alice laughed, and agreed to his pact. There were so many things she couldn’t be sure of, so many questions without answers, but for once she shushed all the uncertainty and doubt and embraced the possibility of better things and happier times to come. The wind buffeted her cheeks as the Carlisle steamed ahead and, for a brief perfect moment, as she looked toward the path of moonlight on the horizon, the sounds of war were silenced and Alice’s heart thrummed to the tune of adventure and hope.
By their fifth day at sea, the majority of adults and children were finally free of the debilitating seasickness. With renewed energy, the children spent most of the day on deck, playing games of quoits and shuffleboard. Their high spirits lent a real sense of optimism to the day, and yet there was intense discussion among the adults. Overnight, their naval escort had left. Everyone had become so used to the reassuring sight of the Royal Navy destroyer and the two smaller warships flanking them as they progressed into the mid-Atlantic that their absence was quickly noted, and not without concern.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Eleanor asserted when Beryl Barnes mentioned it at the daily escort briefing. ‘Evidently, we are now beyond the point in our journey where the threat of U-boat attack was believed to be the greatest. We are, I am told, some six hundred miles from land. We are now in safer waters, beyond any recorded U-boat activity. Hence, the need for the escort is lessened.’
Beryl was satisfied with Eleanor’s explanation, but Alice wasn’t as easily reassured. She’d presumed the naval escort would see them all the way to Canada, but at least the other vessels in their convoy were still in their columns, travelling parallel to them. SS Carlisle was the lead vessel, or ‘convoy commodore’. She had to trust those in charge.
‘Given that the immediate danger has passed, we can allow the children to change into their nightclothes this evening,’ Eleanor added. ‘I expect they will be very pleased to hear it.’
Alice’s girls were delighted. They’d found it uncomfortable to sleep fully clothed as they’d been required to so far. Georgie Nicholls said she would still sleep in her overcoat because she’d promised her mother. Some of the children had new nightdresses and pyjamas and couldn’t wait to put them on.
Their enthusiasm was infectious. As the day progressed, Alice stopped worrying about the absence of the naval escort, and started to think about their arrival in Canada. There would be a lot to do to match up the children with the many host families. It would be hard to say goodbye to her young charges, but there were plenty more children in England waiting for the next sailing. According to news from home, relayed by the captain, there was no sign of any let-up in the nightly bombing raids, despite the RAFs success in suppressing the Luftwaffe’s most intense aerial attack yet, two days after they’d set sail. While a land invasion had been prevented, bombing from the air had not.
Free of her nausea, Alice finally found the appetite that had eluded her since Liverpool and rather indulged herself with food and wine at dinner that evening. Emboldened by two glasses of Burgundy, she was unusually vocal during a vibrant debate about Schrödinger’s thought experiment involving a hypothetical cat being simultaneously alive and dead in a box.
Eleanor Heath couldn’t get her head around the concept at all. ‘Of course the cat is dead if you leave it in there long enough!’
Howard found her consternation amusing. ‘But until you open the box, Eleanor, how can you be sure? Therefore, the cat is alive until such time as the box is opened and its demise has been confirmed.’
Declaring it a nonsense experiment, Eleanor moved the conversation on to the more familiar matter of disembarkation procedures once they reached Canada.
The conversation, the wine, the opulent surroundings of the dining room, and the company left Alice light-headed, happy in a way she hadn’t quite experienced before. As desserts were finished and dinner wound up, she hoped Howard might ask her to join him for a nightcap, but Eleanor had other plans.
‘It was an interesting conversation, Mr Keane. Most frustrating, but enjoyable nevertheless. Miss King, coffee and a stroll on deck?’
Alice said that would be lovely and suddenly felt very tired. Eleanor clearly hadn’t noticed (or had chosen to ignore) the friendship developing between her and Howard.
Howard politely excused himself. ‘I look forward to continuing our conversation tomorrow, ladies. I’ll wish you goodnight and leave you to enjoy your coffee while I retreat to my cabin with the delightful David Copperfield.’
