Fireweed (6 page)

‘St Paul's.'

‘How do you mean, good?'

‘It's supposed to be good architecture. People who know think so. And I've only seen it once, when I was quite young, and I didn't like it much then. I'd like to go and see it again, just once more, while it's still there.'

‘It'll still be there,' I said. ‘These bomb gangs are dealing with it.'

‘Bill,' she said, slowly. ‘Do you know anything much about bombs?'

‘Well, no, only what I've read in the papers.'

‘My father used to do them in the first war. Get the fuses out, you know. It's very dangerous.'

‘Well, as long as you don't give them a great knock on the nose-cone. That's what makes them go off, isn't it?'

‘You've got it a bit muddled, I think,' she said, pouring out more tea. ‘Some of the ones that don't go off are duds, or ordinary ones that just by some chance didn't fall on the trigger mechanism, but some of them are real time bombs, meant not to go off till someone touches them. They make a lot of trouble you see, making people leave that area, and all that. And those ones, Daddy said, are specially made to go off at the lightest touch, anywhere on them. Or even at a loud noise. Or even a change in temperature. The people who deal with them are just about the bravest people there are, Mummy says.'

‘Golly,' I said. ‘I should think your mother's right. O.K., we'll take a bus back to town. There's one that goes right by St Paul's, and you can take your last look.' It was a sort of delayed reaction, like the way a wave breaks, and then the backwash breaks again. I was still chatting about the bomb at St Paul's when I remembered the one behind me.

‘Julie,' I said. My throat was quite dry. Very slowly I picked up my cup of tea, and gulped some. ‘Julie, which sort do you think this is: the accident sort, or the time-bomb-go-off-at-any-time-sort?'

‘I honestly don't know,' she said, looking up at me calmly, with dark, limpid eyes. ‘I haven't a clue.'

And I made her make the tea. ‘Come on,' I said. ‘Let's get out of here!'

‘Let's!' she said, getting up at once. Then at the door she said, ‘Have you got your things?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I put them in the rucksack.' I was whispering.

‘Good,' she said. ‘Only I wouldn't like you to make us come back for them!' I have never closed a door so gently in my life as I closed that kitchen door behind me.

The bomb went up some time after we left. How long after I'm not sure. It wrecked the houses on either side of my aunt's, and two houses across the road, and it blew in the windows all the way down the street. Where our house had been there was nothing left but a great hole. But the apple tree, split in two right to the root, sent up a shoot the following spring, and survived. I can get my aunt to talk about it any time.

We sat on top of the bus, choosing a seat where someone had peeled off the new mesh netting from the windows, so that we could look out. The netting was to stop the window hurling splinters of glass at the passengers, but it made it so hard to see where one was that people pulled it off. Our window was all mucky with the glue left behind by the net. It was late afternoon, with that sort of misty haze in the air that the sun shines through softly, making no shadows.

‘Bill, tell me how ever you've managed all this time,' said Julie.

‘It's not so hard as you'd think,' I said.

‘But you had hardly any money; have you been getting enough to eat?'

‘I did have some money at first. You don't have to pay to sleep; you just go down a shelter. Nobody notices, because there are lots of people floating around on their own. And there are special places to buy food, you know, like the W.V.S. canteen where we got lunch.'

‘Don't they move around a lot? How do you know you'll find them?'

‘Well, there are dumps called British War Restaurants, that stay put, in church halls, and places like that. You can get a good meal there for sixpence, if you don't take pudding.'

‘Did your money last until this morning?'

‘No, but I earned some. It's not hard to do. I delivered newspapers for a few days, for a chap who'd lost all his delivery boys through evacuation; but then I found a better way. All the street markets are short handed; it's the old gents who are left, and some of them are trying to run their son's stall as well, and he's in the army, or some such thing. And they pay you quite well to mind the stall, and yell “Sweet Kentish plums!” at people. The best bit is, they feed you as well as pay you – you can eat all the squashed fruit and flattened buns and broken cake you can stuff into yourself. And they don't ask you any questions, either, not like the newsagent, who was always worrying about who I was and where my family were, and why I hadn't gone with all the others. I got fed up telling him fibs. But the barrow-boys aren't like that at all, they just say, “Them as asks no questions don't get told no lies”.'

