Oxford Time Travel 1 - Blackout

by Connie Willis

  “Won’t you please put the blazer on for Mother?” Mrs. Sadler said. “There’s a good boy.”

  He was anything but. He twisted his head violently as Eileen attempted to put the waistcoat on him and, when she held out the blazer, folded his arms belligerently across his chest. “I don’t like her,” he said. “She twisted my arm before.”

  You little liar, Eileen thought, wishing Alf and Binnie were here. “I’ll be very careful,” she said, and, under her breath, “Hold your arm out before I break it.”

  He promptly extended it and she got the blazer on him.

  “There. It’s a perfect fit.”

  “You’re quite right. It is.” Mrs. Sadler stood back, looking doubtfully at him. “But now that I see them together, I don’t know…”

  “I could hold them for you,” Eileen said before she could ask to see anything else.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I had hoped to finish his shopping today… but if you haven’t any brown… yes, I think having you hold them will be best.”

  Thank God, Eileen thought, even though it meant she’d have all this to do again tomorrow. She unblazered and unwaistcoated Roland, forgetting in her eagerness to have them gone to watch out for him. He stomped down hard on her instep, and when she yelped, said innocently, “Oh, did I tread on your foot? I am sorry.”

  “Come, Roland,” Mrs. Sadler said. “We must hurry.”

  She’s finally noticed we’re in the middle of a raid, Eileen thought, and about time. The searchlights had gone on, and the anti-aircraft guns were starting up.

  “Do hurry, darling. We must go to Harrods and see what they have.”

  Harrods is closed, Eileen thought, but she wasn’t about to say that, or anything else that might delay them. She saw them to the lift again, and then hobbled over to switch off the department’s lights, wondering if Roland had broken her foot.

  And just when I need to make a run for the tube shelter, she thought, limping back to her department. Another gun, nearer than the last, began firing, and she heard an explosion.

  If I don’t leave soon, I’ll have to spend the night here again. And perhaps that would be best. The planes sounded as if they were headed straight for Oxford Street, and at least she was safe here in Padgett’s. She scooped up the blazer and waistcoat, dumped them in the storeroom, and covered her counter.

  And heard voices from over by the lifts. Oh, no, Eileen thought. They’re back again. She quickly switched off the lamp on her counter and ducked into the storeroom. She wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Sadler to send Roland in here to look for her. She limped to the back and hid behind the last row of shelves, straining to hear above the increasing drone of the planes.

  The voices were coming closer. I am not going out there, no matter what, she thought. She pressed herself into the corner and prepared to wait them out.

  I am coming home if I can.

  —postscript on a postcard written by an evacuee

  London—25 October 1940

  FOR AN ENDLESS MINUTE STANDING THERE IN PADGETT’S, Polly couldn’t absorb what Michael Davies was saying or even the fact that he was there, she’d been so focused on finding Merope. She simply stood there gaping at him while he shook her arm and shouted that they had to get out of there.

  “What are you doing here?” she managed finally. “Why aren’t you at Pearl Harbor?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. The question is, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear the sirens? Come on!”

  You’re the retrieval team, she thought, dazed. You’re finally here. She felt suddenly light and buoyant, as if an enormous weight she hadn’t known she was carrying had been lifted. “Oh, my God, Michael, I…” she stammered, “I am so glad to see you!”

  “You’re glad?” An anti-aircraft gun started up. “Listen, we can’t stay here. We’ve got to get to shelter. Does this store have one?”

  “Yes, but we can’t use it. It was demolished.”

  “Demolished? What do you—?”

  “Padgett’s is going to be bombed tonight.”

  “Tonight? What time?”

  “I don’t know. At some point during one of the first raids.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” he said and began pulling her back toward the stairwell.

  “No! We’ve got to find Merope first.”

  “Merope? What’s she doing here? She was supposed to have gone back ages ago.”

  “I don’t know, but she works here on this floor. In Notions.” She wrenched free of him and ran across the darkened floor, calling, “Eileen!”

