A Map of the Damage

by Sophia Tobin

  Christian watched him go with raised eyebrows. He smiled at Livy, as Peggy all but manhandled his coat from his shoulders. ‘Any closer to solving the mystery?’

  She shook her head. ‘We’ve searched the public rooms and the service rooms, even those that are closed off,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And there are no hints in the archive. There are lots of interesting things there, though – did you know they pulled a Roman goddess out of the earth when they dug the foundations?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Wonderful London.’

  ‘There’s something else.’ She paused, and he couldn’t help but see the beginnings of a smile on her mouth, slight but perceptible. ‘I think your architect, Henry, was in love. I think he loved Charlotte. I keep seeing her initials in his notebook. Again and again.’

  ‘Really?’ he said, with a smile.

  ‘I keep asking the portrait of Charlotte,’ said Livy playfully. ‘But she won’t tell me anything. I wanted to unwrap her, hang her down here with us. But Jonathan doesn’t want to look at her.’

  Jonathan was bustling back into the room, speaking to Peggy loudly and jovially.

  ‘Stayed here for Christmas, did he?’ murmured Christian to Livy.

  ‘It’s really up to him, what he does,’ she said. ‘Happy Christmas, by the way.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, Miss Baker,’ he said, and handed her a small, book-shaped package from his pocket.

  She unwrapped it and exclaimed with delight: Poirot Investigates, a book of short stories by Agatha Christie.

  ‘What a lovely present!’ cried Peggy.

  ‘All hail the conquering hero,’ said Jonathan sarcastically, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘You will have some tea?’ Peggy said, looking at Christian with a barely suppressed sparkle in her eye. ‘Bill’s just finishing his pipe, then we’ll have one.’

  Tea was served, and they all sat in an awkward silence as Peggy presented one jam sandwich, cut into quarters and with a scraping of butter and jam. ‘No need for me to have any,’ she said, with a smile. ‘I had so many of the liqueur chocolates Mr Whitewood bought for us, I’ll be an inch wider by now I’m sure.’

  ‘You deserved all of them,’ said Jonathan. He glanced competitively at Christian. ‘Mrs Holliday’s mock turkey was a miracle.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Please, do have a piece of jam sandwich, Peggy,’ said Christian.

  ‘Aren’t you at St Paul’s tonight?’ said Jonathan rattily.

  Christian smiled. ‘No, not tonight, old chap. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Who’s on the roof, Bill?’ asked Livy.

  ‘Barry Thomas and Louie Robinson,’ said Bill, picking up the cup in both hands, without recourse to the handle. ‘Went up half an hour since. Has been another quiet one for the day spotters, thank God.’

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the air-raid siren began its melancholy wail. ‘Christ,’ he muttered under his breath, and received an elbow in the ribs from Peggy. ‘I knew the Christmas lull was too good to be true.’

  The alert was a little late. Almost at the moment it sounded, the thud of bombs began. Bill frowned, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples, as though he were in danger of losing his temper with the bombers themselves. ‘I’ll turn off the gas and electricity,’ he said. Peggy lit an oil lamp, and when Bill returned the group shuffled into the shelter section of the basement, Peggy carrying the quarter of jam sandwich which no one would touch.

  Bang-bang-bang. Someone was hammering on the blast-proof doors of the basement. Bill went up the steps, swearing under his breath, and opened them.

  It was Barry Thomas. He was wearing his tin helmet, and boiler suit, and his face was red and sweaty.

  ‘We need all hands on the roof,’ he said. ‘Or the place will burn, I promise you.’ He was not normally a man for drama. At his words, Peggy and Bill looked at each other with alarm.

  A long line of detonations shook the building to its core. The ground seemed to shift beneath Livy’s feet. She felt it: the falling away of life, and of time. Thought of how Henry’s building had begun with the London clay, with foundations dug out of the earth, and had a vision of it, razed to the ground again.

  ‘There’ll be fire all around in no time,’ shouted Barry, as he turned and began to run back in the direction of the stairs.

