All Clear

by Connie Willis

  “What? I … sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew.”

  “And I thought this misbegotten play was opening two nights from now,” Sir Godfrey grumbled, and kept them rehearsing till the all clear went.

  On the way home Eileen asked, “Did you think you saw Mike?”

  “Yes,” Polly lied.

  “I’m certain he’ll ring us soon. Perhaps he hasn’t found a room yet. Or perhaps he’s having difficulty finding a place to phone from where he won’t be overheard.”

  Or his asking about Gerald has attracted attention, and he’s been taken in for questioning, Polly thought, but she had no time to worry over it. The play opened on Friday, and Townsend Brothers was full of customers. Christmas shoppers were already beginning to come in.

  Just after Mike had left, Polly had asked Miss Snelgrove if Townsend Brothers planned to hire on extra help for the holidays and, when she said yes, Polly’d told her about Eileen having lost her job at Padgett’s. Miss Snelgrove had hired her on the spot to help on third and then had had to move her up to the book department the next day when Ethel, who’d discussed ABCs and planespotters with Polly, was killed by shrapnel. But even though they weren’t working on the same floor, Eileen was grateful to be working in a department store which wouldn’t be bombed, delighted at being surrounded by so many Agatha Christies, and certain there was an innocent explanation for why Mike hadn’t telephoned yet.

  Eileen was the only one who was cheerful. The troupe was nervy about the play, and everyone else was jumpy and ill-tempered from lack of sleep, even though the raids only happened intermittently now. Or perhaps because they did. In those first weeks, the raids had become background noise that it was possible to ignore, but now that they didn’t occur every night, there was constant discussion of whether and when “they” would come and in what nasty new forms—like delayed-action bombs wired to go off as they were being defused or magnetic mines which exploded when a wristwatch came near them—and discussion of what they could do.

  By now everyone had a horror story. The rector’s sister had found a blown-off arm in her rose garden; a man Lila had gone dancing with had been blinded by flying glass; and everyone knew someone who’d been killed. It was no wonder everyone’s nerves were frayed.

  The weather didn’t help—it had rained steadily since the day Mike had left—and neither did the shorter days. “It’s as if the darkness were closing in all round us,” Miss Laburnum said, shivering, on their way to Notting Hill Gate.

  It is, Polly thought, and was glad to enter the brightly lit tube station, in spite of its crowdedness and the overpowering smell of wet wool.

  Friday and Saturday night they performed The Admirable Crichton in the lower-level hall of Notting Hill Gate. Opening night went perfectly except for the moment at the end of Act Two when the rescue ship arrived. Mr. Simms was supposed to cock his head and ask uncertainly, “Was that a gun I heard?” Unfortunately, he had to shout the line over a deafening anti-aircraft barrage. The audience roared, and an elderly man shouted out, “What are ya, lad, deaf?”

  Mr. Simms was mortified.

  “Nonsense!” Sir Godfrey, clad in rolled-up pants and the plimsolls Miss Laburnum had actually managed to track down, told him during the interval. “It was marvelous. You must see if you can work it into the show again tomorrow.”

  The rest of the show came off without incident. “You and Sir Godfrey were simply wonderful together,” Miss Laburnum enthused to Polly.

  “This has been wonderful for morale,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “It’s a pity we can’t do more than two performances. Perhaps we could arrange to perform it in other stations.”

  Sir Godfrey looked appalled.

  “We can’t,” Polly said quickly. “We’re only allowed to do two performances without paying royalties,” she lied.

  “Oh, what a pity,” Mrs. Wyvern said, and Sir Godfrey whispered, “Again do I owe my life to you, fair maid.”

  Saturday night went off even better. After the curtain, which consisted of Trot holding a placard reading Curtain, rang down and the cast had taken their bows to a necessarily standing ovation, Mrs. Wyvern gathered everyone on the platform to present Sir Godfrey with a copy of J. M. Barrie’s Complete Plays.

  “ ‘Thus were the Trojans murderously undone, by treacherous gifts as these,’ ” Sir Godfrey murmured to Polly.

