Chapter 22 Joyce
Joyce
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
Friends, I arrived home from Devon to a most unusual request. The crew of a Royal Navy frigate stationed in Plymouth Harbour is in desperate need of a good diversion. Who should find herself rowing a boatload of ‘whodunnits’ (sailors’ catnip, apparently) across the harbour, but yours truly.
If people can’t get to the books, I shall take books to the people – by rowing boat!
Yours (with splinters in her palm), Evelyn x
Seven days later, Joyce, Harry and the baby left Devon after the fastest wartime wedding even seen in the county, with only the Secret Society in attendance, none of them quite able to believe what was unfolding.
They had set in motion a chain of events for which Joyce could only pray history would not judge her harshly.
Before Joyce and Harry departed, they had hatched what they hoped was a workable plan.
Annie had promised to take Adela in and care for her until she had recovered from the birth, then take her on as a library assistant until the war was over and she could return to Poland to search for her family.
Every member of the group would check in on her whenever they got leave.
Knowing Adela would be well cared for by the Secret Society was some comfort, even though the parting had been bittersweet.
‘One more thing,’ Joyce had asked Adela, just before they had left her in Annie’s cosy kitchen, a hot-water bottle hugged to her tummy.
‘What would you like to call her? Maybe after your mother?’ A suggestion to which Adela had shaken her head.
‘In Judaism it is bad luck for a living person to have a baby named after them,’ before her voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘And I have to believe that she is alive. That all my family are still alive. These decisions are yours now to make. I ask only one last thing of you.’
‘Anything.’
‘That you and Harry love her enough for all of the Berkowiczes.’
Now, Adela’s words echoed in Joyce’s ear as she sat in the library van and gazed out through the window at the blur of gold and green.
Joyce tore her gaze from the countryside and looked down at the bundle in her lap.
Suddenly, it hit her, the total power she had over this helpless infant.
The deep sense of responsibly flooded through her, making her feel light-headed.
Joyce wondered if Harry was thinking the same thing.
They drove in silence, as if afraid that if the other spoke they might talk themselves into another alternative, but truly, what would that be?
Hand this baby over to the state? Another illegitimate wartime baby to be held in a home until fostered out and never seen again?
Instead, Joyce reminded herself again and again that this baby was Dorotha’s niece.
A new life, born in the midst of such horror and chaos.
And, more importantly, she was Adela’s baby.
The child of her brave, fierce, beautiful friend, who had stood by her and supported her through it all.
In 1939, she had vowed to act as a guarantor for Adela, to care for her and keep her safe in her new adopted country, and admittedly there was a tiny part of her that blamed herself for what had happened to the young woman.
In her lap, the baby stirred and yawned, then opened her dark liquid eyes and gazed up at Joyce.
It was like a punch in the guts. For in that moment, she looked so extraordinarily like Dorotha.
Joyce’s breath caught in her throat and emotions rushed over her, along with a powerful realisation.
Dorotha, Adela. The Secret Society. They were all chapters of the same story, her family of choice, formed by providence, instead of blood.
Gently, she lifted the infant to her face.
‘I choose you,’ she whispered, tenderly nuzzling her soft, peachy cheek.
‘And we will love you for all the Berkowiczes.’
Harry looked at his new family with a smile that seemed to fill the whole library van.
Somewhere around Salisbury, though, another realisation dawned.
‘What’ll we tell everyone in Swiss Cottage?’ Joyce asked Harry. ‘We can’t risk anyone guessing she’s Adela’s baby. I won’t have her reputation sullied.’
Harry tapped the steering wheel, his chin thrust forward in a determined manner, and she could see he had already thought it through.
‘Do you remember that baby boy that was found in the public shelter on Giesbach Road?’
She nodded. She had felt it in rather poor taste when the ARP wardens who’d found him had named him John Anderson, after the shelter, as if it were a pithy joke.
‘Yes, wasn’t he given to the St John’s Institution in Highgate?’
Harry nodded.
‘Who’s to say a similar thing didn’t happen here? Except, instead of handing her over to an institution, we’ve decided to adopt her.’
