Nineteen steps, p.1
Nineteen Steps, page 1
MILLIE BOBBY BROWN is an actress and producer best known for playing Eleven in the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, which garnered her international attention, critical praise and awards recognition, including two individual Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two individual Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. She also starred in and produced Enola Holmes and its sequel.
In 2019, Brown launched her own vegan and cruelty-free make-up and skincare line, florence by mills. The brand received the ‘Launch of the Year’ honour at Women’s Wear Daily’s Beauty Inc Awards, and has quickly become one of the most popular and reliable beauty brands according to The Cosmetify Index.
On 20 November, 2018, UNICEF named Brown the organisation’s newest Goodwill Ambassador. The appointment – marked on World Children’s Day at United Nations Headquarters and the Empire State Building in New York – made her UNICEF’s youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador at the time. Earlier that year, Brown was also named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
Follow her on Instagram @milliebobbybrown.
Copyright
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This edition 2023
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2023
Copyright © PCMA Management and Productions 2023
With thanks to Kathleen McGurl
Millie Bobby Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008530266
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2023 ISBN: 9780008530280
Version 2023-07-13
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008530266
For those who lost their lives in this tragedy
and for the loved ones they left behind, and
for Nanny Ruth who told me this story.
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Autumn–Winter 1942
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Two: Winter–Spring 1943
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Three: Spring–Summer 1945
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
Prologue
March 1993
It was the first time Nellie had been back to Bethnal Green, her childhood home, in almost fifty years. The first time since the end of the war. As she stepped off the tube train onto the platform and gazed around for signs to the exit, she was taken aback by how different it looked from the way she remembered it. The station had not been finished and the track not yet laid when the station was requisitioned as a public air raid shelter for the duration of the war. Now, people bustled past her as she stood clutching her suitcase, trying to imagine the thousands of triple bunk beds that had lined the tunnels when she was last here. How many endless, anxious nights had she and her family spent down here during the Blitz? Too many. And then again, later in the war, there’d been so many more nights they’d had to take shelter from the frequent bombing raids above.
The train she’d been on pulled away, its wheels clattering against the track as it picked up speed, leaving Nellie on the platform surrounded by her memories.
They’d replaced the escalators, she noticed, as she stepped onto shiny steel instead of the wooden slatted treads of the old ones, dragging her wheeled suitcase onto the step behind her. A busker had set himself up at the bottom of the escalator, and was singing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, the music echoing up to her. As she rode the escalator, she sang along quietly, remembering how during the war she sometimes sang down here for her friends and family. She reached the ticket hall and thought of dear Billy, how his cheeks would dimple when he smiled at her. This was where she’d so often stopped for a quick word with him, promising her family she’d catch them up as they made their way to the bunks.
Once through the gates of the ticket barrier, she turned automatically to her left. Back then, there’d only been the one entrance and exit to the unfinished station. Now there was another to her right, but if she used that one, she worried she’d be disorientated when she reached street level. It was familiar yet different, advertising posters lined the walls and there was a vending machine instead of the shelter canteen. Her heart began to pound as she climbed the first seven steps to the half landing, then turned left and began making her way up the nineteen steps. Nineteen. They were much better lit these days, of course, with a central handrail that hadn’t been there before, but still they were the same nineteen steps. Memories of all those other hundreds of times she’d used these steps came flooding back as she climbed, making her eyes blur with tears and her stomach knot.
She needed to get herself out of the station, find the way to Barbara’s house, greet her old friend and have a cup of tea. Babs had written to her a few months earlier, urging her to consider coming back for the fiftieth anniversary memorial service. It had seemed like a good idea, but now here she was, after all these years, with everything in front of her.
A crowd of young people, university students, she guessed, suddenly came charging down the steps towards her. She moved to her right, flattening herself against the wall. Her breath was coming in short, urgent gasps, her heart racing furiously, and she knew it wasn’t due to the exertion of climbing the stairs. It was because of what had happened here, fifty years ago. The night that changed her life forever. Clutching her suitcase with one hand and her chest with the other, she cowered against the wall, fighting to regain control, struggling to catch her breath. ‘Don’t fall, don’t fall,’ she whispered.
