All Clear

by Connie Willis

  “So it is with heaven,” the vicar said. “By our deeds here on earth, in this world so far from the one we long for, we make heaven possible. We not only live in the hope of heaven but, by each doing our bit, we bring it to pass.”

  Mike did his bit, Polly thought. He did everything he could do to save us. Like Mr. Dunworthy. Like Colin.

  Because sitting there watching the vicar, she was absolutely convinced that Colin had searched desperately for her, had turned Oxford and the lab upside down, trying to find out what had gone wrong, trying to come up with a plan to get them out.

  She could see him demanding action, trying drop site after drop site for one which would open, scouring historical records and newspapers and books on time travel, searching for clues to what had happened, refusing to give up. And if he had failed, if he had died before he was able to get them out, it wasn’t his fault any more than it was Mike’s. They had tried. They had done their bit.

  As soon as the service was over, Mr. Humphreys dragged the vicar off to look at Captain Faulknor’s memorial, and Eileen hustled Alf and Binnie out of the chapel, leaving Polly to thank everyone for coming and to listen to their condolences.

  “We must trust in God’s goodness,” Miss Hibbard said, patting her hand.

  Mrs. Wyvern patted it, too. “God never sends us more than we can bear.”

  “Everything which happens is part of God’s plan,” the rector intoned.

  Sir Godfrey came up to her, his hat in his hand.

  If he has some appropriately cheerful Shakespeare quote, like “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,” or “All will yet be well,” I’ll never forgive him, Polly thought.

  “Viola,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “ ‘The rain it raineth every day.’ ”

  I love you, she thought, tears stinging her eyes.

  Miss Laburnum came up. “We must have faith at trying times like these,” she said, and turned to Sir Godfrey. “I have been thinking, we should do a dramatic reading from Mary Rose. There’s a heartbreaking scene where her son comes looking for his dead mother …”

  She dragged Sir Godfrey off, and Polly went to look for Eileen. She couldn’t see her or the Hodbins anywhere, and she didn’t want her to have to listen to the rector’s or Mrs. Wyvern’s platitudes. She went out into the nave and toward the dome.

  Eileen was looking at The Light of the World with Alf and Binnie. Or rather, Alf and Binnie were looking at it, and Eileen was staring at Alf and Binnie with the same blind, withdrawn look. Polly’d hoped the vicar’s words would aid Eileen in coming to terms with Mike’s death, but they didn’t seem to have helped.

  And the Hodbins were certainly of no help. “Why’s ’e wearin’ a dress?” Alf asked, pointing at the painting. “And what’s ’e standin’ there for?”

  “ ’E’s knockin’ up the people what live there, you dunderpate,” Binnie said.

  “You’re the dunderpate,” Alf said. “Nobody lives there. Look at that door. It ain’t been opened in years. I’ll wager the people what lived there went off and didn’t tell ’im. Or else they’re dead. ’E can go on knockin’ forever, and nobody’ll come.”

  That’s the last thing Eileen needs to hear, Polly thought, and said, “We should be going. We don’t want to be caught out when the sirens go.” But Eileen gave no indication that she heard her. She continued to stare blindly at Alf and Binnie.

  Polly tried again. “Eileen, we need to go rescue the vicar. Mr. Humphreys took him to look at Faulknor’s memorial and—”

  “Alf, Binnie, come with me,” Eileen said abruptly, and herded them back to the now-deserted chapel. She opened the gate.

  “Why’re we goin’ back in ’ere?” Binnie asked as Eileen motioned them inside.

  “We didn’t nick nothin’,” Alf said.

  Oh, no, Polly thought. What did they steal now?

  “We wasn’t even in ’ere,” Alf said. “We was lookin’ at that picture the whole time.”

  Eileen shut and latched the gate and then turned to face them.

  “We didn’t take nothin’,” Binnie said. “Honest.”

  Eileen didn’t even seem to have heard that. “How long has your mother been dead?” she asked.

  Dead?

  “You’re daft,” Alf said. “Our mum ain’t dead.”

  “She’s down at Piccadilly Circus this minute,” Binnie said, sidling toward the gate. “We’ll go fetch ’er.”

