The Girl With No Name (35 page)

When at last the all-clear went the whole of London seemed to be ablaze. There was no respite for the firefighters, as they fought to save homes, wharfs, warehouses, factories and some of London’s beautiful historic buildings. Hundreds of firefighters risked their lives in their efforts to bring the inferno under control and, working with them, Dan felt exhausted beyond exhaustion. By the time John Anderson sent them home, he and Arthur were gritty-eyed, their lungs full of the smoke which still billowed across the sky, their legs hardly able to carry them.

‘Sleep,’ John ordered. ‘Come back when you’ve had some shut-eye. We’ll still be at it. We ain’t done yet; the bastards ain’t going to win.’

Dan dragged himself home. Everywhere showed the devastation of the raid. Ruined buildings, some collapsed, some standing, blackened shells, silhouetted against the burning sky, testified to its ferocity. Offices, factories, churches, homes all targeted to instil fear and misery, to destroy the morale of the Londoners who suffered the attack.

When Dan turned into Kemble Street he stopped in his tracks. The whole of one side of the street, his side of the street, had virtually been destroyed. The houses, though not flattened, had been taken by the fire. Blackened walls, jagged roof trees, the spike of a chimney breast, crumbling masonry, all that was left of the five houses in the terrace; fire had swept through them all. Few people were about; most, surely, would have spent the night in the Hope Street shelter. When they emerged they’d find their homes gone.

With leaden feet Dan walked down the road until he came to the remains of his own house. Thank God, he thought as he surveyed the blackened shell, thank God he’d refused to let Naomi come home. He stared at the remains of the house he’d been born in. The fire must have swept through it at great speed. The roof had gone, the window frames stood, empty of glass, on blackened walls. The inside was gutted and even as he watched smoke drifted up into the early-morning sky, smoke to join the smoke of the second Great Fire of London. Everything Dan owned had been in that house; he had the clothes he stood up in, the money actually in his pocket and his taxi, still garaged under the railway arches. Unless, he thought miserably, they’ve collapsed on top of it, or taken a direct hit. What’s left? Firefighters had done their job and moved on. The fire was out, but they had saved little.

Dan was so tired that he could hardly take in what he was looking at; all he could think was that Naomi and Nicholas were safe. He had no home left, but he did have a family. The thought gave him a sudden spurt of energy and he did something that he would have castigated anyone else for and broke all the rules. With a quick glance to see if anyone was looking at him, he walked up to what had, until last night, been his front door. There was no door now, just a gaping hole into the ruin of his home. Carefully he stepped across the threshold – inside, the smell was damp and acrid. He edged his way down the hall to the kitchen at the back. Wet ash covered the floor, black and clinging as his feet disturbed it. In the kitchen, now little more than a shell, were the remnants of the few pieces of furniture it had contained. In the far corner was the cellar door. It, too, was burned black, but the firemen must have got to the blaze before that, too, was consumed by the flames. Dan put his hand on the handle and pulled. The door fell towards him, knocking him sideways and clattering to the floor, exploding a cloud of ash around him. Coughing, but determined, Dan stood at the top of the cellar steps and peered down into the dark. By the little light which filtered down from the kitchen he could see that the fire hadn’t reached the shelter he’d made to protect his family. Edging down the steps, he peered into the gloom. He could just make out the mattress, still on the floor, the old armchair tucked into the corner. Dan had nowhere else to go, at least for now and so, almost dead on his feet, he went down the last few steps and lay down on the mattress. He was asleep within seconds and it was only when the sound of voices shouting in the street above woke him, that he crawled out of his subterranean lair to face the day.

He staggered out into the street to find a crowd of men working their way along the street, looking into every house and marking what had to be done.

‘Hey, mate,’ called one who had a clipboard and seemed to be in charge. ‘What the hell were you doing in there?’

‘It’s my home,’ replied Dan.

‘But what’re you doing in it now? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? For Christ’s sake it’s people like you who put people like us in danger. You go into an unsafe building and we have to crawl in and pull you out.’ He shook his head in fury. ‘Where were you last night anyways?’

‘Out fighting bloody fires,’ snapped Dan. ‘Pity some bugger didn’t put this one out!’

