Lover (10 page)

Dad was back at breakfast, but he didn't say much. Minnie looked exhausted, and Mums was grumbling about the gas. I told her about the first aid lecture, and she said, ‘You won't be too late, will you?' I said I didn't know and not to worry. It felt rotten. I hate lying. I suppose I could have come nearer the truth—said it was a date with Frank, but she'd only fuss and say it was irresponsible, and I really can't stand all that at the moment. Perhaps it
is
irresponsible, but another night under the stairs would just about finish me, and besides, if I was fire-watching at the office I'd have to stay in London, wouldn't I? Along with B, of course—but then it would be quite in order. They haven't asked the women yet, but if they do I shall put my name down as a volunteer. I ought to do something, anyway. It's not as if I'm any use to anyone sitting at home night after night, and Minnie's far better at looking after Mums than I am.

It was raining when I went to the station. I passed the end of Union Road: three houses down, and all that was left was an enormous crater with two great mounds of rubble on either side, bricks and plaster mixed up with bits of floorboards, linoleum, curtains, crocks—all the things that make a home. The rescue men had planks up the side of one of the heaps, and they were passing baskets of debris back down, I suppose to clear the way for a shaft through the top. There was an ambulance backed up, waiting. I tried not to think about who might be at the bottom of the rubble and, worse, what they might look like.

I saw a warden cross the road with a woman's handbag in one hand and a frying pan in the other. I couldn't think where he was taking them. Curiosity got the better of me, and when I went to see, I realised that they were putting belongings from the bombed houses into one of the front gardens opposite. China plates with not a chip on them, a milk jug, saucepans, a man's hat turned upside down…all laid out in rows on the muddy grass as if children were playing at a jumble sale. There was an old man standing beside them, looking dazed. When the warden showed him the handbag, I heard him say, ‘I don't care about that. Where's Peggy?'

The warden said, ‘They're still digging.'

‘What about Peggy?'

The warden put down the things he'd been carrying and picked up the hat. ‘Is it yours?' he asked. The old man looked at it as if he'd never seen a hat before.

‘Put it on,' said the warden. ‘Keep the rain off your head,' he explained, gently. ‘You'll feel better.'

The old man said nothing, but took the hat and put it on his head, and the warden left. The man stood staring straight ahead, and he suddenly said, ‘Thank you,' to no one in particular. It was loud and forceful. ‘
Thank you.
'

About ten minutes later I suddenly thought, if that pilot had dropped his stick of bombs a few seconds earlier—or later, depending on which way he was flying—our house would have looked like that and I wouldn't be sitting in this train, I'd be part of the rubble, and so would Mums and Minnie, and it would be Dad standing in a neighbour's garden with the warden telling him to put on his hat. But instead, the pilot dropped it over Union Road, so I was able to walk out into the garden this morning and find a pair of bird's wings and bury them under a rosebush. It is all just chance, and we are so helpless.

It was awfully nice to go out in the evening again. I suddenly realised, sitting in the restaurant, that I haven't really been anywhere for several weeks. I'd said goodnight to all the girls in the office then rushed away to the National Gallery to meet B, who hustled me into a taxi straight away, which was rather exciting, like being a spy or something. We said our ‘hellos' in the back, and he took me to a restaurant in Charlotte Street where we spent the next two hours getting tight on red wine and laughing a great deal. We heard the siren but nobody moved. I asked B if he didn't think it odd to be eating in an Italian restaurant when our countries are at war with each other, but he said that none of them are fifth columnists, or they'd have been interned by now. And two of the owner's sons were serving in the army—he's put a notice about it on the wall—so I suppose it must be all right. Then he added, ‘Besides, they're
Italians
,' which made us both giggle, and then I said, ‘We shouldn't really be laughing. I mean, that business over Somaliland made us look pretty silly, giving it up like that after everyone had said what a shame for Hitler having the Italians as allies and how lucky they weren't on our side.'

B said, ‘Well, at least they've got plenty of sand.' We were laughing again, when he suddenly stopped. ‘Oh, Lord.' His face had gone white.

