by Sarah Waters
Duncan still had his hand across Fraser’s lips. He felt Fraser’s breath against his fingers, and slowly drew the hand off. They didn’t speak. But Duncan was aware now, as he had not been aware before, of Fraser’s body: of the heat of it, and the places—the feet, the thighs, the arms and shoulders—at which it touched Duncan’s own. The bunk was narrow. Duncan had lain alone in it every night, for almost three years. He had gone about the prison, as all the men did, being occasionally jostled, occasionally struck; he had touched his fingers to Viv’s across the table in the visiting-room; he had once shaken hands with the chaplain. It ought to have been strange, to be pressed so close to another person now; but it wasn’t strange. He turned his head. He said, in a whisper, ‘Are you all right?’ and Fraser answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Don’t you want to go back up?’ Fraser shook his head: ‘Not yet…’ It wasn’t strange, at all. They moved closer together, not further apart. Duncan put up his arm and Fraser raised himself so that the arm could go beneath his head. They settled back into an embrace—as if it were nothing, as if it were easy; as if they weren’t two boys, in a prison, in a city being blown and shot to bits; as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Why,’ Mickey asked Kay, ‘did you give that girl your ring?’
Kay changed smoothly up the gears. She said, ‘I don’t know. I felt sorry for her. It’s only a ring, after all. What’s a ring, in times like these?’
She tried to speak lightly; but the fact was, she was already rather regretting having given the ring up. Her hand, where it gripped the steering-wheel, felt naked, unlucky.
‘Maybe I’ll go back to the hospital tomorrow,’ she said, ‘see how she’s getting on.’
‘Well, I hope she’s still there,’ said Mickey meaningfully.
Kay wouldn’t look at her. She said, ‘She wanted to chance it. It was up to her, not us.’
‘She didn’t know what she was saying.’
‘She knew, all right. The lousy swine who made a muck of fixing her up is the one I’d like to get my hands on. Him, and the boyfriend.’ She came to a junction. ‘Which road do we want?’
‘Not this one,’ said Mickey, peering at the street, ‘I think it’s closed. Go on to the next.’
It was their heaviest night for weeks, because of the moon. After dropping Viv at the hospital they’d returned to Dolphin Square and at once been sent out again. A stretch of railway line in their district had been hit; three men who’d been patching it up from the last raid had been killed, and six more injured. They took four of those casualties in one trip, then were sent to a terrace that had got its front blown off, where a family had been buried. Two women and a girl were dug out alive; a girl and a boy were discovered dead. Kay and Mickey had taken the corpses.
Now they’d been sent out again: they were heading for a street slightly to the east of Sloane Square. Kay turned a corner, and felt the tyres of the van begin to grind. The road had grit and earth and broken glass on it. She slowed to a crawl, then stopped and put down her window as a warden came over.
She saw the leisurely way he was walking. ‘Too late?’ she said.
The man nodded. He took them over and showed them the bodies.
‘Jesus,’ said Mickey.
There were two of them: a man and a woman, killed on their way back from a party. Their house, the warden said, was only fifty yards further on. The street was crescent-shaped, broken up by a slip of garden, and it was the garden that had taken the worst of the bomb. A plane tree thirty feet high had been blasted more or less into splinters; houses had lost windows and front doors and slates from their roofs, but were otherwise unmarked. The man and woman, however, had been tossed up into the air. The man had landed on the flags of a narrow area in front of the basement window of a house. The woman had fallen on to the railings on the pavement above—been caught, chest-first, on the blunt tips of the iron spikes. She was still slumped there. The warden had found a length of curtain, that was all, and covered her over. Now he drew the curtain back, for Kay and Mickey to get a better view of the body. Kay looked only once, then turned away.
The woman’s coat and hat had gone, and her hair was loose about her face; the evening-gloves were smooth and unmarked, still, on her dangling arms. Her silk dress, silvered by the moonlight, was pooled about her on the pavement as though she were curtseying; but the flesh of her bare back bulged where the iron pressed at it from within.