  ‘You don’t need to go, Livy, love,’ said Peggy, touching her hand. She turned to Christian. ‘She was injured in the past. A firebomb.’

  ‘It’s fine, I’ll come. Of course I will.’

  They went up the quickest way: the basement stairs, then the main staircase in the Stair Hall to the first floor, then the backstairs, up four flights, snatching up red fire buckets filled with sand on the way, and an extra stirrup pump too, the noise and vibrations of the planes and the bombs getting louder all the time. The door opened to the roof. Bill went first up the narrow steps, Livy behind him.

  ‘Bloody hellfire.’ His voice was low and yet audible, deadened with despair. Sweating, she pulled herself up, out onto the roof, and took a few steps forwards, aware that others were following her, and wanting to give them space. She did not know what she said when she saw it.

  There were fires all around them. She caught Barry’s eye as he passed her with a bucket of water. ‘I told you,’ he said.

  Around them, the fires were starting, as far as they could see. It was obscenely beautiful: the gold, the red, the black outlines of buildings and people. The grey-smoked dome of St Paul’s still stood, but for how long, it seemed foolish to bet. The sky was bright with the chandelier flares let loose by the enemy to light the planes’ way to the cathedral. Livy exclaimed at the beauty of it: the red and yellow lights in the sky.

  In the air, there was the smoke of a thousand fires. Before them, more were flaring into life under their eyes. There was no point in trying to count. The sky was filled with the angry drone of planes.

  They all stood there: Jonathan, Livy, Christian, Bill and Peggy, stunned by what they were looking at.

  An explosion blew them off their feet.

  Thomas and Robinson were running towards them, their lips moving soundlessly. Livy felt someone’s hand on her wrist, pulling her to her feet. Beside them, the dome of the Stair Hall, where the watchers sheltered during quiet times, stood with its door open. Her eyes focused on the cigarette ends left by the door. Built of wood and lead, it looked pitifully small, covered in its jacket of wire netting to protect it from the blasts. An optical illusion, Livy thought, that is all it is. She thought, strangely, of Henry, his drawings and plans, his letters. He surely would never have dreamt of this. It seemed so vulnerable in the midst of the raid. A fierce instinct to protect his creation rose in her.

  She heard Christian shout out. He was staring at St Paul’s: at the bombs glancing off the surface of the dome, and the showers of sparks pocking its surface. ‘I should go there,’ he said.

  Livy shook her head. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘There are others there. Stay here.’ He read the words on her lips rather than hearing them, her voice drowned out by the noise of the planes and the bombs.

  Soon, an order was established: the men worked with their buckets of sand, and the stirrup pumps, quenching incendiaries, sometimes even shovelling them off onto the street below. They covered the roof and the walls with water, with special attention to the woodwork, alongside the automatic sprinklers which had been activated. The women ran up and down the stairs with the buckets, filling them from the tanks on the lower floor. As evening drew on to night, there was no let-up in the bombing. With the electricity off, and no lift, Livy and Peggy used torches to negotiate the stairs.

  Each time they reached the roof, it seemed worse to Livy. The fire grew in intensity, until it seemed that they, and only they, were not on fire, an island in the midst of flames. The City blazed around them, a forest of fire, the smoke in their eyes and their lungs. The men without overalls had their jackets off, they worked with a mechanical intensity which was ex
hausting to see, but Livy knew she did the same, and Peggy too, so that she wondered at their strength: all temporarily made strong by adrenaline. Still, on the horizon, the dome of St Paul’s remained, and now and then Livy caught Christian glancing over to it, as they all did, as though touching a relic for blessing. The hours burned on. St Paul’s still stood, and so did their Club.

  Still the planes came; and still the bombs fell, blowing them all from their feet more than once. Living only in each moment, pushing through each pain and fall and detonation. And the women dragged the grey water for the stirrup pump, and the men sent it gushing over leadwork and wood; and they washed out and sanded out fire, all working together. As one, their thought was: just one more moment. Give me one more moment. Let the rain come, let the bombers leave, let the City stand.

