The Woman in Black (16 page)

She ran from the kitchen, Harry in tow, to the next room, then the next. They looked round desperately, shouting Joyce’s name, dreading what they believed was happening, hoping they weren’t going to be too late.

Joyce’s legs gave way and she fell to the floor. The room was becoming dark, encroaching all around her. But this blackness wasn’t like night, she knew that. This blackness would last for ever. But she had to do what the woman said. Had to follow her rules and please her.

The blackness overtook her, and Joyce felt a kind of relief. She had done what was asked of her.
She had carried out her task perfectly. She heard a voice, as cracked and dark as the decaying house around her.

‘That’s the way to do it …’

‘No. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, please, no …’

Eve and Harry ran into the children’s dormitory. Joyce was lying on the floor, unmoving. Harry knelt down, ripped the gas mask off her and flung it across the room. Eve knelt beside him.

He tried to revive her, but from the colour of her face, from its twisted, contorted features, he knew that it was too late. Her eyes had rolled back into her head, leaving milky, dead-fish orbs staring at them.

Eve began to sob.

‘It’s all right,’ said Jean from behind them, breathless from running. ‘The planes are going. We’re safe now. We’re safe …’

She saw the lifeless body lying between them, and her voice died away.

‘It was an accident, that’s all, a terrible, terrible accident …’

Jean had always felt her opinions and beliefs were solid. She had made them so. She sometimes imagined her mind to be the tidiest place possible. Everything she felt and believed was in its place, perfectly ordered and nailed down tight. Anything unpleasant that she didn’t want to – or couldn’t – countenance was locked away, like unwanted bric-a-brac in a cupboard, things she couldn’t get rid of but didn’t want to see.

Now, after everything that had happened, everything she had witnessed, she felt those beliefs were shifting. They were no longer nailed down, safe and secure. They floated around, getting in the way, catching on things. The cupboard door was open,
and those deep, dark thoughts were all spilling out. If she wasn’t careful they would overwhelm her. Completely.

A terrible, terrible accident …’

Jean spoke the words like a mantra, nodding each time she said them, as if by saying them enough times they would become the truth.

Outside, the sun, just coming up over the horizon, was promising a beautiful, crisp winter day. Glorious shafts of sunlight stabbed through the tall windows and illuminated the dining room in a bright and celestial manner. But the brightness didn’t reach the figures sitting huddled round the table in as small a group as possible.

For want of anywhere else to put it, Joyce’s body had been laid on her bed by Harry, a blanket covering it. The dormitory door had then been firmly closed, with strict instructions for no one to enter. The instructions were unnecessary. No one had wanted to.

Harry and Eve had taken charge of the remaining children, marshalling them into the dining room, insisting they keep together. The youngsters sat there in an almost catatonic state, apart from Ruby, who hadn’t stopped sobbing. Harry and Eve sat with them, trying to think what to do next.

Jean’s back was turned to the rest of the room. Not wanting anyone to see the tears she was
desperately fighting back, determined not to give in to her emotions. For the first time in her life, her whole belief system had been challenged and she didn’t know how to cope.

‘It was an accident, that’s all. Just a terrible,
terrible
accident …’

Harry placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘Jean.’

She turned and looked at him, her lower lip trembling, eyes wild and unfocused.

‘It wasn’t,’ he said, in as soft a voice as possible.

Silence fell. Even Ruby stopped crying.

Eve stood up. Helplessness, fear and anger were roiling within her, fighting for prominence. She had to do something, make some kind of move. She walked over to the nearest wall and slowly traced her fingers along a newly appeared crack, then pulled her fingers back and examined them as if she had been somehow contaminated.

That’s it
, she thought.
That’s it.

‘What’s the point?’ she said, quietly.

She looked round the room, took in all the blackness, the cracks, that no amount of sunlight could ever reach.

‘You’re not going to bring him back!’ she shouted. ‘No matter how many you kill, he’s not coming back!’ She screamed the last three words.

The children just stared at her, fear in their eyes.
They had never seen her like this before. First their headmistress, now Miss Parkins …

‘Just … leave us alone …’

Harry got up and came to her, placing his arm round her shoulders. She felt her body slacken as tension ebbed away. He led her back to the table.

