‘Tell you what, I could get you evacuated if you like?’

‘The road to hell,’ my mother would tell Father, after he’d given another miner something she thought he shouldn’t, ‘is paved with good intentions.’ He’d shrug. The only paving left in London was that sort. And me at my desk diligently deferring to my pamphlet for Loss or Damage Services was laying every last blinking stone to hell and back. My job was no more than to send the still shaking and stunned round London – once, twice, three times – to answer more questions, fill in more forms so they might get back some of what, through no fault of theirs, had just been rudely taken from them.

Mrs Palmer insisted I call her Dora. She’d been bombed out round Hammersmith way, with her husband, three sons and a very manky cat. ‘I just looked at the house and there it was, gone.’ Returning from the billeting officer she skipped towards me fresh as a girl. ‘They’ve found us a lovely place, Queenie. I can hardly believe it. Guess where it is? Go on – you’ll never. Connaught Street. Can you imagine? My husband’s always wanted to live somewhere posh like Connaught Street. It was like a dream for him. And here we are being offered a flat in a house down there. Ordinary people like us. It’ll take his mind off losing his foot. So, I’ve been sent back to you to see about getting some furniture.’

‘What happened to all yours?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, it was all lost, Queenie – every last stick.’

‘Did you make a claim for it at the time?’

‘No, I don’t think so. My husband sees to things like that and he was in the hospital until couple of days ago.’

‘So you haven’t filled out a PC54?’

‘I think I can safely say no. But I can do it now if it would help.’

‘When was your furniture damaged, Mrs Palmer?’

‘Please call me Dora – you make me feel so old. Now, let’s see, it’ll be about two months now. ’Cause Jack was in the hospital six, seven weeks. Me and the boys were at my sister’s until that took a hit. Been here a week or so. Yeah, about two months.’

‘Oh,’ I said. My little book was telling me that with the PC54, the claim had to be forwarded to the District Valuer within thirty days of the damage or loss occurring.

‘Is there a problem, Queenie?’ she asked. My head became such a weight that I could not lift it to look her in the eye with that news. ‘Is it something Jack will have to do?’

‘For furniture, Dora,’ I began hesitantly, ‘you should have put in the claim within thirty days of the loss.’

Clear as a silent-movie star, her face ran through an assortment of expressions – roughly corresponding to a baffled how, what and when. Then her eyebrows rose briefly to spring apart with understanding before sinking back down to a confused anxiety, while she said a quiet ‘But . . .’

Bernard was so furious with me that the vein on his temple that used to annoy me when he ate was standing up pumping like it had a heart of its own. ‘Queenie, for the last time, it is not our furniture to give away. It belongs to my father.’ I’d arrived at the house with a van and two men, who prudently kept their eyes down as they passed carrying a table and another chair.

‘I’m not giving it away – I’m lending it.’

‘It’s still not ours – even to loan.’

‘It’s doing nothing upstairs, just sitting in those rooms covered in newspaper. It’s just a couple of beds, a table and four chairs. We’ll not miss them before they’re back.’

‘Where are they going? Who are you giving them too?’

‘Mrs Palmer – Dora and her family.’

‘Who on earth are they?’

‘They’re from the rest centre.’

‘Absolutely not, Queenie! We don’t know these people. How can you be sure you’ll get the furniture back?’

‘I know I will. I promise I will.’

‘Are these people our sort?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Queenie, for God’s sake, have some sense. You can’t help everyone. Isn’t it enough that you work all hours at that place? Look at you – you’re tired. You look awful.’

‘Thanks, Bernard.’

‘I’m just thinking of you.’

‘They’re just borrowing the furniture until I can get them some. Otherwise they’ve got a requisitioned flat with nothing in it. Nothing at all.’

‘That’s not our problem.’

‘Oh, no, sorry, that’s where you’re wrong. Bernard, there is a war on.’

‘I’m very well aware of that.’

‘Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you something, let me give you a fact – there’s thousands of people having much more of a war than you are.’ And as soon as I’d said it I wished I hadn’t. He reeled from me as sure as if I’d spat in his face. Swallowing hard to guzzle up those words he nodded at me – just a little – then turned to walk into the gloom inside.

Dora found it hard to stop thanking me. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done, you’ve been such a help, Queenie, you really have . . .’ Out on her precious Connaught Street she didn’t appear to want to stop waving goodbye. I was quite a way down the road and could still hear her calling, ‘How can we ever thank you enough? Don’t be a stranger. Come any time.’

‘’Bye, then,’ I was saying when I noticed a woman running after me down the street. Well dressed with delicate heels that clopped on the pavement like a thoroughbred.

‘You there, you there,’ she called. ‘Are you responsible for this?’ I stopped for a moment until she said, ‘I want to know on whose authority those people have been put into that property.’ I began walking again, fast, as she chased after me saying, ‘I want to know the name of your superior. I want to make a complaint. I’m not happy to have those people living here. This is a respectable street. Those kind of people do not belong here. Let me tell you, there will be a great deal of trouble if they stay because I am not happy about it, not happy about it at all.’

Twenty-eight

Queenie

It was my fault that Bernard volunteered for the RAF before waiting to be asked. Men not in uniform began to look out of place in streets rolling in blue and khaki. With us having to import Yanks and him still wearing what he liked, he was self conscious, apologetic, even. But it wasn’t that – it was all that catastrophe that dodged in behind me every time I came home from the rest centre. And when he tried to turn away he’d look straight into another war – scarred into the face of his own father. He had to join up. And the RAF wanted him. A skinny bank clerk who always blew on his tea before he drank it. A man who had trouble finding enough rage to scare next-door’s cat out of our shelter. And it wasn’t just that the military could see his wiry frame fitting into any desk space no matter how small: Bernard was to become part of their fighting machine – they were sending him overseas. Mr Todd slapped his back, saying, ‘Good show, Bernard, good man.’ People who would never before pass the time of day with me asked after my husband. And when I talked about him I plumped almost as proud as Auntie Dorothy with Montgomery. I swear his shoulders got broader, his hands more manly with every leave. Even the back of his neck looked fearless with the collar of his RAF blues pressing against it. I was almost jealous now someone else wanted him. He’s my husband, where are you sending him? Training in Skegness and Blackpool, he was home more often than he used to be. But overseas! Where overseas? How far? We live on an island, for God’s sake, everywhere is blinking overseas.

He left with no more ceremony than if he was going to the bank. I wanted to hug him, whisper into his ear to be sure to tell me what he was doing, to show me what he was seeing in all those foreign places. But he stiffened like a plank of best mahogany, then bent to kiss my cheek. Watching him walking down our road – his forage cap sitting at an angle on his head, his kit-bag lolling like a corpse over his shoulder – I thought, He is so thin that any enemy soldier would have to have a ruddy good aim to hit him. It was a strange thought, not one I’d have shared with anyone, but funnily enough I found it comforting. The pity of it was he wouldn’t have known that I was watching him through the window, let alone that I was worrying. And when he was finally out of view, the road screamed with emptiness. I couldn’t help what came to my mind next – it just sneaked up behind me to sigh over my shoulder: he’ll not be able to post it home so you’ll never get pregnant now, Queenie.