It was just beginning to get dark when Paula left the Selby's house after a couple of hours clearing away and washing up. She was tired but happy, carrying a box containing leftover food that Mrs Selby had given her and in her coat pocket she had a generous and unexpected bonus for all her work at the garden party. At the gate, she was surprised to find Stefan waiting for her. He clicked his heels, “May I walk you home Miss Paula?” he asked grandly.
Paula had laughed at him, “No thank you, I take a bus,” she replied and walked away hoping he had no idea of trying to seduce her.
Stefan caught up with her, “Then allow me to accompany you. It is not safe for a beautiful young woman to be travelling alone in wartime. In Poland, this would never be allowed.” He took the box of leftover food and they walked to the bus stop.
Twenty minutes later they arrived at Paula's front door and Stefan handed her the box of food and with a polite nod of his head said goodnight. Paula was relieved. Since they had got off the bus she had been trying to think of how she could politely rebuff him if he suggested he should come in with her. So far, he had been a perfect gentleman but she had heard some unpleasant stories about servicemen away from their homeland.
She thanked him for seeing her home and he thanked her for her pleasant company. As darkness fell she went into the house, closed her front door and giggled to herself. It had been enjoyable to be in a man's company and she knew she wouldn't ever see him again.
Paula sat down, took off her shoes and rubbed her aching feet but just as she was beginning to relax, the air-raid warning siren started. “Oh bugger,” she said under her breath, “can't you lot stay at home just for one night!” She put a small amount of water in the kettle to make a cup of tea, she reckoned she would be safe for a little while, the siren normally sounded in plenty of time for people to get to the shelters. A few minutes later, carefully carrying her mug of tea, she opened the door to the little cupboard beneath the staircase that she had been told was the safest place to be in a house during an air-raid. The nearest public air-raid shelter was quite a distance away and Paula felt it safer to stay put rather than risk getting caught out in the open. She had a makeshift bed made up with a feather eiderdown and several pillows and blankets in the cupboard and settled down to sip the warm drink and await until the all-clear sounded or until she fell asleep until morning if the raid went on too long.
The planes droned in the distance and the siren kept on whining but Paula was sure she could hear something else. It sounded like someone wailing outside in the street and she wondered if one of the neighbours had been injured running for the air-raid shelter. Still carrying her mug of tea she left her safe haven to investigate and feeling her way along the hall in the dark to the front door she opened it and poked out her head.
The noise seemed to have stopped momentarily but then she heard it again to the left of her door and she stepped out and squinted in the darkness. At first she could see nothing but as her eyes adjusted she picked out a dark shape huddled against the wall a little further down the street. She looked around nervously, the raid had begun and was getting closer. There was noise in the distance and a reddish glow in the sky above the houses opposite, probably the docks were getting another pounding. She decided she should help whoever it was in such distress so she placed the tea mug on the hall table and still in her stocking feet ran the few steps down the street.
Stefan was crouched almost in a ball, his eyes wet with tears and wide with fear but not seeing her. The air-raid had moved much closer and there were loud clashes and thuds coming from nearby streets. “Get up Stefan,” Paula yelled urgently above the din, “come on we're not safe out here.” She pulled him by the arms as he struggled to his feet and could feel his body trembling as he leaned against her. His hands were as cold as ice as she pulled him along the street and bundled him through the front door.
They spent the next few hours huddled together in the tiny cupboard beneath the staircase but spoke not one word to each other. It was a mild night, but Stefan was ice cold and shaking. Paula assumed it was shock or something like it and wrapped him in the blankets. She thought of going out into the hall to retrieve the tea she had left on the hall table or into the kitchen to make him a fresh hot cup with some of her precious sugar. She'd heard somewhere that it was what you should do for people in shock, but the bombs were thundering closer now so she decided to stay put.
When the all-clear sounded in the early hours of the morning, Stefan was sleeping soundly against Paula, his head resting on her lap. She stroked his hair and thought of her Jimmy. If only it were him sleeping beside her. If only she knew where he was and if he was safe. Her eyes filled with tears for him and for poor Stefan so far away from home and so frightened. Gently she moved his head onto a pillow and wondered what had scared him so much. He was a pilot, and much braver than most she would have thought, but during their conversation at the garden party he had told her he had escaped from Warsaw when the city was bombed so perhaps he had been reminded of it.
Stefan and Paula's affair had seemed almost inevitable after that night. When he woke up and she explained how he came to be under the stairs in her house, he was embarrassed and apologised profusely for his behaviour. He had asked her to meet him later that day and she agreed. They had walked in the park in the autumn sunshine, drunk tea at a little café, then found a boarding house and booked into the same room they were in now.
They had fallen in love. At first it was the love of the lonely. Two desperately unhappy people clinging to and supporting one another, marking time together until life righted itself again, but as the weeks passed and they continued to meet up in the boarding house, it changed into something more than comfort. They began to see a future for themselves and no-one else in the whole world seemed to be of any consequence.
Stefan stared uncomprehendingly at Paula.
Why was she saying such things?
She was crying and looked desperately sad but telling him their affair was over and they would not be able to meet again. He thought he must be dreaming. It wasn't just an affair as far as he was concerned, but no, she was standing in front of him telling him that her husband was coming home, that he was seriously injured and needed her, and that it was her duty to do the right thing and be there to look after him.
He stared at the bed where they had just made love, it was not sex alone, it was intense love so how could she now destroy it, but tears ran down her face as she begged him to understand and make it easier for her.
Anger rose up in his body as he dressed and collected his belongings, “Won't you say goodbye to me, Stefan?” she pleaded but he didn't want to even look at her. He opened the bedroom door and moved swiftly and silently down the staircase and out into the street.
