All Clear

by Connie Willis

  “I still think you should take it back to headquarters,” Binnie said.

  “There isn’t time,” Eileen said, and ran upstairs to change out of her uniform. She put on a summer frock and her green coat and then rang up Mrs. Owens and told her the good news.

  “We only just heard,” Mrs. Owens said. “Theodore’s mother just telephoned,” and Eileen could hear Theodore in the background saying, “I don’t want the war to be over!”

  Of course not, Eileen thought.

  Binnie came out wearing her white dress. Alf was carrying the parrot in its cage. “Can Mrs. Bascombe go with us?” he asked.

  “Of course not, you noddlehead,” Binnie said.

  “She’s really glad about us winning. She ’ated the war.”

  “No, she can’t go with us,” Eileen said and sent Alf back to his room.

  When he came out, he had his Union Jack and a box of matches, three Roman candles, and a long string of squibs. “Where did you get those?” Eileen demanded.

  “I been savin’ ’em up for the victory celebration,” he said, which wasn’t an answer, but it was already half past six, and they still had to get to Trafalgar Square.

  “You can take the squibs and one Roman candle,” she said, trying to ignore Binnie’s look of disapproval. “And no setting them off when there are people nearby. Come along.”

  She hurried them out the door and down to Russell Square—another ordeal. The streets and the station were jammed, and they had to wait through several trains for one there was room enough to squeeze onto.

  It was eight by the time they reached Leicester Square. “Off,” she ordered Alf and Binnie.

  “Why’re we gettin’ off ’ere?” Alf asked. “We ain’t to Piccadilly Circus yet.”

  “We’re not going to Piccadilly Circus,” Eileen said, leading them through the crowd to the Northern Line platform. “We’re going to Trafalgar Square.” She herded them onto the train, which, fortunately, was too crammed to permit further conversation.

  The station at Trafalgar Square was even worse, a wall-to-wall mass of shouting, jostling people and noisemakers and paper streamers. “You could nick lots of stuff ’ere,” Alf said.

  “No one is nicking anything,” Eileen said, grabbing his and Binnie’s arms and propelling them up the escalator and the stairs and out onto the street.

  There were people everywhere—cheering and singing and waving Union Jacks. Church bells were ringing wildly. A BEF soldier was moving through the crowd kissing every woman he saw, and none of the women—including two elderly ladies in flowered hats and white gloves—seemed to mind at all.

  A double-decker bus with a hand-lettered banner reading, “Hitler Missed the Bus!” crept past, honking its horn nonstop and parting the crowds in front of it, and Eileen and the children were able to cross the street before the mob closed in again.

  But the moment they reached the other side, they were engulfed. “We shoulda gone to Piccadilly Circus instead,” Alf said.

  “We’re going to Trafalgar Square,” Eileen said firmly. “We’ll be fine. We just need to keep together.”

  “Keep together,” Binnie echoed coldly. She had that sullen look again.

  What is the matter with her? Eileen wondered, grabbing her by the arm and Alf by the sleeve and pushing them determinedly through the crowd to the square.

  It was filled to bursting with sailors, soldiers, Wrens, waitresses still wearing their aprons, all waving Union Jacks. They had climbed up onto the base of the monument and the sandbagged sentry points, and one American Marine was trying to shin up the monument itself, while a policeman below him shouted at him to get down.

  Eileen forced her way into the square, dragging Alf and Binnie with her. Polly had said she’d seen her standing by one of the lions, but getting there was easier said than done, and holding on to the children even more difficult. She’d lost Alf before they’d gone ten feet, and had had to grab him by the collar and haul him back.

  She twisted her wrist around to look at her watch. Oh, no, it was already past nine, and they were nowhere near the lions. She couldn’t even see them in this mob. She stretched herself on tiptoe, trying to spot the lion which had had its nose knocked off, above the heads and hats and flags.

  There it was, but she couldn’t get to it. The crowd was surging away from it, toward the fountains. She needed to use her hands to force her way through, but she didn’t dare let go of Alf and Binnie, and the crowd between her and the monument was rapidly becoming a solid wall of people.

