All Clear

by Connie Willis

  She took them home, made Mr. Dunworthy a soft-boiled egg, and then set out again to fetch his things from a dreary, chill room in the only part of Carter Lane which hadn’t burned on the twenty-ninth. She’d intended to go tell Mr. Humphreys that she’d got Mr. Hobbe safely home, but now she didn’t dare risk it. He had been nothing but kind to her. He didn’t deserve …

  She stopped short on the pavement. That was what Mr. Dunworthy had started to say last night when he’d refused to go to St. Bart’s, that the nurses had been very kind to him and that they didn’t deserve to die for it.

  She debated giving a message for Mr. Humphreys to the volunteer at the desk, but she wasn’t even sure she had any business being in St. Paul’s. Yet she didn’t want Mr. Humphreys tracking Mr. Dunworthy down out of concern. She settled for giving a note addressed to Mr. Humphreys to a woman going inside and asking her to give it to the verger. And what if even that moment-long encounter was enough to require a correction? Or her conversation with Hattie when she went to the Alhambra that afternoon?

  “Did you get that rescue job you wanted?” Hattie asked her when she arrived for rehearsal.

  “No,” Polly said.

  “Then you can rescue the second act. Here,” she said, handing her a bathing suit with a Union Jack emblazoned on it. “Cheer up. ENSA may not be as heroic as rescue work, but we keep up the soldiers’ spirits and make them forget their troubles for a few hours, don’t we? Singing and dancing can help win the war, too.”

  Mr. Tabbitt put her in the show that very night, serving as assistant to a magician. She was very bad at it, but so was the magician, and the main interest of the audience, which consisted almost entirely of soldiers, seemed to be her abbreviated costume.

  “Tits and tinsel,” Hattie said. “That’s our motto.”

  “I thought it was ENSA: Every Night Sexy Acts,” one of the chorus girls said, flouncing past them in an even skimpier costume as they stood in the wings.

  “That’s Joyce,” Hattie said. “Nice, but a bit too fond of the boys.”

  A handsome young man dressed as an RAF pilot brushed past them.

  “And that’s Reggie,” Hattie said. “Also a bit too fond of the boys. That’s one thing I like about ENSA. One never has to worry about being fondled. Except by Mutchins, our beloved stage manager. Watch out for him. He’s a menace.”

  So am I, Polly thought. Like one of those fiendish delayed-action bombs set to go off when someone comes too near.

  It took her two days to find the courage to tell Eileen. Polly remembered how sick she’d looked when she’d found out about Polly’s deadline, remembered her refusal to budge from the foot of the escalator when she found out Mike was dead, and was afraid the same thing would happen, but she took the news with an almost frightening calmness. “I knew it had to be bad when you brought him in,” she said. “He’s certain we lost the war?”

  “Mr. Dunworthy says there’s no way to be absolutely certain, and there’s a possibility the continuum will be able to correct itself—”

  “But it won’t help us.”

  “No,” Polly said, feeling like a doctor giving a patient a terminal diagnosis.

  “And he’s certain there’s nothing we could do that would change things back?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we’re in an unwinnable situation.”

  “Yes.”

  An unwinnable situation with not even a way to get out of it. If Polly killed herself, or even let a convenient HE do it for her, that still wouldn’t put an end to the damage she could do, the changes she might effect. She would endanger the rescue crews who had to dig for her. Or delay them from digging for someone else, and that someone else would die from a broken gas main in the meantime. And her death would affect Doreen and Miss Snelgrove and the troupe.

  And Sir Godfrey, who last time he thought she was buried in the rubble had moved heaven and earth to find her, who had sent ripples out in all directions.

  She’d been wrong—she wasn’t a delayed-action bomb. She was a UXB that would blow up if someone didn’t defuse it—but that, if someone attempted to, was even more likely to explode. And once the bomb squad had set it ticking, they didn’t dare stop, and the only safe way to dispose of it was to take it out to Barking Marshes, where it could explode without harming anyone.

  But the continuum had no Barking Marshes, and short of being dead, there was no way Polly could get out of her service with ENSA and out of endangering everyone in the cast, to say nothing of all those soldiers and sailors in the audience.