  She was afraid he was right. “I have wonderful news!” Mrs. Wyvern said. “I met with the head of London Transport, and he has agreed to allow us to perform in the other Underground stations Christmas week.”

  “But the royalties—” Polly began.

  “Not The Admirable Crichton,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “A Christmas play.”

  “Peter Pan!” Miss Laburnum burst out. “How wonderful! I love the scene where Wendy asks, ‘Boy, why are you crying?’ and Peter Pan says—”

  “No, not Peter Pan,” Mrs. Wyvern said. “Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol!”

  “The very thing,” the rector pronounced. “It has a message of hope and charity which is badly needed in these dark times.”

  “And Sir Godfrey will make a wonderful Scrooge!” Miss Laburnum cried. And they were off and running.

  “But at least it’s not Barrie,” Sir Godfrey whispered to Polly, and on the way home after the all clear, Eileen said, “It’s good that all the female roles are small. When Mike finds Gerald, they’ll be able to easily replace you.”

  If Mike finds Gerald, Polly thought. If he’s not in the Tower, awaiting trial as a German spy.

  Instead of going to the London Zoo to meet the retrieval team, as per the ad they’d put in the papers, she sent Eileen instead so she wouldn’t miss his call. Eileen didn’t mind. “I’ll take Theodore,” she said. “He’s been wanting to go. The zoo wasn’t hit, was it?”

  “Yes.” It had suffered fourteen HEs. “But not today.”

  “Oh, good. If Mike’s found Gerald and wants us to come to Bletchley, we’ll be in the elephant house. I won’t be home to supper, thank heavens. I’ll eat at Theodore’s.”

  Mike didn’t phone, and Eileen was back by three. “What happened?” Polly asked. “How was the zoo?”

  “Dreadful. The retrieval team wasn’t there, and neither were the animals. Nearly all of them have been moved to the country for safekeeping, including the elephants, which Theodore particularly wanted to see, and ten minutes after we got there he decided he wanted to go home. And when I got him home, his mother was just going out, so I wasn’t asked to stay to supper,” she said, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. “And now I’ll have to eat one of Mrs. Rickett’s horrid cold collations.”

  “No, you won’t,” Polly said. “I can’t face it either. The play’s over, so there’s no rehearsal tonight. As soon as Mike phones, we’ll go to Holborn’s canteen and have sandwiches.”

  “What if he doesn’t phone?”

  “We’ll wait till seven—he’ll expect us to have left for Notting Hill Gate by then—and then go. And while you’re waiting, you can think about whether you’ll order a cheese sandwich or fish paste.”

  “Both,” Eileen said happily, and went off to sit on the stairs with Murder in the Calais Coach so she could hear the phone. Polly ironed her blouse and skirt for work and worried about Mike’s failure to call. And about the retrieval team and Colin and her deadline and discrepancies.

  It can’t be all of them, she told herself sternly. They’re mutually exclusive. If it’s increased slippage that’s keeping your drops from opening, then you can’t have altered events and the retrieval teams can’t come through, so they can’t be buried in the rubble at Padgett’s or your drop. And if they are, then the drops must be working again, so you didn’t lose the war, and you needn’t worry about your deadline. You can worry about one or the other, but not all of them at once.

  Unless they were connected. Unless the slippage had increased because they’d altered events, and the net was ensuring that other historians didn’t make the discrepancies wor
se.

  No, that wouldn’t work. The increase had happened before Mike rescued Hardy and before she’d come through to the Blitz. And before Gerald had gone to Bletchley Park. And it couldn’t have been anything she did before because she’d been able to go back through to Oxford after VE-Day. And Eileen had—

  “It’s seven,” Eileen said, coming back upstairs.

  Polly insisted they wait another half hour, and then they went off to Holborn, after first extracting a promise from Miss Laburnum to take down any messages for them and promising in turn to try to find a suitable candle for the Ghost of Christmas Past’s crown.

  “And a green fur-lined cloak for the Ghost of Christmas Present,” Miss Laburnum said.

