Mr. Stokes waited for Mr. and Mrs. Hews when the all clear sounded, thinking it best that he be the one to share the dismal news. Their pain was difficult to witness. After all, a woman’s pride was her home, and Mrs. Hews had put a lifetime of work into the grand little townhouse where purple cabbages grew in flower boxes that once held geraniums.
But in the end, it wasn’t only Grace and Mr. Stokes who stayed on after the all clear to help them sort through the dusty rubble for anything salvageable. The inhabitants of the entire row of townhouses helped as well as neighbors from other streets. They ignored their own broken windows and blown-out doors to offer aid to those whose suffering was far greater than their own. A community brought together by loss.
Their close friends took the meager pile of possessions to hold for them while Grace directed the stunned couple to the local rest center to be sheltered until a new home could be found. After Grace’s shift ended, she made her way back to Britton Street in such a fatigued state that her feet could scarcely function and clumsily stumbled over one another. She fell into bed with her dirty clothes on and slept where she landed until she could rouse herself for her shift at the bookshop.
A bath worked miracles for her and by the time she entered Primrose Hill Books, she didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as when she’d come home. Mr. Evans, however, frowned at her as she entered the store.
“Have you had enough sleep?” He set his pencil in his ledger so it lay neatly along the seam.
“Have any of us?” She offered a smile.
He folded his arms over his brown pullover, which had become baggy as the ration whittled away at his once rather stout frame. “I heard the Hewses’ house was bombed on Clerkenwell Street. Were you there?”
“Only afterward.” There was something in the seriousness of his tone as he asked that made her feel like a child about to be reprimanded.
“You could have been there when it happened.” The white tufts of his brows inched together. “What would you have done if you’d been near the bomb when it fell?”
Grace hesitated. She hadn’t thought of it, truly. After all, it was the East End that the Germans seemed to target. And the odds of her being hit by a bomb seemed far too slim to genuinely consider.
“I don’t like it, Miss Bennett.” Color blossomed in his face. “I think you ought to resign from your post with the ARP.”
A customer entered the store, setting the bell ringing. Grace glanced over her shoulder and recognized the woman as one of their regulars, one who seldom required assistance.
“The ARP needs me now more than ever,” Grace replied in a low voice.
“So does the store.” Mr. Evans snatched up his ledger, sending the pencil flying from its spine, and strode toward the rear of the shop without another word.
Hopelessness welled in Grace, exacerbated by the tired fog clouding her mind. Mr. Evans was evidently worried she would be sacrificing her focus on the store for her efforts with the ARP.
She was determined to prove him wrong.
By the time the shop was set to close that night, she’d designed several new slogans with a couple already neatly printed on pasteboard. Liven up your shelter with a new book and Let a book keep you company during the air raids. They weren’t ideal, but they were a start.
Regardless, Mr. Evans had scarcely said more than two words to her and merely offered a grunt at the new adverts.
She had little time to worry over his demeanor, however, for when she went home, she fell into a deep slumber. One that was rudely interrupted around eight that evening by the wail of yet another air raid. She dragged herself to the shelter along with Mrs. Weatherford where the sleep she so desperately needed eluded her.
The attack continued through the night, the same as the prior evening when she’d been outside helping the people in her sector. Only this time, she was locked in the darkened cocoon of the Anderson shelter, unable to see what was happening. But she could hear it.
The blasts of the ack-ack guns rattled the steel frame and bombs detonated so close, the whole structure shuddered as though it was going to cave in. Once it even seemed to lift off the ground before crashing back into place.
The whistles were sharp and loud just before going silent, followed by a boom so ferocious that the ground trembled. The all clear didn’t come again until the following morning, and the women resolved to layer the hard benches with bedding to at least make them more comfortable for sleep. Already they’d cleared away the gardening tools to restore it to a proper shelter.