Lizzie stumbled through the rubble. She looked around and then she saw a red ribbon caught in the stones. Was that the ribbon she’d put in Abigail’s hair just that morning? Please, God, don’t let it be.
Finally, she found an air-raid warden who was on duty. ‘The children, where are the children that were being evacuated? Do you know where they went?’ He pointed to a shelter further down. Inside was a whole group of children and the woman who had been so rude to her before. ‘Abigail, Abigail,’ Lizzie shouted into the shelter.
All that echoed back to her were children’s sobs and the women in there trying to comfort them in cooing and reassuring terms. She looked through the whole shelter, all the children, one bleak little face after another, but Abigail was nowhere to be seen. All of the grief slammed into Lizzie. The loss of her baby, the loss of Jack, and now the loss of Abigail. How could this happen to her again? She recognized the same sense of panic that she’d felt when they’d taken her baby from her. The fear of never seeing her again and a deep maternal instinct to protect her.
Lizzie tore out of the shelter and started searching again. And all at once she saw Abigail, just as she had that first day, standing right at the end of the platform. Her eyes closed, her hands out, as though she was praying. Lizzie raced to her and picked her up in her arms.
As Abigail grabbed her neck and held on tightly, Lizzie didn’t wait. She moved through that station as fast as she could. She didn’t care what they said. They were never taking Abigail away from her again. Even if she had to hide her in the house, even if she had to fight, be arrested, or battle for her through the courts, Abigail was going to stay with her no matter what.
‘It’s all right, darling,’ she repeated to her over and over. ‘It’s all right, you’re coming home with me. They’ll never take you away again.’ Her little body relaxed in Lizzie’s arms as she had on the first night she’d found her. And Lizzie knew it would be true. She would find a way; and Abigail would be hers.
45
On 10 April – Julia’s birthday – the girls were celebrating when the wail of the sirens blasted out into the air just as they brought out the cake they had pooled their rations to make. Julia quickly raced into the hall. ‘Abigail, Tom, put on your shoes and coats, we have to go.’ All three women jumped into action, a well-prepared team grabbing hats, coats and supplies for the shelter, and with the children headed off down the garden. Julia didn’t even bother to call out to Agnes, who never came to the shelter.
Diana carefully carried the cake.
‘We will not leave this behind for the Nazis to blow to smithereens,’ she joked as they closed the door on the little corrugated iron Anderson shelter.
Julia quickly found the lamp and lit it, and Diana organized the children into the beds, while Lizzie prepared something for them all to drink. The children settled down to play a game of Snakes and Ladders as the women huddled together on the other bed to celebrate.
Lizzie lit the candles on the top of the cake. The gentleness of the candlelight was quite beautiful in the tiny room.
‘You need to make a wish, Julia.’
Julia held the hands of her friends. ‘There is only one wish for me this year, that we will all stay safe and that John and Maggie will be home soon.’ She blew out the candles and Diana cut slices for them all to enjoy.
But the celebrations were short-lived because it wasn’t long before their world started to rock, bombs showering down all around them. The sound was tremendous. The girls could tell this attack was very close, and every time there was an explosion, it rocked the ground below them, rattling everything inside the shelter.
About thirty minutes in, one came down with such force it knocked them all to the ground. The explosion above their heads was deafening, followed by a shower of debris raining down on them, crashing down on the tin roof. The impact snuffed out the light and Abigail started to scream. Lizzie reached for her in the dark, trying to feel for her small body. Finding a shoe and a sock, she tugged the little girl’s leg