  “If I had a green fur-lined cloak, I’d wear it myself,” Eileen said as they walked over to Notting Hill Gate. “My coat isn’t half warm enough for this horrid weather. And black is so grim.”

  “Everyone’s wearing black,” Polly snapped. “There’s a war on. And no one has a new coat. Everyone’s making do.”

  “I didn’t…,” Eileen said, turning puzzled eyes on her. “I was joking.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Polly said. “It’s only—”

  “You’re worried about Mike,” she said. “I know. He knew you were busy with the play. He probably didn’t want to distract you by phoning.”

  Distract me? Polly thought bitterly.

  “I’m sure he’ll ring us tomorrow.” Eileen linked her arm through Polly’s and chattered the rest of the way to Holborn about how wonderful the play had been and how hungry she was and about Agatha Christie.

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I actually saw her? She lived in London during the war and worked as a dispenser in the hospitals. Unfortunately, she won’t be in the tube shelters. She had an irrational fear of being buried alive.”

  Not all that irrational, Polly thought, remembering Marble Arch. And Marjorie.

  But it was a pity they had no chance of encountering her. They could have used her help, though Polly doubted whether even Agatha Christie could solve The Mystery of the Drops Which Wouldn’t Open.

  “I wonder if she took the tube to work,” Eileen said. “If she—here’s our stop—if she did, we might see her on her way home.”

  They got off the train.

  “I do hope the queue for the canteen isn’t very long,” Eileen said, starting through the clot of passengers getting off and on and down the platform past a band of urchins up to no good, toward a group of young women in FANY uniforms.

  Polly stopped.

  “Come along, I’m starving,” Eileen said, beckoning to her.

  A sailor passed, going the other way. Polly turned and walked swiftly after him along the platform as the train pulled out and then, as she reached the safety of the archway, looked back.

  Eileen was coming after her, pushing through the FANYs, calling “Polly!”

  She hurried through the arch and along the tunnel to the hall and onto the escalator.

  “Where are you going?” Eileen asked breathlessly, catching up to her halfway up.

  “I thought I saw someone,” Polly said.

  “Who? Agatha Christie?”

  “No, an historian. Jack Sorkin.”

  “I thought he was in the Pacific.”

  “I know, but I could have sworn …,” Polly said.

  They reached the top of the escalator. Polly looked around at the crowd, frowning. “Oh, it isn’t him, after all,” she said, pointing at a sailor on the far side of the hall. “Too bad.”

  “It’s all right,” Eileen said. “We can still go to the canteen.” She started over to the escalator to go back down.

  “Wait, I’ve just had a brilliant idea,” Polly said. “Let’s go to Lyons Corner House instead.”

  “Lyons?” Eileen repeated doubtfully. “Why?”

  “There aren’t any raids tonight. They’re bombing Bristol. We can have a proper meal, and you can tell me all about Murder in the Whatever It Is.”

  “The Calais Coach,” Eileen said. “Do you think they may have bacon at Lyons? Or eggs?”

  They had both, and tea that didn’t taste like dishwater. And pudding that didn’t taste like wallpaper paste.

  “That was the most wonderful meal I’ve ever had,” Eileen said blissfully on the train home. “I’m glad you thought you saw Jack.”

  “You were going to tell me about Murder in the Calais Coach,” Polly said.

  “Oh. Yes. It’s wonderful. Everyone has a motive for the crime, and you think, ‘It can’t be all of them. It’s got to be one or the other,’ but then it turns out … but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Would you care to borrow it? I’m sure the librarian at Holborn wouldn’t mind if I kept it a bit longer.”

  Polly wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the slippage and their altering events. “Eileen,” she asked, “did Linna or Badri say anything about what was causing the increase in slippage?”

  “No, not that I remember,” Eileen said, and when they got back to their room, she handed Polly a sheet of paper. “Here, I wrote down everything I could remember, the way you and Mike told me to.”

  On the sheet was scrawled, “G had umbrella, ddn’t offer it—Badri wking console—Linna on tphne—mad abt. Bastille—L sd she kn R of T first.”

  “What’s R of T?”