  There she was, standing next to a counter. “Merope!” Polly cried, but it wasn’t her—it was a mannequin, draped in lengths of fabric, her hands modishly posed. Polly raced past her, past bolts of fabric and rows of sewing machines, looking for Notions.

  And this was obviously it—here was the buttons cabinet and the threads case—but the counter was shrouded, like all the others, in green baize, and its counter lamp was switched off. “Merope? Eileen? Are you here?” she called, but there was no answer, no movement. “She’s not here,” she reported to Michael as he came up.

  He was limping. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you hurt your foot?”

  “Yes, but not recently. I’ll tell you later. Right now we need to get out of here.”

  “Not without Merope.”

  “Who told you she worked here?”

  “A girl I work with. Why?”

  “Because I’ve been here the whole afternoon, looking for you, and I didn’t see her.”

  “But—you looked on this floor? Here in the notions department?”

  “Yes. She wasn’t here.”

  “She might have been on her tea break or—”

  “No, I was here over an hour. And then I stationed myself where I could watch the staff entrance when the store closed. That was what I was doing when I spotted you. She didn’t come out the staff entrance.”

  “Then she must still be here. She must work in some other part of the store,” Polly said, even though Marjorie’d said she was certain about her working in Notions. On third. “Or she may have been sent to another floor to fill in.”

  “Even if she was, she’d have left by now.” He looked up at the ceiling. “We’ve got to get out of here. Listen to those planes. They’ll be here any minute—”

  “Not till we’ve searched the other floors.”

  “We don’t have time—”

  “We will if we split up. You go back down to first and work your way up, and I’ll—”

  “Absolutely not. It took me almost a month to find you. We’re not getting separated again. Come on.” He grabbed her arm and hurried her across the floor. “We’ll take the elevator.”

  “You mean the lift?” Polly said. “But—”

  “Don’t worry, I know how to run it. That’s how I got up here.” He pushed her into the open lift.

  “But they aren’t supposed to be used during raids.”

  “The raid hasn’t started yet.” He pulled the metal grille across and reached for the lever. “Which floor?”

  She looked up at the numbers above the door. “The top one. Seven. We’ll work our way down.”

  “Along with the bombs,” he said, yanking the lever across. The car began to ascend. “Seven’s nothing but offices. We’ll start with six.”

  She nodded, watching the arrow creep past four to five and then six. “Do you remember what was on six?”

  “Sixth floor. China, kitchenwares, home furnishings,” he chanted in a lift boy’s singsong. “Here we are, madam.” The lift jolted to a stop. “Sorry.” He slid the gate back and reached to open the door.

  “Careful,” Polly whispered. “If the guard’s out there—”

  “He’s not. He’s down on the ground floor looking for me.” He opened the door onto a roar of planes. “Or if he has any survival instincts, he’s in a shelter. It doesn’t look like she’s—”

  “Y
ou take that side and I’ll take the other,” Polly said and ran through the darkened departments, past the place settings and sofas, shouting Merope’s name over the rumble of the planes, but she wasn’t there.

  Or on fifth. “She’s not here,” Mike said, hobbling over to her, “and we’ve got to go. The planes—”

  “Fourth,” Polly said grimly.

  They got back in the lift. “If there’s no one here either,” he said, opening the door, “we’re going to have to—”

  “She’s here,” Polly said. “Look. The lights are still on.” But the light was coming from the searchlights and an orange glow from a fire somewhere. Between them, they lit the entire floor and it was obviously deserted.

  “She’s not here either,” Michael said.

  “We still must check,” she said stubbornly and started out of the lift.

  He grabbed her arm. “There’s no time. You’ve got to face it, she’s not here. Even if she does work here, we must have missed her somehow. Maybe she took one of the other elevators down while we were coming up. There’s nobody here. The store’s completely empty.”

  “No, it’s not. There were casualties. Three people were killed—”

  “Yes, and two of them will be us if we don’t get out of here right now.”