‘We’ll leave as soon as the tide clears,’ he said. ‘I can drive you to the village, then we’ll work out how to get you all home.’

Eve stopped moving, shoulders tense once more. ‘I’m not going back to the village,’ she said.

Harry frowned.

‘Take us to the airfield.’

Harry looked momentarily shocked at the suggestion. He appeared to be doing some calculations, she thought, like he was deciding on something.

Then he smiled. ‘Fine,’ he said.

The evacuation was in full swing. The children were being hurried out of the house as quickly as possible. They had packed only as much as they could carry in the Jeep. Edward, Eve noticed, was clutching Mr Punch firmly in his hand. It looked like it was deteriorating before her eyes. She didn’t know how the boy could bear to touch it. She placed a hand on his arm, stopping him.

‘We should leave that,’ she said, as reasonably
but firmly as she could. She managed the ghost of a smile. ‘It belongs here.’

Edward didn’t even acknowledge he had heard. He wouldn’t let go of the toy.

‘Give it to me, please, Edward.’ Steel had entered her voice.

He shook his head.

‘Edward …’

She made a grab for the doll, but he moved it away. She wasn’t going to be beaten. With one hand she gripped Edward’s arm tightly, with the other she pulled the doll from his grasp. As she did so, she felt a sharp pain in her hand. She gasped, dropping the doll and examining her fingers. She was bleeding between her thumb and forefinger.

Damn
, she thought,
it’s so old and cracked it’s given me splinters.

She picked the doll up and looked at it. The same leering grin was still in place, but this time there was blood between its teeth. If she didn’t know better, she would have said that the doll had bitten her.

She threw it back into the house and turned to Edward. But he had silently joined the others in the Jeep.

Once they were all squeezed in, Harry got behind the steering wheel and drove away. Eve was sitting
in the back with the children. While the rest of them were facing forward, she noticed Edward’s head was turned, staring at the retreating house.

‘Edward,’ she said.

He looked at her, his eyes dark, unreadable.

‘Don’t look back,’ she said.

She kept her eyes locked on his. Eventually he turned to face the front once more.

Rage. That was what was burning in the woman as she stood at the nursery window and watched them depart.

She stretched her fingers out, tried to touch them, reach them, bring them back. No good. They were too far away. Her fingers met the glass of the windowpane, her hand turned to a claw. The rage bubbled and burned within her, a life force feeding her, sustaining her continued existence.

She raked her fingers down the glass, her nails screeching and howling. The glass cracked into crazed razor patterns as she did so.

The Jeep disappeared over the causeway.

She let out a scream of wrath and pain as she watched them go, her fingers pressing harder on the fractured glass, the screeching increasing.

The window shattered into thousands of tiny shards; suddenly, explosively.

She would not let them get away.

‘Planes!’ shouted Alfie.

‘Alfie, come back …’ Jean’s voice was lost on the wind, but she gave chase, wanting to keep them all together.

The boy, his earlier anxiety forgotten, had been excited as soon as he had glimpsed the planes through the fence as the Jeep approached the airfield. Once he had realised where they were headed, he had talked of nothing else all the way there.

Alfie ran as fast as he could towards the stationary planes dotted around the perimeter of the airfield, Jean and Eve close behind him. But he stopped dead as soon as he reached the first plane. Eve, panicking and fearing the worst, ran even faster to reach him.

As she came to a stop next to him he turned to her, disappointment and confusion on his face.

‘They’re not real. This isn’t real …’

Eve looked round, seeing the airfield properly for the first time. Only then did she notice that it wasn’t as she had imagined or expected an airfield to be. There were no hangars, just large sections of canvas stretched out upon the ground to give the impression of buildings from the air. The planes, while convincing from a distance, seen up close looked nothing of the sort. They were hollow, made from wood and canvas, their markings and engine parts merely painted on. All around the perimeter fence, scattered around the site, were large mesh baskets full of kindling.

