The Night Raid

by Clare Harvey

  When they finally connected he grabbed her with both arms and swung her round: an orange-white-brown swirl of bricks and tiles and passengers – round and round and his lips on her neck and the damp-smoke swish of air and she laughed out loud, because it was madness. It was love and it was madness.

  ‘I’m so glad I caught you! There’s been a cancellation,’ he said when he put her down. ‘I’ve just been to the registry office and they can fit us in today, if we can make it there by half past.’

  Zelah thought of Vi, and she thought of Laura and she held her breath and faltered. If they got married now then they’d miss having Vi and Laura there to witness it. She looked into George’s face and took his hand in hers. ‘George,’ she began, seeing his smile start to fade at her hesitation. She started to turn away from him, towards the station’s exit. ‘We’ll have to run pretty fast to make it there in time!’

  They walked together past the tennis courts and up the hill, underneath the curly gas lights that punctuated the pavement until they reached his home – her home, now, she realised with a jolt. As he unlocked the front door, she leant across and kissed his neck, just below his earlobe, and smiled to herself as he fumbled with the key.

  He held the door open and she stepped through the threshold. Once inside there was, as he’d predicted, a plate of sandwiches covered with a fly net in the centre of the polished wooden dining table. The door clicked shut behind them. ‘I’ll just—’ He began to walk past her into the room.

  She caught his coat sleeve. She didn’t need to say anything. He turned. She reached her other hand up behind his neck. They twined together. Lips, skin, the taste of him, the feel of his hands against her. Sinking into the feeling, drowning in his touch. Two people with one pulse – time was away and somewhere else.

  Later – afterwards – a strange feeling of being full and empty at the same time, exhausted and enervated. Her eyes scanned the bedroom: his hat on top of the chest of drawers, the clothes brush on the windowsill, pipe and ashtray on the bedside table, no pictures, just the window framing the green-terracotta-grey rectangle of the walled garden and sky. The low sun shot through the glass, and the room seemed to glow, picking out the colours: a blue dressing gown hanging from a hook on the back of the door, a book with a pale turquoise cover that had slipped off the gold eiderdown and lay half open on the sheepskin rug next to the bed. She breathed in, noticing how the pillowcase held the musky scent of him.

  She heard a clock chime five times from the other room. ‘I’ll have to go, or I’ll be late clocking on,’ she said, frowning. It felt as if she were talking about someone else. Life was suddenly no longer what it was.

  He leant over and kissed her bare shoulder. ‘I can get to the factory in ten minutes if I put my foot down,’ he said, and his lips began to move up her neck.

  The sun was setting and the horizon a tarnished gleam as they stumbled up the factory steps hand-in-hand. They stopped at the top step, pausing to look out, as if the terracotta-grey evening fuddle of the Meadows was a glorious view, as if it were their joint future laid out in front of them in a golden glow. The dying light struck, flaring orange on the dirty brickwork and causing taped-up windows to diamond-flash. They hesitated, palms clenched, holding tight the secret of their togetherness. They were late – everyone else had already clocked on. She didn’t care.

  ‘When shall we tell them?’

  ‘Tonight. I’ll do an announcement at dinner break and get it over with in one go. And I’ll sort out our leave – hang the production drive – our honeymoon starts from the end of this night shift.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long.’

  ‘Just a few hours.’

  ‘In the meantime, you may kiss the bride – again,’ she said, turning to face him. As their lips touched, the nightshift bell began its drilling clang, but neither of them took any notice, as if the jarring sound was silent in the air as they kissed. And it was only when the ringing stopped that they finally, reluctantly, relinquished each other.

  They turned away from the glow of the spring sunset and entered the factory. Inside, the familiar noise assaulted them. There was the usual metallic taste on her tongue and the air pepper-hot in her nostrils as they walked together under the electric strip lights and onto the shop floor.

  Working here had made her part of the machinery – the thud and grind of it all – but without it she’d never have found him, her husband, her future. Still holding his hand, she leant in to give him one last kiss, not caring who saw. It was perfect.

  Violet

  ‘Have you got the money?’

  ‘Yes.’ Vi held out the fistful of notes and coins she’d been carrying. The woman put her still-lit cigarette on top of the parapet and slowly counted the money from Vi’s hand into her own. As she did so, Vi looked out over the city garden, dug over, with lacy asparagus fronds and carrot tops poking out of the reddish earth. At the far end, where the vegetables petered out, a stone wall met the sky. Steel-grey clouds lifted to reveal a line of gold, where the sun had just sunk.

  ‘You’re short,’ the woman said.

