London Calling
by
Helen Carey
Winter Blog Tour
I think it's general knowledge by now that I do love a Family/London saga and by the looks of this one by Helen Carey, I am going to thoroughly enjoy this one! I have an extract for you today, but am hoping to have a review for you very soon.
Extract
Prologue
12 December 1942
With considerable relief,
Molly Coogan pulled her cloak round her, checked that her nurse’s cap was
pinned on securely, ran down the last few stairs and crossed the dimly lit
lobby towards the heavily sandbagged doors.
Her
hand was already on the handle when she heard someone speak behind her.
‘I
wouldn’t go out there if I was you.’
The
voice was portentous, almost gleeful in its gloomy menace, and Molly turned to
see one of the hospital porters pinning a poster up on the wall next to the
empty reception desk.
‘That
sounds ominous,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
It
struck her suddenly that the whole lobby was unusually empty. Visiting hour was
long past, but there were normally a few staff coming and going. She knew it
wasn’t an air raid. Even in the depths of the Wilhelmina septic wards she would
have heard the sirens. She had heard them often enough. And the planes that
followed.
Much
of south London had been smashed to smithereens by Nazi bombs over the last
couple of years. But the Wilhelmina Hospital had been built to withstand the
Zeppelin raids of the Great War. It was proving equally effective against the
Luftwaffe, despite its proximity to tempting targets like the Clapham Junction
rail interchange and the Battersea power station.
In
her darker moments Molly sometimes wished that the Wilhelmina would suffer a
direct hit and put everyone out of their misery. Throbbing and humming gently,
insulated from the real world by its emergency generators, it was like some
sinister old submarine. And she hated it. She hated the boarded windows, the hushed
gloom, the ghastly competing scents of sepsis and iodine, the dogmatic senior
nurses and the smug, complacent doctors. Most of all she hated the constant
presence of death.
She
didn’t know how much more she could take. Even tonight . . . She stopped and
shook her head.
‘Why
not?’ she asked again. ‘What’s going on outside?’
‘Fog,’
the porter said.
He
took a spare drawing pin out from between his teeth and stood back to admire
his handiwork. Even in the muted light, Molly could see that it was a picture
of Winston Churchill.
‘Fog?’
Molly repeated. ‘I’m not scared of a bit of fog.’
But
then she hesitated. It was an excuse not to go up to the Flag and Garter. A
legitimate excuse. She could go back to the nurses’ home instead, crawl into
bed and block out the day, block out the thought of a young girl dying of
septic infection only ten days after pricking her finger on a rose bush.
‘That’s
easy to say, but it’s a right old pea-souper tonight,’ the porter said. ‘Just
like the old days.’
Molly
felt torn. She was dog tired. But she had promised her friend Katy Frazer that
she would help up at the pub.
‘You
can’t see your hand in front of your face,’ the porter added.
Wondering
what other platitudes he would come out with, Molly took a step forward to read
the slogan under Winston Churchill’s face. We will
go forward together.
That
was all very well for him, Molly thought. Going forward for old Winnie probably
meant being tucked up in front of a log fire somewhere nice and safe with a big
fat cigar in his hand and a map of the world on his lap. But for her it meant
struggling up to Lavender Road to spend the evening behind the bar in a noisy,
smoky pub.
She
nodded an unenthusiastic good night to the porter and pushed out through the
heavy doors. She had to go. It was her last chance to give Katy a hand. She was
back on nights again tomorrow, and by next weekend, fingers crossed, she would
be at the maternity hospital in Croydon, starting midwifery training.
It
wasn’t much of a change. There’d still be scrubbing and cleaning and starchy
old ward sisters to contend with. But at least she would be ushering life into
the world rather than out of it. And if nothing else, it would get her away
from the Wilhelmina, from London, from Lavender Road. And from Katy and her
lovely Canadian husband Ward Frazer.
She would try to make a fresh start. It would be a wrench. A
terrible wrench. But she knew it had to be done. For the sake of her sanity.
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