and that brother of yours. And if you was mine, I’d give you a lot worse.” She shook her fist at Eileen. “And don’t you try goin’ off and leavin’ ’em, or I’ll call a policeman,” she said, and slammed the door in their faces.
“I ain’t afraid of no police,” Alf said staunchly.
“And we don’t need no key,” Binnie said. “We got lots of ways of getting’ in ’thout that old cow knowin’.”
I can imagine, Eileen thought. “No, I promised the vicar I’d deliver you to your mother. Come along. We’re going to Stepney.” And please let Theodore’s mother be home.
She wasn’t. When they reached Stepney, after an even longer and more roundabout trek, her neighbor, Mrs. Owens, said, “She’s left for the night shift. You’ve only just missed her.”
Oh, no. “When do you expect her home?”
“Not till the morning. They’re working double shifts at the factory.”
Worse and worse.
“But Theodore’s welcome to stay the night with me,” Mrs. Owens said. “Have you had your tea?”
“No,” Binnie said vehemently.
“We’re not ’alf-starved,” Alf said.
“Oh, you poor lambs,” she said and insisted on making them toasted cheese and pouring Eileen a cup of tea. “Theodore’s mother will be so glad to see him. She’s been that worried, what with all the bombings. She’s been expecting him since yesterday afternoon,” and listened, clucking sympathetically, as Eileen told her what had happened.
It was wonderful, sitting there in the warm, tidy kitchen, but it was growing late. “We must be going,” she said when Mrs. Owens urged a second cup of tea on her. “I must get Alf and Binnie home to Whitechapel.”
“Tonight? Oh, but you can’t. The sirens may go any minute. You’ll have to leave that till the morning.”
“But—” Eileen said, her heart quailing at the thought of setting out with Alf and Binnie to find a hotel, if Stepney even had such a thing. And the cost!
“You must all stay here,” Mrs. Owens said.
Eileen gave a sigh of relief.
“Theodore’s mother gave me her key,” Mrs. Owens went on. “I’d have you here, but there’s no Anderson, only that cupboard.” She pointed at a narrow door under the stairs.
What is she talking about? Eileen wondered, following her next door with the children in tow. And who’s Anderson?
“The children can sleep in here,” Mrs. Owens said, showing them into the sitting room. “That way you won’t have to get them down the stairs.” She opened a linen closet and brought out blankets. “It’s a bit dampish for my old bones. That’s why I didn’t have one put in. Still, going out to the back garden’s better than going all the way to Bethnal Green in the blackout. Mrs. Skagdale, two doors down, fell off the curb and broke her ankle night before last when the sirens went.”
The air raids, Eileen thought. She’s talking about the air raids. And an Anderson was some sort of shelter. She hadn’t researched shelters. The whole point of sending the children to Backbury had been to get them away from the need for shelters. Mrs. Owens had said it was in the back garden. While she took the children upstairs to fetch pillows, Eileen ran outside to look at it.
At first she couldn’t find it and then realized the large grassy mound by the back fence was it. It was a corrugated iron hut, which had been sunk into the ground with dirt piled around it on three sides and on top of its curved roof. Grass was growing on top.
Like a grave, Eileen thought. The end that hadn’t been banked with dirt had a metal door. She opened it, and Mrs. Owens was right. It smelled damp. She peered in, but it was too dark to see anything.
I need to ask if Mrs. Willett has a torch, she thought, and went back inside, where she found Alf and Binnie whaling away at each other with the pillows. “Stop that immediately and put on your nightclothes,” she said, apologized to Mrs. Owens, and asked her about the torch. Mrs. Owens found it and a box of matches for her. “For the hurricane,” she said cryptically and made Eileen promise to come ask if she needed anything else.
“Should I take the children out to the Anderson now?” Eileen asked her anxiously at the door.
“Oh, no, there’ll be plenty of time once the sirens go. A quarter of an hour at the least.” She looked up at the darkening sky. “If they go. I’ve a premonition Hitler’s told them to stay home