  “The Reign of Terror. Linna was talking to this person on the telephone about the lab changing whoever it was’s drop to the storming of the Bastille, and the person on the other end was obviously angry, and she said, ‘I know you were scheduled to go to the Reign of Terror first.’ But she didn’t say anything about slippage to them.”

  Whoever it was had been scheduled to do the Reign of Terror, and they’d changed it so he or she went to the storming of the Bastille. Which had happened before the Reign of Terror.

  “Where was Mike going before his assignment got changed to Dunkirk?” she asked Eileen. “Was it Pearl Harbor?”

  “I don’t know. I believe so. They’d changed his entire schedule.”

  “Where else was he supposed to go?”

  “I don’t remember. Salisbury, I think, and the World Trade Center. I wasn’t—”

  Really listening, Polly thought, wanting to shake her. Of course not. Just like you weren’t listening to Gerald Phipps.

  “You can ask Mike when he rings us,” Eileen was saying. “Why do you need to know?”

  Because Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. And the storming of the Bastille was before the Reign of Terror.

  Mike had said Mr. Dunworthy had been shuffling and canceling dozens of drops. What if he’d been doing it because the slippage increase was a matter not of months but of years? What if Mr. Dunworthy had been putting all the drops in chronological order and canceling ones where there was already a deadline because he had been afraid their drops wouldn’t open in time? What if the increase had been four years? Or the length of the war, and that was why she’d seen Eileen at VE-Day? Because they hadn’t got out?

  But if that was it, then why hadn’t he canceled her drop?

  Perhaps the increase isn’t that large, she thought. Pearl Harbor was only a year and a half after Dunkirk. She didn’t know how far apart the two events in the French Revolution were. The storming of the Bastille was July 14, 1789, but she didn’t know when the Reign of Terror had begun. If it was less than three years …

  Or that might not be the reason they’d changed the schedules at all. It might be something else altogether. When Mike phones. I need to ask him the original order of his assignments and what it was changed to, she thought. If he phones. And in the meantime, it’s pointless to worry.

  But it was impossible not to. She spent her lunch break going to Selfridges and Bourne and Hollingsworth’s to look at women’s coats—which were luckily all far too expensive for Eileen to afford, even at Bourne and Hollingsworth’s “Bomb Damage” sale. And when clothing rationing went into effect, it would be impossible to save up enough points to buy
one. But it still made Polly more cheerful to see that the only colors available were black, brown, and navy blue.

  Mike phoned Monday night, and it was exactly as Eileen had predicted. He’d had difficulty finding a phone where he could speak without being overheard. “Either I’m going to have to find a phone booth that’s closer,” he said, “or we’ll have to conduct our conversations in code.”

  “You’re surrounded by England’s greatest cryptanalysts,” Polly said. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

  “You’re right, it’ll have to be letters. Does Mrs. Rickett steam open your mail?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I don’t suppose the retrieval team’s answered one of our ads yet?”

  “No. You were supposed to do your Pearl Harbor assignment first, is that right?”

  “Yes, and then the World Trade Center and the Battle of the Bulge, so I could use one L-and-A implant for all three.”

  “And what did they change it to? Were Dunkirk and Pearl Harbor the only two they switched?”

  “No, they switched them all around. After Pearl Harbor they wanted me to do El Alamein and then the Battle of the Bulge—”

  I was right. They put them in chronological order. Polly felt the familiar flutter of panic. But El Alamein’s only seven months after Pearl Harbor, and the Battle of the Bulge is only two and a half years after that. It’s still not as great a length of time between as mine.

  “—followed by the second World Trade Center attack—”

  Which was nearly sixty years after the Battle of the Bulge.

  “—and the beginning of the Pandemic in Salisbury,” Mike said.

  Twenty years later.

  But that didn’t prove anything. The lab might have put his assignments in chronological order because of Pearl Harbor, not the others.

  I need to find out when the Reign of Terror began, Polly thought, and tried to think of who would know. Not Eileen. Polly didn’t want her to begin asking questions. And because Eileen was working in the book department, she couldn’t look it up in a book on the French Revolution.