Chapter 8 Joyce #2
She buckled up as Nan’s engine rumbled throatily to life and Adela put the grand old lady of literature into gear. They headed to St Pancras Town Hall, where Dore had told her to expect a handful of press. But when they pulled up, Joyce’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Oy vey!’ Adela exclaimed. ‘You’d think the king and Churchill were coming.’
It was a freezing Saturday between Christmas and New Year, and Joyce hadn’t expected anyone to leave their home and brave the elements, but the steps to the town hall were swamped with people bundled up against the cold.
The fog that mingled with the smell of cordite and drains did little to diminish the crowd’s collective excitement.
Joyce counted over fifty journalists, and even a camera with Movietone News emblazoned on the side. Curious kids and housewives swelled the numbers.
They slid to a halt and Dore opened the van door with a flourish.
‘Behold, our good lady librarians. Would you be so good as to share with the press and public your pioneering scheme?’
Joyce had never been comfortable with public speaking, but she could hear Dorotha’s deadpan voice in her ear, ‘Imagine they’re all in their pants!’
Joyce took a deep breath and stood above the crowd on the fold-down steps. But even the fine frock and extra dollop of warpaint hadn’t bolstered her nerve.
‘For the first time in any Metropolitan area, a travelling library is being put into operation in London,’ she declared.
Her voice, wobbly to begin with, grew steadily more assured.
‘We are proud to present Books for the Bombed. We’ll be calling at different stops in the borough, chiefly shelters and WVS depots, as well as ARP depots, Balloon Barrage units and the Home Guard.
If people cannot get to the books, we shall take books to the people, offering a library to your door. ’
‘Bill Bartlett. Daily Mail,’ interrupted a rotund man with a combover. ‘It’s not really a library though, is it? How many people can you get in there?’
‘Fifteen to twenty,’ Joyce replied defensively. ‘We carry two thousand books on open-access shelves, with a wide array of choice from historical fiction, biography, children’s books, poetry, romance and more.’
The journalist raised one eyebrow. ‘Lord help us if Hitler hears of this. Women drivers and a van full of bodice-rippers. I dare say he’ll throw in the towel now.’
A ripple of laughter ran over the crowd and, to her horror, Joyce realised Movietone News were filming. She was acutely aware of a blotchy red rash staining her neck.
The journalist tapped his yellowing teeth with his pen. ‘I’d say you’re wasting your time and public funds. You honestly think any members of the Civil Defence will borrow books from this? No offence, sweetheart, but it looks more like a mausoleum than a mobile library.’
Dore, looking enraged, opened his mouth to object, but another voice cut over his.
‘Harry Harding, Heavy Rescue for St Pancras. I, for one, can’t wait to use the mobile library. I work long shifts and can’t get to my local branch. It’s just the sort of thing my pals and I need to help us while away the hours between raids.’
A rush of electricity swept through Joyce’s body. She searched for Harry in the crowd, trying to work out where his voice was coming from, and when her eyes finally met his, he crossed his strong arms and winked. Suddenly, she didn’t seem to feel the cold.
‘None of us are averse to a bit of romance,’ Harry heckled, ‘contrary to the image we may present. Now, with respect, Mr Bartlett, why don’t you shut your cakehole and let the lady finish what she was saying.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Dore shouted, and the crowd applauded.
‘Thank you,’ Joyce replied, flustered. ‘You can find leaflets and posters around the borough advertising the twelve sites we are to be stationed at, and when.’
Joyce was stunned at Harry’s robust defence of her. It was an unexpected feeling, to know that a man she’d met just once could care enough to stick his neck out for her.
She turned her sights on the Mail journalist and something inside her snapped.
How dare he come here today to judge her?
Two months ago, she had read an essay that Virginia Woolf had written published in New Republic.
In it, she had asserted that women in this war were weaponless.
How, therefore, could they fight for freedom without firearms?
Woolf had urged all women to fight with their minds and their ideas instead.
Well, this was Joyce’s big idea, and she wasn’t about to let this misogynist belittle her.
‘I’d say the ￡450 it cost to equip and run this mobile library is a small price to pay for the benefit it will bring to people’s morale,’ she stated, her voice getting stronger with every word.
‘Books, libraries, education, knowledge, culture and learning are all the enemy of dictatorship and the foundations of freedom and democracy, wouldn’t you say, Mr Bartlett?
’ She breathed in, trying to calm her racing heart.
‘People without books are like houses without windows. Books will strengthen us to beat Hitler!’