  More than once, one of them weakened, and turned away from the blizzard of fire. Robinson stood on the very edge of the roof, at dizzying height, and looked down on the burning street, and said, it is close, Christ, it is close, until Thomas pulled him away. They all fought the fire, as the flames revolved around them, like devils let up from a chasm in the earth. The fire was both beautiful and terrible. It seemed to have its own spirit, its own voice, its own hot breath. One must not let the fire get into one’s head, Livy thought, as she heaved a bucket of water into Bill’s arms. And she turned and gathered an empty bucket, and went down the ladder into the darkness, with the flames still dancing before her eyes.

  Six hours passed before the single note of the all-clear sounded, high and unrelenting. Near to midnight. The fires raged. The noise now was no longer of the dreaded planes, but of distant sirens, whistles, and above all, of fire and its havoc: cracking, and creaking, and groaning, and collapse. Showers of sparks, and the sudden give of a building in flames. The women continued to run up and down, up and down, with their buckets of water, their arms aching and sore, their calves cramping, until the tanks were empty. The men fought the fires, and patrolled, and cast water over everything: this great, dripping, toasted building with the breath of fire upon it, even as the night hours passed into early morning, and dawn was near.

  Gradually, so gradually, the intensity lessened. Stamping out a glowing ember, Livy turned and looked for the hundredth time: the dome of St Paul’s still stood.

  ‘The tanks are empty,’ she said. Her throat was sore from the smoke.

  ‘Do we stop?’ said Barry.

  The sky was still dark. They all stood: stinking and sodden. Limbs trembling from fatigue. Eyes running with tiredness and smoke. ‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Time to call it quits now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Five thirty,’ he said. ‘A nice round figure, at least.’

  The day had brought fresh resources and crews: already the streets were full of overalled men and women with armbands, tin helmets, and eyes that had not seen last night’s horror, joining exhausted comrades.

  Christian turned, and caught sight of Livy. For the first time in hours, he gave her his full attention.

  She was standing on the edge of the roof. The smoke around her rose like mist, lit by the still-burning City. At the precise angle she stood from him, light was haloing her – the palest seam of gold edging her face and hair. He stared at her bright, burning eyes, so vivid that it seemed her resources were being consumed by some inner fire. Completely independent of him, and of Jonathan; the Livy he remembered, with her own strange spirit. He had to force himself to take a breath. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He stepped towards her.

  ‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘The fire. Weeks ago, when you visited to see the Dining Hall. I was upstairs, and the hall door was open. I saw someone behind me, and I thought it were you. But it wasn’t. The light changed. As though there were fire, outside the windows.’ She could not say why or how it had had a quality of premonition. It was with the same sense that she had seen the doorknob turn on the door to the backstairs. Could a place hold energy? Hold on to suffering, and predict it?

  She looked at his face: tired, but attentive. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ His voice shook.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said. He nodded silently, and passed his hand over his eyes. She touched his arm, nodded, turned away. His hand caught a tear, and he did not know if it was from the smoke, or if he was weeping.

  ‘I should have kept you with me,’ he said. ‘Last September.’ But she was already walking away, and did not hear him.

  They stood there, all of them, eyes glazed with fatigue, aware intensely of their survival. Thomas and Robinson came towards them all, their arms outstretched, and drew them all together, into a circle, which became a knot. Livy rested her head against Peggy’s shoulder, and felt the warmth of Jonathan’s breath on her hair.

  ‘Thank God,’ Bill said, his voice breaking.

  ‘We are alive, aren’t we?’ Livy said, and her voice sounded small and hopeful.

  ‘Sure we are, Miss Livy,’ said Barry Thomas. ‘Don’t be so bloody daft.’

  *

  As they trooped down the staircase, Livy put her hand on Christian’s arm.

  ‘Do you think London will fall? Peggy said Mrs Billings at the butcher’s has her suitcase packed.’

