The Londoners (23 page)

‘Risking his life selflessly in order that others might live . . .’

Kate didn’t hear any more. Her legs buckled and she slid senselessly to the floor at Mr Tutley’s feet.

‘She’s going to have to have a bit more stamina than this if she’s going to survive a war,’ Kate heard Mr Tutley say dryly to someone. ‘It’s
not as if Toby Harvey was a relative of hers, or a friend.’

‘Maybe not,’ Mr Muff responded with unusual acerbity, ‘but the latest war news is enough to affect anyone’s nerves and I’d appreciate a little more sympathy on your
part, Mr Tutley. And a little help, too. If you could dismiss everyone and help me assist Miss Voigt to the sick-room . . .’

‘She’s coming round,’ Kate heard Miss Pierce say, vast relief in her voice. ‘Stand back gentlemen, please. What she needs is a little air.’

‘What she needs is a good cup of tea,’ a cleaning-lady said practically. ‘The urn’s on. How many sugars have I to put in her cup? Two or three?’

‘Three,’ Miss Pierce said decisively.

Dizzily Kate struggled to raise herself up from the floor and in doing so realized that Miss Pierce was kneeling beside her.

‘Take your time, Kate,’ her brisk, no-nonsense voice advised. ‘Lean on me and breathe deeply for a few minutes before you try to stand.’

‘As a mark of respect there will be no more work conducted on these premises until the beginning of next week!’ Mr Tutley announced to everyone from a few feet away from her.
‘When work is recommenced may I advise male members of staff that armbands will be deemed appropriate.’

In a world of nightmare Kate ignored Miss Pierce’s sensible advice and struggled to her feet. She had to get out of the canteen; out of the building.

‘I’m all right,’ she heard herself say in a voice that seemed to be coming from a million miles away. ‘I don’t need the restroom or a cup of tea.’

‘Kate, dear, I think it would be wisest if . . .’

Kate didn’t wait to hear what it was Miss Pierce thought would be wisest. Aware that she was being stared at curiously by those members of the workforce who hadn’t, as yet, acted on
Mr Tutley’s instruction and made a speedy exit from the canteen, she said in clipped, curt tones. ‘I’m all right. I need to go home.’

‘I’ll come with you . . .’

‘No.’

A spasm of incomprehension passed across Miss Pierce’s concerned face. Kate was oblivious of it. She had to have privacy. She had to be able to give vent to the cataclysmic emotions
inwardly rending her apart. Above all, she had to assimilate the reality of what had happened. Toby was dead. She was never going to see him again. It was a truth so monstrous she could barely
grasp it.

‘Do you think young Harvey will get a VC?’ a young man from Planning and Design was asking an elderly colleague interestedly. ‘Knowing his reputation he’s bound to have
died performing some kind of heroics. I thought I was lucky being deaf and exempt from active service but now I’m not too sure. It would be nice to be seen to be doing one’s bit. Do you
think the Home Guard would take me? Or the Fire Auxiliary Service?’

Somehow, someway, Kate walked out of the canteen and out of the building. Was it really only a few days since she had been safe and secure in Toby’s arms? And now he was dead. The words
battered at her ears like storm waves roaring up a beach. Toby was dead and she was alive and would have to live the rest of her life without him.

There came the sound of a small animal whimpering in pain. A woman pushing a pram turned to stare after her and Kate realized that she herself had made the sound. Tears scalded her cheeks. Where
had Mr Tutley said that Toby had died? Above the beaches of Dunkirk? Was that where his body was now? Dunkirk? And if it was, would it be buried there? Would she be unable to see him buried and bid
him a last, loving goodbye?

As she neared the Heath the June sun was hot on her shoulders and her back. Beneath the brassy blue bowl of the sky the distant spire of All Saints’ Church shimmered insubstantially. She
knew that once she was home the emptiness of the house would press in on her like a physical weight and her footsteps faltered. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted only to turn the clock
back and for everything to be as it had been before the German armies had poured into France, forcing the British Expeditionary Force to retreat to Dunkirk.

