Chapter 3
Joyce
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
SSL. Going free. Creaky old girl, her bonnet hasn’t been lifted in a while, a few miles on the clock, but plenty of life in her yet. No, not me (Clara, stop that, I can see your eyes rolling from North Devon), but an old mobile library.
We’ve had a flood of evacuees and servicemen from all around the country now that the Library Association has lifted the bar on one branch membership.
The good old WVS had the jumble sale to end all and, would you believe, raised enough money to purchase a brand-new library van.
Now my old travelling library van is sitting unused in the garage behind the library.
Would any of you like her – Joyce? She’s something of a behemoth, but she’s not ready to go out to pasture yet.
Keep up the good fight, girls. See you on the other side of this wretched war.
All my love. Annie x
Joyce woke at six a.m. the morning after Adela’s arrival, pulling back the blackout blinds in her bedroom.
The stream of sunshine that flooded in hurt her eyes.
She’d had a terrible night’s sleep, worrying what on earth she was going to do with Adela.
If she was honest with herself, the thought churning around her mind at three a.m. had been ‘how on earth am I to look after her?’ They could ill afford another mouth to feed, and what would she do all day?
Her mother would have a blue fit when she discovered her here.
But she could hardly send her back to the Barclay-Millers.
Joyce padded softly down the stairs and into the front parlour, where Adela was fast asleep on the sofa, her black hair fanned against the pillow.
‘Come on, sleepyhead, wakey-wakey. I’ve got to work today. I thought you could come in with me,’ Joyce said to wake Adela.
It looked set to be a warm Saturday, so Joyce had eschewed her usual rig-out in favour of something less formal.
She’d teamed a primrose yellow dress she’d run up last year on her mother’s Singer sewing machine with a pale blue cardigan with tiny pearl buttons, and dusted her cheeks with Yardley’s complexion powder.
On impulse, she even put on her last good pair of silk stockings before checking her appearance in the mirror inside her wardrobe door.
The dress flattered her slender body, and the pale blue of her top drew out the gold flecks in her eyes.
She didn’t have much of a bust to speak of, but she could admit to having a shapely pair of pins.
‘Sheyn vi gold,’ Adela breathed in Yiddish as she rose off the sofa and stretched. ‘As beautiful as gold. You look like Ginger Rogers.’
‘Nonsense,’ Joyce blustered, hurriedly pulling the dust sheets back over the sofa.
‘You British,’ Adela intoned, dryly, ‘you can never take a compliment.’
Joyce smiled. The girl had clearly recovered her sangfroid.
Outside, Unwin Terrace was bathed in the buttery glow of early morning light. The streets grew busier as the two women headed into the heart of St Pancras. The stench of boiling animal carcasses from the abattoir mingled with the sickly scent from the marzipan factory.
‘Sorry,’ Joyce apologised, ‘it gets a bit whiffy here.’
‘I like it,’ Adela grinned. It was the first time Joyce had seen the girl smile, and it lit up her whole face. Her eyes were the brightest blue and her hair as dark as chocolate sponge.
‘It reminds me of ?ód?. We are often called the Manchester of the East. It’s the centre of the textile industry, so believe me, we have smoke and smog to rival London.’
Joyce nodded. ‘I do remember that from when we visited Dorotha before the war.’ She turned to Adela. ‘You must miss your family, my love.’
Adela nodded. ‘I do,’ she said quietly. ‘There is much I miss about Poland. Observing Shabbat, my whole family around the table, being sent to collect the cholent. Oh, I can smell it now.’ She breathed deeply.
‘Then Mama and Tatu? in their best clothes taking a stroll round the park after lunch on the Sabbath.’
‘Did the Barclay-Millers allow you to observe your faith?’ Joyce asked out of curiosity.
Adela shook her head. ‘I did ask once if I might go to the synagogue, but Mr Barclay-Miller . . .’ She trailed off. ‘He said no. He said I was lucky to be here at all.’
‘Shame on him. Why, I’ve a mind to go and find him and give him a good ticking-off.’
‘No!’ She stopped and took Joyce’s arm, those blue eyes crackling with alarm. ‘Please, you won’t, will you?’
‘No, not if you don’t want. Come on, let’s get into the library.’
In the small hours of her restless night, Joyce had decided to ask Mrs March if Adela could work at the library alongside her, if only part-time.
‘Out of the question,’ Hildegard March snorted immediately when Joyce took her aside.
‘But she’s very capable. I can teach her the rudimentary basics, and it would only be until the war’s over,’ Joyce attempted.
‘We are a public library, not a charitable venture!’