‘Who’d believe that?’
‘It’s happened once, surely it can again? Stranger things have happened in wartime.’
They lapsed back into silence as Joyce let the idea wash over her.
Stranger things had indeed happened in wartime.
She thought back to the red bus embedded in Mitsy’s bedroom.
An entire community sleeping underground on the Bakerloo line.
Tube trains delivering Bovril at bedtime.
In wartime, nothing was where it should be.
‘Look, it doesn’t really matter, does it?’ Harry persisted. ‘We know her real identity and we have a duty of care to her. Someone has to love her.’
‘And therein lies the problem. What do we tell her when she grows up? What happens when, please God, this war is over, and Dorotha comes to find her sister? What do we tell her?’
He sighed, so deeply it seemed to penetrate her bones. ‘We cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Back in Swiss Cottage, Harry parked the mobile library outside the Tube station and looked at Joyce. For the first time in days, she was reminded of the loss of her beloved creation. The mobile library was out of action. The library was closed.
‘What do we do first?’ Harry asked. ‘Go and buy baby clothes and formula, or start packing up the library?’ The demands of work and motherhood at once began to crowd her mind, and Joyce figured she might as well get used to it.
But before she had a chance to work out the answer, a knock on the window startled her. She wound it down.
‘Joyce, thanks heavens, you’re finally back. I’ve been waiting for ever,’ Dore said, bristling with impatience.
‘Dore, I’m ever so sorry, we were delayed in Devon . . .’
‘Never mind that, the most wonderful thing has happened. Wonderful and miraculous. Come and join me in the back. Quick.’
Joyce waited for Dore to mention the sleeping baby nestled in her arms, but he was so excitable, hopping from one foot to the other, he seemed not to notice. Harry helped Joyce and the baby down and they followed Dore.
In the belly of the library van, Dore was hoisting a large box onto the library counter.
‘We are saved, thanks to these,’ he cried, pulling out bundles of mail.
Joyce’s head was foggy with exhaustion as she gently rocked the baby. ‘Sorry, Dore, I don’t follow.’
‘We have fans, dear girl. Hundreds of them, in fact, from all around the world!’
He fished out letters, and it was then that Joyce realised that cheques and money were spiralling to the library floor.
‘Listen to this one. “Having read in The Times the inspiring account of the mobile library, I enclose a small contribution, with all good wishes from a Scotswoman. Ten shillings.” God bless you, Jill Forbes,’ Dore announced, beside himself with excitement.
‘And another. “What a marvellous innovation, long may your library continue to serve, please find enclosed a donation. With all best wishes, from the library staff at Yale University”.’
‘Yale University? But that’s in America.’
‘You’re catching on fast, Joyce,’ Dore joked.
‘There are donations from libraries and individuals around the world. From Sydney to Malay. There’s even one from the Library of Parliament in Ottawa and the Library of Congress in Washington.
Proves the Yanks are paying close attention to our war.
Who knows? They may yet join us. But wait for it! ’
‘Dore, calm down, you’re in danger of imploding,’ she laughed. He was so keyed up, he had still not seemed to notice the baby in their midst.
‘There’s even a letter of support and a donation from H.G. Wells,’ he gushed. ‘He wrote The Time Machine whilst living in St Pancras. He was most impressed with our travelling library.’
He patted the library counter, his eyes shining in the dim light. ‘Seems our little travelling Blitz library is famous. Thanks to you, Joyce.’
‘Us, Dore,’ she corrected.
‘No! You, Joyce. Look, this article in the Sydney Morning Herald even has a front-page article on you.’ He slid a newspaper – sent over from Australia, no less – over the counter.
There was a photo of Joyce taken on the day of the launch, midway through her speech. The headline read, Meet the plucky librarian who has become a pin-up girl for Reading for Victory.
Joyce couldn’t bring herself to look too closely, for there in the photo, standing behind her, looking so beautiful and proud, was Adela.
Just then, the baby began to grizzle, and Harry rubbed her back softly.