‘The last set of railings in the street,’ said the warden, as he took Kay and Mickey down the area steps. ‘What luck was that, eh? Left here, I think, because they were rusty. I’ll be quite honest with you, I didn’t want to try and move her. I could see she was dead, though. Killed at the first blow, I hope. Her husband, believe it or not, was sitting up twenty minutes ago, having a conversation with me. That’s why I put in the call to you lot. But look at the state of him.’
He moved aside a piece of rubbish and they saw the man’s body: he was sitting with his legs drawn up and his back to the area wall. Like the woman, he was dressed in evening gear, the neck-tie in a neat bow, still, around his collar, but the collar itself, and most of his shirt-front, stained ghastly red. Dust had settled, like a cap, on the brilliantine in his hair, but where the light of the torch played over the side of his head Kay could see his torn-up scalp, and more blood, thick and glistening as jam.
‘Nice bit of muck,’ said the warden, tutting, ‘for the people of the house to come out to, eh, when they show their heads?’ He looked Kay and Mickey over. ‘Not much of a job for women, this. Got anything to wrap ’em in?’
‘Only blankets.’
‘Fine mess,’ he said in his grumbling way, as they went back up the steps, ‘they’ll make of blankets.’ He kicked his way along the street, and found a length of something. ‘Look here, what’s this? The lady’s cloak, blown off her back. We could—Oh, by jiminy!’
He and Kay ducked, instinctively. But the blast was a mile or two away, somewhere to the north: not so much a bang as a muffled sort of whump. It was followed by a series of crashes from somewhere closer to hand: falling timbers, slithering slates, the almost musical sound of shattering glass. A couple of dogs began barking.
‘What was it?’ called Mickey. She had gone to the ambulance and was bringing out stretchers. ‘Something going up?’
‘Sounds like it,’ said Kay.
‘A gas-main?’
‘Factory, I’ll bet,’ said the warden, rubbing his chin.
They looked at the sky. There were searchlights playing, thinned out by the moonlight, but making it difficult to see; but when the beams went down, the warden pointed: ‘Look.’ There had come, on the underside of clouds, the first reflection of some great fire. Where smoke rose up in whorls and tangles it was lit a dark, unhealthy pink.
‘A grand view that’ll give to Jerry, too,’ said the warden.
‘Where do you think it is?’ Mickey asked him. ‘King’s Cross?’
‘Could be,’ he answered doubtfully. ‘Could be further south than that, though. I’d say it was Bloomsbury.’
‘Bloomsbury?’ said Kay.
‘Know the area?’
‘Yes.’ She narrowed her eyes, scanning the sky-line, suddenly afraid. She was looking for landmarks—spires, chimneys, something she knew. But she could see nothing—and anyway, she forgot for the moment which way she was facing, north-east or north-west; the curve of the street made things confusing. Then the searchlights went up again, and the sky became a mess of shadow and colour. She turned away, went back to the woman’s body. ‘Come on,’ she said to Mickey.
She must have sounded odd. Mickey looked at her. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know. Got the creeps, that’s all. Christ, this is awful! Give me a hand, can you? It’s no good just lifting her, there are barbs; she must be caught on them.’
By rocking the woman’s body back and forth they managed to free it; but the grinding of the iron against her ribs, and the lurching about of the point of the
spike beneath the skin of her back, were ghastly to feel and hear. She came away wetly. They didn’t turn her over, didn’t try to close her eyes, but laid her quickly on a stretcher and wrapped her around with the torn curtain that had covered her before. Her hair was fair, tangled as if from sleep—like Helen’s hair, Kay thought, when Helen woke, or when she rose from a bed after making love.
‘Christ,’ she said again, wiping her mouth with the back of her cuff. ‘This is bloody!’ She moved a little way off and lit a cigarette.
But while she stood smoking it, she became anxious. She looked at the sky. The play of colour was as wild as before, the glow sometimes more intense, sometimes dimmer, as the flames producing it must have been bucking and leaping about in the breeze beneath. Again she was afraid, without quite knowing why. She threw her cigarette away after two or three puffs; the warden saw and said, ‘Hey!’ He picked it up and started smoking it himself.