  Eileen stepped firmly between them and the gate. “You’re not going anywhere.” She looked across at Polly. “Their mother was killed in a raid last autumn, and they’ve been covering it up ever since. They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.

  “Haven’t you?” Eileen demanded, looking at the children. “How long has she been dead?”

  “We told you,” Alf said, “she ain’t—”

  “She died at St. Bart’s, didn’t she?” Eileen said. “That’s how you knew where the hospital was, isn’t it? And why you wanted to leave, because you were afraid a nurse would recognize you and tell me what happened.”

  “No,” Alf said. “You said you needed to get to St. Paul’s. That’s why we was—”

  “How long has she been dead, Binnie?”

  “We told you—” Alf began.

  “Since September,” Binnie said.

  Alf turned on her furiously. “What’d you tell ’er that for? Now she’ll turn us in.”

  Binnie ignored him. “We didn’t find out till October, though,” she said. “Sometimes Mum don’t come ’ome for two or three days, so we didn’t think nothin’ of it, but after a bit we got worried and went lookin’ for her, and one of Mum’s friends said she was in a pub what got ’it by a thousand-pounder.”

  And there wasn’t a body left to identify, Polly thought. Like Mike. And the “friend” was either a fellow prostitute or one of Mrs. Hodbin’s clients, neither of whom would have wanted to have anything to do with the police, so her death hadn’t been reported to the authorities.

  “She’d already been killed when I came to borrow the map, hadn’t she?” Eileen asked. “That was why you wouldn’t let me in and told me she was sleeping.”

  Binnie nodded. “That’s what we told the landlady, too. Mum slept a lot when she was ’ome, you see, and we ’ad the ration books, so it was all right. Till we run out of money and couldn’t pay the rent.”

  “And the landlady found out about Mrs. Bascombe,” Alf said.

  “Their parrot,” Eileen explained to Polly.

  “So we told ’er we was all goin’ to live with Mum’s sister in the country.”

  “And you went to live in the shelters,” Eileen said.

  “But what did you live on if you hadn’t any money?” Polly asked, and then thought, Picking pockets and stealing picnic baskets.

  Mr. Humphreys and the vicar were coming back, Mr. Humphreys still talking of Captain Faulknor.

  Binnie looked stricken. “You ain’t gonna tell the vicar, are you?”

  “Promise you won’t tell nobody,” Alf said, “or we’ll ’afta go to a orphanage.”

  “Ah, here you are,” Mr. Humphreys said.

  The vicar looked at them, taking in the latched gate, Eileen’s sentrylike stance, the children’s expressions. “What’s going on here, Miss O’Reilly?” he asked.

  Please, Binnie mouthed.

  Eileen turned, unlatched the gate, and let them into the chapel. “Alf and Binnie were just telling me about their mother,” she said. “She was killed last autumn. They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.”

  Binnie looked utterly betrayed.

  “What’d you do that for?” Alf wailed. “Now they’ll send us away, and you’re the only one what’s nice to us.”

  “We don’t need no one to take care of us,” Binnie said belligerently. “Me ’n’ Alf can take care of ourselves.”

  “I’ll take them in,” Eileen said.

  “What?” Polly said. “You can’t—”

  “Someone must.
They obviously can’t go on living in the tube stations,” Eileen said. “Mr. Goode, can you arrange for me to be named their guardian?”

  “Yes, of course, but …” He turned to Mr. Humphreys. “Would you mind terribly showing the children round the cathedral for a bit? We need to discuss—”

  “Of course,” Mr. Humphreys said. “Poor things. Come along with me, children.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Eileen said to Binnie.

  “You swear?”

  “I swear. Go on, go with Mr. Humphreys.”

  They’ll bolt, just as they did the morning after the twenty-ninth, Polly thought, but they went docilely off with the verger.

  “Come, I’ll show you The Light of the World,” Polly heard him say as they went up the aisle.

  “We already seen it,” Alf said.

  “Oh, but you’ll find that you see something different in it each time,” Mr. Humphreys replied.

  I can imagine, Polly thought.

  Their footsteps died away. “Are you quite certain you want to do this, Miss O’Reilly?” the vicar asked. “After all, the Hodbins are—”

  “I know,” Eileen said.