Joyce felt like she had woken up midway through a strange dream.
‘But how do they know about us?’ she asked Dore.
‘Remember the launch when we were followed by the BBC and Movietone News? Seems it was syndicated around the world, and shown in cinemas from as far away as Singapore and Sydney.’
‘I still don’t understand. Why are we only hearing about this support now? The launch was four months ago. It’s too late now, surely?’
‘So many letters were arriving daily to the library itself, but the post office assumed we were closed when they saw the tarpaulin over the roof. So they’ve been storing them in a PO box for months now, and they’ve only just come to light.
And some letters were just addressed, Travelling Library, London.
It took a fair while for many to reach us. ’
He pulled a letter from his jacket. ‘This one was addressed just to you. I haven’t opened it.’
He passed it over and spread his arms wide. ‘Don’t you see, Joyce,’ he breathed. ‘We have more than enough money to keep the mobile library on the road for years to come. And even purchase new stock! We live to fight another day.’
‘We?’ she enquired, raising her eyebrows.
Dore looked sheepish. ‘I withdrew my resignation. I may have made a hasty decision. Happily, they accepted, so it looks like you’re stuck with me at the library for a little while longer.’
‘Dore,’ Joyce said softly. ‘I’m thrilled.’
The baby’s grizzling went up a notch. Dore started, his balloon of excitement finally deflating.
‘Good grief,’ he exclaimed. ‘Whose baby is that?’
‘At last,’ Joyce chuckled, before reaching for Harry’s hand. ‘We have news too, Dore. God willing it will be made official soon. We are going to be parents.’
Back in the tunnels, Joyce sank down onto her old bunk, while Harry went off to the café to warm through a bottle of formula milk, and Dore went for a stiff drink before rearranging the library rota.
Mercifully, the baby had drifted back off to sleep.
Lord alone knew how she would cope with the demands of raising a newborn baby underground while they waited for a new home, along with hundreds of thousands of other bombed-out Londoners.
But they, like everyone else in this war, had no choice but to just get on with things as best as they could.
Hitler might have razed their homes and streets, but he had not succeeded in crushing their spirits.
At least they had new life, she thought, gently stroking the baby’s silky-soft cheek.
Glorious life in all its messy complexity.
Nothing would ever bring back those women and children whose faces still surfaced from below the school playground.
Their needless deaths had been a travesty that she and Harry would always carry like an invisible weight, but love was what mattered most. Love in the face of evil.
Love in the absence of dear friends. Love to outweigh hate.
Like the wheels on the mobile library, which, thanks to the kindness of book-loving strangers, would now miraculously keep on turning, they would prevail.
Joyce had started the war alone and rootless.
Now, she was a chief librarian, a mother and a wife, with people who depended on her for love, solace and escapism.
Joyce smiled at the realisation. Books were the floor under her feet, the roof over her head and the freedom in her heart.
At the thought of the mobile library, she suddenly remembered the letter Dore had given her. Feeling in her pocket, she fished it out and, laying the sleeping baby down gently in her lap, she turned it over.
The return address on the back of the envelope, written in a looping script, was Monk’s House, Sussex.
Being careful not to tear the thin wartime paper too much, she eased the letter out of the envelope. The smell of typewriter ink and roses scented the air.
‘Oh my . . .’ Joyce’s hand flew to her mouth as she took in the signature at the end.
Yours faithfully,Virginia Woolf!
The Virginia Woolf had replied to her letter. She must have written it shortly before her tragic death.
Every cell in Joyce’s body longed to read and reread every single line, but before she could be tempted to, she carefully put it back in the envelope and tucked it behind the cable tie on the tunnel wall by her bunk.
I will wait for you, Dorotha.
It was Dorotha who had first introduced her to the author who had shaped their understanding of the world, and given them the moral courage to form the Secret Society of Librarians in the first place. Therefore, it was only right that she should wait and they should read it together.
‘I will wait for you, Dorotha Berkowicz,’ Joyce murmured, gently imprinting the solemn vow onto her heart. ‘However long it takes, I will wait.’