hissing electricity wires that the teams of workmen were trying to repair. The graceful terraces of Victorian and Edwardian houses had been defaced by the rubble-filled gaps between them. Garden walls had disappeared, pavements had been torn up, and telegraph poles were felled like trees, their wires draped across shattered roofs and toppling chimneys. Shop windows were boarded, electricity cables and water pipes laid bare in the gaping holes where even more men worked to repair them. The end of one road had been shut off completely so the army could defuse an unexploded bomb, and in another, a huge bulldozer was slowly dismantling a house that was threatening to fall and demolish the two beside it.
She was almost at the factory when she saw Pearl coming the other way. With a wave, Sally hurried towards her and then came to a horrified standstill.
‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Pearl. ‘Will you look at that?’
Sally stared at the vast pile of rubble that had once been the two blocks of flats that overlooked the primary school. They had collapsed like a pack of cards right across the playground, and effectively sealed the entrance to the vast public shelter beneath it. If the attack had come during the day, the children playing there would have been killed, or buried alive in that shelter.
She shivered, and the terrible dread of what might have been grew stronger as she watched the men desperately digging at the still-smouldering mountain of rubble to clear the entrance. ‘It would be a miracle if anyone’s still alive,’ she breathed.
‘If the kiddies had been playing in that yard,’ murmured Pearl, ‘it don’t bear thinking about.’
‘That’s why I’m taking Ernie away,’ said Sally. She turned to her friend and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry Pearl, but I can’t move in with you – not yet. The boys have to leave Cliffehaven, and I’ve promised Peg and Jim I’d look after them.’
‘But all our plans …’
‘They can keep,’ she said softly. ‘But it’s too dangerous here for the boys now and, as Ernie can’t travel alone, I have to be with him.’
‘But you can’t,’ breathed Pearl. ‘What about your job, and your sewing? What about Peg and Jim and Ron? What about me?’
‘Don’t make this any harder than it already is,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve already had me mum on me case, and she’s not helped a bit.’
Pearl crossed her arms, her eyes stormy, her tone acidic. ‘If your mum’s turned up, then why can’t she take Ernie?’
‘I wouldn’t trust her to look after him properly,’ said Sally with some asperity. ‘At the first whiff of a bloke with a stuffed wallet, she’d be off.’ She forced a smile and hugged her friend. ‘I’ll keep in touch, I promise,’ she breathed. ‘And, who knows? This war could be over in a few months and I’ll be back and moving in with you before you can blink.’
‘But, Sally, I don’t want you to go.’
‘Look at that, Pearl.’ She pointed to the devastation in the playground. ‘I have to go. Please try and understand. He’s all I got, and I have to keep him safe.’
Pearl gave a deep sigh. ‘I know. But I’m going to miss you, Sal. And that’s a fact.’
Sally took her arm. ‘Come on, we’re not doing no good standing here gawping. We’re going to be late for work.’
‘That’s if the factory’s still standing,’ muttered Pearl. ‘You never know, Hitler might have done us a favour by blowing it up – Simmons along with it.’
‘Nah, no such luck,’ said Sally, as they reached the gates and found the building hadn’t been touched. ‘The new one’s all right as well.’ She pointed to the enormous red-brick building that stood on the next corner. There were men putting up the ‘Goldman and Solomon Clothing Factory’ sign above the gates.
‘I didn’t realise they’d expanded,’ said Pearl. ‘Someone’s obviously making a packet out of this war. Shame it ain’t us.’
They went inside, clocked in and headed for their machines.
‘Miss Turner,’ shouted Simmons from the far end of the factory.
Sally wasn’t prepared to conduct a conversation from one end of the factory to the other, neither was she going to scurry back to see what he wanted. She waited until he came stomping to her work-station.
‘Where’s Mrs Turner?’ He was breathing heavily, and his face was red.
‘She’s not well. She’ll come in later and do a different shift. I can only stay for three hours, and all. I have to go to the Billeting Office.’