Kay caught up the second stretcher from beside the body of the woman, and carried it down the area steps. She took a roll of bandage with her, and used it to bind up the dead man’s head. Mickey came to help her, holding the head rather gingerly while Kay passed the dressing around it. Then they laid the stretcher flat, and tried to lift the body on to it. There was not much space, and the ground was cluttered, with soil thrown up from the garden, with branches and broken slates. They started to kick the rubbish aside; they began to breathe more harshly as they did it, to mutter and curse. Even so, when Kay’s name was said in the street above—said urgently, but not called, or shrieked—she heard it. She heard it, and knew. She straightened up, grew still for a second, then simply stepped over the body of the man and went quickly back up the steps.
Someone was talking with the warden. She recognised him, in the darkness, by the leanness of his face, and by his glasses. It was Hughes, from the station. He’d been running. He’d taken his hat off, to come more quickly, and was pressing at his side. He saw her and said, ‘Kay’—and that made it worse, for she didn’t think he had ever called her Kay before; usually he called her Langrish. ‘Kay—’
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Tell me!’
He blew out his breath. ‘I’ve been with Cole and O’Neil, three streets away. The warden took a call, from Station 58. Kay, I’m sorry. They think it was a packet of three that was aimed at Broadcasting House but went east. One was caught before it could do much damage. The other two have started fires—’
‘Helen,’ she said.
He caught at her arm. ‘I wanted to let you know. But they couldn’t say where, exactly. Kay, it might not be—’
‘Helen,’ she said again.
It was what she had dreaded, every single day of the war; and she’d told herself that, by dreading it, she’d be calm when it finally came. Now she understood that the dread had been, for her, a sort of pact: she’d imagined that if her fear were only sharp enough and unbroken, it would earn Helen’s safety. But that was nonsense. She’d been afraid—and the terrible thing had happened, anyway. How could she be calm? She drew her arm from Hughes’s grip and covered her face; and she shook, right through. She wanted to sink to her knees, cry out. The violence of her weakness appalled her. Then she thought, How will this help Helen? She lowered her hands, and saw that Mickey had come, and was reaching for her, as Hughes had reached. Kay shrugged her off, beginning to move.
‘I have to go there,’ she said.
‘Kay, don’t,’ said Hughes. ‘I came because I didn’t want you to hear from someone else. But there’s nothing you can do there. It’s 58’s area. Leave it to them.’
‘They’ll funk it,’ said Kay. ‘They’ll fuck it up! I have to get there.’
‘It’s too far! There’s nothing you’ll be able to do.’
‘Helen’s there! Don’t you understand?’
‘Of course I understand. That’s why I came. But—’
‘Kay,’ said Mickey, grabbing at her arm again. ‘Hughes is right. It’s too far.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Kay, almost wildly. ‘I’ll run. I’ll—’ Then she saw the ambulance. She said, more steadily, ‘I’m taking the van.’
‘Kay, no!’
‘Kay—’
‘Hey,’ said the warden, who’d been looking on all this time. ‘What about these bodies?’
‘To hell with them,’ said Kay.
She’d begun to run. Mickey and Hughes came close behind her, trying to stop her.
‘Langrish,’ said Hughes, growing angry. ‘Don’t be idiotic.’
‘Get out of my way,’ said Kay.
She’d gone to the back of the ambulance first, to fasten its doors. Now she went to the cabin and climbed inside. Hughes stood in the doorway, pleading with her. ‘Langrish,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake, think what you’re doing!’
She felt for the key, then caught Mickey’s eye, over Hughes’s shoulder.
‘Mickey,’ she said quietly. ‘Give me the key.’
Hughes turned. ‘Carmichael, don’t.’
‘Give me the key, Mickey.’
