Connie Willis - Blackout

“Oh, but I don’t want to-”

“I told you, you’re not imposing. In fact, you may well have saved me.”

“Saved you? How?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we reach my boardinghouse. Come along. I’m starving.” She took Polly’s arm and struck off down the darkened street.

As they walked, Polly tried to remember what parts of Bloomsbury had been hit on the twenty-first. Bedford Place had been almost completely destroyed in September and October, and so had Guildford Street and Woburn Place. The British Museum had been hit three times in September, but except for the first time, on the seventeenth, the specific dates hadn’t been on Colin’s list. And a Luftwaffe dive-bomber had crashed in Gordon Square, but she didn’t know the date of that either.

Marjorie led Polly down a series of winding streets, stopped in front of a door, knocked, and then used her latchkey. “Hullo?” she called, opening the door. “Mrs. Armentrude?” She listened a moment. “Oh, good, they’ve all gone to St. Pancras. She leaves early to get a good space. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

“Don’t you go to St. Pancras?”

“No,” she said, leading the way up a flight of carpeted stairs. “There’s a gun in Tavistock Square that goes all night long so that it’s impossible to get any sleep.”

Which meant this wasn’t near Tavistock Square.

“So which shelter do you go to?”

“I don’t.” They went up another carpeted flight and then an uncarpeted one and down a dark corridor. “I stay here.”

“There’s a shelter here, then?” Polly asked hopefully.

“The cellar,” Marjorie said, opening the door onto a room exactly like Polly’s except for an enamel stand with a gas ring, a worn chintz-covered chair with a pair of stockings draped over the back, and a shelf with several tins, boxes, and a loaf of bread on it. Apparently Mrs. Armentrude wasn’t as strict as Mrs. Rickett. Oh, God, Mrs. Rickett was dead. And so was Miss Laburnum. And-

“Though I don’t know but what our cellar’s more dangerous than the bombs.” Marjorie pulled the blackout curtain across the single window and then switched on the lamp by the bed. “I nearly broke my neck two nights ago running down the stairs when the sirens went.” She picked up the kettle. “Now sit down. I’ll be back in a trice.”

She disappeared down the corridor. Polly went over to the window and peeked out between the blackout curtains, hoping the light from the searchlights would let her see if they were near the British Museum, or the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, which had also been hit in the autumn, but the searchlights hadn’t switched on yet.

She could hear Marjorie returning. She let the curtain fall and stepped hastily away from the window. When Marjorie came in with the kettle, she asked, “Is this Bedford Place?”

“No,” Marjorie said, setting the kettle on the gas ring.

It could still be Guildford Street or Woburn Place, though, but at the moment Polly couldn’t think of any reason she could give for pressing Marjorie further.

“Sit down,” Marjorie said, striking a match and lighting the gas under the kettle and getting a teapot and a tin of tea down from the shelf. “The tea will be ready in no time,” she said, as casually as if they weren’t in the middle of Bloomsbury, in a house that might very well be bombed tonight.

And she had to survive not only tonight, but tomorrow night and all the other nights of the Blitz-the twenty-ninth of December and the eleventh of January and the tenth of May. She felt the panic welling up. “Marjorie,” she said to stop it from washing over her, “at the station you said my coming here had saved you. From what?”

“From doing something I knew I shouldn’t,” Marjorie said, smiling wryly. “This RAF pilot I know-hang on.” She switched off the light, opened the curtains, retrieved a bottle of milk and a small piece of cheese from the windowsill, pulled the curtains across, and switched the lamp back on again. “He’s been after me to go out dancing with him, and I’d told him I’d meet him tonight-”

And if she’d met him, I wouldn’t be here and in danger of being bombed. “You can still go,” Polly said. And I can go back to Russell Square-

“No, I’m glad you kept me from going. I should never have said yes in the first place. I mean, he’s a pilot. They’re all terribly fast. Brenda, that’s the girl I used to share with, says they’re only after one thing, and she’s right. Lucille in Kitchenwares went out with a rear gunner, and he was all over her.” Marjorie reached up on the shelf for two teacups. “He refused to take no for an answer, and Lucille had to-”

There was a high-pitched whistle, and Polly looked over at the kettle, thinking it had come to a boil, but it was a siren. “That tears it,” Marjorie said disgustedly. “The Germans don’t even let us have our tea.” She switched off the gas ring and the lamp. “They’re coming sooner every night, have you noticed? Only think what it will be like by Christmas. Last year was bad enough, and we only had the blackout to deal with-dark by half past three in the afternoon.”

