Reading by Lightning

by Joan Thomas

  They started evacuating people from London again, and Aunt Lucy got notice we’d be hosting four and she was to go down to the church hall to pick them out. All us volunteer girls were issued tin helmets and put on a rotation to patrol the roof of the hospital one night a week, watching for incendiary bombs and raising the alarm if one landed. Jenny and Madeleine were placed on the first shift. That same day, September 15, George came home on a forty-eight-hour leave — news everyone heard with heavy hearts because it meant this was his embarkation leave, his regiment was finally going to see action. By the time he made it home with two mates they’d had a fair bit to drink and there were just eighteen hours left (although I don’t think that was entirely their fault, it was hard to get transport).

  I stood in the kitchen and we said a grave hello to each other. I had nothing to say by way of explanation; silence was the truest thing I had.

  It was Wilf and their new mate Tom Tipperton whom George brought with him. Tom Tipperton was known as Tommy the Tommy, or as the Tool. Madeleine offered them some bread pudding made with powdered egg and he said, Don’t mind if I do, and before she could serve it he picked up a spoon and started eating straight out of the dish.

  Madeleine smiled gently and reached down saucers for Wilf and George. You’re a machinist, then, are you? she said to Tom. In peacetime?

  I don’t get you, love.

  Well, I thought from your nickname.

  They all laughed. Tell the lass, Tool, said Wilf, and George said, Tom was caught in the bathhouse in a state of priapic lubricity.

  Tommy opened his wide mouth, displaying a quantity of chewed bread pudding, and screamed with laughter. Pricky lubricky, is that what you call it? he screamed. Is that what you had the night they debagged you?

  Madeleine stood resolutely by the sideboard and asked if they’d like to have their tea with us that night, seeing it was their last night and they were on their own. But Wilf said they were planning an outing for their last night, to a riding academy in Manchester.

  There’s a riding academy in the city? Madeleine said, and Wilf and Tom acted as though they were choking and ran out into the garden bent over double with laughter. George stood by the window drinking his tea. Several of his fingernails had been broken almost halfway down, they looked ever so sore.

  To get him to look at me, I said, Have you seen any of the bomb sites?

  Yes, he said. He did look at me then.

  Imagine bombing civilians like that! I said.

  It wasn’t intended, George said.

  What do you mean?

  The first time, he said. Back in August. They were after the air base at Thameshaven and in the blackout they missed it. So then Churchill bombed Berlin. And now they’re retaliating for that. He tipped up his cup and finished his tea. Although, when it comes down to it, he said, we were the first to bomb civilians. At Westerland on Sylt. Back in January. Not that there’s much strategy involved, from either side. They dump their payload and hope for the best, and then the citizens on the ground dream up the strategy.

  He put his cup on the counter. On a different point, he said, have you heard from Russell Bates lately?

  No, I said.

  Last I heard he was in hiding, George said. It’s quite the thing, what’s happening in Canada. They’ve outlawed their Communist Party. Do you know which other countries have done that? Germany. Italy. Japan.

  Is that a fact, I said. We looked directly at each other and I saw something measuring me, a look I was familiar with, but not from George.

  His mates had come back in. Taperleg’s talking politics, said Wilf. We’re going to have to have a chat with the captain when we get back.

  By tea Tom and Wilf were gone, but then Aunt Lucy came back with our evacuees, only three as it turned out, a Mrs. Whitelaw and her two children, so then they were there for tea. Mrs. Whitelaw talked through the whole meal about the bomb that fell on their terrace while she and the children were in a shelter under the railway bridge and about the terrible cries they heard from under the rubble of their neighbours’ house when they went back in the morning. It was the G-R-A-N-D-D-A-D, she spelled, while her children watched her intently. Wouldn’t leave, she mouthed to Aunt Lucy.

  When she finally took the kiddies up to the attic Aunt Lucy turned to George (who had not uttered a word all through tea) and took his hand on the table. Can you say where you’ve been stationed, love? she asked.

  He said he hadn’t been stationed anywhere, he’d spent the last month driving back and forth over the south of England, pulling a field cannon, a twenty-five-pounder that was brought back from Dunkirk against orders.