‘What is it?'

‘Chap we know. Down there. Just stood up.' He jerked his head towards the back of the restaurant. ‘Don't look, you fool!'

‘What shall—'

‘Get out! Just go. I'll settle the bill and come after you. Meet round the corner.' He stood up, jerked my hat and coat off the stand, and almost threw them at me.

Thirty seconds later I found myself standing on the pavement in the dark, shivering and feeling as if I'd just had a bucket of cold water flung in my face. In the restaurant, it had felt so warm and happy and
right
, and then to be pulled up short like that… Chap
we
know, he'd said. Meaning him and his wife. The wife whose existence I'd conveniently forgotten. I've no idea what she looks like, but suddenly I could imagine her, a real, flesh-and-blood woman, sitting in a chair in their house, listening to the wireless and thinking that her husband was out fire-watching. It all seemed so sordid, standing on the street corner in the middle of a raid, putting myself in danger and causing worry to others through my own selfishness, that I suddenly found myself wishing I was back under the stairs with Mums and Minnie.

Then I heard footsteps, and as they grew closer I saw that it was B. As I started towards him I saw him make a quick shooing movement with his hand, then he crossed over to the other side of the road. I didn't understand immediately, and was about to call out to him when I heard another set of footsteps, hurrying towards us. I shrank back into a doorway just as whoever it was must have caught up, because I heard a man's voice say, ‘Bridges! I thought it was you. Which way are you going?' I didn't catch B's reply, but they moved off together down the street, and I was left on my own, feeling very cheap and rather frightened. I suddenly thought of the warden this morning, handing the old man his hat, and it made me want to cry. Not because I wanted somebody to hand me a hat—I was wearing one—but the small kindness of it, wishing it for myself. It seemed such a terrible contrast with what had just happened in the restaurant, such a little action from a simple desire to help another human being without thought of gain or favour. It made me feel like the worst person in the world, an outcast from the rest of humanity, and I remembered the bird's wings in the garden and thought, where's
my
angel? If I had my own angel, everything would be all right. Not that I deserve one.

The noise of the guns bucked me up, and I thought I'd better stop feeling sorry for myself and concentrate on getting home before it got any worse. I thought B and his friend must be heading for Tottenham Court Road, and I didn't want to follow in case we met up at the station, so I turned and walked the other way. It was very dark, and pretty soon I was dashing around in a panic, with no idea which way to go. I could hear machine guns and aircraft, far off at first, then nearer, and when I looked up there were flares like exploding chandeliers, breaking up and dropping downwards, and then the sky was lit up in red and orange, turning the pavement pink and making the buildings flicker and glow in a sort of half light, rosy and magical. It was the most extraordinary sight, and for a moment I forgot that I was afraid, because it seemed as if the whole world had turned into a vast display of light, and I was at the centre of it—the strangest feeling, no awareness of danger, or even of myself, just
wonder
. Like being at the very heart of the universe.

A policeman came up—his helmet blood-red in the glow—and asked me for my ID card. He said, ‘I'd get along home, miss, if I was you. They're bombing this district.' As if I hadn't noticed!

It was only when he'd gone that I realised I should have asked for directions. I called out to him, but he can't have heard me over the guns, because he didn't come back, so I gave it up and started blundering towards what I hoped was Oxford Circus, but I couldn't recognise a thing. In the distance I could see the searchlights, like great bars of light, criss-crossing in the sky, and tiny white flashes from our guns, and the explosions got closer and closer. It sounded as if it was raining bombs: whistling and tearing noises all round and the loudest bangs I've ever heard, and it wasn't awesome any more, but utterly terrifying and all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hide.

