Page 36 of The London Girls
Florence instinctively reached for him, placing her hand on his upper arm. She was at a loss for words herself, but she wanted him to know that she was there for him. What surprised her was how he jumped, clearly taken aback by her palm against him, and his arm tensed beneath her. But instead of pulling back she left her hand there, even though it would have been so much easier to back away.
‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I know what it’s like to lose those closest to you,’ he said.
‘Well, that makes two of us then, doesn’t it?’
They stood and stared at one another a long moment as she finally retrieved her hand, folding her arms in front of her.
‘You have someone at home?’ he asked. ‘I mean, are you, do you—’
‘I have my grandmother,’ she said, when she realised he didn’t know what to say, just as she had been. ‘I live with her now; it’s just been the two of us since my parents and my sister died.’
‘Oh, well, that’s good,’ he mumbled. ‘I just ... well, I didn’t like the thought of you being alone, that’s all.’
Voices interrupted them then, and Florence took her chance to move past Jack, deciding to come in early to check over the van before her next shift instead. She was too tired to do it now – and talking about her family, it always took something from her, drained all her energy even at the best of times.
She patted Jack’s arm as she passed, collecting the bag she’d left in the office before beginning her long walk home, knowing she’d never sleep, despite her exhaustion, if she didn’t clear her head first.
‘Do we really have to go to the shelter? The bombs aren’t going to hit houses.’
Flo smiled at her little sister before she caught her father’s frown over the top of his newspaper.
‘Of course we have to go to the shelter, girls. When Wailing Willy sounds, we all go, that’s what we’ve been told to do. The Luftwaffe haven’t been entirely accurate with their bombing, so we need to be careful.’
They both giggled, still finding the termWailing Willyhilarious, especially when their father said it in his proper voice, peering over his glasses as they slid down his nose.
‘Come on, girls, off we go.’
They all hurried to grab their coats, and Florence took the basket her mother had prepared. She had food and jars of water packed for them, in case they had to spend hours underground waiting out a bombing. There had been so much talk of bombings, of what to do, and her father hurried them all up, gesturing at the door.
‘I can’t find Mittens!’ her sister suddenly called.
Florence paused, turning in the doorway. ‘He’ll be fine, come on!’
‘Flo’s right, he’ll be fine. Animals always find their way to safety. We need to go!’
She wasn’t entirely certain she agreed with her mother, but shewascertain about getting her sister out of the house as the siren continued its wail, nervousness building inside her.
‘I’m not leaving without him!’
Her sister had declared that Mittens would be carted down to their little shelter in the garden if the family had to go, and Florence could already imagine his meows of indignation and his clawing of her sister’s shoulder as she manhandled him to safety.
‘Clare!’ Florence yelled. ‘Just leave him!’
Her father sighed and let go of the door, which banged her as it closed. Florence marched off after him as they called for Mittens, who was apparently smarter than all of them. She bet he was hiding so he didn’t have to go with them.
‘Mittens!’ she called. ‘Here, puss, puss.’
And that’s when it happened.
When she was on her hands and knees, peering beneath the sofa and snapping at her sister to go upstairs and look on the beds, as she muttered how they were wasting time looking for the stupid cat when a bomb could fall at any moment, not caring that she made her sister cry.
Before the bomb fell, everything seemed to go silent. One second Florence was on the floor looking for the cat, and the next she was moving to stand, wondering why her father was making a strange whistling sound as he looked for the cat. Only it wasn’t her father whistling. And then the bomb had fallen.
She knew she’d never forget that whistle for as long as she lived. Even after, as she lay on the stretcher, when everything else was silent around her, when the ringing in her ears was the same pitch as the bomb whistle.
The whistle that had changed her life forever.
And the very next day, after she begged her grandmother to let her go to the house, to search through the rubble with the whistle still sharp in her mind, she saw something that she’d never, ever forget. As firemen pulled aside rubble, doing one final search, she saw her sister, recognised a tuft of her pretty blonde hair.