‘But if she helped, then we could possibly extend our opening hours and perhaps set up that travelling library and . . .’
‘You forget your place, Miss Kindred. That girl,’ Mrs March said, stabbing a finger in Adela’s direction, ‘can find suitable employment in a factory or a household.’
Hildegard looked her up and down witheringly as she continued.
‘While we are talking of suitability, Miss Kindred, that outfit is more becoming of a twopenny library! Far too risqué to show so much leg in a public place. Now, if that’s all, I must get on.
The library has to close at three o’clock this afternoon. Council matters.’
‘Your whist drive more like,’ Joyce muttered.
Giving Adela a couple of shillings to go and find a cup of tea, Joyce busied herself with shelving duties and sourcing a book one of her patrons insisted had been released on how to be inventive with powdered egg.
But her thoughts kept returning to the Adela dilemma.
She had a hunch the Secret Society would have the answer, and resolved to start with Clara . . .
When she had finished the Saturday shift, Joyce emerged into the radiance of a brilliant autumn afternoon, thrilled with the extra couple of hours her boss had given her, and found Adela sitting on the steps to the library.
‘She didn’t like me much, did she?’ Adela observed.
‘She doesn’t like anyone much, I’m afraid. Tell you what, why don’t we catch the bus over to Bethnal Green and see my friend Clara? She’s the children’s librarian over there. Her boss Peter is lovely. I’m sure we can cadge a cup of tea, and she might have some ideas on employment for you.’
An hour and two detours later, they alighted from the number 25 bus and walked along the path through to the library. It was close to five o’clock, and the crisp autumn breeze rustled through the oak trees that cradled the library in their lime green canopy.
Joyce felt the breath catch in her throat as she always did when she stood outside the Carnegie gem.
The handsome red-brick library basked in the syrupy early evening sunshine, glowing with the promise of the riches inside.
Its elegant sash windows caught the slanting rays of the sun and glowed a burnished gold, so bright that – for one moment – Joyce couldn’t see the ugly anti-blast tape that criss-crossed the glass.
‘What a beautiful library,’ Adela murmured.
‘This library opened eighteen years ago,’ Joyce remarked. ‘Prior to that, this building used to be a lunatic asylum. It’s conversion into a library was funded by Andrew Carnegie.’
‘Who is he?’
Joyce explained about the Scottish steel magnate turned philanthropist, who gave away his entire fortune funding libraries around the world.
As the autumn sun dipped behind the lamppost next to the entrance, it flickered into life, its bulb partially masked to comply with the blackout.
‘You’ll often find lampposts near Carnegie libraries,’ Joyce explained. ‘It’s a subtle reminder that libraries offer enlightenment.’
Adela’s mouth curled upwards, showing off a dimple in her right cheek. ‘I like that. It makes me think that Hitler will never get me in a place where libraries are so valued. My sister always says that libraries are the very last thing humans can do without.’
Joyce squeezed her hand. ‘Come on, let’s find that cup of tea.’
They found Clara and Peter shelving in the historical fiction stacks.
‘Joyce!’ Clara exclaimed when she saw her, and bounded over.
Joyce laughed as she felt the thud of her friend’s body as she swooped her into a hug. The pencil holding up Clara’s loose chignon fell out and rolled under the bookshelf.
‘Botheration!’ she laughed, pushing back a strand of pale blonde hair. Then she spotted Adela behind Joyce. ‘Hallo,’ she said curiously. ‘And who might you be?’
‘This is Adela, Dorotha’s sister. Remember? She came over from Poland last year and has been working in domestic service.’
‘Of course, delighted to meet you.’
‘As I am too,’ said Peter, putting down his books and joining them. ‘Clara told me how you managed to escape shortly after the Occupation. I am so very sorry to hear about your family.’
‘Thank you. You are very kind . . .’ Adela replied. She looked as if she was about to say more but trailed off awkwardly.
‘Peter. I’m sure our guests could do with some refreshment after braving the wartime buses,’ Clara said perceptively. ‘Would you be a dear?’
‘Yes, boss. Come with me, Adela. Let us leave the SSL to their machinations, and I’ll even see if I can rustle up a pink wafer biscuit.’
Clara squeezed Peter’s arm and winked as he led Adela off.
‘That man is an absolute treasure. You wouldn’t know he’s your boss and not the other way around,’ Joyce remarked, thinking how relaxed and easy their relationship was and how it seemed to reflect itself within the mood in the library.
‘I’m lucky. Peter’s a ray of light. But that’s not why you came all the way over from Camden, is it?’