  She lay awake nights, thinking of everyone she might have unwittingly endangered—Fairchild and Lady Denewell and Talbot, whose knee she’d wrenched, and Sarah Steinberg and the other shopgirls at Townsend Brothers and the guard at Padgett’s who’d chased her up the stairs, the old man with the fringed pink silk cushion who’d caught her when her legs gave way and eased her down to the curb after she’d seen St. George’s.

  And that was only her. What about Eileen’s evacuees and Agatha Christie and the nurses and doctors and patients at the hospital in Orpington? And at St. Bart’s?

  Mr. Dunworthy had clearly thought he’d put his nurses and doctors in danger. He’d also said that perhaps not everyone they’d come into contact with had to be part of the correction, but even if only a few of them were …

  She knew now how Theodore’s neighbor felt. She wanted to shut herself in the cupboard under the stairs and stay there, even if it offered no protection at all. But that was impossible. She had to make Mr. Dunworthy soft-boiled eggs and tea and keep Alf from asking him how it felt to be blown up and Binnie from sharing her opinions of fairy tales, had to learn her lines, practice tap routines, rip ruffles off her costumes and sew sequins on them. And face Eileen’s unquenchable optimism.

  “I don’t think Mr. Dunworthy’s right,” she said the day after Polly told her. “Saving people’s lives is a good thing, and after all, Mr. Dunworthy didn’t intend to run into the Wren—”

  “And the German pilots who got lost didn’t mean to start the London Blitz,” Polly said. “The sailor lighting a cigarette on deck didn’t mean to get his convoy blown up. History’s a chaotic system. Cause and effect aren’t—”

  “Linear. I know. But even in a chaotic system, good deeds and good intentions—and courage and kindness and love—must count for something, or else history would be even worse than it already is,” Eileen said.

  She refused to send Alf and Binnie away. “When the vicar tried to place them last summer before we left Backbury, no one would take them,” she said. “And even if we could find someone, they’d only run away to London and begin living on their own again. And collecting UXBs. They’d be in just as much danger as they are with me.”

  Except that the continuum wouldn’t be after them. “But by sending them away, you’d be saving their lives,” Polly argued.

  “I thought you said saving lives was a bad thing,” Eileen said. “That that was how we got into this mess in the first place. That if I’d let Alf and Binnie go on the City of Benares and drown, if I’d let that man in the back of the ambulance bleed to death, that everything would be fine.”

  “Eileen—”

  “Don’t you see? If I send them away, they may be killed, and if I keep them here, they may be killed. But if I send them away, they’ll think I’m abandoning them, and that will kill them. They’ve already been abandoned by everyone they’ve ever known. They can’t survive that again. And I swore I’d take care of them.”

  But don’t you see? You can’t, Polly thought.

  But Eileen was right, it was a no-win situation, so it probably made no difference where they were. Eileen had saved both of their lives once and Binnie’s twice, and that would clearly have to be corrected. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that the Hodbins could take care of themselves. That if anyone could survive a correction—or a war—it was the two of them.

  Polly wanted desperately to believe that it was possible f
or them, and at least some of the others, to survive. And that it was possible to do something even now to protect them, even though she feared it was as useless as Sleeping Beauty’s father burning the spinning wheels.

  But she kept away from St. Paul’s and Kensington anyway and took the bus instead of the tube, searching for a seat where she wouldn’t have to be next to someone, taking care to watch where she was going so that she didn’t collide with anyone. She stayed strictly away from Oxford Street, and when Mr. Tabbitt dispatched her to buy sateen or ribbon for costumes, she went to Regent Street or Harrods and said no more than “Five yards, please.”

  Even that might be enough to seal the shopgirl’s fate, but at least she wasn’t at Townsend Brothers, where she might endanger Doreen or Miss Snelgrove. Or in Notting Hill Gate with the troupe. And the effort of avoiding people kept her mind off the sprawling network of people they’d come into contact with: the bombing victims she’d saved while she was stationed at Dulwich, the bus driver who’d taken her to Backbury, the servants at the manor, the people who’d been on the train with Eileen and her and Mike, and the girls who’d picked Mike up and dusted him off in Bletchley.