  ‘What?’ Vi felt as if her chest was being squeezed. It had to be enough; it was all she had. ‘What about the deposit I paid Mrs Kirk already?’ Vi told her the amount.

  The woman sucked her teeth. ‘She took that much, did she? I’ll have to have words.’ She tipped the money into an envelope, licked it, sealed it, shoved it down the cleavage of her sprigged day dress, and pulled her pink cardigan over the top to cover the bulge. She picked up her cigarette, knocked off the chimney of ash, took a quick drag and motioned Vi to follow her.

  Inside, their shoes tapped on the tiled floor. Vi followed the woman along a corridor, past a loudly ticking grandfather clock and a wilting aspidistra and up a wide wooden-balustraded staircase that curved upwards. The woman’s skinny buttocks shuddered underneath the thin cotton of her dress. Everywhere there were dark oil paintings of disapproving old men in heavy gilt frames, staring sternly down from the cream walls as they climbed the stairs. At the top they arrived at a large room shelved with dusty books.

  ‘In there.’ The woman pointed to an ante room. Behind her thick spectacles her eyes were glassy-round. ‘He’s ready for you.’ Her pearl-drop earrings wobbled like just-shed tears as she ushered Vi into the reading room and closed the glass-panelled door behind her. Vi turned and saw her sit down at a desk opposite, stubbing out her cigarette in an ashtray and checking her watch. She’ll be able to see, Vi thought. She’ll be able to see everything.

  The shutters were closed already, even though blackout wasn’t until after nine. Vi walked into the gloom, hearing the muffled street sounds from below: the bell in the Town Hall chiming the half-hour, a burst of laughter, and the chug of a bus idling at the stop. The room was lined with books, just like the other one, only this one had a huge table in the centre, surrounded by red-seated chairs. There was an empty hearth with two green plush armchairs at the far end.

  As Vi entered, a man stood up from one of the armchairs. He nodded at her, but didn’t speak, just flicked a light switch, which turned on the electric chandelier, sending the room into sharp relief: the sagging bookshelves with rows of brown-spined books, like rotten smiles, and the huge plaster ceiling rose, like the top of an upside-down wedding cake.

  He walked towards her, skirting the table. He was tall and thin, with dark hair plastered over his shiny skull. He held out a folded sheet. Vi helped him unfold it and flap it open so it lay on the table. He pulled some things out of a Gladstone bag: a length of orange rubber tubing that reminded her of the hose connecting the oxyacetylene cylinders on the shop floor, a piece of wire about as long as a ruler, and a metal contraption that looked a bit like two spoons fixed together. It was as if he were laying a table for a posh dinner with the cloth and the utensils: a supper for the pudding club – what’s on the menu? Bun-in-the-oven! Vi felt a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream rising in her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth
and gulped the hysterics away. Her palm was wet with sweat.

  The man smoothed a wrinkle from the cloth with his long, thin fingers and cleared his throat. Then he took off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He cleared his throat again and made direct eye contact with Vi. He didn’t even need to speak. She knew what she had to do, to take off her knickers for the procedure.

  The indecent procedure.

  He turned away and she tugged her knickers down, had to hop awkwardly from one leg to the other and lean on a chair-back to get them off. She kicked them under the table, ready to pull back on afterwards.

  ‘Shall I get up?’ she said. He turned and nodded. So she climbed onto the table and lay down, on her back, with her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself as if she were cold. The air smelled musty and old. A profile of a chubby-cheeked young woman was moulded in plasterwork on the ceiling rose, tendrils of hair playing over her plump neckline. She looks a bit like me, Vi thought, only happier.

  The man tapped her legs. She knew she had to lift her knees. Her skirt fell away from her thighs, and she didn’t push it back down. She closed her eyes and felt her fingertips dig into her upper arms as if they were someone else, grasping her by the shoulders, ready to give her a good shake.

  She heard a soft swish as the man picked something up from the cloth. Then she felt something very cold, and hard, there, and her knees jerked inwards. The man made a kind of hissing sound as he sucked in his breath. She kept her eyes shut, but made herself open her knees again. There was the feel of cold metal, working its way up inside her. The man made a faint, audible grunt as the metal was stalled by the wall of flesh. Was that it, she thought, does he just scoop the baby out? Then there was a sharp pinch and she jerked again with the sudden shock of it. At the same time a thudding came from downstairs, a muted voice calling out from the street. ‘Mrs Blair, open up. It’s the fire watch! Mrs Blair! Mrs Blair!’

