The Woman with The Map: An absolutely unputdownable and heartbreaking WW2 novel Read online

  The Woman with The Map

  An absolutely unputdownable and heartbreaking WW2 novel

  Jan Casey

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus

  This edition first published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

  * * *

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,

  part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  * * *

  Copyright © Jan Casey, 2022

  * * *

  The moral right of Jan Casey to be identified

  as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  * * *

  9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8

  * * *

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  * * *

  ISBN (PB): 9781803281322

  ISBN (E): 9781838930776

  * * *

  Cover design: Larry Rostant

  * * *

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  * * *

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.headofzeus.com

  Contents

  Also by Jan Casey

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Bill

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Derek

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Mum

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Derek

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Sid

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Derek

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Nana

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Granddad and Uncle Terry

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Auntie Cath

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Flo

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jan Casey

  The Woman with the Map

  Women At War

  The Women of Waterloo Bridge

  To my husband, Don. With all my love.

  One

  Wednesday 20 February 1974

  The envelope Joyce picked up from the mat was stamped Urgent in large, red, angry letters. She stared at it, turned it over in her palm, then threw it on top of the pile of letters on the table by the front door, each of them marked in the same way. It was cold and damp and all she wanted to do was close the door, light the gas fire, put on the kettle, fire up the geyser and spend the evening curled up in her usual position on the settee. Ignoring the eight – or did this letter make it nine – official notices, she shot the bolt across the door, nudged the sausage dog draught excluder along the gap at the bottom of the wood and pulled the orange flower-scattered curtain tight across the lot. Her eye caught the accumulated stack of correspondence, but she rubbed her hands together to warm them, changed her court heels for a pair of cosy slippers and made her evening round of the flat. There was no hurry to open any of the letters as she was well-aware of the information they contained. And as far as she was concerned, none of it was urgent.

  Striking a match, she turned on the gas and held the light against the ring on the stove until, with a click and a whoosh, the gas bit the flame and exploded into a blue aurora of glowing heat. She turned to the sink, held the kettle under the running water and peered out at the yard. Despite the inclement weather, snowdrops returned her gaze. Purple and white crocuses poked their heads above the dirt in clay pots and, remembering her reluctance to kneel on the dank, grey paving slabs and plunge her hands into the potting soil last autumn, she was glad now that she had and the modest display of early spring made her smile.

  Two spoonfuls of tea in the pot, a cup and saucer, two digestives nestled on the side. While the tea was drawing, Joyce knelt in front of the fire in the sitting room, turned the dial and pushed on the pilot button to the count of eleven. When she heard the comforting muffled hiss that meant the heat was coming through, she put one hand on the coffee table, the other on her thigh and levered herself up.

  She stood for a minute and watched, through the gauze of the net curtains, the steady stream of shoe-clad feet walking past her basement flat. If she had been unaware that it was teatime and the end of the working day, the sound of the boots and heels and loafers making their way to families or the pictures or the pub or to visit friends would have told her more certainly than any clock. The steps were somehow lighter and less troubled than the footfall going towards places of work in the morning. There were muddy shoes, shiny shoes, casual and formal shoes. Black, brown, grey, navy blue, red, green, lace-ups, slip-ons, steel-toe-capped boots and of course, the magnificent multi-coloured platform shoes that so many young people were wearing these days. The girls’ dresses and skirts were much too short to be in her line of vision but if she could have seen them, they would be psychedelic swirls of paisley and cubes and stars topped by straggly Afghan coats. They were beautiful, she couldn’t deny it, but when she was that age all anyone had wanted out of a coat was that it could be buttoned and belted as tightly as possible against the cold. She couldn’t fathom any other point to a coat than that.

  A couple went past walking in tandem, their bell-bottomed jeans billowing around their huge, clumpy shoes. His in two flashes of brown; hers in shades of green and blue. Joyce caught a murmur followed by a burst of guffaws and for a split second it looked as though the two pairs of shoes might somehow become entangled, but they moved on leaving an echo of laughter trailing behind them.

  If she were thirty years younger, would she dare to wear the latest trendy shoes? It was difficult to imagine that she would. Like coats, the shoes she and her contemporaries had worn were practical and if they were lucky enough to have a special pair, they would have been fashioned from good, solid leather in a colour that matched everything, been polished lovingly and saved for high days and holidays.