A figure came out of a bunker buried in the side of the hill and strode towards them. Heavyset, in his forties, he was buttoning up his uniform tunic and loosening a linen napkin from around his neck. He stopped when he saw the women and children, frowned at Harry.

‘What’s going on, Corporal?’ he said.

Eve looked at Harry, who reddened and cleared his throat.

‘These people need to stay here for a few hours, Sergeant Cotterell. Evacuees. Their … house was destroyed in the bombing last night. I’m arranging transportation for them.’

Cotterell looked between Harry and the children, clearly unhappy with the situation. ‘You should have cleared it with me, Corporal.’

Harry looked like he wanted to earth to open and swallow him up. ‘Yes, Sergeant. I’m sorry.’

Cotterell found a last morsel of food stuck between his teeth, sucked it out, ate it. He nodded. ‘Don’t let them get in the way of your duties.’

‘Sir.’

Cotterell drew in breath, expelled it slowly. ‘The sitrep’s all clear for tonight,’ he said. ‘So it’s just you on watch. S-Team are on standby if things change.’

Harry saluted his sergeant, who strode away. Eve turned to Harry.

‘Harry, what’s—’

He put his arm in hers and walked her away from the rest of them. Storm clouds gathered overhead, turning the day to a dark, near-night. Once they were out of earshot of the others, he spoke.

‘It’s a dummy airfield,’ he said, unable to look her in the eye. ‘So the Nazis bomb here instead of a real one. We move lights around to make it look like planes are taking off.’ He gestured to the large mesh baskets full of kindling. ‘Then we set off the fire baskets to make them think they’ve hit us.’ He sighed. ‘We’re decoys.’

‘But you said you were a pilot. You said you were a captain …’

Harry looked away into the storm clouds. ‘I was both of those things. Once. But after the crash, I …’ He wiped the corner of an eye. ‘Wind,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘After the crash, I … I couldn’t fly. So they demoted me. Sent me here. Lack of moral fibre, they said. LMF. Means you’re a coward. Officially.’

Neither spoke for a while. Eventually Eve broke the silence.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Her voice was small.

He tried to laugh. It sounded almost like a sob. ‘I liked the way you saw me … Pathetic, isn’t it …’

Eve slowly placed a hand on his cheek. She smiled at him. He pulled away.

And there’s that smile again,’ he said. ‘That enigmatic smile. Is that to patronise me?’

She shook her head and placed her hand on his cheek once more.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not.’

He looked at her properly for the first time, and he saw what was in her eyes, just for him. She smiled once more. There was no mistaking the smile’s meaning this time, and he returned it.

She kissed him and he kissed her back.

The bunker had been cut into a hill. In other circumstances it would have been an exciting place to visit, a grand place for an adventure. But not today, not now. The children stood outside, huddled close to each other, not wanting to let anyone out of their sight.

All except one.

Edward stood slightly apart. He hadn’t noticed what they had. He hadn’t looked up when Mrs Hogg had followed the gruff sergeant inside the bunker, hadn’t worried in case something happened to her and she never came out again. He hadn’t watched Miss Parkins and the captain kissing and cuddling over by the fake planes.

He had just stood there, hands in pockets, lost in his thoughts, his sadness.

He became aware of whispers around him. For
a few seconds he thought he was back in the house, hearing the old voices talking to him once more, but then he realised it was the other children, and they were talking about him. He tried hard to give the impression that he wasn’t listening. He managed to catch snatches.

‘Tom was mean to him …’ Ruby’s voice, her rough Cockney accent unmistakable, even at a low volume.

‘And Joyce was going to tell …’ Fraser. Edward didn’t need to look to know that the little boy would be all wide-eyed as he spoke.

And look what happened.’ Ruby again. She had copied her mother’s mannerisms, right down to the fact that if she made a statement and made it strongly enough, it was always right. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it?’

‘Look.’ James this time, getting angry. Trying to show leadership. ‘Just … be quiet. All of you. Listen to what you’re saying. This is stupid.’

The others fell silent. Edward relaxed slightly. He felt something warm inside for his former friend. Wished he could express it in some way.

‘I think he did it.’