FIREWEED

All around me now there are open acres, acres of ruined and desolate land, where the bombs fell. Over there the square tower of a gutted church survives as the only landmark, till the harmonious walls of the cathedral rise exposed in the background. It’s quiet here, and beautiful, for into this wilderness the wild things have returned. Grass grows here, covering, healing, and russet sorrel in tall spikes, and goldenrod, swaying beside broken walls, full of butterflies, and purple loose-strife, and one plant, willow herb, that some people call fireweed, grows wild in this stony place as plentifully as grass, though it used to be rare enough to be searched out, and collected. It is a strange plant; it has its own rugged sort of loveliness, and it grows only on the scars of ruin and flame.
I suppose they will build on this again, some day: but I like it best like this; grown over; healed.

I found Fireweed at the Op Shop a while ago, but spurred on by Kate Constable’s recommendation, I finished it in a rush this week. I had to rush, or I would have stalled. It’s a vivid, harrowing story set during the Blitz in London; two teenage runaways face death and destruction and daily life in wartime. Almost too poignant. I kept thinking about young people in Ukraine, or in Russia for that matter. In Gaza and Israel and Lebanon. Anywhere bombs are falling and the life they might have had is swept irrevocably away in smoke and dust, turned to rubble. I nearly stopped reading many times, asking myself, Do I really need to read something so sad?

But I ploughed on. It was the detail the hooked me, the feel of the place and time. Though the author was only 3 at the time of the Blitz, most of the adults around her as she grew up had experienced life in wartime and so she was able to draw upon their memories and  no doubt that’s what makes it feel so authentic and startlingly realistic.

The narrator is 15-year old Bill, who has run away from the Welsh farm where he was evacuated to safety. He returns to London to wait for his soldier father where he encounters another fugitive, the naive and sheltered Julie. A bond develops, as if they’re family, or even something closer; they become a pair, sheltering in the Underground during night raids, earning money working at the market during the day, drifting around the city together. However it can’t last…

No spoilers, but the ending is not what I predicted. Perhaps it’s even more tragic (is that a spoiler?). I have Goldengrove on the shelf; when I’ve recovered from this book I’ll read it. It might take a while.