‘Carmichael—’
Mickey hesitated, looking from Kay to Hughes and back again. She took out the key, hesitated again; and then threw it. Her aim was true as a boy’s. Hughes made a grab at it, but it was Kay who caught it. She fitted it into its socket and started the engine.
‘Damn you!’ said Hughes, striking the metal frame of the door. ‘Damn you both! You’ll be thrown out of the service for this! You’ll be—’
Kay punched him. She punched him blindly, and caught his cheek and the edge of his glasses; and as soon as he’d fallen back she let down the handbrake and moved off. The door swung to, and she grabbed for its handle and drew it closed. Her tin hat had fallen low on her brow; she tugged at its strap and pulled it from her head, and at once felt better. She glanced in the mirror—saw Hughes sitting in the road with his hands at his face, and Mickey standing slackly, doing nothing, looking after her as she pulled away…She made herself drive with maddening care across the soil-and glass-strewn street; and then, when the road was smoother, she speeded up.
As she drove, she pictured Helen; she pictured her as she had last seen her, hours before: unmarked, unharmed. She saw her so clearly, she knew that she couldn’t be dead or even hurt. She thought, It can’t be Rathbone Place, it must be some other street. It can’t be! Or, if it is, then Helen will have heard the Warning and gone to the shelter. She’ll have gone to the shelter, for my sake, just this once…
She had got on to Buckingham Palace Road, and now sped on past Victoria Station. She turned into the park, hardly slowing, so that the tyres squealed on the surface of the road and something was tilted out of its place in the back of the van, and tumbled and smashed. But ahead was that glow, irregularly pulsing, like a faltering life—dreadful, dreadful. She changed up the gears and went faster. The raid was still on, and the Mall, of course, was empty; only at Charing Cross did she meet activity: a warden and policemen attending to another incident, they heard her coming and waved her on, thinking she’d been sent to them from her station. ‘Just along that way,’ they called, pointing east, along the Strand. She nodded; but she didn’t think, even for a moment, of stopping, of giving help. When, a little later, another man, seeing the ambulance crest on the front of her van, came lurching off the pavement, his hands at his head, his face dark with blood, she swerved around him and drove on.
Charing Cross Road was up, because a water main had been struck there three days before. She went west, to the Haymarket; drove up to Shaftesbury Avenue, and got on to Wardour Street, meaning to get to Rathbone Place like that. She found the entrance to Oxford Street blocked by trestles and ropes, and manned by policemen. She braked madly, and began to turn. A policeman came running over to her window as she was doing it.
‘Where are you trying for?’ he asked. She named her mews. He said at once, ‘I thought your lot were there already. You can’t get through this way.’
She said, ‘Is it bad?’
He
blinked, catching something in her voice. ‘Two warehouses gone, so far as I know. Didn’t you get the details from Control?’
‘The furniture warehouse?’ she said, ignoring his question. ‘Palmer’s?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Christ, it must be! Oh, Christ!’
She had wound the window down to talk to him, and could suddenly smell the burning. She put the van into gear, and the policeman leapt back. The engine shuddered as she reversed. She changed gear again, double-declutching as usual, but timing it badly and crashing the cogs: swearing, enraged by the clumsiness of the mechanism; almost weeping. Don’t cry, you fool! she said to herself. She struck at her thigh, savagely, with the ball of her fist. The van swayed about. Don’t cry, don’t cry…
She was heading south now, but saw an unblocked road to the left, and turned sharply into it. A little way along it she was able to turn left again, into Dean Street. Here, for the first time, she saw the tips of the flames of the fire, leaping into the sky. There began to come smuts—dark, fragile webs of drifting ash—against the windscreen of the van. She pressed hard on the accelerator pedal and sped forwards; she got only a hundred yards, however, before the road was blocked again. She stuck out her head. ‘Let me through!’ she called to the policemen here. They made gestures with their hands: ‘No chance. Go back.’ She turned and, in desperation, went east again, to Soho Square. Another roadblock; but a less well-manned one. She stopped the van and put on the handbrake; then got out, ran, and simply vaulted over the trestles.