Apart from a distant figure walking a dog, the Heath was barren of people and with a choked cry she threw herself face down on the parched grass, weeping and weeping, her heart breaking.

Much later, when the sun had lost its afternoon heat and the sky was shot with the apricot light of early evening, she was still there, hugging her knees with her arms, bereft beyond all
bearing. One phase of her life, rich and rounded and full of love and laughter, was irrevocably over and no amount of fevered wishing could make it otherwise. No-one could help her to face the
lonely future. That was a task she would have to accomplish by herself. Her interlocked fingers tightened until her knuckles were white. Beyond any shadow of doubt she knew that Toby would have
expected her to face her future with courage. For a precious beat of time his presence by her side was almost palpable.

‘I love you,’ she whispered into the golden stillness. ‘I love you now and for always.’

A bee circled lazily over a clump of clover near her feet and as it did so a measure of comfort pierced her grief. They had, at the end, been truly lovers. She had memories that no-one could
ever take away from her; memories she would treasure in her heart for ever.

Dusk had begun to smoke the air and slowly she rose to her feet. It was time for her to return home; time for her to embark on the long, lonely future that lay ahead of her. With her
tear-ravaged face ivory pale, she began to walk once again in the direction of Magnolia Square.

Later that evening there was a knock on the front door and passionately hoping that her visitor was Carrie, Kate ran to the door, opening it wide.

Miss Godfrey stood on the doorstep, dressed in a brown tweed suit and sensibly laced brogues. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you like this, Katherine,’ she said awkwardly, her eyes
deeply troubled, ‘but Ellen called on me a little while ago and told me the news.’

‘Ellen?’ Kate said uncomprehendingly, ‘I’m sorry I don’t know a . . .’

‘Ellen Pierce,’ Miss Godfrey said, tucking a wayward strand of greying hair back into the neat coil in the nape of her neck. ‘She was worried about you but didn’t like to
call on you herself, uninvited. After what she told me I thought I had better do so.’ Her hazel-green eyes were full of compassion. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. So very, very
sorry.’

Clumsily Kate gestured her inside. Though Miss Godfrey and Miss Pierce had been friends for a long time now, Kate knew that Miss Godfrey had never allowed Toby’s name to pass her lips and
that Miss Pierce was completely ignorant of his many visits to Magnolia Square.

Now Miss Godfrey said, deeply distressed, ‘I’m afraid I was so shocked when she told me the news, and of the dreadful way in which you heard it, that I quite forgot to be discreet.
Ellen will, of course, say nothing to her colleagues at Harvey’s and she sends you her very deepest sympathy . . .’ She broke off, her voice perilously unsteady.

Kate was having so much difficulty keeping her own emotions under control that she was unable to make a response and seeing her difficulty Miss Godfrey said thickly, ‘If there’s
anything either I or Ellen can possibly do . . .’

Kate shook her head. ‘No. There’s nothing. I just need to be on my own for a little while.’

Miss Godfrey regarded her steadily and then, realizing that she was speaking the truth, said gently, ‘Then I will leave you in privacy Katherine, but only on the understanding that the
minute you feel any differently, the minute you need someone to talk to, you will knock for me.’

‘I will, I promise,’ Kate said, grateful both for Miss Godfrey’s kindness and for the fact that she was about to take her leave.

She opened the door for Miss Godfrey and as she did so Miss Godfrey said, ‘Don’t take time into consideration, Katherine. I don’t mind what time of day or night you
knock.’

Unexpectedly, and quite unprecedentedly, she gave Kate a quick, compassionate hug. ‘Take care,’ she said, her voice unsteady again, ‘God Bless.’

For a few seconds after she had finally closed the door Kate wondered if she had made an error of judgement. Perhaps it would have been wisest to have asked Miss Godfrey to stay for a while. She
stood in the long, narrow hallway, the emptiness of the large house echoing around her like a tomb.

And if Miss Godfrey had stayed? Kate knew very well what would have happened. The older woman’s sympathy would have been more than she could have borne and the battle she was fighting
against complete emotional disintegration would have been lost.