  And it kept her mind off Mr. Dunworthy, who was not improving, in spite of eggs and Eileen’s aspirin and a large soup bone that Alf and Binnie had got somewhere and about which both Eileen and Polly thought it best not to ask questions.

  “I’m worried about him,” Eileen said. “The doctor says it’s not the head injury, that that’s nearly healed, and that it’s not pneumonia. He doesn’t know what it is.”

  It’s thinking about what’s going to happen to us and to Charles Bowden, who will still be in Singapore when the Japanese arrive, and to whoever Mr. Dunworthy sent off to the storming of the Bastille. And to who knows how many other historians who were in equally dangerous times and places when their drops slammed shut. It’s the weight of the world.

  “I’m afraid he’s not going to recover,” Eileen, who never gave up on anything or anybody, said, so Polly wasn’t surprised when she found Alf and Binnie waiting for her one night outside the stage door.

  “Eileen sent us to fetch you,” Binnie said.

  “Is it Mr. Hobbe?” she asked.

  “Mr. Hobbe?” Alf said. “Nothin’ like. It’s Mrs. Rickett’s boardinghouse. It got bombed last night.”

  “Direct hit,” Binnie said.

  “Kabloom!” Alf shouted. “Ain’t it a good thing we was thrown out?”

  “The flowers are turning very red. Repeat. The flowers are turning very red.”

  —CODED BBC MESSAGE BROADCAST BY THE

  FRENCH RESISTANCE BEFORE D-DAY

  Kent—April 1944

  “WORTHING!” CESS CALLED, AND OPENED THE DOOR.

  “What is it now?” Ernest asked, typing, “To the Editor of the Clarion Call: I have the misfortune—”

  Cess looked offended. “You asked me to tell you when Lady Bracknell got here,” he said. “He’s here.”

  Ernest nodded, typing, “—to reside in—”

  He broke off. “Where’s the dummy camp Prism and Gwendolyn are building?” he asked.

  “Just north of Coggeshall,” Cess said.

  “—in Coggeshall, near the American paratroop base, and I am appalled by the number of beer bottles and—” He paused, fingers poised above the keyboard. “Will they print the word ‘condoms’ in the newspaper?”

  “No,” Cess said. “He wants to see us.”

  Ernest typed, “—and contraceptive appliances in my lane on Sunday mornings. I have spoken to the camp commander, but to no avail.”

  “He wants us in the common room now.”

  “This is the last one. Listen to this. I need your advice.” He read it aloud to Cess.

  “Oh, it’ll definitely fool the Germans,” Cess said. “There’s no clearer proof that there’s an army in the area than beer bottles and used condoms.”

  “No, I need advice on who wrote the letter. Do you think it should be from an irate country squire or a spinster?”

  “A vicar,” Cess said promptly. “Now come along.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Ernest promised, waving Cess out of the room. He typed two more lines, signed the letter “The Reverend T. W. Ringolsby,” put it and the carbon into the envelope with his articles, hid the envelope in the “Forms 14C” file, and went down to the common room.

  Gwendolyn was making his report to Lady Bracknell as Ernest squeezed into a seat next to Cess. “Camp Omaha has been completed,” Gwendolyn said. “Fifty barracks, a motor pool, a mess hall, and a camp kitchen with smoke coming out of its chimney, but I’m not certain how long that will last, so if a German reconnaissance plane could get through our coastal defenses soon, that would be excellent.”

  Lady Bracknell nodded. “I’ll arrange it for tomorrow afternoon. The meteorological report is for fair weather till tomorrow evening.” He made a note. “We’ll need soldiers walking between buildings, unloading supplies, and drilling in formation.”

  “And guess who those soldiers will be,” Cess whispered to Ernest. “Just my cup of tea—drilling in the pouring rain.”

  Lady Bracknell fixed them with a gimlet stare. “All of you except Chasuble and Worthing will report to Camp Omaha at fourteen hundred hours tomorrow. Chasuble, I need you to arrange a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the airfield in Sissinghurst for Friday next.”