‘Bravo, bravo!’ Dore cheered, clapping wildly.
‘I think this proves that we are following out the request of local authorities to not only maintain, but also extend the public library service. Now, without further ado, I’d like to ask His Worship the Mayor to step forward and give his blessing to the library. ’
Joyce found her gaze travelling back to Harry. He was leaning against a wall at the back of the crowd, thumbs hooked in his boiler-suit pockets. They locked eyes and he gave her a thumbs-up. It was just the tiniest of gestures, but it made Joyce feel ridiculously happy.
The mayor and dignitaries took over. Flashbulbs popped. The next thirty minutes passed in a jumbled blur, with Joyce fielding questions and posing for photographs as she officially stamped the library book of their first-ever loan, a copy of Winston Churchill’s Into Battle for the mayor.
Finally, she stepped outside and scanned the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of Harry, but he’d vanished.
‘Joyce, that was outstanding,’ Dore said, finding her outside and pumping her hand enthusiastically. ‘You are wonderful. And you, Adela. Without you both, none of this would have been possible. Over fifty journalists, can you believe? We have been launched, filmed and feted, wouldn’t you say.’
Joyce chuckled. ‘Dore, you’re in danger of imploding.’
‘I am, I am, my dear,’ he said, leaning in conspiratorially. ‘And whoever was that handsome Heavy Rescue man? He made short shrift of that muckraker.’ Dore didn’t pause for breath before he continued. ‘Now, the BBC have asked to film you as you drive on your rounds. That’s all right, isn’t it?’
Joyce quickly realised the question was rhetorical as the BBC reporter and cameraman jumped into their van before she could even answer. ‘We’ll follow on behind.’
‘Thank goodness I have you, Adela,’ she muttered.
She reached down and scanned her list. ‘Right, an ARP unit on Camden Square, then the shelter on Arlington Road, then . . .’
‘Joyce,’ Adela said softly, placing her hands over Joyce’s own. ‘Breathe. Take a moment to see what you have achieved.’
‘What we have achieved.’ Joyce felt emotion choke her. ‘I seem to have lost a great deal lately.’ Her thoughts roamed to Dorotha, to Peter, to her mother. ‘But I have gained a very good friend in you.’
She stared at the diminutive, dark-haired woman, so young, yet strangely so old and so fearless.
It occurred to her, she didn’t really know Adela at all.
She had seen her bravery and her formidable work ethic, unleashed in the Blitz, but there was a part of her, perhaps the fundamental part of herself, that she kept hidden from the world.
Her flight from Nazi persecution had encased her in a protective shield that deflected any attempt at intimacy.
‘You know, Adela, you can share anything you want with me and I promise always to listen. And help if I can.’
‘No one can help me now,’ she muttered. Joyce gazed at her, puzzled.
‘Adela, I—’
But Adela started the engine, cutting off further conversation. ‘Let’s go, we don’t want to keep the BBC waiting.’
It was the most surreal day of Joyce’s library career.
All day long, they drove Nan, bumping through the cratered streets, amazed and overawed to find long queues already formed at every one of their twelve stops.
If Joyce had ever been in any doubt that the borough needed a mobile library, those fears were quashed as she greeted the streams of well-wishers and patrons, new and old.
It hadn’t taken long to find a natural rhythm. Adela would pull down the folding steps and in rushed the eager crowds, desperate to see inside London’s first mobile library.
Joyce would recommend and issue the books, as well as sign up new patrons, while Adela chatted with customers, occupied small children, posted up more library notices and even made tea from a small portable gas stove, all while the BBC filmed.
Every neighbourhood had its literary predilections.
In Hampstead they had had a hankering for philosophy.
A Balloon Barrage Unit, staffed entirely by women, had a thing for whodunnits, and the good ladies of the WVS liked cookbooks with a side order of smut.
“Would you be a dear and reserve me a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover? ” whispered a woman in blue.
Joyce’s confidence grew with every stop.
Their penultimate stop, Swiss Cottage underground, drew their biggest crowd, at the front of which was Mitsy with her two new friends, Rosie Cohen and Lilley Richardson.
‘I knew you’d do it, darling. I’m so proud of you,’ Mitsy said as they hopped off the van. ‘Now find me a Barbara Cartland in that van, won’t you? The spicier the better.’
‘Ooh not many,’ chipped in Lilley. ‘It’s bleedin’ cold down them tunnels. Something mucky might raise the temperature.’