Despite the stultifying heat of the late evening she hugged her arms around herself as if mortally cold. She still hadn’t written to her father. The very thought of having to set the fact
of Toby’s death down on paper filled her with bubbling panic. Her father would be devastated. He would worry about her being alone in the house more than ever.

She was just about to force herself to walk into the sitting-room and to sit at her father’s desk when there came another tap on the door behind her. This time she knew beyond doubt that
it was Carrie.

Spinning round on her heels she flung the door wide, all her hard-won self-control deserting her.

‘Toby’s dead!’
she sobbed, throwing herself into Carrie’s arms.
‘Toby’s dead and I don’t know how I can live without him!’

For the next few days, bringing Rose with her, Carrie virtually moved into the Voigt home. Desperate bouts of weeping by Kate were interspersed with long chats of
near-normality as Carrie recounted the day-to-day goings-on in the Square. There were times, much to Kate’s incredulity, when she even found herself smiling, as when Carrie described the air
raid shelter her father had dug into the back-garden.

‘Honestly, you should see the state of it. It wouldn’t keep out leaflets let alone old Hitler’s bombs. Mum said if that was the best he could do she was going to move in with
Miss Helliwell. Her shelter was dug in for her by Jack Robson and Mavis says he’s dug it so deep it will survive Armageddon.’

They were sitting in Kate’s bedroom in their dressing gowns, their hands around mugs of milky cocoa.

‘Has anyone heard news of Jack lately?’ Kate asked curiously.

Carrie’s well-defined dark eyebrows rose high. ‘Didn’t you know he’d been home on leave? Talk about swagger. He looked as if he’d be able to take on Hitler and his
armies single-handed. As soon as word spread he was back there were so many girls hanging around the Robson’s gate that Charlie swore he’d set Queenie on them if they didn’t take
themselves elsewhere.’

Kate tilted her head to one side slightly. ‘And Mavis? Is she still impressed by Jack’s Commando bravura?’

‘She’s impressed by something, but whether it’s bravura or not I wouldn’t be knowing,’ Carrie said darkly. ‘She’s even been taking advantage of Ted
being away in the forces to go dancing with him. I told her word would get back to Ted but she said Ted had more sense than to get upset about her protecting a friend and neighbour from the
rapacious young women of Lewisham and Greenwich.’

‘Rapacious?’ Kate said, vastly amused. ‘Was that actually the word Mavis used?’

Carrie giggled. ‘No. The word she used was a bit more down-to-earth but rapacious sums it up more than adequately. Have you seen Miss Godfrey in her ambulance-driving togs yet? It’s
a treat for sore eyes. Tin hat, tweed suit and pearls.’

At work the following week Miss Pierce squeezed her hand tightly, the compassion in her eyes conveying far more than her awkwardly stilted words of condolence. ‘I know
you won’t want to speak of it here,’ she had said as Mr Tutley, still sporting his black armband, passed close by them in the canteen with a cup of tea, ‘but you have my very
deepest sympathy, Kate.’

The war news grew even grimmer. Within two weeks of the evacuation of troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, German troops marched into Paris. A week later the French officially
surrendered.

‘And so Britain now stands alone,’ Mr Muff said to her sombrely. ‘Have you read Mr Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons? He said that we must
brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth lasts a thousand years men will still say “This was their finest hour”.’

By the beginning of July, when news came that the Germans had landed forces on the Channel Islands, Kate was in the grip of such fevered hope that all Mr Muff’s stirring
comments were lost on her. Her menstrual period was most definitely late, and under normal circumstance it was never late.

‘Please God let me be pregnant,’ she whispered to herself every night before going to bed. ‘Please don’t let me start my period! Please let me be having Toby’s
baby!’

As she lay awake in the darkness she tried not to think of the horrendous problems that would follow if her fierce desire was granted. She would have to break the news to her father. She would
have to endure endless gossip and speculation about the paternity of her baby. She would have to give up work and would then have no income. And she would have to face the problem of whether or not
to inform Toby’s grandfather of her condition.