  Joyce remembered that at twenty-one, she had owned a pair of brown brogues that she wore summer and winter. A treat was buying a new pair of laces and that was only after the old ones had been cut and retied countless times and then become frayed beyond repair. And that was it, apart from a lovely pair of black, patent heels that Auntie Cath had given her when the older woman’s bunions made it impossible for her to cram her feet into the leather any longer. There must have been other shoes, she thought. She couldn’t have gone through the entire war with the same two pairs of shoes. Or perhaps she had. After all, everyone had been entrenched for years in the spirit of make do and mend.

  The geyser burst into action with a comforting clunk, clunk, clunk that increased to a grating crescendo much like the noise of the V-1s as they’d glided over London minutes before falling to the ground in a steep dive. Joyce poured the tea into her cup, gathered the latest copy of Woman’s Realm under her arm and made for the settee where she intended to relax with her feet up. But the unopened stockpile of letters niggled at her and with a sigh, she grabbed them from the table and placed them on the floor where she could reach them when she’d finished her tea and biscuits. Then an article about the advantages and disadvantages of tea bags versus loose leaves caught her attention. Next there was the problem page; horoscopes; a pattern for a loosely crocheted poncho-type garment; the third instalment of a gripping serial about a woman who was trying to choose between the advances of a vicar and a farmer; and a pull-out section dedicated to recipes for under seventy-five pence each. But what was that in old money? She began to scribble in the margin to convert the costs back to shillings and pence, but the photos of food set out in a mouth-watering colour spread made her thoughts drift to the leftover steak and kidney pie in her fridge. She would pop it in the oven, boil a few potatoes with a handful of chopped carrots and green beans and it would be ready in no time; she was looking forward to it and her stomach rumbled in accordance.

  Then her toe caught the letters and she stumbled. Blasted things, she thought. Plucking one from the top of the pile, she took her fingernail to the flap and tore it open. It came as no surprise that it was from the London County Council Housing Department and that every page was marked Urgent. Without bothering to read it or open the other envelopes, she gathered up the letters and put them back on the table by the front door. Urgent, she thought. They had no idea about the meaning of the word.

  Two

  February 1941

  Joyce nodded at Percy, her partner for the nigh
t, and he tapped his cap in her direction in response. He was a slim, energetic man with a thick head of hair who was old enough to be her dad – if her dad had still been alive. Darkness fell, the warning sounded, the bombing started and from the minute they emerged from their basement headquarters into the screeching, smoke-filled night they were caught up in the chaos.

  They chased the bombs from one hole in the ground to the next, from flattened buildings to demolished roads; running for all they were worth between incendiary fires to trapped civilians and back again. Each time there was a hit, and within minutes she’d lost count of the dozens and dozens, they raced to the scene to do whatever they could to ascertain who might be inside, who could have escaped, who was injured and how they could help. For each incident Joyce wrote as many details as necessary on an ARPM1, flagged down a messenger on a bike and sent him on his way to alert Report and Control to send an ambulance or firefighters or the rescue services. Then she and Percy administered as much help and comfort as they could or made the decision to leave the casualties on their own and turn their attention to another emergency next door or across the road or two streets over.

  Ladbroke Grove was ablaze. At number 53, a young mum of perhaps twenty-three or four – not much older than Joyce – stood in what was left of her doorway with a tiny, crying child covered in brick dust and beetroot-red scratches holding tight around his mother’s neck. The front part of the house stood but the back was nothing more than flames licking towards the burnished sky. The minute she and Percy arrived on the scene, the young woman thrust the child into Joyce’s arms and hurtled herself upstairs screeching, ‘My baby!’

  Percy pulled her back but not before the ends of her hair caught alight. The woman, oblivious to the odour of her own scorching hair or the flames lapping her face, screamed again for the baby and fought Percy with thrashing arms, but Percy brought her to the ground and rolled her backwards and forwards to put out the fire, then he covered his face and found the little one – pinned under a pile of rubble. When he emerged from the bedroom, empty-handed and coughing into his elbow, he shook his head and without exchanging a word, they knew they could not give that terrible news to the poor mum, sobbing on the floor. She was in no fit state to hear it.