  What is the sense in that? Madeleine asked.

  Look, Auntie Mabel, cried George in a high, false voice, there goes ANOTHER one of them big guns! If that nasty Mr. Hitler tries anything on — we’ll give him what for!

  Uncle Stanley shoved his chair back from the table. You never change, do you? he shouted.

  He had to make sommut up, said Aunt Lucy soothingly. He can’t say what they’re really up to. Forgive me, love, I shouldn’t of asked.

  After tea George wanted to go down to the pub to have a word with his mate Horace, his newspaper friend. Just for an hour, he promised Aunt Lucy. When he was gone we turned the wireless on for the six o’clock news. London was bombed that day in broad daylight. Wave after wave of German planes filled the sky, a hundred planes coming over and then a hundred more, and then the RAF came out and there were dogfights over the Strand. Buckingham Palace was finally hit. Then Madeleine was truly frightened about rooftop duty, but we all said, no, it’s probably better, the planes will be down tonight.

  I put on my mackintosh and walked out with Madeleine and Jenny just as darkness fell. They went down the street wearing their tin helmets and I stood breathing in the damp air, watching until they disappeared into the darkness halfway down the street. The mill was down there, but it had vanished. The houses were closed and shuttered, everyone had given up their torches and lanterns, the valley’d been given back over to the fog and the hyenas. I wondered what George would have to say about the news from London. I needed George, I longed for George to reach into his storehouse of theories and tell me what this was. But George was so determined to see what nobody else saw — could he even see what was?

  A figure came up the street, a soldier. He was very close before I knew for sure that it was George, although from the height of him I thought it must be. He must have stood in a doorway, let Jenny and Madeleine walk on by without greeting them. But I was right in front of the house and he couldn’t avoid me.

  Well, if it isn’t young Phoebe, he said in his reedy voice from the other curb.

  You’re home early, I said. I waited the way you wait for a stranger who’s hailed you on the street, not knowing what might come.

  Horace is off on his beat, George said. Still he stood on the other curb, he seemed to be gathering himself. Finally he detached himself from the shadows and crossed towards me, walking with the deliberation of a conscious drunk. Horace is off, he said, up the dark streets and down them again, jotting things down in his little book. All the news that’s fit to print, that’s what he’s writing. The rest he saves for his mates. Ply him with cider and out it all comes!

  He stood breathing ale in my face. I guess you’ve heard? he said. Quite the day, eh? Our Horace was on the blower with a chap from London. He said it was a cracking show! All the London brokers out on the pavement waving their bleedin’ briefcases and cheering. You could have charged admission! But it’s all free in war, eh! He cackled at that and I felt a twist of fresh loathing for the way the Tommies talked. I took a step backwards and he tipped closer, trying to get me to look at him.

  Here’s a story for you, Lily-in-Canada, he said. It’s a story from London, Horace told me. It’s about a Dornier and a gallant little Hurricane. Do you know the Dornier, Phoebe? It’s a great big German bomber, the Dornier, a brutal machine, its payload could flatten St. Paul’s. B
ut this Dornier was crippled — one engine was pouring smoke! And a Hurricane spotted it and darted in for the kill. What a moment, eh! What a David and Goliath moment! And quite the show as it turned out, a better show than anyone expected. Because — guess what? The Hurricane was out of ammo! Our brave little Hurricane had no fuckin’ firepower left. He’d shot his wad, the poor perisher, he had nothing left, nothing but his bleedin’ British pluck to draw on.

  George dug his fingers into my shoulder. His beret was stretched down over his old man’s skull. So what do you think he did? What do you think he did, Phoebe? Come on, cudgel thy brains!

  I’ve no idea, I said. I stood against the curb. My throat hurt with the effort of holding back sobs. I’m not really interested in combat stories, I said.

  Not interested in combat stories? he cried. Oh, Lily, mein Liebling, I wonder what you are interested in?

  George slipped his arm around my shoulder and started walking me back, through the little iron gate and across the front garden. I wonder what it is you’d like to hear? he said. Because I will talk, Lily, I will tell you what he did, this plucky, barmy little pilot. He rammed his plane into the Dornier! That’s what he did! He had no firepower left so he turned his plane into a goddamn weapon in mid-air — four tons of steel at two hundred miles an hour. That’s war for you, that’s the beauty of war, war is the father of invention.