  Chasuble frowned. “Does Sissinghurst have an airfield?”

  “It will by Friday next. Worthing, I need you to go to Dover.”

  “To the hospital?” Ernest asked warily.

  “No, to the harbor. I need you to deliver a parcel to a boat that’s docked there.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, alone, Lieutenant Worthing. How many people does it take to deliver a single parcel?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Ernest said, trying to look chagrined rather than thrilled. Here was his chance. Finally. He’d be on his own and with transport. He could finally get to London. And he’d be able to deliver his articles to the Sudbury Weekly Shopper and the Call without Cess or Prism looking over his shoulder. Especially the Call. The editor, Mr. Jeppers, always insisted on reading through all of the articles before he okayed them and on asking all kinds of questions.

  He’d be pushed for time if he wanted to do both, but luckily, Dover was far enough away that a few hours more or less wouldn’t look suspicious. Unless Lady Bracknell wasn’t sending him right away. “When do I leave, sir?” he asked.

  “As soon as you can. His boat will only be in port a day or two. We need to catch him before he goes out again.”

  Better and better. He debated asking when Lady Bracknell expected him back from the mission and then decided that was looking for trouble. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Report to me when you’re ready to leave.”

  “Yes, sir.” And as soon as the meeting broke up, he went to borrow Chasuble’s peacoat and see who had a suitable shirt. The sooner he left, the less likely it was that Bracknell would change his mind and decide to send someone with him.

  No one had a shirt that could pass for a sailor’s, but Cess produced a shapeless, dingy gray pullover and a pair of canvas sneakers. “The jumper’s Moncrieff’s and the plimsolls are Prism’s,” Cess said.

  Prism’s feet were smaller than his, but it didn’t matter. He’d be driving the entire way. “Perfect. Thanks,” he said, yanking the pullover on. “You wouldn’t have a duffel bag, would you?”

  “Yes,” Cess said, and returned immediately with a heavy canvas bag and an umbrella. “You’ll need this as well.”

  “Hardy seafaring men don’t go about with umbrellas,” Ernest said, shoving a change of clothes into the bag. “And why are you so certain it’s going to rain? Bracknell said it’s supposed to be fair.”

  “He also said that pasture hadn’t any bulls in it,” Cess said, holding out the umbrella. “And it always rains when we have to be outside. Remember the oil-depot ribbon cutting?” He laid the umbrella on
the desk and left. As soon as he was gone Ernest opened the file, retrieved the envelope from “Forms 14C,” and put it into the duffel bag under his clothes.

  Cess leaned back in. “Bracknell wants to see you.”

  I knew it was too good to be true, Ernest thought, but Bracknell only wanted to give him the parcel—a large rectangular box that looked heavy but weighed almost nothing—and a letter. “You’re to give both to Captain Doolittle on the Mlle. Jeannette.”

  “The Mlle. Jeannette?”

  “It’s a French fishing boat.” He told Ernest where it would be docked. “You’re Seaman Higgins. You’re from Cornwall. Can you do a Cornish accent?”

  He nodded. “I’m an old hand at accents.”

  Bracknell handed him a sheaf of forms. “These are your papers. You were invalided out of His Majesty’s Navy, and you’re looking for work. You’re to say to Captain Doolittle—and only to Captain Doolittle”—he read aloud in his precise upper-class accent—“ ‘Seaman Higgins, sir. Admiral Pickering said as how you was hiring on a crew,’ and Captain Doolittle will reply, ‘Admiral Pickering! How is that old devil? and then you give him the package.’ ”

  “Yes, sir.” He repeated his line back to him in what he hoped was an out-of-work sailor’s accent and then said, “Am I taking the Austin or the staff car?”

  “Neither. You’re going on foot.”

  I knew it was too good to be true, he thought. “You want me to walk all the way to Dover?”

  “No, of course not. I want you to hitchhike. That way you’ll be able to discuss the invasion with farmers and other locals. And you’ll be able to stop at pubs along the way and engage the denizens in conversation about the invasion as well.”

  But he wouldn’t be able to deliver his articles or get to London.