‘Oh, Bill,' she said, eyes shining, ‘What fun! Can I come too?'

I looked at her doubtfully. ‘You'd stick out like a sore thumb in that posh dress,' I said. ‘We'd have to get you something a bit raggedy.'

‘How could we do that?' she asked.

‘From the Salvation Army Mission. They got me this jacket when the weather went cold. They don't ask too much, either. The only trouble is, all their stuff's too big.' And I pulled at my jacket, to show her how far in front of my chest it buttoned up.

She laughed. ‘Bill, you could get two of you in there, easily,' she said. Then she began to giggle. ‘And wait till I tell Mother.
She
said this dress would do to go
anywhere
!'

‘Golly, look at that!' I said. Outside the smeary window of the bus we could see a terrible sight. There was a great wide desolate stretch of blasted houses. Piles of rubble lay thickly everywhere, with splintered timbers sticking out here and there. In a few places a wall was still standing with empty windows gaping against the sky, and all crumbled and broken into strange shapes, and blackened by fire. The bus was bumping along the road, for the road surface was full of holes. People were struggling along the pavement by a narrow path swept through the rubble; the shops were fronted with boards instead of glass, and labelled ‘Business as Usual' in roughly painted letters. We looked in silence.

A red-haired conductress leant over us to look out of the window. ‘Gawd. I 'ope they're getting it back!' she said.

‘Do we do that too?' Julie asked me.

‘I don't know,' I said, shuddering.

St Paul's was still there. The hole in the pavement was there too, but it was just roped off, and the bomb had gone, for there were no notices, and the bus went right by the hole. We got off at the first stop on Ludgate Hill, and went to have a look.

‘It must have been an out-of-date
Picture Post
, of course,' said Julie.

We stood at the foot of the steps, and looked at the façade.

‘I still don't know, really, that I like it all that much,' she said.

‘Well, but I know what they mean about it,' I told her. ‘When you just remember what it looks like, you see it all columns, and a dome, and it seems very ordinary, and reminds you of the Odeon Cinema, and the town hall somewhere; but as soon as you see it again it's just a bit different, and you can see that it's right, and the people who built the town hall were just copy-cats, and got it wrong.'

‘Hmm,' she said.

‘It's so exact; all the shapes, and all the distances from here to there, all over it, are so exactly right.'

‘Well,' she said, staring hard, ‘I shall just have to remember what it's like as hard as I can, so that I can change my mind about it later, even if it's gone.'

Suddenly a voice came from behind us. ‘Now, don't go saying
that
, young lady. It may never happen. Never. And what does happen is quite enough to worry about. Sufficient unto the day, you know. Or perhaps you don't. Young people today don't know their Bibles as we did.'

It was an elderly stooped old gentleman, with a stick. Very vague and benign, like all the world's grandfather.

‘Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof,' I said. I never could bear not to show off, when I knew something.

‘Quite right, quite right,' he said. ‘And if I may say so, it is time you young people were getting home to safety. There are raids at any time of the day, now, you know. And really the young lady looks quite tired.' He was peering at Julie now, through steel-rimmed spectacles. ‘If you will allow me, I will call a taxi, and put you on it for home. Now what is your address, young man?'

I didn't see the danger till he got that far. Then I saw it, in a flash. But not quicker than Julie, who took to her heels at once, and dashed across the road, and into a narrow lane between tall buildings. I followed her, the rucksack bouncing up and down, and slapping me on the back as I ran. He waved his stick, and called after us, and just before I turned the corner, I saw him talking to a policeman and pointing his stick towards me.

Weaving through narrow streets, we ran and ran. We found ourselves in Blackfriars Bridge Road, and so on the Embankment again. Once there, we wandered along under the plane trees, saying nothing for a while.

‘What would happen if we got found out?' she said at last.