Part One
Autumn–Winter 1942
Chapter 1
It was a bright Saturday in September that felt as though it was still summer. Nellie had had a busy week at work at the town hall, where she was assistant to the Mayor, and today she longed for a bit of normality, a little taste of how life used to be before the war. Before the air raids and the rationing and the endless sombre news reports on the wireless radio. She was taking her little sister, Flo, for a picnic in the park. It was hot – the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down and the leaves to fall, but then you berated yourself for wishing away the good weather.
The autumn chill would come soon enough, Nellie told herself. And with it the dark days of winter when she’d be returning home from work after dark, stumbling along in the blackout, every yard treacherous.
‘Come on, Flo. Let’s get a move on. More time for our picnic,’ she said, tugging her sister by the hand.
They walked through the familiar streets of Bethnal Green where she’d always lived, passing a row of shops with their meagre window displays. Second-hand clothes, rabbit and
‘When will they rebuild it? When can the people have their house back?’ Flo asked, looking up at it.
‘After the war’s over, I expect.’ Nellie sighed, adjusting the basket hanging from her arm. But the people who’d lived there were unlikely to ever come home, she thought. For all she knew they might have perished inside when their house took a direct hit.
‘What if the war goes on for ever and ever?’
Lately the headlines screamed about RAF bombing raids on Munich and Nellie felt her stomach lurch thinking about it. Whenever the British had successfully bombed a German city, you could be sure there’d be a retaliatory strike coming soon after. And that usually meant London would be hit. Which meant the East End of London would be once more in danger.
Her little sister, only seven years old, could barely remember a time before the war began, and it showed no signs of ending any time soon. As much as the war had marred Flo’s childhood, it had robbed Nellie of her teenage years when she should have been having fun without a care in the world. Although, it wasn’t as bad these days as it was in the beginning, when the docks and warehouses were targeted, and then during the Blitz when Hitler had sent his bombers over built-up areas, trying to break the British spirit. It hadn’t worked. They were still here, still fighting, and would never surrender, as the Prime Minister had said near the start of the war. Never surrender. Nellie jutted out her chin defiantly as she remembered Mr Churchill’s speech.
‘It won’t go on for ever, I promise. Look, we’re almost here!’ Nellie smiled, eager to cheer her sister up as she led them across the bridge over the Regent’s Canal and into Victoria Park, past the statues of two dogs which guarded the entrance. Flo, as always, gave each dog a pat as she passed.
These days, with Victoria Park mostly taken over by the military – anti-aircraft guns on part of it and a prisoner-of-war camp at the far end – there were fewer places where one could feel truly free. Still, there was the small section of Vicky Park that was open to the public, and numerous smaller parks and gardens tucked between the streets of Victorian terraced houses. Some had been dug up to grow vegetables but others were still free for children to play, and there was always a game of football going on somewhere or other, with boys using their jackets to mark the goals.
A little farther on they crossed the small bridge that led onto a tiny island in the middle of a pond. ‘I remember when children weren’t allowed on this island,’ Nellie told Flo. ‘It was for grown-ups only.’
‘Didn’t you ever go on the island till you was grown-up?’ Flo asked, wide-eyed.
Nellie smiled. ‘Actually, we did. Babs and Billy and me – one of us would distract the park-keeper and the others would race across the bridge onto the island. By the time the parkie spotted us, we’d have done a full tour of it and all he could do was chase us off, but we were faster runners than him and he had no hope of catching us.’
Flo laughed, and Nellie chuckled too. Those had been good times, before the war, when she’d still been a schoolgirl and Flo was only a baby. She, her best friend Barbara and Barbara’s brother, Billy, had been inseparable back then. The three of them were close in age, with Billy older than Nellie by one year and Babs younger by one year. They’d grown up together. She was eighteen now, an adult more or less, a working woman with an important job at the town hall, but sometimes she wished she was still a child, playing hide-and-seek in the park with Billy and Babs.
