The Girl With No Name by Diney Costeloe Page A

exclaimed Naomi.
    ‘I ask for bus to Shoreditch and a lady told me the number and gave me the money.’
    ‘Well, you’re safe home at last.’ Mary entered the conversation for the first time. She had realised that they were getting a very edited version of Lisa’s day, but she was also aware, more than Naomi and Dan seemed to be, that Lisa had needed the day on her own to help her come to terms with the disappearance of her family. It would, Mary knew, take a long time for the desolation that had engulfed Lisa to lessen and it would always be there within her, like a faded bruise that doesn’t hurt unless you press it.
    ‘I’d better go,’ Mary said. ‘We’ll be opening up soon and Tom will be wondering where I’ve got to.’ She got to her feet and reached down to give Lisa a hug before letting herself out.
    Naomi said to Dan, ‘You’d better go and tell the Langs that she’s home safe and sound. They’ll be worrying, too.’ Dan nodded and, putting his coat back on, went out into the night.
    ‘You must be very hungry, Lisa,’ Naomi said, happier to deal with the practicalities of life. ‘I’ve got fish for tea and I’ll make some chips. Would you like that?’
    ‘Yes, please, Aunt Naomi,’ Lisa replied and watched as her foster mother prepared the meal.
    That evening, when Lisa had gone to bed, Naomi said, ‘Where do you think she got to then?’
    Dan shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘I was worried sick,’ Naomi admitted. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her now.’
    ‘Nor could I,’ agreed Dan. ‘We’re her family now and we’re lucky to have her.’

6
    Lisa settled back to school after the Christmas holidays. She missed Harry, who had started his job as an errand boy, but her friendship with Hilda was strengthened with his departure. Several children who had been evacuated in September had returned home when the expected bombing had not happened. The numbers at the school increased. New classes were formed and after consultation with Miss May, Miss Hammond made sure that Hilda and Lisa were left together while Roger and his cronies were placed in a parallel class. She knew that being German in a London school at this time was not easy for Lisa and that Roger in particular had been making life difficult for her.
    Just occasionally Lisa would find Harry was waiting for her round the corner after school. He had changed, suddenly far more grown up than he had been, no longer a boy, but a streetwise youth with a knowing look on his sharp-featured face. He always seemed to have money in his pocket and would often bring Lisa a bar of chocolate.
    ‘Well, I got wages now, ain’t I?’ he replied when Lisa remarked on this. ‘All right, are you?’ he always asked. ‘No more trouble with them Nazis?’
    ‘No, they leave me alone now. Other, younger kids to bully.’
    ‘Well, you just let me know.’
    He told her very little about his new job, though she asked him what he had to do.
    ‘Just take messages for my boss, mostly,’ he replied vaguely. ‘Parcels and that, deliveries, you know.’
    ‘But what do you deliver?’
    ‘Stuff the boss wants delivered, of course,’ snapped Harry. ‘He’s got a supply business. I don’t know what he wants delivered, do I? I just do what I’m told and he pays my wages.’
    ‘You still at the hostel?’
    ‘Yeah, for now. May have to move soon. They need the space for younger boys, them still at school.’
    Together they would walk towards Kemble Street, passing the park, where there was now a sandbagged anti-aircraft installation, above which two barrage balloons tugged at their moorings. War was all around them and yet left them strangely unaffected. No bombs, no gas, no invasion, but high awareness of the possible ‘enemy within’.
    Esther Lang had warned both her children and Lisa not to speak German anywhere they might be overheard.
    ‘There’s so much talk of a “fifth column”,’ she said, ‘you know, German spies who may