‘If that old geezer had reported us to someone? I suppose you would be sent to Canada, and I would be sent back to Wales.'

‘Without asking us what we wanted at all?'

‘Well, they didn't ask us the first time, did they?'

‘We mustn't get found out,' she said fiercely. ‘We mustn't let it happen.'

‘No,' I said. ‘We won't.'

She didn't say why we mustn't. I didn't ask.

It was getting dark as we walked. The lamp-posts' empty extinguished cages were outlined against the purple sky. A tug going up-river, a dim smudge of dark on the shiny water, hooted softly. The cars along the Embankment drove slowly, with deeply-hooded lights. The white lines painted along their running boards were all that we could see; they looked like white worms passing us. A tram clattered by, lurching along its faintly-shining rails. Somewhere on the South Bank search-lights opened up, long sweeping fingers groping in the sky. We turned from the river, and went up to the Strand – itself like a river, with two churches for islands – to take cover once more in the Aldwych Underground Station. From all the streets around, in all directions, processions of people were coming too, carrying their bedding, trailing tired children by the hand.

We looked upwards for a last glance at the sky. The stars were all there, shining in a mercilessly clear darkness, and soon the moon would be up, with no clouds to quench her, pouring clear silver on river, on domes, on spires, lighting every target in the city. We went down into the depths.

I remember how good it felt not to be on my own. To have someone to talk to, instead of lying as a lonely island outside all the circles of talk around me. We were lucky that night, and got a place on the platform. We lay down with the rucksack acting as a shared pillow, each rolled up in a new soft blanket. Other people came and lay all around us, till we were packed like sardines in a tin. On the curving tiles above us a poster exhorted the men to leave the space for women and children. ‘The trains must run', it said. But they had stopped all trains on the Aldwych extension now. As the platform filled up people got down between the rails, and spread out their sleeping things there. Then a shelter warden appeared. He had a bundle of hammocks. He looked around, and caught my eye.

‘Give us a hand, son?' I got up. Julie sat up too.

‘These here 'ammocks is for the kids,' he said. ‘We gotta string 'em up along there,' and he pointed to the rails. Down we went, moving people up to make some space. Grumbling a little, they edged along, far into the tunnel at the end of the platform. We tied one end of the short hammocks to the rail nearest the platform, and the other to the high-power rail. The warden and I tied them up, and Julie and a few others lifted kids out of the crush on the platform and tucked them up, swinging between the rails. At last all the hammocks were occupied, and we scrambled back, stepping over prostrate bodies, to our own places.

Somewhere on the down platform a sing-song had started up. Gusts of laughter boomed down the tunnel at us. Nearby a baby cried, until its mother lifted herself up wearily to sit leaning against the wall, giving it the breast. Beside us a large fat woman in a tight shiny black dress was handing out doughnuts from a paper bag to all her kids. She handed them to us too, without a word.

‘Thank you,' said Julie. ‘But …'

‘Go on, love, treat yourself,' said the woman. We did. I remembered I had a book in the rucksack, but by now Julie was asleep on it. I needed the lavatory. There was a row of empty fire buckets at the end of the platform, but I remembered that there were real lavatories in the ticket hall upstairs. Carefully, quietly, I got up, and moved along the sleeping rows towards the exit. All the corridors leading to the platform were as thickly crowded as the platform itself. People who had found no room to stretch out were sitting on their bundles, swaying with sleepiness. A slumped form occupied nearly every step of the frozen escalators, and my trek up to the top would wake at least a hundred sleepers. Groaning, I went back to the fire buckets.

When I got back to my place, Julie was awake, looking round. ‘It's O.K. I'm here,' I said. She laid her head back on the rucksack. When I rested my own head beside her I could feel the patch of warmth she bad made on the canvas. And something in my back trouser pocket jabbed into me. It was the Spitfire.

‘Julie,' I whispered.

‘Mmm?'

‘I've got a present for you. Here.' As she reached out for it in its twist of tissue paper, I saw that she was wearing a silver chain bracelet, with a disc on it, like the ones you see on dog-collars.