All Clear

by Connie Willis

  He died on the way to hospital, Polly thought. I didn’t save his life after all.

  But the nurse was saying, “It was lucky you found him in time. And lucky you knew what to do.”

  But we weren’t lucky, Polly thought. I was late getting to Dulwich. Mike missed the bus to Dover. He missed Daphne in Saltram-on-Sea and had to follow her all the way to Manchester, and Eileen came to Townsend Brothers the one day I was gone. And the night of the twenty-ninth, everything had conspired against them—the air-raid warden who stopped them just as they were going into St. Paul’s and the doctor who waylaid Eileen and the fires and falling walls and blocked-off streets. And Alf and Binnie.

  “Why is it everywhere I go there are horrible children?” Eileen had asked, but if it hadn’t been for the Hodbins, Eileen wouldn’t have survived after Mike died. And if she hadn’t insisted on taking them in, if they hadn’t insisted on bringing their parrot, Alf and Binnie wouldn’t have got them thrown out of the boardinghouse. They all might have died along with Mrs. Rickett.

  “It’s lucky we got thrown out, ain’t it?” Alf had said, and Mr. Humphreys had said, “What luck you came to Saint Paul’s today. He’s here, the man I told you about.” And Mike had said, “It’s lucky that was the only available room in Bletchley, or I’d never have found out what happened to Gerald Phipps.”

  “It was lucky the warden heard me in the rubble,” Marjorie had said, and that night in Padgett’s, Eileen had said, “It’s lucky I heard you calling.”

  And at some point Polly must have fallen asleep, must have murmured Eileen’s name, because Eileen said, “I’m here,” and when Polly opened her eyes, she was there, and it was morning. A nurse was pulling back the blackout curtains from the tall windows, and sunlight was streaming into the ward.

  Polly held her hands up in the light and looked at them. They were open, empty of anything, but it didn’t matter. She hadn’t lost the answer she’d been holding carefully cupped in them. It had been there all along. She had just been looking at it the wrong way round.

  “Are you all right?” Eileen asked.

  “Yes,” she said wonderingly. “I am.” If I’m right. If Alf and Binnie—

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Eileen said, and Polly saw that she had been crying. “Mr. Dunworthy and I have been so worried … When you didn’t come home last night … The warden told us there’d been bombs all over the West End, and then when I rang the theater and the stage manager said you’d run out during the performance into the middle of a raid and hadn’t come back, I …”

  Eileen broke off, blew her nose, and attempted to smile. “The matron said they found you inside the Phoenix Theatre. What on earth were you doing there?”

  “Saving Sir Godfrey’s life,” Polly said. “Eileen, how ill was Binnie?”

  “How ill? What—?”

  “With the measles. Would she have died if you hadn’t been there?”

  “I don’t know. Her fever was dreadfully high. But you’re not going to die, Polly. The nurse said you’d be fine—”

  “What happened to the firewatcher?”

  “The fire—”

  “The one who was injured, who John Bartholomew took to St. Bart’s? Did Mr. Bartholomew save his life?”

  “Polly, you’re not making any sense. The doctor said you breathed in a good deal of gas. I think you may still—”

  “On the last day of your assignment, why didn’t you go back to Oxford?”

  “I told you, the quarantine.”

  “No, I need to know exactly what happened,” Polly said, clutching Eileen’s hand. “Please. It’s important.”

  Eileen looked at her as if trying to decide whether to call the nurse, and then said, “I was leaving to go to the drop when some new evacuees arrived. Theodore was one of them.”

  Theodore, who had prevented them from going straight to St. Paul’s to find John Bartholomew. They had had to take him home to Stepney, and by the time they reached St. Paul’s, the sirens had gone and the ARP warden—

  “I had to get the new evacuees settled,” Eileen was saying, “and then as I was leaving, the vicar asked me to help him get out of giving Una, Lady Caroline’s kitchen maid, her driving lesson, and when I drove round the curve, Alf and Binnie were standing in the middle of the lane.”