  He was right. The planes were nearly overhead. And Merope obviously wasn’t here. Marjorie must have got the name of the store muddled—

  Marjorie, whom nobody had known was on Jermyn Street. What if Merope had stayed late to tidy her shelves? Or had come back for something she’d forgotten? There’d been three casualties—

  Polly wrenched violently free of Michael and ran out across the floor. “Merope!” she shouted above the drone of the planes. There was a loud crump, and the tall windows lit up. She flinched. “Eileen!”

  “Polly!” Mike shouted, hobbling after her. “Get away from the windows!”

  She ignored him, running on toward what had to be the children’s wear department. There was a tiny mannequin in a frilly dress. “Eileen!” she called, running past it toward a row of infants’ cots.

  “We’ve got to go!” Mike shouted. “She’s not here—” There was another explosion, closer, and Mike’s voice cut off.

  Polly wheeled, but he wasn’t hurt: He was standing there, staring back toward Children’s Wear as if he’d heard something. “What is it?” Polly asked.

  And Merope was running toward them from the door of a storeroom, her face radiant with smiles. She threw herself into Polly’s arms. “Polly, oh, my goodness, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life!” She ran over to hug Michael. “And you’re here, too! This is wonderful! I’d nearly given up hope. Where have you been?”

  The poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun started up, so close it rattled the windows, and Michael said, “We can discuss that later. Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “There’s a shelter here,” Merope said. “In the basement—”

  “No, we must get out of the store,” Polly said.

  “Oh. Then I’ll get my coat and—”

  “There isn’t time. Come on!” Michael shouted over the deafening sound of the planes. “Where’s the closest way down?”

  “There’s a stairway over there,” Merope said, pointing.

  “The elevator will be quicker,” Mike said and started back across the floor.

  Polly opened her mouth to say, “But the raid’s begun. Wouldn’t the stairs be safer?” but it was four flights, and with that limp, he clearly couldn’t move that fast. She followed him, dragging Merope along with her. “Hurry.”

  Merope was limping, too. “Is your foot injured?” Polly shouted as they ran.

  “No. A perfectly horrid child trod on my instep.”

  “The ones you were telling me about in Oxford?”

  “Alf and Binnie? No, they’re amateurs compared to this little wretch. I hope one of these bombs falls on him,” she said, glancing anxiously up at the ceiling. The planes were very near. Another anti-aircraft gun roared into action, and the windows lit up with a garish green. A flare. “I don’t think there’s time to go to a shelter. We’ll have to use Padgett’s. It’s all right. It’s been reinforced.”

  Polly shook her head. “Padgett’s is going to be bombed.”

  “It is?” Merope turned frightened eyes to her. “But you said… When?”

  “I don’t know,” Polly said. “Any minute.”

  “But you said Padgett’s hadn’t been bombed.”

  “I did not. Hurry! We can talk about this later.”

  But Merope continued to chatter as Polly dragged her, hobbling, to the lift. “That’s why I took the job here, because you said it was safe. You said you were going to work in a department store, Selfridges or Padgett’s or—”

  Oh, God. I said those were the ones Mr. Dunworthy forbade me to work in, Polly thought, but this was no time to go into it. Or into why Merope hadn’t come back to Townsend Brothers that Monday. Or what she was still doing here. “We’ll sort it all out later,” she said.

  Merope nodded. “After we’re back in Oxford. When I found out you’d already gone, I was afraid I’d never see Oxford again. I didn’t know what to do—”

  Michael was already inside the lift. “Come on!” he yelled.

  There was a loud crump, half a mile away, and a bright flash. Polly pushed Merope into the lift ahead of her, and pulled the brass gate across for Michael. “Go,” she said.

  He yanked the lever all the way back, and the lift began to descend. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Merope chattered to Michael. “I heard voices, but I thought Mrs. Sadler and her horrid son Roland had come back, so I hid in the storeroom, and then I heard someone calling Polly’s name. When I think I nearly didn’t come out—”

  There was a loud boom, and then a leaden thunk, and the lift jerked to a stop. They weren’t at a floor. Beyond the metal gate there was only blank wall.

