Secrets of the Singer Girls (37 page)

The day after the funerals was a Sunday and Vera insisted that Daisy spend some time resting.

‘You look exhausted, love,’ she said, after they had cleared the breakfast dishes away. ‘Why don’t you finish your chores, then have a sit-down? I’ve got to pop out
and see a friend. I’ll see if I can’t borrow some barley from her, boil it up with a little milk. That’ll put the colour back in your cheeks. Tell you what, I’ll even light
a fire in the front parlour before I go and you can rest there.’

Daisy looked up from sprinkling Vim on a cloth. ‘You must be going soft in your old age,’ she smiled, as she started to scrub down the table. ‘Either that or this is
Archie’s influence.’

‘Not a bit,’ Vera replied. ‘I do worry about you, though, after everything you’ve been through.’

Daisy’s eyes flickered downwards. ‘Please, Vera, I can’t talk about it, not yet.’

Vera nodded thoughtfully, picked up her string bag, and was just heading out through the door when Daisy called her back.

‘Just one thing, though, that’s been on my mind: do you think Mum would have forgiven me, for Hope, I mean?’

‘What do you think, love?’ Vera asked quietly.

Daisy shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘She would have been proud of you for the dignified way you’ve handled it. She loved you more than words, you see.’

Daisy smiled sadly and Vera left hurriedly so she wouldn’t see the emotion on her face.

As Vera stepped down her perfectly whitened front doorstep, she caught sight of their father, Frank, coming from the other direction. Lowering her head, she quickly went on her way. He had
scarcely been out of prison two minutes and already he was up to his old tricks again, not that Vera had been under any illusions that prison would reform her rotten father.

As she walked, the spring sunlight drenched her face and it felt good. Even Frank couldn’t bring her down today. Archie had a plan up his sleeve. He had savings, and as soon as they were
married, they would rent a nice house over the other side of the park, with enough room for them both and Daisy. Then Frank could have the run of his house and they need never see him again.
Vera’s only regret was that she had been too stubborn to accept Archie’s love for so long. She knew now and that was what mattered. A fresh start was just what they all needed.

Vera enjoyed her customary tea break with Matron at the children’s hospital, then headed back for home with a smile on her face. Seeing Matron always cheered her up, particularly as Vera
had such joyous news to impart about her engagement to Archie. Matron was thrilled, as Vera knew she would be. The visit had been tinged with sadness, though, as Matron had shared the harrowing
details of the Tube disaster and how they had all worked tirelessly through the night to deal with casualties coming in. Vera was still mulling it all over in her mind, and wondering what, if
anything, she could do to help the survivors, when she turned the corner into Tavern Street.

The explosion was as unexpected as it was ferocious. The force of it nearly blew Vera clean off her feet and instinctively she flattened herself against a doorway. A hot wind rushed over her,
followed by the sensation of something raining down on her head.

‘Oh, my days,’ she choked. She had felt the very ground lift beneath her feet, and clouds of debris and brick dust were spewing into the air like an exploding volcano.

Although her body was shaking uncontrollably, her brain slowly kicked back into gear: that immense boom could only be one thing. She had heard enough of them, after all. A bomb!

Vera began to run, her heart thumping painfully in her ears. Broken glass crunched under her feet as all about her people coughed and screamed.

Never had the terraced street felt so long, and by the time she reached the far end of Tavern Street, she could already hear the distant clanging of a fire-engine bell.

The smoke and dust hung in the air and the sky was as black as night. Disorientated, Vera struggled to make sense of her surroundings.

‘Where’s my house?’ she screamed, whirling round and round. But her neighbours, staggering shell-shocked out of the ash clouds, were too dazed to answer, their eyelashes and
eyebrows encrusted with brick dust and blood.

A woman with a face full of glass and clearly still in shock, with no idea of her injuries, looked at her and shrugged.

When the swirling clouds of dust settled, Vera finally got her answer.

Five or six houses had been destroyed by the blast. Dirty, bloodied people were everywhere, frantically picking through the wreckage of their homes, or sitting, completely dazed, on their
settees. But Vera had no time to worry about that. There was only one home she could think about. In no time at all she had identified hers. It was easy really: she could now see straight through
to the kitchen.