As if thinking about him had conjured him up, she spotted a familiar figure walking towards them, grinning broadly. ‘Thought it was you, Nellie Morris! Having a picnic?’ Billy called out, pointing to the basket hanging from the crook of her elbow.
‘Yes, we’ve decided to make the most of the good weather, and Flo does like a picnic.’
‘She likes a tickle too, I bet,’ Billy said, as he lunged for Flo. She ran off squealing and Nellie stood watching them, laughing. Billy was like an older brother to them both, and she was fond of him. At times like these you could almost forget there was a war on and these were the moments that kept her going.
After a lap of the island the two were back, Billy gasping for breath. ‘She’s too fast for me these days,’ he said, wheezing a little.
‘Be careful, Billy. Your asthma.’
He nodded and reached for the medicinal cigarettes he always carried. A few puffs of one delivered the medication it contained deep into his lungs, stopping the wheezing. ‘I know. I’ll be all right.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘There. All good now. What’ve you got to eat in there?’ He nodded at the basket Nellie was carrying, the picnic her mother, Em, had put together for them.
‘Sandwiches, shortbread, lemon barley. Enough for three if you want to join us?’ There wasn’t, not really, but she felt she had to offer.
He shook his head. ‘Sounds good but I can’t. On shift later. Air raids don’t wait for picnics.’ He gave her a mock-salute, ruffled Flo’s hair and set off.
Nellie watched as he passed a pair of middle-aged women; one of them had a poodle on a lead. They stared after him and shook their heads disapprovingly, and the dog barked. They made no effort to quieten the animal. No doubt the women thought Billy was a conscientious objector, as he was not in uniform today. They didn’t know he was an air raid warden. They didn’t know how hard he worked, how many extra shifts he took on, how many nights he spent supervising people in the tube station shelter, despite the fact that being cooped up down there in that damp atmosphere was not good for his lungs.
They all did their bit for the war effort. Her father, Charlie, did a few shifts each week as a fire-watcher, as well as his regular job as a warehouse man down at the London docks. Babs worked in a factory making military uniforms.
‘Nellieeee! When are we going to eat our sandwiches? I’m going to save the crusts for the ducks. See them, over there? Ducklings too!’
‘Are there? Let’s go!’ Nellie let herself be pulled by Flo over to the shore of the island. Sure enough, nestled in amongst some reeds, was a family of ducks. The ducklings were tiny, fluffy things and it was all Nellie could do to keep Flo on dry land, watching but not trying to grab at the little creatures.
Across the park, in the closed-off area, the huge anti-aircraft, or ‘ack-ack’ guns as they were known, stood silent, pointing skyward, ready for action whenever the next air raid occurred. Yet here, at their feet, was a small reminder that life went on just as it always had.
They were packing up when the shrill wail of the air raid siren sounded.
‘In daytime? Really?’ Nellie said in surprise as her heart began to pound. She stuffed things into the picnic basket and grabbed Flo’s hand. ‘Come on, we got to run!’
‘Nellieee! Where should we go? I don’t want to be bombed!’ Flo screamed in terror. They were nowhere near the underground station where the family usually went to shelter from air raids, and far too close to the ack-ack guns that could easily be a target for the German bombers. She imagined a direct hit on the guns, shrapnel flying across the park hitting them both. Little Flo falling, bleeding and lifeless … No, it couldn’t happen. She had to save her sister.
There was a public shelter near the entrance to the park, which they’d passed on the way in. It was just one of those corrugated iron ones dug into the ground but it would have to do. Anything was better than being caught in the open. As Nellie ran, gripping Flo’s hand tightly, a wave of German bombers passed overhead low enough for her to make out the Luftwaffe emblem on their wings. Their engines screamed and roared, the sound recognisably different to that of the RAF planes that frequently flew over in formation, off to bomb towns in Germany. Flo stopped and stared up at them. It was possibly the first time she’d seen the enemy, Nellie realised. The air raids were normally at night. She feared the planes overhead would open fire with their machine guns at any moment, never mind the bombs they carried.