  What if I can’t get there? she thought, and felt a flutter of panic.

  Of course you can, she told herself. You already did. And you won’t have to do it on your own. You’ve got troops at your disposal.

  She pulled Alf back beside her. “I need you to get us to that lion,” she said, pointing. “Can you do it?”

  “Course,” he said, and pulled a GI lighter from his pocket. Eileen resisted the impulse to demand to know where he’d got it and watched instead as he took a large firecracker from his other pocket and held it up in front of him.

  “Fire one!” he shouted, struck a flame in the lighter, held it an inch from the firecracker, and marched them through the crowd, who scattered, shrieking, out of their way on either side. Even so, they were nearly separated twice before they reached the lion’s pedestal, and as soon as Alf clicked his lighter shut, the crowd closed back in.

  Eileen turned to look for Polly on the National Gallery steps, and Alf and Binnie were both caught by the surging crowd and had to shove their way back to her.

  “If we get separated,” she told them, struggling in the crowd to get her bag off her shoulder and open, “go to the base of the monument and wait for me.” She took out two half crowns. “And if you can’t find me at all, here’s money for you to take the tube home.”

  She handed one half crown to Alf and held out the other to Binnie.

  Binnie didn’t take it. She stood there, looking steadily at Eileen. She was very pale.

  “I’ll take it,” Alf said, reaching to grab it.

  Eileen automatically closed her fist over the coin, her eyes on Binnie’s white face. “What’s wrong, Binnie? Are you ill?”

  “No,” she said belligerently. “I know why you brought us here today. Polly’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Polly?” Alf said. “I thought you said she got married to that ARP warden and went to Canada. Where is she?” He began scrambling up the side of the lion’s base.

  “That’s why you wore that coat,” Binnie said, ignoring him, her eyes never leaving Eileen’s face, “so she could spot you in the crowd. She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Eileen said.

  “Where?” Alf called down to them. He had climbed up onto the pedestal and was clinging to the lion’s muzzle. “I can’t see ’er anywhere.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Binnie asked. “That’s why you let Alf bring fireworks and why you didn’t care if you got in trouble over the car. Because you’re leaving. You came here to find Polly so you can go back with her.”

  “Back?”

  Binnie nodded. “To where you came from. I ’eard you talkin’ in the theater. And I seen you. In the woods at the manor,” she said, reverting to her old Cockney speech. “Alf said you was meetin’ somebody in the woods. ’E thought you was a spy. So I followed you. And me and Alf ’eard you talkin’ in the emergency staircase.”

  They had always been two steps ahead of her. “Binnie—”

  “You were goin’ to lose us on purpose in the crowd, weren’t you?” Binnie said accusingly. “Like in Hansel and Gretel—”

  “No. Binnie, I’m not going anywhere.” She reached her hand out to the girl.

  Binnie flinched away from her. “Then why did you bring us ’ere?” she said, nearly crying with rage. “Why’d you wear that coat?”

  “Because Polly has to see us standing here.”

  “So she can come over and get you.”

&nb
sp; “No.”

  She glanced around at the surrounding crowd. They had no business discussing this here, but no one was paying any attention to them. They were all cheering, laughing, waving flags. “Polly has to see us so everything that’s happened can happen. Because where I come from, this night has already happened, and when it did, Polly saw me in the crowd wearing my green coat. And she saw you, too.”

  “And then what?”

  And then she went back to Oxford, Eileen thought, and we stood in the quad and talked to Mike and he went to Dunkirk and lost his foot and you got the measles and we went to London and your mother was killed and Mike was killed and Polly and I took you in and we found Mr. Dunworthy and you saved our lives.

  “Then what?” Binnie repeated angrily.

  “Then nothing. Polly didn’t speak to me. She didn’t take me back with her. She wasn’t even certain it was me she’d seen. And all of that already happened so, you see, I couldn’t go back with her even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, because I want to stay here with you and Alf.”

  And because if I did go back, Mr. Dunworthy would have pulled me out and canceled all our drops, and none of this would have happened. Including this VE-Day celebration.