  Joyce felt that her heart, if she let it, would shatter and then she would be done for. She braced every muscle in her body, tensed her shoulders and legs and neck and called on every reserve of discipline she could muster to stop herself from cuddling up next to the young woman and draping her arms around her heaving chest. Instead, she nestled the little boy next to his mum where they clung to each other. ‘Here, take this,’ Joyce shouted above the incessant bombardment. She handed the mother a length of bandage to mop up some of the blood that was beginning to cake on her forehead and wipe at the snot running from her nose, but she chose to spit on the material and dab at the cuts covering her son’s pudgy face and hands instead.

  Then without warning, something on the roof shifted and gave way with an almighty crash. ‘Lift on three,’ Joyce yelled as Percy took the arms and she the legs, and together they lifted the mum and little boy to the street where all around them high-explosives and baskets of incendiaries found their targets. Bricks and mortar fell, the low lights of other wardens played chaotically from one raw, cankerous sore of a crater to another, fires lit the sky in oranges and reds to challenge any summer sunset. For a flash, searchlights picked out one horrible scene before flooding another with light for a split second. Above the din of the sirens, they were assaulted by the ceaseless droning of planes, the clang of ambulances and fire trucks, the hammering of feet, the unnerving sound of collapsing masonry. Four wardens pounded past her going one way then three another. A drunk lurched along the jagged pavement, stumbling around pits and mountains of bricks. A sink lay upturned in what was left of a front porch; a ripped gardening gauntlet was poised on top of a mountain of dirt; an unattached hand, washed clean by water from a burst pipe, floated in the gutter; a flattened hat; a shapely stocking; a shredded book. And everywhere they looked there was fire.

  A messenger skidded to a halt, took the ARPM1 from Joyce’s outstretched hand and pushed down so hard on his bike pedals that the muscles in his calves popped out like round stones. ‘Go!’ She bellowed as she pushed the seat of the bike to help him on his way, then felt bad because despite the fact that the scouts who took on the job were supposed to be at least fourteen, Joyce guessed he was no more than twelve at the most and she was grateful to him as he pumped towards Report and Control with her message in his pocket.

  Percy pointed to an elderly man dragging an armchair, a potted plant balanced on the seat, from the wreck of a house on the opposite side of the road, his shirt unbuttoned and wearing nothing but tattered socks on his feet.

  ‘I’ll wait here until the ambulance arrives,’ Joyce shouted. Smoke filled her lungs with every breath she took while she waited, so she bent and wrapped her scarf around the young mum and child’s faces. ‘Thank you,’ the woman managed as Joyce took her pulse, afraid she was going into shock. That was overlooked so often, as everyone tried hard to be stoic and uncomplaining, but almost every casualty Joyce dealt with appeared dazed, their skin waxen, pale and covered in a thin film of clammy sweat. And that went for bystanders and those unharmed, too.

  In the distance, Joyce heard the clatter of the ambulance and flailed her arms to let the driver know where to stop. It veered towards them at the exact minute a high-explosive tore into the already ravaged plot behind Percy and the older man. Joyce covered her ears and instinctively closed her eyes for a split second. When she opened them, Percy was hobbling towards her cradling his wrist close to his chest, a thin rivulet of blood flowing from his temple. ‘Percy!’ She called and ran towards him.

  But he batted at her outstretched hand and shouted, ‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss. It’s nothing,’

  Ignoring that demand, she bundled him into the ambulance, filled out a form, handed it to a passing messenger and ran towards… she couldn’t be sure… the direction of the high street, she thought. But before she got her bearings, she stopped at a large house of three flats that were ablaze. Two women were throwing buckets of water at the conflagration which was about as much good as if they had been using thimbles. Twice she hurled a chipped china chamberpot of water at the flames, but before she could fill it a third time, she heard the shrill cry of ‘Warden, we need you here!’ And she turned to see a woman dragging a man out from under a heap of rubble. Immediately, Joyce could tell the poor unconscious fellow would have to be made of stern stuff to ever walk again. His trousers were in shreds and his exposed right leg was a pulp of mangled red flesh. Joyce threw her coat over him and shivered when the sweat streaming down her back turned to an icy flow. Another ARPM1; another messenger; another ambulance. And so the night went on. And on. And on.

  The smell of bacon frying in lard drifted along the hallway towards Joyce as she let herself into the terraced house. It was early, but Mum had probably left the underground the minute the all-clear was sounded, eager to get breakfast on the go and start on her other chores. ‘Hello, Joy love,’ Mum called. She appeared in the doorway, her apron tied around her middle and a cloth in her hand. ‘Everything alright?’