  Blocking the way. Delaying her. As they had delayed her on the twenty-ninth, as the troop trains had delayed Polly reaching Backbury and the manor till after Captain Chase had left for London, as the slippage had delayed Mike till after the bus had left for Dover, as she was almost certain the Hodbins had delayed—

  “Are Alf and Binnie here at the hospital?” Polly asked.

  “Yes, downstairs in the waiting room. Children aren’t allowed in the wards.”

  “Is Mr. Dunworthy here?”

  “No, I thought it best not to tell him what had happened till I found out for certain—”

  That’s what I’m trying to do, Polly thought. Find out for certain.

  “Go and ask Alf and Binnie—” she said, and then stopped. They wouldn’t tell Eileen the truth. If they even remembered the incident. Alf and Binnie had clearly thought they knew Mr. Dunworthy from somewhere that night she brought him home from St. Paul’s—they’d asked her if he was a truant officer—but they hadn’t been able to place him. And if Eileen asked them, they’d assume the guard—or the authorities—were involved.

  Polly would have to ask them herself and then ask Mr. Dunworthy. If he remembered. And even if he did, it wouldn’t prove anything. The proof lay with Sir Godfrey. He had said she’d saved his life, but he’d been in shock from loss of blood and confused from the gas …

  “Eileen,” Polly said. “I must see Sir Godfrey. I need you to go find out what room he’s in. And fetch me my clothes,” she added and then remembered they consisted of a bloodied bathing suit and one gilt high-heeled shoe. “Where’s your coat?”

  “I ran out without it when I found out you—”

  “See if there’s a robe in the cabinet there.”

  Eileen opened the cabinet and the drawers of the nightstand. “There’s no robe. I can bring you one when I come back this afternoon.”

  “That’s not soon enough,” Polly said. “I must ask Sir Godfrey something. It’s urgent. You must go find me a robe and find out what room he’s in, and then we need a diversion.”

  “A diversion? I can’t—”

  “Not you. Alf and Binnie,” Polly said. “And if I’m right, it’s only fitting that they do this.”

  “Fitting?”

  “Yes. Do you remember when you said Alf and Binnie could defeat Hitler all on their own?”

  Eileen nodded.

  “Well, you may have been right.”

  “But how can they create a diversion if children aren’t allowed in the wards?” Eileen began, and then sighed. “You’re right. They’re the ones for the job. What do you want them to do?”

  “I’ll leave that to them,” Polly said. “They’re the experts. Tell them I’ll need a clear shot at the stairwell and the corridor outside Sir Godfrey’s room. And don’t forget the robe.”

  “I won’t, if you’ll promise to rest till I come back.”

  “I will,” Polly lied.

  There wasn’t time to rest. There were too many pieces to fit into the puzzle, too many clues to decipher. Mike had saved Hardy, and Hardy had rescued five hundred and nineteen soldiers, and the patient with gangrene that she and the other FANYs had driven to Orpington from Dover had said he’d been rescued from Dunkirk by someone who’d been rescued himself. “You saved my life,” he’d told Polly. “I’d have been a goner without you.” And Hardy had told Mike the same thing.

  Mike had thought the slippage had been trying to keep him from affecting the evacuation of Dunkirk and had somehow failed. But what if he’d been sent through at Saltram-on-Sea because the Lady Jane was there? What if it had purposely sent him there after the bus and Mr. Powney had gone so he—

  Binnie ran in carrying a s
carlet kimono. “ ’Ere.” She dumped it unceremoniously on the bed. “ ’E’s one flight up.”

  “In which ward?”

  “ ’E ain’t in a ward. ’E’s got a private room. Last one on the right,” Binnie said, and raced out again.

  The kimono had a large golden dragon embroidered on the back. I should have specified an inconspicuous robe, Polly thought, hastily putting the kimono on. She pulled the bedclothes up to her neck and then lay still, listening.

  There was a shriek and a clatter and then the sound of hurrying feet. Polly flung the covers off, padded over to the doors, and peeked out in time to see two nurses and an attendant disappearing through the doors to the other ward.

  Polly padded quickly along the corridor to the stairs. There was another shriek, and a woman’s voice shouted, “Catch him!”