Number 24 Tavern Street looked like an exposed doll’s house. The front had been blown clean off and only the party walls were standing. Her beloved front parlour was on show for the first
time, her hearthrug lying in a crumpled, soggy heap, and her chaise longue had been blasted into the street, its stuffing spilling out onto the cobbles. The dust sheet she so diligently used to
protect it was hanging off the ledge of number 28, and her net curtains were wrapped round the top of a nearby gas lamp.

Vera’s heart turned to stone when she spotted the mangled fireplace. Before she had left, she had carefully lit a fire in that grate and told Daisy to rest beside it.

An unearthly howl filled the street. Vera was shocked to discover it was emanating from her.

‘I’m coming, Daisy!’ she screamed.

Desperate hands clung to her, attempting to pull her back.

‘It’s not safe,’ pleaded a warden. ‘The ceilings could come down at any moment. You have to stand back.
Stand back!’

Time stood still. Images came to her like snapshots.

Two firemen picking their way through the ruins of her front parlour. A chunk of ceiling falling onto her kitchen table.

Then, through the smoking debris, came the sight she feared more than anything.

Vera felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience as she watched Daisy being loaded into the back of an ambulance on a stretcher. Her dress was covered in dust, and a film of blood
streaked her face. The doors slammed shut, and in the distance she heard someone shout, ‘Fetch Archie!’

Suddenly, she came to her senses. ‘Wait for me!’ Vera screamed, pummelling on the back of the ambulance door as it pulled away. ‘My sister’s in there.’

An ARP warden gently held her back. ‘There’s no time, Vera. Let her get to hospital. Wait for Archie.’

Trembling with fear, Vera frantically scanned the street and tried to assemble her thoughts. Just then, she heard a faint groan coming from inside the wreckage of her home. Startled, she
listened over the shouts from the street, but there it was again. A soft, muffled moan of pain.

In the chaos, she slipped free and walked through the remains of her kitchen, following the noise. The groaning seemed to be coming from the yard out back. She stepped outside and gasped
afresh.

The old toilet block had toppled over and the small yard was strewn with great chunks of masonry. The neat strips of newspaper she had cut up that morning and pinned to the toilet door were
fluttering all over the place.

Just then a sheet of newspaper moved.

‘Vera,’ coughed a voice, and the paper fluttered up into the air, revealing the face of a man.

‘Frank?’ she gasped. ‘Frank, is that you?’

It was hard to tell. His face was coated in a thick layer of grime, and his mouth was foaming with blood, opening and closing like a stranded goldfish. Small crimson bubbles of blood peppered
the gashes all over his face.

‘Course it’s me, you stupid cow,’ he rasped. ‘I was on the lav and then the whole bleedin’ thing collapsed. I think we’ve been hit.’

Vera stood rooted to the spot.

‘What you waiting for?’ he croaked. ‘Hurry up and get me out of here.’

She shook herself and rushed to his side, frantically flinging bricks and rubble away with her bare hands. With his one free arm, Frank started to join in. Vera looked down at his gnarled old
hand as, trembling, he removed the smaller bricks.

Suddenly, a vision of the future flashed into her head. With her father alive, the lies that had plagued her would be perpetuated into eternity. She should walk away, leave him here to die . . .
But wait, what was she even thinking? She was no murderer.

‘Vera,’ Frank begged, sensing her hesitation, ‘what you up to? Come on, girl – it’s me, your old man.’ His voice grew more desperate. ‘I’m
bleedin’ to death ‘ere. You’ve got to get help.’ And then, resorting to the only language her father really understood, ‘Get me outta here or I’ll bloody kill
yer, yer stupid little whore.’

Vera remained rooted to the spot, the distant clanging of fire-engine bells and shouts ricocheting through her tired brain.

Suddenly, like a magpie, she spotted a flash of silver gleaming among the grey rubble near Frank’s body. Stooping down, she picked it up and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.
With the dust brushed off, she realized it was a piece of jewellery, an amber and silver brooch. Her brain was so foggy she couldn’t make sense of it, but something was nagging deep down in
her skull.

‘Give that back!’ Frank spat, alarmed when he spotted what was in her hand. ‘That’s mine.’

Her eyes widened in disbelief.
Of course.

‘This isn’t yours. It’s Betty’s, isn’t it?’ she shrieked. ‘Her mother told Sal at her funeral that it went missing from her body when she lay at the
church.’