  “Mrs. Rickett will never allow it,” Polly said. “You know her rules.”

  “And it would be better if they were safely out of London,” the vicar said. “The Evacuation Committee—”

  “No,” Eileen said. “If they’re evacuated, they’ll run away, and they won’t survive on their own. Alf plays with UXBs, and Binnie’s a young girl. She can’t just run wild in the shelters, or …”

  She’ll end up like her mother, Polly thought.

  “They haven’t anyone else,” Eileen said to Polly. “If we don’t rescue them—”

  “But what about Mrs. Rickett?” Polly said. “You know her rules—no cooking in the room, no pets, no children. And Mr. Goode’s leave is up today—”

  “I’ll see if I can get additional time, since this is a matter involving my parishioners,” he said. “And perhaps I can persuade Mrs. Rickett to relax her rules, given the circumstances.”

  I highly doubt that, Polly thought, and just as she expected, Mrs. Rickett was not impressed by either the vicar’s clerical collar or his arguments.

  “You know the rules,” she said, her arms folded militantly across her chest. “No children.”

  “But their mother was killed in a raid,” the vicar said, “and they’ve nowhere else to go. The Church will provide cots and bedding for them.”

  “And we’ll see that they don’t cause you any bother,” Eileen added.

  That’s not the way to Mrs. Rickett’s heart, Polly thought. “We’ll pay extra for their board,” she said, “and children are allowed an extra milk ration.”

  “How large a ration?” Mrs. Rickett demanded, her eyes glittering at the thought of the milk puddings and cream soups she could cook up into inedible messes.

  “Half a pint a day,” the vicar said.

  “Very well,” Mrs. Rickett said, nearly snatching the children’s ration books out of Eileen’s hands, “but their board won’t begin till the day after tomorrow.”

  Of course, Polly thought.

  “And if there’s any playing on the stairs, or any noise—”

  “There won’t be,” Eileen said earnestly. “They’re very nicely behaved children.”

  “You should join the troupe,” Polly said after Mrs. Rickett had gone. “You’re a far better actress than I am.”

  Eileen ignored her. “Thank you so much, Mr. Goode,” she said. “We couldn’t have managed it without you. You’ve been wonderful.”

  He had. In the two extra days’ leave he’d managed to wangle, he’d not only obtained new ration books and new clothes for Alf and Binnie but had had Eileen named their temporary guardian and had arranged for a school.

  “School?” Alf and Binnie said, as if he’d suggested burning them at the stake.

  “Yes,” the vicar said sternly, “and if you don’t go every day and do everything Miss O’Reilly tells you, she’ll write to me, and I’ll have you sent straight to the orphanage.”

  Polly doubted the Hodbins were any more capable of being intimidated than Mrs. Rickett, but then again, she’d expected them to bolt when Mr. Humphreys took them off to The Light of the World and again when Eileen and she had told them to wait for them at Notting Hill Gate while they spoke to Mrs. Rickett, and they hadn’t. In fact, when they took the vicar to the station to see him off, Alf asked him, “Is Eileen going to be our mum now?”

  Polly didn’t hear what the vicar said, but she saw how cheerful Eileen was and couldn’t be sorry they’d decided to take in the Hodbins. Especially since the vicar had told Eileen he was being assigned to active duty.

  Chaplains hadn’t been armed—even though they were often in the thick of battle—and the vicar, with his slight frame and mild manner, was scarcely the soldier sort. And how many earnest young men, eager like him to help the war effort, had died in the sands of North Africa and on the beaches of Normandy? Polly wasn’t certain Eileen could bear another loss.

  They all went to see him off at Victoria Station. “We got to,” Alf said, “ ’cause he seen us off that day we come to London. Remember, Vicar? How you come to tell us goodbye that day?”

  “I do,” the vicar said, looking at Eileen.

  “And now we’re tellin’ you goodbye. It’s funny, ain’t it, Eileen?”

  “Yes,” she said, blinking back tears. “Thank you so much for everything, Mr. Goode.”

  “It was a pleasure,” he said solemnly. He picked up his duffel bag. “I’d best board. You have my address for now, and I’ll let you know where I’m going as soon as I’m able. Promise me you’ll write me if you need any further assistance with Alf and Binnie, and I’ll see to it.”

