The Air Raid Book Club(11)
The dog looked away as if assessing his options before dropping the half-chewed pages at her feet.
“Thank you, I think,” said Gertie, wrinkling her nose and picking it up with the tips of her gloved fingers. “We don’t really want you ingesting newspaper, now do we? Remember what happened when you ate those licorice twists complete with paper bag?”
Hemingway bowed his head as if he did remember that particular trip to the vet.
“Come on. Let’s go home,” she said. She was about to fold the newspaper into a neat parcel ready to put on the fire later when she spotted the word “Help!” The letters surrounding it had been ripped by Hemingway’s eager jaws, but as Gertie smoothed them, the startling text leapt out at her.
HUMANITY TO
THE RESCUE OF GERMAN JEWRY
HELP!
BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE
She stared at the words for a moment before glancing back at Harry’s grave, the oval pink rosebuds nodding in the breeze. Gertie Bingham wasn’t a superstitious woman, but she did believe in being in the right place at the right time. Call it fate or luck, it had been a feature that had underpinned most of her life. Whether it be her first meeting with Harry or the moment she spied the shop on the high street, Gertie had always followed her heart. It had occasionally gotten her into trouble but had invariably led her to where she needed to be. As she stood now, clutching the newspaper, taking in these words, she knew what she needed to do. Moreover, she knew that Harry would agree with her. Gertie felt foolish that it hadn’t been immediately obvious to her. She folded the newspaper carefully and slid it into her coat pocket. “Come along, Hemingway. We’ve got business to attend to. Goodbye, my darling. See you next week,” she said, hurrying toward the gates as the wind picked up.
She quickened her pace with Hemingway trotting alongside her. By the time they reached home, a squally shower was nipping at their heels. Gertie hurried in through the door, brushing away the droplets of rain from her hair as Hemingway shook off his coat. Gertie hastily lit the fire and reached for the telephone. She waited to be put through and relaxed when she heard the voice answer.
“Purberry 4532?”
“Charles? It’s Gertie.”
“Gertie. It’s good to hear from you. Are you well?”
“Yes. Thank you. And I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other night.”
Charles cleared his throat. “I have too. I’m sorry I put you on the spot, Gertie. You’ve had a ghastly couple of years. It was wrong of me to ask that of you. You don’t need a stranger in your house. You should be enjoying your well-deserved retirement.”
“No, Charles. I’m glad you did. You’ve made me realize some important things. Things I’d lost sight of.”
“And have you come to a conclusion?”
“I have. I’ve made up my mind. I want to help. I’ll take in a child and give them a home and do my best for them. It’s the least I can do.”
“Are you sure?”
Gertie glanced at Harry’s face, smiling out from their wedding photograph, eyes sparkling, full of hope. “I’ve never been surer.”
Chapter 4
1939
There was once a wealthy man who had a kind and beautiful wife. They loved each other very much but had no children. They desperately longed for a child, and every day and night the wife prayed and prayed but to no avail.
—“The Juniper Tree,” Grimm’s Folk Tales (author’s trans.)
Gertie stepped through a grubby brick archway, pausing at the top of the girder bridge to take in the hubbub of Liverpool Street station. She tried to picture what it would be like for a child, arriving alone, viewing all this for the first time. The ornate pillars that lifted your eye toward the glazed roof and sky above would have offered a note of optimism if it weren’t for the fact that any light was obscured by a thick coating of soot. In truth, the whole station was dark and dirty. Gertie stared forlornly at the steep, grimy steps leading to the concourse, where a constant stream of passengers hurried toward whichever steam train was preparing to leave. The din and clamor of the closed-in space merely added to its dingy atmosphere. She could only imagine that the poor children, having endured a long and tiring journey after leaving their homes and families behind, would be utterly terrified.
Gertie made her way slowly down the steps, using the rail for support. She found the bustle of London overwhelming now. Gone were the days when she would have relished an excursion to London: a browse in an art gallery, afternoon tea with a friend, and, of course, a trip to Cecil Court to visit Uncle Thomas.
She stepped onto the concourse and approached the mahogany kiosk selling newspapers and paperback books. Gertie smiled to herself as she recalled her uncle’s explosive reaction on the day he’d discovered that Allen Lane would be introducing paperback books into the world.
“It is an affront to the very fabric of our civilized society, Gertie. Nothing more, nothing less. They will never catch on, and Mr. Lane will be left with egg on his face. Egg, I tell you.”
Uncle Thomas held firm until the publisher offered him a very favorable deal to trial a few of these monstrous volumes. He was a businessman, after all. He continued to sell both formats to his customers but took great pleasure in the fact that hardback books were still the main meat of his business.