  ‘Not a chance. Don’t even think about it.’ He saw her face soften, but the concern was still in her eyes, and in the line of her brow. ‘You’re too cooped up here. Why don’t you come to St Paul’s one day? I could show you behind the scenes, you could meet my chums. They are all older men – the original call was for men over forty and I had to do a lot of talking for them to let me join the watch. They’re good chaps, and there are some women too. We have lectures, play dominoes, and keep ourselves snug in the crypt when we’re not on patrol. They’d like you: you’d remind them of their daughters and granddaughters.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you. But – I prefer to stay here. Inside.’

  ‘It’s not healthy, you know.’

  ‘I’ll be going away soon. I should get my Land Army papers any day – and then I’ll go. To the countryside. A fresh start. I may as well be useful in some kind of way.’

  He shook his head. ‘You should get well first.’

  She gave him a mischievous smile. ‘I have things to do here before I go. I should hurry. I need to know Charlotte more, and find the diamond.’ She looked down, and he realized she was pushing the strap of her watch free from its catch. ‘You said you could find someone to fix this,’ she said, and her expression was evasive – almost shy. ‘Would you mind dreadfully?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said mechanically. And yet, as she placed it in his hand, he felt winded by it: an influx of hope. He glanced down the turn of the staircase, and his hand closed around the watch. The others had gone ahead, apart from Jonathan, who stood at the bottom, hands in pockets, looking up at them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  1940

  COMMITTEE ROOM, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB

  Jonathan sat at the Committee Room table, staring at the piece of paper in front of him. At the first two words, addressing the director of the Club:

  Dear Mayhew,

  It was the Second Great Fire of London.

  He was giddy with tiredness, still dressed in his grimy shirtsleeves, his jacket cast aside in some other place, he could not remember where.

  I write to tell you of the service your people have done here tonight.

  He wrote an account of all that had happened, and he did it without any of his usual rhetorical flourishes, but with poor phrases, fumbling for words. When he closed the letter, he saw his black fingerprints, the marks on the white paper, and sighed. Mayhew would see them as a sign of emotion, perhaps even instability, he thought, and they would invalidate the contents. He had best rewrite the letter when he was clean and more in control of himself. But he doubted his ability to make real what had been gone through. He began to rethink how he would do it, and sure enough that raw emotion was being distilled out. Some present should be made to them, in h
onour of their contribution. He had separated the others from him. Already, in his mind, he had directed things, and they had worked for him. He put the letter in his pocket, and walked out, across the landing, and down the main staircase, through the green door, into the vaults.

  He moved silently, and looked at the oblivious faces of Peggy, Bill and Livy, who had fallen asleep where they lay, on their pallet beds. Livy’s hair was dark and tangled on the pillow. Her face: defenceless, and innocent, a grey smudge across her left cheekbone. Her glorious eyes were closed; he thought how pallid her face looked without them.

  *

  As the others slept, Christian had not yet reached his small flat, his gas ring, or his bed, only thought of these ordinary things with longing. He was still outside the Club on the road in the merciless morning light, inhaling the breath of the smoking City, having been attracted by a member of the rescue team who had just been assessing the remains of the building on the corner, and who recognized him from a previous visit. The man turned him around, and pointed out an area of damage to the Club. ‘It will need scaffolding,’ he said.

  Christian swore under his breath. A bomb had made a half-hearted hole in the bottom corner of the Club. It was the exact place that he had leaned against, to catch his breath, when he had seen Livy again all those weeks ago. Christian and the man stood and peered down. It had taken the surface of the pavement up, and below was a passage, the height of a man, which, Christian presumed, had been dug around the building as a form of protection from damp. He crouched down and peered into the hole. ‘Do you have a torch?’

  It was produced. Kneeling, Christian shone it into the hole. ‘It’s not so bad.’ He put a hand in, pushed aside some of the rubble. ‘It’s smaller than you think. Wait a minute.’ He got down, heedless of his clothes, levered himself a little way down into the large crack, a blow from a pagan god. Livy’s goddess, he thought, was annoyed at being disturbed.