Chapter 11 - Joyce
Joyce
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
SSL Friends, I write this with a heavy heart.
My library is gone. Exeter Library was once described as one of the most palatial libraries in the country.
But Hitler has wiped us off the face of the earth.
I write this to avoid the frightful sight of so much smouldering rubble.
In my bag is the only book to have survived.
English Men of Letters. One book is all I have left.
I’m a librarian without books. What good am I now?
I know I’ll recover my morale, but for now, dear friends in the Secret Society, oh my sorrow . . .
Jo x
The morning after they launched the mobile library, Joyce woke with a start and immediately knew she’d slept in. Groggily, she pulled down the homemade facemask that Mitsy had made for her from surgical gauze, sprinkled with eucalyptus oil to keep the germs at bay, and yawned.
It was a Sunday, which meant the wardens were less zealous about turfing out shelterers. She groaned as the first Tube train of the day slid into the station, her very own alarm call. Mercifully there were few people on the Tube that morning to see her mussed-up hair and bleary eyes.
She knew she shouldn’t have spent quite so long writing the previous evening, but the words flowed out of her mind and onto the page, almost as if she had no hand in it whatsoever.
She had even written a letter to Virginia Woolf via her publishers, telling her about the Secret Society of Librarians.
She doubted very much she’d hear back, but it felt good all the same.
‘Morning, farshlofener,’ said Adela, crouching down beside her bunk with a mug of tea from the café in the booking hall. ‘Yiddish for sleepyhead, before you ask.’
Library Cat leapt up onto her bunk looking pleased with herself, and butted her head against Joyce’s, purring like a tractor.
‘She talked a girl on the westbound platform into sharing her fish-paste sandwich,’ Adela laughed, stroking the cat’s head. ‘You’re late up this morning. Lilley and Rosie have taken Mitsy out for fresh air and Dore’s asked us to meet him at the library.’
On a Sunday? Joyce thought, immediately sensing something must be wrong.
Thirty minutes later, after a hasty shower at a Lifebuoy shower van parked outside the Tube, the girls arrived at Camden Central Library, only to find a sizeable chunk of the roof missing.
‘Whilst we were underground reading about the Great Fire of London, our own library was being blitzed,’ said Dore, coming to greet them on the steps with a grim expression.
‘Jerry hit Camden hard last night. The train station copped it, half the high street is missing, and five people killed. I suppose one ought to feel grateful, but it’s a terrible mess in there. ’
Joyce hardly dared to look, but the cracking of glass under foot forced her to. The whole library was covered in a ghostly veil of dust, and a biting December wind whistled through a hole in the ceiling.
It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the bombing of Bethnal Green or Exeter Library that Clara and Jo had experienced, but even so, it was a blow to Joyce’s morale all the same.
Her romantic fiction display near the door was terminal, and at a rough guess they’d lost close to 500 volumes.
‘Looks like we’ve lost our religion,’ Dore called from the theology stacks with no irony.
‘And biographies from S to Z,’ Adela added.
Plaster dust was coated so thickly over the rest of the library that they wouldn’t know what could be salvaged until the clear-up began.
‘I’ll go and fetch Nan,’ Adela suggested. ‘At least that way we can store some books in the van while we secure the roof.’
‘Need any help?’ It was Harry, sticking his head round the door.
‘How did you know?’ Joyce asked, a warmth kindling inside her at the sight of him.
‘I work in Civil Defence. We hear about all the damage in the borough. I’m off today, so thought I’d come and lend a hand. Brought some Heavy Rescue pals, too.’
Joyce could have wept with relief when a small team of burly men with shovels and wheelbarrows filed in.
Harry was so calm, cheerful even, as he set to work, organising the group into brigades and whistling as he got stuck in.
Joyce couldn’t believe the difference it made.
‘Your man’s a miracle worker,’ Dore whispered as they watched him set up a ramp on the steps and push a wheelbarrow of books down it.
‘Hush, Dore,’ she scolded, admiring the flex of Harry’s biceps. ‘He’s not my man.’
Dore wiggled one eyebrow up and down. ‘But he wants to be!’
‘Stop it,’ she laughed, swiping at him. ‘You can’t know that.’
‘Can’t I?’ he replied archly, pulling out The Swiss Cottager and turning the page to the Lonely Hearts column.