‘Well, you can’t stay here. Better get along to the rescue centre and see if they can find you somewhere to doss down,’ said the man. ‘Reckon they’ll be along to flatten this lot soon. Too dangerous to leave.’ Unaware of the look of horror on Dan’s face, he studied his clipboard and made a note. Looking up again he said, ‘Don’t go back inside, right? Too dangerous.’ And with this warning he and his men continued along the road. Dan watched them until they were round the corner and out of sight and then turned back into the house. Burned-out shell it might be, but it was still his home. He didn’t risk trying to get upstairs; the stairs were gone and the odd protruding struts were burned and brittle. He looked into what had been the front room. Nothing to retrieve from there, either. In the kitchen he found the savings tin that had been kept in a hollowed hidey-hole under the cooker and pulled it out. He looked inside and found a small roll of notes, carefully saved and hidden by Naomi; neither of them trusted banks. Now at least he had a little money to tide him over. He returned to the shelter of the cellar, which had escaped almost unscathed, and looked about him. He wouldn’t go to the rescue centre, not yet. There was no reason that Dan could see why he shouldn’t sleep here until he found somewhere better. There was no way of securing it, but even if someone did get in there was nothing worth stealing.

Stuffing the cash into his pocket, Dan set out to find a telephone box that worked. Much as he dreaded the call, he had to tell Naomi what had happened to their home.

When Charlotte woke up on Boxing Day her bedroom was suffused with an eerie light. Going to the window she drew back the blackout to find that it was snowing. Huge white flakes drifted down, swirling gently to lay a smooth white carpet over the fields. The hedge at the bottom of the garden was already losing its angularity, becoming just another snow-covered shape, and away in the distance the woods were no more than a heavier whiteness against the leaden sky.

Charlotte shivered and, leaving the curtains open, climbed back into bed. As she lay watching the snow falling steadily, she thought about the previous day, cut into two distinct halves: before memory returned and after. Before, she had been enjoying a happy and peaceful Christmas, with presents and church and lunch. The warmth of her welcome at the vicarage had given her a glow of pleasure. She didn’t remember any other Christmases and so this one had taken on a magic of its own. After, as the gates of her recollection opened and her memories came flooding through, the misery she felt as she remembered her family threatened to overwhelm her. However, a gradual calmness had followed as she sat by the fire with Miss Edie and began, once again, to come to terms with what had happened. She had known about her parents and Martin before she’d lost her memory, she reasoned, and must have learned then to accept the possibility of their loss, so now she should be able to do so again.

She remembered Aunt Naomi and Uncle Dan and 65 Kemble Street, a house that had given her refuge and become a home. She recalled the patience Aunt Naomi and Uncle Dan had shown as she tried to settle down in England, the affection they had given her and how, over the year, she had grown to love them in return. Where were they now? In Kemble Street? And where did they think she was?

And then there was Harry. What had happened to him? The last thing she remembered was going to meet him in the park. They were going up west and he’d promised to buy her dinner in a real café. She could remember going into the park and finding Harry sitting waiting for her in the September sunshine. She must have been wearing the necklace he’d given her, as she still had it. Had he noticed? But try as she might, she could remember nothing more until she woke up in the hospital.

Did we go to London? she wondered. Did Harry buy me dinner in a café? Where else did we go and why weren’t we together when the raid struck? Why wasn’t Harry found with me?

Remembering the nurse’s advice to stop trying to remember, Charlotte turned her thoughts to the previous evening. Miss Edie had told her about Herbert, how he had been lost; how she’d never known exactly what had happened to him. It was a very sad story, but at some level Charlotte knew that she was being warned. Don’t let the loss of your loved ones destroy the rest of your life. Mourn them, grieve for them, remember them with love and then gradually, gently, ease them into a secret compartment of your mind and move on. Easily said, Charlotte thought, but it was too soon for her. The ache of her grief would be with her for a long time yet.

Snow was building up on the outside sill and the strange white light pervading the room made it feel cold. Charlotte slid out of bed and got dressed as quickly as she could. Everything she had tipped from the drawers last night was still heaped on the floor.

