Where the Heart Lies (11 page)

Matron stood deep in thought for a long moment. ‘Do you have any other family who might help you?’

‘There’s me older sister, Eileen,’ Julie said
doubtfully. ‘But she moved down to Cliffehaven on the south coast years ago and we’ve lost touch.’

‘Then I suggest you try and reach her. She could be your only hope.’

Julie doubted it very much. Eileen had made it pretty clear she wanted nothing to do with the family once she’d left. There had been no letters, no visits, not even a passed-on message, and Julie had no idea of whether she was married or not – or even still in Cliffehaven. ‘I’ll write to her and tell her what’s happened,’ Julie murmured. ‘But it’s an old address, and she might have moved on.’

Matron took a deep breath, her expression stern. ‘Let us hope she is willing to take on the child,’ she said, ‘because if she isn’t, and you decide to go ahead with this foolish plan to raise him yourself, you will have to resign.’

Julie’s heart was hammering, her thoughts in a whirl. ‘William won’t be out of hospital for a few weeks yet,’ she said in a rush, ‘and I’ll need time to try and make proper arrangements for us both. May I stay until then?’

‘Of course,’ Matron replied. ‘We are short-staffed and your work here is invaluable. Perhaps those few weeks will give you time to rethink this wild plan of yours and help you to see that fostering, or adoption, is really the only answer.’

Julie watched her leave the kitchen with her tea tray. Her back was ramrod straight, her head erect, each step purposeful and unhurried. Matron Starkey’s
advice was valid, her common sense practical and wise, but Julie could not – would not – break her promise to Franny.

And yet, keeping William posed a legion of problems which hadn’t occurred to her in that rush of grief and love. Now, in the cold reality of Matron’s concise assessment of the situation, they appeared to be insurmountable.

JULIE HADN’T THOUGHT
she would sleep after that conversation with Matron, but once she’d bathed and climbed into bed she knew nothing more until the lights were switched on at six the next morning.

‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ murmured Lily. She perched on Julie’s bed in her brother’s striped pyjamas, which swamped her tiny frame. ‘Matron told us all what ’appened, so there’s no need to go through it all again,’ she said softly. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Like I’ve been run over by a bus,’ Julie groaned as she struggled to sit up. ‘I ache in places I never knew I had.’ She drew the rough blanket to her chin, shivering in the cold that had iced the inside of the windows and whistled under the door. ‘I’m sorry you got lumbered with extra work yesterday,’ she said, taking her friend’s hand.

‘You’d’ve done the same for me,’ Lily replied lightly. Her wide blue eyes regarded Julie with sympathy. ‘I hear Franny ’ad a little boy,’ she said. ‘That must be some consolation, I suppose.’

Julie drew up her knees and sank her chin onto them. ‘He’s beautiful, Lil,’ she sighed. ‘So tiny and
sweet, but with such a strong will to live. You should see him feed.’

Lily frowned. ‘I’m sure ’e’s all those things, Julie, but you gotta remember he ain’t yours. Don’t go falling in love wiv ’im. It’ll only make it harder when you ’ave to give ’im up.’

‘I’m not giving him up,’ Julie replied firmly. ‘I promised Franny to keep him until Bill comes home.’

Lily gripped her hands. ‘Julie, you ain’t thinking straight, gel. What if Bill gets killed? What if he decides he don’t want the baby after all? You’ll be stuck good and proper.’

‘I can’t afford to think like that,’ retorted Julie stubbornly.

‘I think you ’ave to,’ Lily murmured. She inched up the bed and put her arm round Julie’s shoulders. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, Jules,’ she said softly, ‘but you ain’t thought this through proper. What about your job – how would you support yerself and the sprog, and where would you live?’

‘I’d manage somehow,’ Julie muttered, ‘and then there’s me sister down in Cliffehaven, she might take us in. We’d be safer there, away from the Blitz anyway.’

‘What about your job ’ere, and all yer mates? Then there’s Stan. I thought you was getting married? Are you willing to turn your back on all of us?’

Julie didn’t really want to leave her work here in London, and she certainly didn’t want to leave Stan and all her friends. She regarded Lily for a moment
and, as her thoughts swirled, an idea began to form. She grasped Lily’s hand. ‘If Stan and I get married straight away, then we could look after William together. We could find a cheap place to rent and I could work part-time.’