  We’re trapped, Polly thought, and then, There were three casualties. We rescued Merope only to trap her here.

  “What happened?” Merope asked, but Michael didn’t answer. He pushed hard on the lever, then pulled it back. The lift began to ascend. Michael let it go up for a moment and then reversed the lever. The lift started down.

  Polly held her breath. Second floor, that’s it, she thought, willing it to descend, and now first—

  The lift jerked to a stop again, and this time it sounded final. Michael yanked with both hands, but the lever wouldn’t budge. He pulled the gate open and looked up. The floor was three feet above them. “Polly, I need you to climb up and open the door,” he said, bracing his body against the side wall. He laced his fingers together. “Climb onto my hands,” he ordered.

  Polly nodded and stepped up, reaching for the edge of the floor above. He hoisted her up, Merope giving support, and she got one knee onto it.

  “Now stretch your hand over to the door handles,” Michael ordered. “That’s it. Now slide them apart,” which was easier said than done. She had almost no leverage. She managed to pull the doors a few inches apart, but her knee slipped, and she nearly fell.

  “No problem,” Michael said. He lowered her back down. “That was a good first try. If only we had a stick or something to push it open with,” he said, looking around, but Padgett’s lifts didn’t have so much as a stool for the lift operator. “Okay, let’s try it again.”

  “Let me try this time,” Merope said, kicking off her shoes. She stepped lightly onto his hands, squeezed herself into the narrow opening, her legs dangling as she heaved herself through it and up onto the floor, and stood up. She slid the doors all the way open from the outside to the instant accompaniment of guns and bombs. Merope looked nervously over her shoulder and then knelt down, her hand extended. “Now you, Polly. Boost her up, Michael.”

  He did, and Merope grasped Polly’s free hand and pulled her up over the edge. A bomb exploded somewhere nearby, and Merope flinched and said frightenedly, “How near
do you think—?”

  “Near. Help me pull Michael out,” Polly said. If we can, she thought. I should have boosted him up. “Take hold of my ankles,” she ordered Merope, lying down flat on the floor and extending her arms down to Michael.

  “That won’t work,” Michael shouted up. “I’m too heavy. Listen, you two go on.”

  Merope leaped to her feet and ran stocking-footed into the darkness. Polly stared after her, furious. She was obviously frightened, but they couldn’t abandon Michael. “Merope—!”

  “You, too,” Michael shouted up to her. “I’ll fix it and meet you downstairs.”

  “I’m not going without you.”

  “There’s no time to argue,” he said. “You need—” but Merope was back, dragging a chair.

  “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to go all the way to the ladies’ lounge for it. Help me with it.” Together, they lowered the chair down to him, and he stepped awkwardly up onto the seat.

  “Wait,” Merope shouted. “My shoes!”

  “There isn’t time to—” Polly began, but he’d already stepped off the chair, jammed them in his pockets, and climbed back up.

  Merope knelt next to Polly, and they heaved him up and out. “Where’s the nearest stairway?” he asked Merope.

  “There,” she said, and they fled across the firelit floor, Michael hobbling behind them.

  “I can’t wait to get out of this horrid place and back to Oxford,” Merope said as they ran. “Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do when we get there is?”

  If we get there, Polly thought, hurrying them along. The planes were directly above them now. Bombs whistled all around them, and the floor lit up with bright, deafening flashes. They dived into the stairwell and racketed down the stairs.

  “I’m going to tell Mr. Dunworthy I am never doing another assignment involving children,” Merope said.

  Polly glanced back at Michael. He was keeping up, though he was leaning heavily on the stair railing.

  “I thought you’d never find me, Polly,” Merope said. “When I found out you’d gone back, I—”

  They reached the ground floor. Polly opened the door, and they plunged along the side of the store through a barrage of flashes and explosions, their hands up to shield their heads, and across the street.