Pretty soon I was crunching across broken glass, the gas mask banging up and down on my hip, ducking into a doorway whenever there was a bang, huddling down with my heart thumping like anything, telling myself to keep calm but with the most awful frantic terror building up inside—not just of being blown to pieces but of Mums and Dad knowing why I was there, or worse, never knowing
at all.
I remembered standing with Dad in the hall when he put on his helmet, and the way he looked at me, and I wanted to cry again from sheer despair, but then there was a great
woof!
from somewhere behind me and the whole street flashed up like daylight. I didn't stop to think, just let go of the railings and launched myself into the alley round the corner. I caught a flash of something snaking through the air towards me and then a hot, soft mass enfolded my mouth and chin. I tried to scream, but took in a great, choking mouthful of embers that scalded my throat, and for a second I really did think I was going to die. I tore at the stuff in sheer panic, but it wrapped itself around me, suffocating, clinging to my face and twisting round my neck like something demonic as I tried to beat it off, and then suddenly, miraculously, there were hands tearing it away, and I could see a face in front of me, but in pieces as if I were looking through a cobweb and nothing seemed to join up, and then it was over, and the air was cooling my face, and I was taking in great gulps of it, coughing and spluttering, tears in my eyes, and through them I could see a man standing in front of me. I say ‘a man', but at that moment his face and hair—he had no hat-looked blazing and golden, and with the glow all around him he didn't seem human at all.

‘Keep still,' he said. ‘Close your eyes.'

I did as I was told, and felt him push back my hat, very gently, and pat my hair in the front.

‘There. You can open your eyes, now.'

I did as I was told, and for a moment, I was too overcome to speak. Then I croaked out the first thing in my head: ‘You must be my angel.'

‘'Fraid not. A mere mortal. For the time being, at least.'

I put my hand up to adjust my hat, felt frizzled ends of hair above my ears, and wondered what on earth I must look like.

‘Don't worry,' he said. ‘It's fine. Does your face hurt?'

‘Not really. It's just a bit hot, that's all.'

‘I don't think it's burnt, anyway.'

‘No. Thank you. For helping me, I mean.'

He was wearing a uniform. Air force. He was very handsome—tall, with thick, corn-coloured hair and blue eyes—and well spoken.

I said, ‘What was it?'

‘Look down.'

It was the remains of a stocking, lacy, like an old-fashioned gas mantle where it was burned through, hot and writhing like a snake. ‘Must have been a dress shop.' The man laughed. ‘The frocks are running away. Quite right too.'

I looked down the alleyway and saw the most extraordinary sight: smouldering frocks, floating through the night air beside a burning shop-front, wispy and disintegrating, but keeping their shapes as they minced across the cobbles, as if they were being worn by very prim invisible women. It can't be real, I thought. I've just been attacked by a stocking, and now I'm watching a disembodied tea-dance with an airman who looks like a film star. If it wasn't for the pain in my throat and the burnt hair, I don't think I would have believed it, because it was exactly like a dream.

He said, ‘Do you trust me?'

His voice seemed to come down from somewhere high up and sort of settle on me, as if the words were feathers. Shock, I suppose. I just nodded.

‘You'd better let me take you to a shelter.'

I must have nodded again, because he took my arm and led me to Soho Square. We didn't speak, but seemed to step through the whole cacophony of bombs and guns in our own little patch of intimate silence, as if we were sealed off and the rest of the world couldn't touch us. I knew that as long as he was with me, I would be safe. It gave me a cool, calm feeling inside—the oddest thing, like walking through a fire and knowing it can't burn you.

When we reached the shelter he dropped my arm and said, ‘Well, here you are.'

Like a fool, I said, ‘Aren't you coming in?'

‘No.'

‘Oh…'

I suppose I must have sounded dreadfully disappointed, because he took something out of his pocket and put it into my hand. ‘I want you to have this.'

‘But—'

‘No buts.' He closed my fingers around a small, hard object. The feeling of his hand on mine, the warmth and strength of it, gave me a sudden rush of…what? Not happiness, but an intensity of sensation that made me feel hot inside and self-conscious, sure that he must be aware of it. Then his voice came again, as if the words were alighting on me from somewhere far above. ‘It'll keep you safe.'

‘Safe?' The word jolted me and I suddenly saw the two of us as if from the outside; two people standing outside a shelter in the middle of an air-raid. ‘We ought to go in,' I said.