  We were by the house by then, where the house turned its long side to the moor. George leaned against the house and then his legs buckled and he slid down the wall. I slid down too and crouched beside him. We sat shoulder by shoulder in the little space between the house and the garden wall under my bedroom window, where Lois had perched the night before Archie left. The moss was soft under us. They should have lain down here, I thought. George leaned his head against his knees with great weariness. I tipped my head back against the wall. I could smell the autumn smell of earth, I could smell rain hanging over us. There were no sirens or searchlights, no lorries drumming along the motorway. Do you remember hiding here? I asked, touching his arm. When I first came? When we played that game at the New Year’s party?

  Oh, I remember, he said. He took my hand, he held it loosely and lifted it, he pressed it against his hot forehead. I remember all right, he said. But it’s not the past you want to dwell on. That’s well over now, there’s other things crying to be thought about. This, for example. You think my story’s finished, don’t you? You think that’s all there is. Ordinarily you’d be right. But it’s not over. That’s the thing about this war, there’s always worse to come.

  George dropped my hand, sat up and turned his head towards me. He lay his face against the bricks. Be glad I’m here to tell you this, Lily, he said softly. You’ll never read it in the paper, you’ll never hear it on the wireless. It’s about the German pilot, the bloke in the Dornier. The RAF fighter downed the Dornier, but he didn’t get the pilot. The pilot dropped out on his chute. He managed to get himself out and he came down in Kennington Park. You know Kennington— it’s been famous for a hundred years, the Chartists made it famous. This German bloke came down on the common in Kennington and everybody saw him out of their kitchen windows, floating down past the chimneys, and there was a great commotion, everyone running out of their houses to look. All the gentle people of Kennington, coming out to see. They couldn’t believe their luck! Their own German pilot in their own back garden — their own personal Hun! And then they ran back in to get their kitchen knives and pokers. They took their knives and pokers to him and killed him. They killed him! Beside the cricket pitch in Kennington.

  And then he scrambled to his feet and snatched up my hand. Total war, lass, he cried. Total war this time, that’s what the old men said. Why leave it all to the boys in blue?

  He started to run then. My legs moved on their own and I let myself be pulled along like a wooden toy, past the shed and across the back garden, down the ginnel and out into the open field. It was raining and I couldn’t tell the darkness of the sky from the darkness of the earth, but he had played there all his life, he knew the ways and he pulled me along, squeezing my hand so I thought my fingers would break. The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling, for you but not for me, he sang as we ran. Out on the Edge he stopped for a minute and pulled me close to him again with an arm around my waist and said in my ear, They cut up his parachute and took pieces of it home for souvenirs. About the disposition of his body I have no information.

  I said, George, I’m going back, I’m cold, we’re going to catch our death. But he started running again, holding my hand even harder and singing in a harsh, exultant voice, Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling? Oh grave, thy victor-ee? and then he said, Watch there. But it was too late — my foot plunged into a hole and I sank down onto the rough, wet gorse. He dropped beside me and began to kiss me then, pushing his tongue like an eel into my mouth and sliding his cold hand boldly up my thigh, groping under my skirt. I was crying and I pushed him away and scrambled up and ran, trying to sense the path with my feet. I could hear him behind me in the dark, singing like a maniac while I ran blindly towards higher ground. Rain wet my face, rain ran down the neck of my mackintosh. I blundered into a low thicket and shoved and lurched my way through it, blackberries clawing at my legs, and then I couldn’t hear George and I was on open ground again. Ahead of me were two thin bands of light, an ill-fitting shutter it must have been, and I ran towards them and collided with a low wall — the garden wall of our own house.

  10

  That night, September 15, was the first in weeks that no air raid siren rose in the sky over Oldham, but — except for the evacuated children and maybe Mrs. Whitelaw — nobody in the house seized the chance for a real sleep. It was two in the morning before Archie left, and then Aunt Lucy and Lois sat with Lily for another half-hour before they went to bed. But Lily still couldn’t sleep, and finally Lois got up with her again and they were in the kitchen making a cup of tea when George’s mates dragged him in. It was about five o’clock by then but still dark, and Madeleine and Jenny had not come home, they were still watching on the hospital roof. It was Tom Tipperton and a different mate with George, a soldier they didn’t know, and they used George’s key and came in the back way, George with an arm slung around Tom’s neck, looking very ill.