‘How are you finding it?’ Alice had insisted Howard borrow the book after he’d admitted he’d never read it.
‘It’s terrific! Young David and I have just met Uriah Heep. I suspect we are in for some trouble.’
They held each other’s gaze a moment longer than was necessary.
‘Goodnight then,’ he said.
‘Goodnight,’ Alice replied.
But neither of them moved, and it was Eleanor in the end who asked Mr Keane if he was ever going to leave, at which he laughed and wished them both a goodnight again.
Alice smiled into her coffee cup.
‘I do hope you’re not becoming distracted, Miss King.’
So Eleanor had noticed. ‘Of course not.’
‘Good. Mr Keane is disarmingly pleasant, but we have an important job to do. Now, how about that stroll on deck? A blast of cold air might do you good.’
The winds had freshened again during the evening. Word was that another storm was headed their way.
14
London. September 1940
Lily yawned, rubbed a film of condensation from the window of the omnibus and stared numbly out at the bomb-damaged houses and the sandbags piled against shop fronts. She’d barely slept last night, restless in an unfamiliar bed, and then restless in the shelter. She certainly wasn’t in the mood for Isobel Carr, but it was better to keep busy and take her mind off things.
As the bus rumbled on, Lily’s gaze strayed to young women walking past, dressed in smart skirts and blouses, making their way to offices and typing pools. She imagined herself walking with them, arm in arm, laughing about something or other, successful women who’d fulfilled the potential of the promising young students they’d once been, surrounded by maths books and calculations. But like the omnibus as it picked its way around London’s bomb-damaged streets, Lily’s life had taken a different route, and while she wouldn’t change her life with Peter, Georgie and Arthur for anything, sometimes, just sometimes, she wondered what she might be doing and where the bus might be taking her if things had gone in a different direction.
She yawned again, picked up a newspaper someone had left on the seat beside her, and completed the crossword. Her mind craved the challenge, but she savoured the distraction just as much. As she worked through the cryptic clues and plucked obscure words from her vocabulary, she momentarily forgot about the children and evacuation. A welcome reprieve.
When she’d finished, she tore the page from the newspaper, folded the completed crossword and put it in her handbag for future reference. Behind her, a man cleared his throat and tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me, miss. I couldn’t help noticing how quickly you finished that crossword. Do you always complete them?’
She nodded. ‘Mostly, yes.’
He studied her a moment before pulling a business card from his jacket pocket. ‘We’re looking for the brightest minds in Britain. No obligation, but come along if you’re interested in finding out more.’
Lily looked at the card with an address in Baker Street, and laughed. ‘Thank you, but if you’re looking for the brightest minds, I’m afraid you’re looking in the wrong place!’ She passed the card back to him.
He didn’t seem surprised. ‘Of course. But if you change your mind, go to 64 Baker Street and tell them Wimborne sent you. Tell them you’re interested in the Stately ’Omes of England.’
To be polite, Lily said she would, and turned back around in her seat. She was glad to reach her stop a few minutes later.
As the omnibus pulled away, the man smiled and tipped his hat at her. Lily buttoned her coat, and thought no more about it.
From Richmond town centre, she made her way to the river, following the path toward the incline up Richmond Hill. She passed a group of women and children asleep beneath the arches of the bridge that crossed the Thames, and others, huddled like piles of washday laundry on the banks of the river, but her head was too full of other thoughts to pay much attention.
At the top of the hill, she stopped to look out over Petersham Meadows toward the city. The view she’d often admired was so different now, the amber glow from the fires in the East End rusting the sky, the barrage balloons like ink blots. As the church clock struck the hour, she pushed her hands into her coat pockets and carried on up the hill. One foot in front of the other. Sometimes, it was all she felt capable of.
Mrs Carr was waiting at the boot room door, her face pinched and anxious. ‘Thank goodness you’re here, Lilian. We’re in a bit of a predicament I’m afraid. We’ve been infiltrated.’
‘Oh dear. Rats?’ Lily took off her coat and hung it up.