Paula fell onto the bed and cried for several minutes and then realised that the siren was blaring again. How she hated that noise! Hated the war! And hated herself! She could hear people in the house moving about, making their way down the staircase out through the front door to get to the air-raid shelter. She heard lots of grumbling and shouting but she didn't care. She didn't care at that moment if a bomb did drop on her, anything would be preferable to the misery she was feeling.
The house became silent. The landlady and her family would be crammed into the cupboard under the stairs and the other residents would be huddled in the air-raid shelter waiting for the noise and destruction to commence. Slowly Paula got up from the bed, wiped her tears away and started to dress. There was a movement at the door and the handle started to slowly turn. She thought it might be the landlady coming to check on her as she sometimes did, or perhaps Stefan coming back to say a proper goodbye but the face that came around the slightly open door was that of a complete stranger.
Mildred Jefferson
29 DECEMBER 1940
Mildred Jefferson pulled her tatty fur coat around her and shivered. It was such a cold night and there were not many people around, most of them had more sense than to be out on a night like this. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a half bottle of gin and took a hefty swig, then lit a cigarette and dragged heavily on it. She had moved further into the railway station away from her usual beat at the corner by the entrance. The wind was howling around there and those damned Christmas carols were still blaring out from the crackling loudspeaker. She wished they would switch them off, after all, Christmas was last week. There were lots of people about then â people trying to get home to families for Christmas, servicemen travelling through London to places all over the country â trade had been brisk with many of them having an hour to kill before their trains left. In spite of the crowds and the delays, people had cheerfully sung along with the music and punters had definitely been more generous but now as New Year approached, the music sounded jaded and people were staying indoors out of the cold. The next busy day would be after the New Year celebrations were over when the travellers would be returning to wherever they had come from.
A man wearing a tweed coat and carrying a briefcase was walking towards her. She extinguished the cigarette with her nicotine-stained fingers and pushed it into her pocket then straightened her body and her smile. He looked a bit posh, but these days that didn't mean a thing and she was certain he was eyeing her. She stepped forward. “Hello there!” she said, “Do you want some company sir?”
The man looked flustered and his face coloured, “Certainly not,” he said curtly, looking in horror at the middle-aged street-walker who smelled of gin and cheap perfume.
“Please yourself, dear,” Mildred chimed as she moved back to rest against the wall and retrieved the half-smoked cigarette from her pocket. She was about to light it when she saw a policeman walking along the platform towards her, “Oh damn!” she muttered and made to move on.
“Just a minute there, Mildred!” the policeman called.
She turned back to look at Sergeant Ronald Bowles and dropped her shoulders with relief. “You gave me quite a turn there, Ronnie,” she laughed, “didn't recognise you in this dingy light, thought I was going to get booked by one of your young bobbies with no more sense. Mind you it must be warmer in the nick tonight than it is out here but then again if I could afford the fine I wouldn't be out here in the freezing cold.”
“You should be booked, Mildred. I saw you approach that chap.”
Mildred let her jaw drop in mock denial, “You saw nothing of the sort Ronnie, I only asked him for a light.” She held up the cigarette between her fingers and chuckled, “now there's nothing illegal about that is there and the stingy devil said
no
anyway?”
“Just move on Mildred, go home, it's far too cold for you to be hanging around here and I don't suppose you'll get much business tonight. It's time you retired.”
“And who would pay the rent then, Ronnie?” she asked sarcastically.
“If you didn't spend your money on fags and booze perhaps you could pay your rent without this,” the policeman chided gently.
She set off to walk away and said quietly over her shoulder, “Oh Ronnie Bowles you know fine well I wouldn't get through the day or night without the fags and booze. Thanks anyway love, see you around, probably on New Year's Eve.”
Ronnie watched her swaying along the platform to the entrance of the station and felt nothing but sadness and sympathy for poor Mildred. They had grown up in the same street, gone to the same school and he knew all about her dreadful childhood. The eldest of a large and dysfunctional family, she had been dragged up by her drunken parents with no chance of turning out decently, but he was sorry to see her aging before her time. She had been quite a looker when she was young.
He walked to the end of the platform and had a word with the railway porter who confirmed that all was quiet and offered him a cup of tea in the warmth of the waiting room. Ronnie thanked him but declined, he was a bit late on his rounds as it was. He turned and slowly retraced his steps back to the entrance of the station. A few seconds later the siren sounded. He looked up and sighed then quickened his pace. In the murky distance, he saw what he thought was Mildred talking to a man in dark clothes and then they walked away together. Ronnie screwed up his eyes but still couldn't see clearly. Had Mildred picked up a client? They seemed to be arm in arm, or was that one of his young constables having arrested her. No doubt he would find out when he got back to the police station.
Rona McLean
JANUARY 1941
One after the other, in time to the music provided by the small band at the side of the stage, Rona McLean kicked her stocking-clad legs high in the air. Hands on the waist of the girl in front, she kept her head turned towards the audience and fixed her mouth into what she hoped was a wide, sexy smile. She had no problem remembering the routine and being younger than most of the other dancers didn't find it exhausting. However, she truly hated being on display in the skimpy costume while, the mostly male, audience leered and cat-called or whispered comments to one another and then laughed loudly. They made her skin crawl.
This was not what she had run away from her home in Inverness to become, it was only just one step up from working in a striptease bar. She had come to London to be an actress, a serious actress and given a chance she knew she could do it. For years she had been going to the pictures to watch the movie stars, to learn how they moved and spoke but her parents had blocked her chances at every turn and told her London was not the sort of place for a young girl to be on her. But Rona was determined. After secretly saving all the money she earned working as a waitress until she had the train fare and enough to live for a week or two, she had packed her bags and without a backward glance, left Inverness for the bright lights of London without telling anyone where she was going.