Lily eyed her solemnly. ‘That sounds good in theory, but before you get too excited, don’t you think you ought to talk it over with Stan?’

‘I’ll do it today,’ said Julie, throwing back the bedclothes. ‘We weren’t supposed to meet up till Wednesday, but he comes off night duty at two. I can catch up with him at his lodgings.’

Lily stilled her as she reached for her dressing gown. ‘Mind how you go, Jules. Men can be funny about this sort of thing. They don’t like bein’ rushed into making decisions and such, and Stan might not want—’

‘Stan won’t let me down,’ Julie interrupted, invigorated by the certainty that she’d found the answer to her problems.

‘If you’re sure,’ murmured Lily, but she still looked doubtful.

Julie gave her a hug and rushed out to use the bathroom. The day no longer stretched before her in an endless cloud of sorrow and anxiety.

Julie had left the hostel after breakfast, dressed in her smartest woollen dress and shoes, a soft beret covering her hair, the regulation overcoat keeping her warm against the blustery day. She’d visited
William for an hour, had changed and fed him and given him a cuddle as he fell asleep, then stood and watched him for a long while before quietly leaving the ward.

Cycling towards Stepney, she breathed in the clean fresh air that had come in with the wind off the Thames, and felt the sting of its chill on her face and in her heart. She dreaded returning to the street where she’d lived all her life, but knew she must, for there might be some remnants of the lives they’d lived there amid the rubble.

She stopped for a moment in front of St Paul’s. The doors were open and somehow they seemed to beckon her. She rested the bicycle against the wall and hesitantly went inside. Her family were not Catholics and regarded churches as useful only for christenings, weddings and funerals, and, at a pinch, the occasional midnight mass at Christmas. She therefore felt a bit of an interloper as she slowly walked past the stone bowl with its holy water and down the aisle.

The church was hushed, the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows in rainbows of colour. The smell of incense was strong, and candles flickered on the altar and sparked in the brass candlesticks. Above the altar was a figure of Christ on the Cross, and the ancient stone walls were hung with paintings of His journey to Calvary.

Julie quietly tiptoed to a nearby pew and sat down. There were several people kneeling in prayer,
their mouths moving silently as they threaded rosary beads through their fingers. She felt the tranquillity enfold her, and the gentle ghosts of generations of believers soothed her as she sat in this ancient place and tried to make sense of it all. She didn’t pray, she didn’t really know how, but she closed her eyes and remembered those she’d lost, and found a modicum of comfort.

She left the church feeling a little more confident about things, and was about to cycle away when Father O’Neil came hurrying along the path, his soutane billowing around his ankles.

He held out both his hands to her and smiled. ‘Julie, ’tis a pleasure to see you in my church,’ he said by way of greeting.

‘I was just passing and thought I’d look in,’ she replied, easing her hands away. She didn’t want him to get the idea she’d taken up religion.

He nodded, the silver in his hair glinting in the sunlight. ‘I’ve spoken to Mr Simms the undertaker,’ he said solemnly, ‘and I’m sorry, but it won’t be possible to view your parents. Their injuries were . . .’

‘It’s all right,’ she hurried to assure him. ‘I wasn’t going there anyway. I prefer to remember them as they were.’ She shot him a tremulous smile. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have to be off.’

‘God go with you, Julie,’ he called after her.

She cycled away and within moments had reached the end of what she assumed had once been her street. It was unrecognisable, disorientating and
confusing, for there was no pub or factory, no corner shop – nothing to mark where her home had been. It was a wasteland of still-smouldering destruction.

She climbed off the bicycle and wheeled it over and around the broken roof slates, the shattered window frames and crumbled bricks. Part of a wall rose out of the debris, and Julie recognised the curtain that flapped through what remained of the window. It was Ma Foster’s house, and she could see the mangle that Ivy had hit her head on, standing where the scullery should have been.

Turning, she regarded what remained of her own home. The step her mother had scrubbed so assiduously every morning was buried beneath bricks, mortar and twisted lead pipes, but the black range had survived to stand ponderously in the middle of the carnage, her father’s favourite chair perched on top of it. She laid her bicycle down and carefully made her way through the wreckage of broken glass and splintered wood.