I wish I could find my letters, she thought sadly as she stared at the mess she’d made. With a sigh, she began to pick up her clothes and checking them once again just in case she had missed something, she folded them into the drawers. She shook each of her school books in turn just to be sure that nothing had been tucked into the pages, but by the time she’d restored some sort of order to her things, she had to accept that the letters weren’t there.

She could hear Miss Edie moving about downstairs and so closing her door on her bedroom, she went down.

‘Hallo, love,’ said Miss Edie as she came into the kitchen. ‘Did you manage to sleep?’ Miss Edie had never addressed Charlotte by any term of endearment and it surprised both of them when she did so now. The confidences of the previous night had changed her, changed them both.

Charlotte smiled. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied.

‘That’s good. What would you like for breakfast? Poached egg on toast?’

Charlotte watched as Miss Edie slid two eggs into the waiting pan.

‘Keep an eye on the toast, will you?’ Miss Edie said as she put two slices under the grill.

Together they made their breakfast and together they sat down and ate it.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Miss Edie said as she poured them each a cup of tea, ‘it might be a good idea if you wrote down what you do remember, so that we know as much about you as possible. What do you think?’

Charlotte agreed. Perhaps if she did that, the hours that were still missing might come back to her. After breakfast she sat down at the kitchen table and on a clean sheet of paper she began to write.

Lieselotte Becker. Born in Hanau 11th June 1926.

My parents: Franz and Marta Becker.

Papa is a doctor. Mutti is a housewife and looks after me and my brother Martin.

Martin is two years older than me and he is blind.

We used to live in Waldstrasse 9 Hanau where Papa had his surgery. He was arrested and we were turned out into the street.

We went first to Aunt Trudi’s and then Mutti found us a room in an apartment house.

I came to England on the train in July 1939.

I was taken in by Aunt Naomi and Uncle Dan, the Federmans, and we live at 65 Kemble Street. They are very kind to me. Uncle Dan drives a taxi. Aunt Naomi works making uniforms for soldiers.

I go to school at Francis Drake. My friends are Harry Black and Hilda Lang.

Harry comes from Hanau too and lives in a hostel. He has left school and works for a man at the market.

Hilda’s mum is German and Hilda speaks German and English. They helped me learn English. They live in Grove Avenue.

She paused and looked up, chewing the end of her pencil. What else could she write? She thought about the letter she’d had from Mutti. She’d said Papa had come home but wasn’t well. She said to write to them through Cousin Nikolaus in Zurich.

My parents were trying to go to Switzerland to Papa’s cousin, Nikolaus. Mutti wrote his address on a piece of paper, but I haven’t got that now and I don’t know where it is.

‘That’s excellent,’ Miss Edie said, coming to read what she’d written over her shoulder. ‘Can you write about that last day, when you got caught in the raid? Do you know why you were where you were?’

‘A bit,’ Charlotte said. ‘Harry and I were going up west. I met him in the park. It was warm and sunny.’

‘Did you go?’

Charlotte shrugged. ‘Must’ve.’

‘By Tube,’ suggested Miss Edie.

‘No,’ answered Charlotte vehemently. ‘I never go underground!’

Miss Edie thought of Charlotte’s panic when she’d been trapped in a dark corner of the attic and remembered she’d been told Charlotte had to be coaxed into St Michael’s air raid shelter. It was probably why she was in the street during that first dreadful Blitz raid. However, she simply nodded and said, ‘By bus then.’

Charlotte shrugged again. ‘I suppose.’

‘What did you do when you got there?’ It was one question too many and Charlotte snapped, ‘I don’t know, do I?’

At that moment there came a knock at the back door and when Miss Edie opened it, she found Billy Shepherd standing in the porch, his coat thick with clinging snow and his hat a flat white pancake on his head.

‘Billy!’ she exclaimed in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’ adding before he could reply, ‘You’d better come in.’

‘I’m a bit snowy, Miss Everard.’

‘Never mind that, come in before you freeze to death and all our heat gets out!’

Billy stamped his feet on the mat and took off his boots, hung his coat and hat on a spare peg and followed Miss Everard indoors. Looking up from what she was writing, Charlotte saw who it was and her face broke into a smile and she jumped to her feet. ‘Billy!’ she cried.