And I’ll still be here, Polly thought. And when New Year’s comes, I won’t even know when and where the raids are.

“Come along,” Marjorie was saying. “I’ll show you our ‘safe and comfortable shelter accommodations.’” She led the way back downstairs, across the kitchen, and down to the cellar.

She hadn’t been exaggerating about its dangerousness. The steps were perilously steep and one was broken, and the beams in the low-ceilinged cellar looked as if they might give way at the mere sound of a bomb, let alone a direct hit. It should be on Mr. Dunworthy’s forbidden list.

St. George’s hadn’t been on his list. Why not?

Because you were supposed to be staying in a tube shelter, she told herself. But St. George’s hadn’t been on Colin’s list either.

An anti-aircraft gun began pounding away at the droning planes, both of them as loud and as close as they’d sounded when she sat in the drop, waiting for it to open and unaware that the retrieval team should already have been there, that Miss Laburnum and the little girls were already dead.

And Sir Godfrey, who’d saved her life that first night when she’d gone over to look at Mr. Simms’s newspaper, who’d said, “‘If we no more meet until we meet in heaven-’”

“Do the guns frighten you?” Marjorie asked. “They used to drive my flatmate Brenda completely mad. That’s why she left London. She’s always after me to leave it, as well. She wrote last week and said if I’d come to Bath, she was certain she could get me on at the shop where she works. And when something like this happens-I mean, the church and all those people-it makes me think perhaps I should take her up on it. Do you ever think about chucking the whole thing and getting out?”

Yes.

“At least it would be better than sitting here, waiting to be killed. Oh, I am sorry,” Marjorie said, “but, I mean, things like that do make one think. Tom-that’s the pilot I told you about-says in a war you can’t afford to wait to live, you’ve got to take what happiness you can find because you don’t know how much time you’ve got.”

How much time you’ve got.

“Brenda says that’s only a line of chat, that men use it on all girls, but sometimes they mean it. The Navy lieutenant Joanna-she used to work in China and Glassware-went out with said the same thing to her, and he meant it. They eloped, just like that, without a word to anyone. And even if Tom is only feeding me a line, it is true. Any one of us could be killed tonight, or next week, and if that’s the case, then why not go out dancing and all the rest of it? Have a bit of fun? It would be better than never having lived at all. Sorry,” she said, “I’m talking rot. It’s sitting in this wretched cellar. It makes me nervy. Perhaps I should go to Bath, only everyone at work would think I was a coward.” She looked up suddenly at the ceiling. “Oh, good, the all clear’s gone.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Polly said. She could still hear explosions and guns. “I don’t think it went.”

But Marjorie had stood and was starting up the stairs. “That’s what we call it when the gun in Cartwright Gardens stops. It means the planes have left off this part of Bloomsbury. We can finally have our tea.” She led the way back up to her room, relit the gas ring, and set the kettle on it.

“Now take off your things,” she said. She opened the closet and took a chenille robe off a hook. “And get into this, and I’ll wash out your blouse and sponge your coat off.” She thrust the robe at her. “Give me your stockings, and I’ll rinse them out, too.”

“I must mend them first,” Polly said, pulling them from her handbag. Marjorie took them gingerly from her and looked them over. “I’m afraid these are beyond mending. Never mind. I’ll lend you a pair of mine.”

“Oh, no, I can’t let you do that.” Marjorie would need to hold on to every stocking she had. On the first of December the government would stop their manufacture, and by the end of the war they’d be more priceless than gold. “What if I were to run one of them?”

“Don’t be silly,” Marjorie said. “You can’t go without stockings. Here, give me your blouse.”

Polly handed it to her, took off her skirt, and wrapped the robe-which felt wonderfully cozy-around her.

The kettle boiled. Marjorie ordered Polly to sit down in the chair. She made the tea and brought Polly a cup, then took down a tin of soup from the shelf and got an opener, a spoon, and a bowl out of the top bureau drawer, keeping up a steady stream of chatter about Tom, who had also told her that he might be posted to Africa any day, and that when two people loved each other, it couldn’t be wrong, could it? “Drink your tea,” Marjorie ordered.

Polly did. It was hot and strong.

“Here,” Marjorie said, handing her a bowl of soup. “I’ve only got one bowl and one spoon, so we’ve got to eat in shifts.”