She cleared a space and heaved the chair from the range. It was filthy, but still in one piece, so she wrapped her coat around her and sat down. She could almost hear her father laughing at the absurdity of what she was doing, and it made her smile as she regarded the damage through her blinding tears.

The old clock was in a million pieces, the precious wireless crushed beneath a heavy beam, the sink ripped from its moorings to be flung into the middle of the backyard. Her mum’s collection of framed
photographs had been scattered amongst the debris, the glass gone, the photographs ruined by water, the frames strangely intact.

Julie carefully gathered them, taking the photographs one by one, even the most damaged, and putting them safely in her handbag. She stood in the centre of the devastation, unable to accept that this had once been the very heart of her home. She was about to leave when a gust of wind made something flutter. On closer inspection she saw it was a piece of sodden, dirt-stained cloth, and her heart ached as she recognised it – for it was her mother’s best dress.

Julie sniffed back her tears and scrambled over the mess to reach it. The dress had been caught on a nail in a fallen rafter, and she worked at it painstakingly to release it. Finally she stood in the ruins, the dress clutched tightly in her fist. Apart from her father’s chair, and the water-damaged photographs, it seemed to be the only tangible reminder of her parents and the home they’d so lovingly made for their children.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered to them in the silence. ‘Know that I’ll always love you.’

It was almost three o’clock by the time Julie left Stepney, for after she’d said her goodbyes to her home, she’d gone to the undertaker and made the arrangements for the funerals. Franny would be buried with her parents in the local cemetery. Finding a little corner
café that had escaped the carnage, she had bought a restoring cup of tea, then had gone back to the church hall to try and find out what had happened to poor little Ivy.

A small army of women had been helping the two young priests scrub and clean the mess from the hall, and they assured her that Father O’Neil had arranged for Ivy to go and live with her aunt’s sister-in-law, who lived out Rainham way. Glad that Ivy had found a home, Julie had thanked them and headed for Poplar, where Stan had lodgings.

The damage was almost as bad here, the skeletons of blasted buildings rising above vast craters filled with rubble. The enemy raid at the end of January had seen whole streets go up in flames, and the houses that had withstood that and the subsequent bombings were blackened from the smoke of hundreds of fires. Most windows were boarded over, and the roofs had been made weatherproof with tarpaulins and sheets of corrugated iron.

The door to Stan’s lodgings was to the side of a tobacconist’s shop. The narrow street ended in a low wall that kept the Thames at bay, and, as Julie leaned her bike against a handy lamp post, she could see a huge merchant ship slowly making its way towards the East India Docks. The pungent smell of the muddy river was strong, the gulls wheeling and screeching overhead as they squabbled over the rubbish in the gutters. The ship gave an ear-splitting blast from its funnel, which was answered by
several more. Julie was glad she didn’t have to live here.

Her sharp rap of the knocker was finally answered by the sound of a sash window being drawn up overhead. ‘Bugger off! I’m trying to bloody sleep.’

Julie stepped back into the road and looked up into his furious face. ‘It’s me, Stan,’ she called back. ‘I need to talk to you.’

He didn’t look too happy about it as he slammed the window shut, and she wondered fearfully if he was just going to leave her there on the doorstep. A few minutes passed, and she was about to leave when she heard him thudding down the stairs. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. Perhaps this had been a mistake?

The door was wrenched open and he stood there barefooted, in a pair of trousers hastily pulled over his pyjamas, and an unbuttoned shirt which revealed a muscular, hairy chest. He was tousle-haired, unshaven and clearly not in the best of moods.

‘I’ve been on shift all night and only just managed to get to sleep,’ he said gruffly. ‘I ’ope it’s important, Julie.’

She’d never seen him this unkempt and rough-looking before and she hesitated before answering, trying to quell her nervousness. ‘It is rather,’ she replied breathlessly as she took a step back. ‘But I can see you’re exhausted, so I’ll leave it until later.’

He opened the door wider and jerked his head
towards the stairs. ‘Well, you’re ’ere now,’ he said ungraciously, ‘and I’m awake. You’d better come in.’

It was hardly the welcome she’d expected and, after a momentary hesitation, she stepped into the narrow hall. It smelled of damp and dirt, a thousand greasy meals, and something sharp and cloying which seemed to lodge in her throat.