Vera’s whole body started to tremble violently, and for a second, she thought she might be sick. She felt Betty’s mother’s pain in every corner of her being.

‘You . . . you sneaked into the crypt and stole it from the body of a dying girl? We never saw hide nor hair of you here the night of the disaster, or the next morning. H-how could
you?’ she stammered eventually. ‘Is there no end to your depravity?’

‘Don’t talk rot,’ he croaked. But he didn’t even have the decency to try and deny it too strenuously.

Vera searched deep into his grey eyes as they blinked back up at her from the wreckage. She was looking for something, anything that showed her there was a shred of compassion or decency there.
He lay whimpering in a puddle of his own blood, growing colder and weaker by the second.

In an instant, her crippling indecision was over. It was everything – the neglect, the lies, the beatings and now this, the ultimate betrayal – all crystallized together in a single
bolt of pain and fury.

Too many women had suffered at the hands of her cruel father. It was time.

As she picked her way through the remains of the kitchen and out through the blackened shell of their front door, a passing ARP man gripped her shoulder.

‘You shouldn’t be here, miss,’ he said in shock. ‘The street’s evacuated now. They’re about to start sealing it off. Anyone left in there?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Nothing worth saving.’

There was no avoiding it now: she had to get to the hospital and tell Daisy everything. No half-truths. She deserved to know the whole story. But was there time?

Sal was waiting at the end of the cordon with Poppy.

‘Vera. Oh, thank God, there you are,’ she blurted. ‘We came as soon as we heard. Look at the state of you. Archie’s on his way. You’re to stay with him. He’s
been down the Salvation Army and collected some clothes for you. He’s out of his mind with worry, Vera . . . Vera, are you all right? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’ll survive,’ she whispered. ‘But I’ve got to get to the hospital. See Daisy. They wouldn’t let me in the ambulance.’

‘Of course.’ Sal wept, placing her hand gently on her shoulder. ‘But wait until Archie arrives. We’ll get the bus up together.’

‘No!’ she howled, pushing her away, her green eyes wild with fear. ‘There’s no time. Don’t you see?’

And then she was off, running away from her bomb-shattered home in the direction of Bethnal Green Hospital. As her feet pounded against the cobbles, she prayed she wouldn’t be too late.

Taking the stairs two at a time, she burst her way through the double doors and nearly knocked two nurses clean off their feet.

‘Mind yourself,’ one gasped, gripping on to her cap.

The reception area was brimming over with the walking wounded. The hospital was still full to bursting with survivors of the Tube disaster, so those who could wait to see a doctor were sitting
stoically in the reception area.

Vera took a breath and joined the queue at reception, but there was an almighty rabble of people wanting to know how their loved ones were.

‘Yes?’ snapped a harassed-looking nurse when at last she reached the front of the queue.

‘My sister’s here and I have to see her now,’ Vera pleaded.

‘Name?’ she barked.

‘Daisy Shadwell.’

The nurse frowned as she looked down a list on her clipboard.

‘Was she admitted from Tavern Street? UXB?’

Vera looked blank.

‘Unexploded bomb,’ she added, more softly.

‘That’s right. Please just tell me, is she going to be all right, Nurse?’

The nurse consulted her clipboard once more and gestured back to the waiting room. ‘Take a seat over there. The doctor will be right out to see you. Next.’

Vera had a horrible sick feeling in her stomach. She had only seen Daisy briefly when they had stretchered her out of the house, but she hadn’t looked in a good way. It had all happened so
quickly, but Vera prayed she had escaped the worst of the blast.

Eventually, she saw a young doctor appear behind the reception desk and she watched as he was pointed over in her direction. Vera rose sharply.

‘Are you Miss Shadwell’s next of kin?’ he asked.

‘I am,’ she gulped.

‘Very well. Follow me,’ he ordered, sweeping down the long, tiled corridor. ‘I am going to allow you a few moments with your sister, but I should warn you she’s in a
critical condition. She took the full brunt of the roof collapsing and has suffered massive internal bleeding. We have removed her spleen and managed to stabilize her thus far, but I feel it only
fair to warn you her prognosis looks bleak. If she survives the next forty-eight hours, she will be lucky.’