‘Honestly, Dore,’ she chuckled. ‘Only you can start a newspaper up midway through the Blitz and include a Lonely Hearts column.’
‘Listen to this. “To the beautiful woman who sleeps in the last bunk at the far end of the eastbound tunnel, to quote William Shakespeare . . . An angel is like you, and you are like an angel. Your secret admirer.” ’
Dore held his hand to his heart. ‘It was left anonymously on my desk. I’m swooning.’
‘You don’t know that Harry wrote that, or that it was intended for me.’
‘There’s only one man I know who recites poetry. And you sleep in the last bunk!’
‘You’re incorrigible. Enough of this tittle-tattle, we’ve work to do,’ she scolded, but Dore caught her sneaking a glance at Harry, and she blushed as he pretended to fan himself.
The rest of the morning passed in a cloud of soot and soggy books.
Adela fetched flasks of tea and great chunks of bread pudding, donated by the café down the road, and they worked on, fortified by the tea and stodgy cake.
Joyce was surprised how much easier she found manual work these days.
Her arms were becoming more defined and muscled by the day.
Lumping heavy boxes of books from the library to the mobile library, as well as dashing from the underground to the library, was changing her physique.
Her mother would doubtless disapprove of her new appearance.
Dyed hair was, according to her, for ‘actresses and gay-time hussies’, but there was little chance of her seeing it.
In a recent letter, her mother informed her a doctor had advised her against visiting London on account of a newly acquired case of angina.
By one p.m., Joyce couldn’t believe the change. The library had been cleaned up, a tarpaulin secured over the hole in the roof to make it weathertight and the salvaged books reshelved.
‘There you go, your library is a little more open to the elements than usual, but no reason you can’t reopen for business after the New Year,’ Harry remarked.
‘Thank you,’ Joyce said, dusting down her hands and gazing around.
What had once been her very own book-lined palace of dreams now looked sad and forlorn, a gaping hole where romance had once been.
Many books by their most popular romance authors, from Ethel Dell to Denise Robins and the queen of romance herself, Barbara Cartland, were waterlogged and damaged beyond repair.
‘Do you know, I once tried to count up the number of times Ethel used the words “passion”, “tremble”, “pant” and “thrill”,’ Dore remarked. ‘I gave up after fifty. She’s looked down upon by the cultural elite, but much-loved in libraries.’
‘Along with saga and historical fiction,’ Joyce replied.
‘She knew how many of their patrons, especially Mitsy, Rosie and Lilley, relied on these books for comfort and escape.
Each destroyed book was like another tiny tear in an already painful wound.
How much more destruction could London take?
There was no military significance to the bombing of a library.
This barbaric war suddenly felt personal, as if the dictator was mocking her personally.
‘I don’t even want to think how much that roof is going to cost to repair,’ Dore frowned, his usually cheerful facade faltering.
‘Does anyone mind if I go and clean myself up?’ Adela asked.
‘Course not. You go and have a rest, and thank you, Adela. Again.’ Joyce sighed. ‘Perhaps it would’ve been easier had you evacuated with the Barclay-Millers.’
‘Never!’ Adela replied vehemently.
But despite the steel in her voice, Joyce realised that the young women was trembling, her skin clammy to the touch. ‘Are you sick?’ Joyce asked, placing a hand on her arm.
‘I’m just tired,’ Adela deflected.
Joyce squeezed her arm and dug out a hankie. ‘I miss her too,’ she whispered.
Adela wiped her face, went to say something, but shook her head instead.
‘So very tired,’ she mumbled.
Outside, it started to snow, soft white flakes covering the filthy pavement.
‘Come on, my dear,’ Dore said, shivering. ‘Let’s get you into the warm. I’ll walk you back to the Tube and shout you and Mrs B a nice cup of tea.’ He put his arm around her and winked. ‘Everything feels better after tea.’
And then it was just Joyce and Harry, alone in the library. The air, which usually smelt of leather and paper, was now brackish and rank.
She shivered. Harry stepped closer to her and pulled her into his arms; she did nothing to stop him. She felt his solid chest against hers, his breath warm in her ear as hot tears slid down her cheeks.
Dorotha. London. The library. The Nazis were hell-bent on destroying everything that was dear to her.
Harry pulled up the collar of her coat and whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t lose heart. Come on. I’m taking you for a heart-starter, as my dear old nan called a brandy, and then something to restore your bibliophile’s soul.’