  Crikey, Tom was saying, we had the devil finding the place in the dark. Lad-o wasn’t much help. You have to see he makes the train at ten. He needs a few hours’ kip.

  A bath, more like, said Lois. You stink. She gave a little kick to George’s shin as they lowered him into a kitchen chair. Couldn’t even spend your last night in! Mother’s been sick with worry. You were needed.

  He’s had a rough night, the poor perisher, the other soldier said. Prolly picked himself up a dose.

  Lily leaned against the kitchen cupboard, feeling the tin edging of it under her palms. She was not crying, not then, but her grief weighed on her like a new, chafing garment — a heavy buffalo coat, hot, stifling, something that encased her, something to be carried and borne, without it really altering what she was inside. George will have to take notice now was her thought (a thought she would recall with such shame) as Lois reached for her and said, Something’s happened. Poor Lily’s had — and Lily dropped her head forward and started crying, not bothering to blot her tears. Lois passed her a handkerchief and said something Lily didn’t make out. And then with her tears the truth of it came to her again, the way it had come freshly two or three times through that long night, like stumbling across an accident. She turned her face away from it and saw George, his head buried in his bent arm on the table, his shoulders shaking. Tom said, Jesus, Taperlegs, get a grip on yourself, and then she heard the low foreign sound of George crying, and felt him reach for her hand, and knew that he thought her grief had something to do with him.

  When Lily came in the night before, shaking the rain off her mackintosh, they were all sitting in the living room waiting for George. They all looked at her and she said, He was out on th
e street a while ago — I expect he’ll be right in.

  Uncle Stanley was off on his route, but Archie was there. He was on leave too, and Lois sat beside him on the couch holding his hand. They had stayed in because of George, and they sat in the living room with the wireless turned on low, and George didn’t come in, and everyone was annoyed, everyone’s anxiety was taken over by irritation, by hurt. At least it’s a dark night, said Aunt Lucy, thinking of Madeleine on the rooftop. Archie tapped his pipe against the ashtray and they sat on in the living room without turning the lights on so they wouldn’t have to put the shutters across. The smell of cabbage hung in the air, and Lily sat still on the couch, feeling George’s rude, frantic hands on her thighs, and Mrs. Whitelaw began to tell her story again with new detail to justify the retelling: how piercing, how terrifyingly close the whistling shells were as they clung together in the shelter, and how she always took her blue china clock to the shelter but had left it behind that night in her haste. Distracted they all sat and watched through the lace curtains as the postman came up the front garden with the second mail (as though he were part of Mrs. Whitelaw’s story, as though he were bringing news of the bombardment). He was very late, and he rang the bell, which he didn’t normally do. Archie was the one who got up to open the door, revealing a small, uniformed man standing with a yellow telegram in his hand, like a boy playing the part of a postman in a music hall skit. Mrs. Whitelaw was still talking and Aunt Lucy looked at her to say, Excuse me a moment, and got to her feet and raised her hand to her throat. It was the moment Aunt Lucy dreaded and expected (although who would have expected it while George was at home?). But then it turned out not to be that moment at all, it was a rehearsal for it, for whenever it would come: Miss Lily Piper was the name the postman read out. Everybody stood up, including Mrs. Whitelaw. Archie brought the telegram over to Lily. She took it from him, looking at Aunt Lucy with wondering eyes while she opened it, surprised but not frightened, still protected by something she’d not ever thought about before (her belief that nothing real could happen to her in this world), and tipping the telegram up to the light of the window she read the inscrutable words: DAD PASSED AWAY SEPTEMBER 13TH STOP FUNERAL THE 16TH STOP BOOK PASSAGE HOME STOP MOTHER, and she passed the telegram to her Aunt Lucy, shaking her head. They’ve made a mistake, she said. It’s my mother who’s been sick.