  If you can, Polly thought. If you’re not killed.

  They said goodbye, and the vicar boarded the train, the romance of it somewhat spoiled by Alf and Binnie shouting after him, “Shoot heaps of Germans!” and “Kill that old ’Itler!”

  Eileen watched the train out of sight.

  “Whatcha waitin’ for?” Binnie asked curiously.

  “Nothing,” Eileen said. “Come along, we’re going home.”

  “We can’t,” Alf said. “We got to go to Blackfriars to get our things.”

  “What things?”

  “You know,” Binnie said innocently, “our clothes and things.”

  “And that book you give me about the Tower of London,” Alf said, heading for the entrance to the Underground. “The best part was when they cut off Mary Queen of Scots’s ’ead.”

  And after they’d boarded the train to Blackfriars, he regaled them with the details. “The executioner chopped it off, whack, like that.” He demonstrated for the benefit of the other passengers in the car. “And then he picked it up by the ’air. That’s what they done back then. They picked up the ’ead, all gory and dripping blood like, and said, ‘This is what ’appens to queens what commits treason.’ ”

  “And then they stuck it up on London Bridge,” Binnie finished.

  “Not ’er they didn’t,” Alf said. “She was wearin’ a wig, and when they picked up ’er ’ead, it fell on the floor and rolled under the bed, and ’er dog ran after it and—”

  “This is Blackfriars,” Eileen said, standing up and pushing them both off the train ahead of her.

  “Stop pushin’,” Binnie said.

  “Don’t you wanna know what Mary Queen of Scots’s dog done?”

  “No,” Polly said.

  “You said you needed to get your things,” Eileen said. “Where are they? On the platform?”

  “Are you daft?” Binnie said, leading the way. “People’d pinch ’em.”

  “They’re in the tunnel,” Alf said as they reached the platform. “Wait ’ere.” And before Eileen could stop them, both children darted to the end of the platform and disappeared into the blackness of the tunnel.

  “They’ll be killed,” Eileen said.


  “No such luck,” Polly said, and in a moment they each reappeared with an armful of belongings—a cap, a ragged-looking cardigan, a pair of Wellingtons, a stack of film magazines.

  Alf dumped his in Eileen’s arms. “I got to go get Mrs. Bascombe,” he said, and darted back toward the tunnel.

  “Mrs. Bascombe?” Polly asked. “Who’s Mrs. Bascombe?”

  “Their parrot,” Eileen said despairingly. “I assumed it had been left behind when the children moved into the shelters.” She turned to Binnie. “I thought animals weren’t allowed in shelters.”

  “They ain’t,” Binnie said. “That’s why we ’ad to keep ’er ’id in the tunnel.”

  “This isn’t the parrot who can imitate an air-raid alert, is it?” Polly asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

  “And the all clear,” Alf said, appearing with a large, rusty cage in which sat a gray-and-red parrot. “But we’ve taught ’er lots of things since then.”

  It Is Over.

  —LONDON EVENING NEWS HEADLINE,

  7 May 1945

  London—7 May 1945

  THAT IS MEROPE, SHE THOUGHT, LEANING OUT OVER THE National Gallery’s stone railing to get a better look at the young woman in the green coat, standing there in Trafalgar Square. Oh, good. She wanted to do VE-Day. She raised her arm to wave and shout to her, then decided against it. She didn’t know what name she was here under. Probably not Merope. That name hadn’t become popular till the twenties. And she didn’t know what her cover was or if she was here with one of the contemps. A middle-aged man in an RAF uniform stood next to her on her left.

  She lowered her arm, but Paige had already seen her begin to wave. “Do you see Reardon now?” Paige asked her.

  “No, I thought I saw someone I knew.”

  “You very probably did. I think everyone in England is here tonight.”

  Past and present, she thought.

  “Reardon!” Paige shouted, waving wildly. She glanced over to where Paige was looking and then back to where Merope had been standing, but she was no longer there. She searched through the crowd for her—by the lamppost, by the lion, over by the monument. But there was no sign of the green coat, which she should be able to spot—it was so bright. Or of her red hair.