  There’d have been no cheering crowds, no church bells, no victory. Binnie would have died of pneumonia and Alf on the City of Benares, and Captain Westbrook would have died waiting for an ambulance, and they would have lost the war.

  “When did Polly see you?” Binnie demanded.

  “I’m not certain,” Eileen said. “She told me she got to Trafalgar Square around half past nine, and she was only in the square an hour.”

  “Then why’d you come get us out of school? Why’d you make us hurry?”

  If she lied to her now, Binnie would never trust her again. “Because I hoped that Colin—the man who came to fetch Polly and Mr. Dunworthy that night—might be here.”

  “And he’d take you back.”

  “No. I told Colin—will tell Colin—where to find us, and I thought tonight might have been when I told him. I thought he might be here, but I don’t know that for certain. I don’t know when I told him. It might be tonight or years from now.”

  “And when you tell him, he’ll go back and find everyone at the theater,” Binnie said.

  “Yes.”

  Binnie frowned at her. “You should have asked him when it was you told him,” she said practically. “And where, so you wouldn’t have to go running about looking for him.”

  “That’s true,” Eileen said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll find each other in time, and I’ll tell him.”

  “Because he had to have found you or he wouldn’t have known where you were, so he couldn’t have come to the theater,” Binnie said.

  And why did I assume she wouldn’t be able to understand time travel? Eileen wondered. “Exactly.”

  “And that’s why you had to stay here. To tell him.”

  “No, I stayed because I couldn’t leave you and Alf.” She smiled at Binnie. “Who’d take care of me if I left—?”

  But she didn’t get it out. Binnie had flung herself at her, her arms round her neck, clinging so tightly Eileen could scarcely breathe.

  “Binnie,” Eileen said gently, enfolding her in her arms.

  “I can’t see Polly nowhere,” Alf said, jumping down from the lion. “Are you sure she’s ’ere?”

  “Yes,” Eileen said.

  “What part of the square was she in?” Binnie asked.

  “I don’t know. She said she saw me from a long way off.”

  “Well, I can’t see nothin’. She must’ve climbed up on Nelson’s statue or somethin’,” he said, elbowing his way over to a lamppost.

  “She would not have climbed a lamppost,” Eileen said.

  “I know,” Alf said. “I’m only climbing up so’s I can see.” He stuck the staff of his Union Jack between his teeth, like a pirate’s cutlass, and shinned up it.

  “Can you see her?” Eileen called up to him.

  “No,” Alf said, taking the flag out of his teeth. “Are you sure she’s—there she is!” He pointed toward National Gallery with his Union Jack. “She’s wearin’ a uniform.”

  Eileen craned her neck, standing on tiptoe and hanging on to the lamppost for balance. Uniform, uniform …

  “I see her!” Binnie said excitedly.

  “Where? Show me where she’s standing.”

  “There,” Binnie said, pointing. Eileen sighted along her outstretched arm. “On the porch.”

  “No, she ain’t!” Alf shouted from halfway up the lamppost. “She’s comin’ down the steps.”

  “Where?” Eileen still couldn’t see her, and if she’d started down the stairs already … “Where?”

  “There. At the foot of the stairs.”

  If Polly had already gone down the stairs, she had already seen her standing by the lion, was already leaving for her drop in Hampstead Heath.

  “Did you see her?” Binnie asked.

  “No,” Eileen said, “but it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t necessary for me to see her.”

  But she’d hoped so much that she would catch a glimpse of her. All these last four years, she’d held to that hope, that she’d see her again, if only from a distance.

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” Binnie said.

  “It’s all right.” She gave Binnie a hug. “Let’s go get some supper.” She looked for Alf, but he was no longer on the lamppost. “Where’s Alf?” she asked. “Can you see him anywhere?”

  “No,” Binnie said, scanning the crowd.

  She darted off suddenly into the middle of the square. “Binnie, wait! No!” Eileen said, grabbing for her, but she was already out of reach.