  Polly ducked into the stairwell and up the steps, braced for the sound of the ward doors opening, of running feet.

  More shrieks. “You wretched little—” the woman’s voice said, and then cut off.

  Oh, Lord, I hope they haven’t killed anyone, Polly thought, reaching the landing and starting up the next set of stairs, wincing at the sounds drifting up from below—a horrible thumping, followed by feet pounding down some other flight of stairs and a sound of something (or someone) falling—trying not to think of the effects of the chaos she had just set in motion.

  “I think they went that way!” someone shouted. More shrieks.

  Polly reached the top of the stairs. The floor was deserted. A flurry of papers lay on the linoleum in front of the matron’s desk, and halfway down the corridor a cane-backed wheelchair lay on its side, fortunately with no one in it.

  Polly ran down to Sir Godfrey’s room. His door was shut. Oh, God, she thought, don’t let him be dead. She took a deep, ragged breath and opened the door.

  Sir Godfrey was lying propped up against pillows, a gray pajama top open over his bandaged chest. His eyes were closed, and his face and hands were nearly as white as the bandages. A tube ran from his arm to a bottle of dark red blood hanging next to the bed. Polly went over to the bed and looked down at him, watching his almost undiscernible breathing.

  “ ‘Time hath not yet dried this red blood of mine,’ ” he murmured, and opened his eyes.

  “You’re all right,” Polly said thankfully.

  “Yes, though imprisoned here and set about with foul fiends who refuse to let me up. How did you succeed in escaping their iron grip?”

  “I had assistance,” Polly said, shutting the door. “Sir Godfrey, last night you told me—”

  “Oh, dear, I do hope I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have. I didn’t confess undying love to some girl fifty years my junior, did I? Or quote Peter Pan?”

  “No, of course not. You said last night that I’d saved your life—”

  “And so you have, as you can see.” He spread his arms wide. “I am made new, brought back to life again, like Claudio’s Hero. ‘I do live, and surely as I live—’ ”

  “No, I don’t mean what happened last night. I mean before. When we were there in the theater, I told you I was sorry I couldn’t save your life, and you said I already had.”

  “And so you had, thrice over. You saved me from having to act the part of Captain Hook—”

  “Sir Godfrey, I’m serious—”

  “And so am I. If you had not dissuaded the troupe from doing that odious play, I should have had to fling myself under one of the District Line trains.”

  “Sir Godfrey, please don’t joke. I must know.”

  “Very well then, I shall tell you. But first, I demand a forfeit.”

  “A forfeit?”

  “As Beauty was forced to pay a forfeit for straying into the Beast’s garden, so must you. My current plight is, after all, your fault. If I had died last night, I should have escaped doing the pantomime. Now I must put up with Mrs. Wyvern for a full month. I hold you entirely responsible.”

  And I might be, Polly thought. I might be.

  “I feel the least you can do,” Sir Godfrey went on, “for consigning me to what is, quite literally, a fate worse than death, is to keep me company during my ordeal.”

  “Yes, all right. I promise. I’ll do the pantomime, if you’ll only tell me—”

  “Excellent. ‘We shall sing like two birds i’ the cage,’ as soon as I’ve located another theater. I wonder if the Windmill would lend us their stage for a month. We could send you to ask them, in your eloquent bloomers—”

  “You promised you’d tell me if I paid the forfeit,” Polly said. “How did I save your life, if I did save it?”

  “You did, you have, sweet Viola, every day and every night since first you entered my life. And what an entrance! Worthy of the divine Sarah—a knock upon the door, and there you stood in the doorway—frightened, beautiful, lost. A creature from another country, washed up on the shores of St. George’s. And the embodiment of everything I thought the war had destroyed.”

  He smiled at her. “During those first nights of the Blitz, it seemed to me that not only the theaters but theater itself and the Bard had become casualties of war. That Shakespeare’s quaint notions of honor and courage and virtue were all dead, murdered by Hitler and his Luftwaffe. And I felt as though I had been murdered along with them.

  “And then you came,” he said, “looking like all of Shakespeare’s lovely heroines and loving daughters combined in one—Miranda and Rosalind and Cordelia and Viola combined into one—and restored my faith.”

