Grace drew to a stop before the bombed-out house on Clerkenwell Road, the muscles in her legs jumping from her exertion. The address was no longer visible in the rubble that had once been a home, but she could make out the two on either side well enough to identify the missing house number. For that number was tied to names in her mind, repeated by Mr. Stokes three times a week at several intervals on every watch.
Mr. and Mrs. Hews, an elderly couple, had lived in that house since they wed nearly fifty years prior. Mr. Stokes often mentioned Mrs. Hews's fondness for chocolate and how she'd always carried one just for him when he'd been a boy.
Mr. Stokes's footsteps slowed as he appeared beside Grace. "Mrs. Hews," he whispered, his expression stark as he observed the ruins.
"They were in the shelter." Grace recalled the names from the list she'd assembled as people entered the door. "Mr. Stokes, they're safe."
"Good." He nodded. "Good. That's good."
They set to work, dousing the small flames that flickered in the rubble with their stirrup pumps and continued their watch on the rest of the sector. More bombs fell as the night went on, though no more were in their area of patrol. The better part of their night was spent sweeping up the fallen glass on the surrounding streets where all the windows had been blown out, and at one point chasing away looters from the Hewses' property.
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.
After all, it was beginning to look like the Germans were intent on bombing London every night.
When Grace woke later that morning, she learned on the news that St. Thomas's hospital had been hit, having received a direct blow along one major section. Nearby, a school had also sustained terrible damage. The Nazis were a foul lot, but it was truly low to target the infirm and children.
Anger burned through Grace, arming her with the need to continue her role with the ARP—to do her part to fight Hitler.
She was ready to declare as much to Mr. Evans when she went to the bookshop, but found the door closed and locked tight upon her arrival. He'd presented her a key some months before, and she dug it out of her handbag, unlocking the shop. Once inside, she flipped the sign to Open and pulled back the blackout curtains to let in a stream of cloudy sunlight as she called out for Mr. Evans. He did not reply.
Apprehension tightened along her back.
It was the only time in her employment he wasn't standing at the counter like a sentry, awaiting her arrival before disappearing into the back to resume his daily work. His work, she'd surmised in the last year, was mainly reading the day away.
And now, he wasn't there.
The building didn't appear damaged, meaning his flat above would have remained intact. Images flooded her mind, colored with Mr. Stokes's terrible stories. What if Mr. Evans had been out the previous evening and was caught unawares?
She called his name again as she strode to the rear of the shop and pushed into the small backroom.
It was the smell of alcohol that hit her first.
Scotch.
Her uncle had drunk the stuff. It stank like paraffin oil and tasted far worse. Not that she was one for sampling paraffin oil.
Mr. Evans was slumped in his chair, half sagging over the tabletop. A bottle of amber liquid sat before his folded elbow, and his hand limply curled around a nearly empty crystal glass.
Were it not for that bottle at his side, she might have been truly worried. Though the image of him in such a state was still rather disconcerting.
"Mr. Evans?" Grace stepped into the quiet room and set aside her handbag.
He lifted his head, though his glasses rested askew across his face, and gave her a bleary look from the crooked lenses. His normally immaculately combed hair was mussed and his brown pullover atop his collared shirt, the same he'd worn the day before, was rumpled. "Go home, Miss Bennett." His words were thick with sleep and drink, and he lay his head on the table once more.
"I can't go home. It's morning and we've a store to run." She gently reached for the glass and pulled it from his hand.
He didn't stop her. Instead, he squinted up at her from under his bushy brows. "Did I ever tell you I had a daughter?"
"I wasn't aware, no." Grace cradled the glass in her palm, its smooth surface still warm from his grip. He had clearly been there for quite some time. "Is she in London?"
He sat up slowly, swaying. "She's dead."
Grace winced at her egregious misstep. "Forgive me. I didn't—"
"It happened several years ago, same car accident as my wife." He adjusted his glasses with clumsy hands, setting them almost correctly at the bridge of his nose. "She would have been about your age now, my Alice."
A ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. "You look like her. I suspect it's why Mrs. Weatherford sent you my way, the meddlesome woman. Her boy Colin had been friends with my daughter for the whole of their lives. No doubt she thought it might help ease the pain of Alice's loss or some such rot. Nonsense, all of it." His furrowed expression softened. "Though I suppose now Mrs. Weatherford understands the futility more so than before."
There was a sadness in his eyes that Grace felt in her core, the hollow emptiness of grief. One that had resonated since her mother's death and never went silent.
She carefully set the glass on a stack of boxes, away from his reach. "Does it bother you that I look like Alice?"
His gaze slid to Grace and paused as though considering her appearance in earnest. Tears filled his eyes, and his chin began to tremble. Quickly, he looked away and a hearty sniff filled the room.
"In the beginning." There was a quaver to his voice, but he cleared his throat. "Every time I'd see you, I'd see my Alice. She had blond hair, like me. Before this." His fingers danced over his white, rumpled hair.
Grace said nothing, letting him speak.
"I thought I'd buried her here." He slapped his open hand on his chest and gave an exhale that seemed to cause him great pain. "Now I know, such things are too great to be contained. It also makes me realize I wasn't only trying to push aside my grief, but also my guilt."
There was a thickness to his words, not from alcohol, but from emotion, and it made Grace ache for him.