  And out of sight. The crowd closed about her as if it was water, leaving no trace. “Binnie! Come back!” she called, starting after her through the crush.

  And saw Polly. Polly was only a few yards away, working her way against the current toward Charing Cross. She looked younger than Eileen remembered, nearly as young as Binnie, her face without the worry and sorrow it would have. And without the transcendent joy it had had that night when Colin came.

  Because none of it’s happened yet, Eileen thought.

  She had hoped for one final look, but this wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. Everything—the escape from Padgett’s and the race to St. Paul’s the night of the twenty-ninth and Christmas dinner with Miss Laburnum and Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming—was all still to come. Standing in line together at the canteen and walking home from Notting Hill Gate in the foggy dawn after the all clear and sitting on the platform after everyone else was asleep, talking of Mrs. Rickett’s appalling meals and the trials of wrapping parcels and mending stockings.

  “Oh, Polly,” she murmured, “we’re going to be such good friends!”

  And though she couldn’t possibly have heard her, Polly turned as if she had and looked straight at her. But only for an instant, and then a group of GIs pushed in front of Eileen, blowing on noisemakers, hiding Polly from sight.

  Eileen had thought she’d lost her, but she hadn’t. Polly was still there, moving steadily toward the tube station and her drop and Oxford. Where she’ll see me walking to Oriel and she’ll tell me I must get a driving authorization first and I’ll tell her Colin’s in love with her and we’ll go to Balliol and stand talking to Michael Davies in the sunlit quad.

  “Goodbye!” she called after Polly, over the sound of a brass band which had struck up “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” “Don’t be frightened. Everything will work out all right in the end.” She stood there, looking after her, oblivious to the music, the noise, the people shoving and jostling against her, till Polly was out of sight.

  Then she turned to go look for Alf and Binnie, though she had no idea at all how to find them in this solid mass of people.

  There was a whoosh and a boom from over by the National Gallery, followed by screams. Alf’s fireworks. She started toward the fountains, hoping to climb up on the rim and g
et a better look, pushing her way through the crowd past several tipsy soldiers and a man enthusiastically selling Churchill buttonhole badges, toward an elderly man in a black suit who was attempting to go in the same direction she was. If she could follow in the opening he made, she might be able to—

  “Mr. Humphreys!” she called, recognizing him. She caught hold of his sleeve, and he turned to see who had grabbed him.

  “Hello!” she said, shouting over the din.

  “Miss O’Reilly!” he shouted back, and then, as if he was greeting her at the door of St. Paul’s, “How nice to see you!”

  He looked around at the swirling, shoving mob. “I’m attempting to get to St. Paul’s. Dean Matthews rang me up and said there are hundreds gathering at the cathedral already, and I thought I’d best go see if I could assist.”

  He beamed at her. “This is a wonderful night, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking around at the crowd. She had wanted to come here, to see this, ever since she was a first-year student. She’d been furious when she’d found out Mr. Dunworthy had assigned it to someone else.

  But if she’d come then, she would never have properly appreciated it. She’d have seen the happy crowds and the Union Jacks and the bonfires, but she’d have had no idea of what it meant to see the lights on after years of navigating in the dark, what it meant to look up at an approaching plane without fear, to hear church bells after years of air-raid sirens.

  She’d have had no idea of the years of rationing and shabby clothes and fear which lay behind the smiles and the cheering, no idea of what it had cost to bring this day to pass—the lives of all those soldiers and sailors and airmen and civilians. And of Mike and Mr. Simms and Mrs. Rickett and Sir Godfrey, who’d been killed two years ago on his way home from entertaining the troops. She’d have had no idea what this meant to Lady Denewell, who’d lost her husband and her only son, or to Mr. Humphreys and the rest of the fire watch, who’d worked so hard to save St. Paul’s and who, hopefully, would never know what had eventually happened to it.

  “I feared this day would never come,” Mr. Humphreys was saying.

  “I know,” she said, thinking of all those dark days after Mike died, when she’d thought that no one was coming for them and that Polly was going to be killed, of the even darker days when she’d thought she and Alf and Binnie had lost the war.