The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

Author:Madeline Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Published: 2021-01-21T17:26:16+00:00

THIRTEEN

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.

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