Polly obligingly took a swallow, trying to recall when she’d eaten last. Or slept. The night before last in Holborn with my head lying on my handbag, she thought. No, that didn’t count. She’d only dozed, wakened every few minutes by the lights and voices and the worry that that band of urchins would come back and try to rob her. She hadn’t really slept since Wednesday night, in St. George’s.

In St. George’s, with Mr. Dorming, his hands on his stomach, snoring, and Lila and Viv wrapped in their coats, their hair in bobby pins, and the rector, asleep against the wall, his book fallen from his hand. Murder at the Vicarage-

“You haven’t finished any soup at all,” Marjorie said reprovingly. “Do take a few more bites. It will make you feel better.”

“No, you take your turn.”

Marjorie took the bowl and spoon from her. “I’ll go wash these up. I’ll be back straightaway,” and Polly must have fallen asleep because Marjorie was back in the room covering her with a blanket, and the antiaircraft gun had started up again.

“Shouldn’t we go down to the cellar?” Polly asked drowsily.

“No, I’ll wake you if it comes near us. Go back to sleep.”

Polly obeyed, and when she woke, it was five and the all clear was going, and the answer was clear, too. The reason the retrieval team hadn’t been there was because they were looking for her in the tube stations. There were far fewer stations on Mr. Dunworthy’s approved list than there were Oxford Street shops, and if they had described her to the guard at Notting Hill Gate, he would have remembered her.

They’d gone to Notting Hill Gate that morning, but she’d been in Holborn, and that afternoon she’d left work early and walked home so she wouldn’t be caught in the station by the sirens, and they’d have had no way of knowing she would go to the drop. And tonight she’d been in Charing Cross and Russell Square.

They’d been waiting in Notting Hill Gate this entire time. They were waiting there now. I must go find them, she thought, and had started out of the chair before she remembered that Marjorie had washed her blouse, and that the trains wouldn’t begin running till half past six.

I’ll rest here till then, she thought, and then I’ll go find them, but she must have dozed off again because when she woke, it was daylight and Marjorie was dressed and standing at an ironing board, pressing a blouse. Polly’s blouse, neatly washed and pressed, lay on the made-up bed. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Marjorie said, smiling at her over the iron.

Polly looked at her watch, but it had stopped. “What time is it?”

“Half past four.”

“Half past four?” Polly pushed the blanket aside and stood up.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have let you sleep so long, but you seemed so all in… What are you doing?” she asked as Polly reached for her blouse.

“I must go,” Polly said, pulling it on and buttoning it with fumbling fingers.

“Where?” Marjorie said.

Home, she thought. “To the boardinghouse,” she said, pulling on her skirt. “I must find out if I still have a room there.” She tucked in her blouse and sat down to put on her shoes. “And if I haven’t, I must find another.”

“But it’s Sunday,” Marjorie said. “Why don’t you stay here tonight and come to work with me tomorrow, and we could go over together after work?”

“No, you’ve already done too much for me, letting me stay and pressing my blouse for me. I can’t impose any further.” She pulled on her coat.

“But… can’t you wait? I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t go there alone.”

“I’ll be all right.” Polly grabbed up her hat and bag. “Thank you-for everything.” She hugged Marjorie briefly and hurried out of the room and down the stairs.

Halfway down, Marjorie called after her, “Wait, you forgot the stockings,” and ran down the stairs with them fluttering in her hand.

To avoid a time-consuming argument, Polly took them and jammed them into her coat pocket. “Which way is Russell Square Station?”

“Turn left at the next crossing, and then left again,” Marjorie said. “If you’ll only wait a moment, I’ll fetch my coat and-”

“It’s not necessary. Really,” Polly said and was finally able to get away. She ran all the way to Russell Square, but when she reached it, there was an endless queue of shelterers laden with camp cots and dinner baskets and bedrolls. “Is there a separate queue for passengers?” she asked a woman wheeling a pram full of dishes and cutlery.

“Just go to the head of the line and tell ’em you’re meetin’ someone,” the woman said, “and that if you’re late, you’ll miss ’im.”

I will, Polly thought, thanking the woman and going over to the guard. He nodded and let her through, and she hurried to the lift and down to the southbound platform. A chalkboard stood in the doorway. “Southbound service temporarily suspended,” it read.

There must have been damage on the line, she thought, consulting the Underground map. She’d need to take a northbound train to King’s Cross and catch the Victoria Line, but when she got there, the southbound trains weren’t running either. Which left the Circle Line. She took it, praying it hadn’t been knocked out, too.