  She had been wrong. When he’d said she’d saved his life, he had been speaking figuratively, not literally, and her theory hadn’t been right after all.

  “What is it?” Sir Godfrey said, frowning at her with concern. “Why do you look so disappointed? Do you regret saving an old man from despair?”

  “No,” she said. “No, of course not. I only thought you meant I’d really saved your life.”

  “But you had. There are a hundred ways a man can bleed to death. And he can be pulled from the rubble of bitterness, of despair, as well as from the wreckage of the Phoenix. And which rescue is the more real? Which mattered more at Agincourt, the longbows or Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day speech? Which matters more in this war, panzers or courage, HEs or love? Nothing you could have done for me, dear child, was more important than the restoration of my hope.”

  She tried to smile through her disappointment.

  “But you were the salvation of my corporeal being as well. That night when first I saw you—”

  “There you are,” the nurse said to Polly, flinging the door open. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You’re supposed to be in bed.”

  “This young lady saved my life,” Sir Godfrey said. “I was thanking her for—”

  Another nurse appeared, looking fierce. “Sir Godfrey is not to have visitors,” she said to Polly’s nurse.

  “Please, I only need another moment,” Polly said.

  “Who’s this?” Sir Godfrey’s nurse demanded of Polly’s nurse. “A patient? What’s she doing out of bed? Why weren’t you watching her?”

  Polly’s nurse looked defensive. “She got out of bed without my permission, and—”

  “Silence!” Sir Godfrey shouted. “Begone, varlets. I would speak with this lady.” But Sir Godfrey’s nurse wasn’t impressed.

  “Take this patient back down to her ward immediately,” she said to Polly’s nurse.

  “Please,” Polly said. “You don’t understand—”

  “Help!” a voice called from the end of the ward. “Oh, help!”

  Binnie! Polly thought. Thank heavens.

  “Come quick!” Binnie sobbed. “My mum’s bleedin’. Hurry!”

  Both nurses took off at a run.

  “Quick,” Polly said, gripping the railing at the foot of the bed with both hands. “Tell me how I saved your life.”

  He nodded. “That night you stumbled into St. George’s, I had received a letter from an old friend of mine, offering me a role in a
repertory company. It was to tour the provinces—Salisbury, Bristol, Plymouth. It was a dreadful program, no Shakespeare at all. Barrie, Galsworthy, Charley’s Aunt”—he grimaced—“and rep is even worse than pantomime. But all the theaters in the West End were shut, and it would have been a chance to get away from London and the bombs. And it scarcely mattered which play I did, or where. It was all for naught, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ ”

  We haven’t got time for you to do Macbeth, Polly thought desperately. They’ll be back any minute.

  “And then you came, and I knew that was a lie. That beauty, courage, meaning still lived.”

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Polly heard Sir Godfrey’s nurse shout from the end of the corridor. “Children aren’t allowed up here.”

  “And then,” he said, “when you knew your lines, I realized I could not possibly leave.”

  “Come back here, you wretched child!” the nurse shouted, but Polly scarcely heard her.

  “The next morning,” Sir Godfrey said, “I wrote to him, turning his offer down.”

  Polly waited, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe.

  “The theater in Bristol was bombed during the second act of Sentimental Tommy. A direct hit. The entire company was killed.”

  Miranda: What foul play had we that we came from thence? Or blessed was’t we did?

  Prospero: Both, both.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST

  London—Spring 1941

  IT TOOK THE STAFF OF THE HOSPITAL ANOTHER QUARTER of an hour to apprehend Alf and Binnie, during which time Polly was able to assure Sir Godfrey again that yes, she’d do the pantomime if he could find another theater to put it on in, hurry back down to the ward, divest herself of the Chinese robe, climb into bed, and be lying there looking nearly as innocent as Alf and Binnie did when they were dragged in by the scruff of their necks.

  “Do you know these children?” the matron demanded.

  “They’re my foster children,” Eileen said, coming in. “I told them to stay in the waiting room while I visited Polly. They’ve been very worried over their aunt,” she explained.