  The metal pulled out, opening her eyes, the utensils already thrown into the bag and the bag snapped shut, the man pulling his jacket on and the woman banging open the glass door and shoving her off the table.

  ‘Go, go! The Angel fire watch are early – you need to get out of here!’ the woman hissed. She opened half a shutter and lifted the sash window, calling down onto the street, ‘Hang on a sec. I’m on my way, lads.’

  ‘Don’t know why you don’t let us have a key, it would be easier for you,’ the voice wavered up.

  ‘Oh, I can’t be giving out keys, having all-and-sundry coming into the library,’ she answered. ‘I’ll get the kettle on for you and I’ll be right down.’ She turned away from the window.

  Vi was scrabbling under the table to try to find her knickers. She could hear the man’s footfalls running a scale down the staircase and along the corridor. ‘Get out! You want to get us all arrested, you silly tart?’ The woman tugged her sleeve and shunted her away. ‘Out the back, the way you came in!’

  Out in the street it was twilight now, Old Market Square a monochrome smudge. Violet kept her hands pressed down the sides of her skirt. She could feel the cold air, there between the top of her thighs as she walked. What happened if it started now? She imagined blood spatters, grey-red on the paving stones.

  There was a grimy pub wedged between two shops and an old feller was playing a penny whistle outside. Vi glanced apologetically at him and the empty cap open at his feet. If she’d had any change she would have shared. She had no money for a bus; she had given it all to that Blair woman, not even a soldered penny left to fool the clippie. The sound of the whistle wheedled along behind her, getting gradually fainter as she walked on.

  What he’d done, that silent man in the library, had it been enough? Was that all it was, a pinching jab up inside against the wall of flesh? Was that it? Nothing more? But then when would the bleeding begin? How long would it last? Would it hurt? Nobody had told her anything and there hadn’t been a chance to ask.

  She noticed a policeman, then, appearing from a side street as she walked down towards the canal. She felt as if she were sinking. But he couldn’t know, could he? You couldn’t tell just by looking at someone. Don’t be a silly mare, Violet Smith. You’re fine. You will be fine.

  Except she’d just tried to kill her unborn baby and her knickers were under a table in the reading room at Bromley House Library. How is any of that fine? Oh heck. Vi faltered, scuffling her feet, waiting for the navy-blue figure to plod up the hill towards the town centre, his boots thudding at half the speed of her own sprinting heartbeat.

  When he was out of earshot she started walking again, down the hill, and across the main road. The streets were almost empty already, blackouts shut, cats being kicked outdoors. She paused on the canal bridge, pulling out her fags and lighting one. The skies were clear. She sucked in smoke and put her hands on the sticky-cold metalwork of the bridge, trying to steady herself, but she couldn’t stop shaking, and the cigarette slipped from her fingers into the inky gash of the canal – orange-black, then gone: extinguished.

  She carried on walking, not knowing what else to do. A bus zoomed past. She didn’t bother trying to hail it down. No point. No money. Shanks’s pony. What if it started before she reached the hostel? Don’t think about it, Vi. Keep walking. You’ll be fine. It will all be fine.

  She looked up at the way ahead. Some of the barrage balloons were silver, some white, like dead fish on the surface of a putrid pool. The moon shone above the rooftops the colour of amber, almost as dark as the fire opal ring that Zelah had on her left hand these days.

  That’s it. Think about Zelah, take your mind off it. You’ll be maid of honour at the boss’s wedding, Violet Smith, how very la-di-da. If – if you’re not on the sepsis ward by then, you little slut. Shut up, shut up! The mess of inner voices was like the factory floor at the end of the shift: grubby and tangled.

  Vi pushed her skirt down over her thighs as she walked, following the road over the railway lines. She could hear the distant rattle of stock in the factory sidings and felt a vibration in the tracks. The factory itself was somewhere up there to her right, through the terraced streets of the Meadows, huddled huge in the darkness.

  If she carried on walking she could cross the Trent at the old toll bridge and get to the hostel through Wilford Village. She remembered how Dame Laura had taken them to Wilford on their day off to sketch them.

  She passed a solitary ash tree that had shoved its way up between the paving slabs. Knickerless girls should never climb trees, that’s what Pa used to say. Her throat tightened as she thought of her father. What would he say if she knew what a mucking muddle she was in? He could never know. Nobody could. The shame of it.

  She reached the corner where Rupert Street joined the main road, and she paused before crossing. As she stopped, she heard the faintest tootle-whine of the penny whistle, way back behind her.

  And that’s when it started.

  George

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Your wedding breakfast, Mrs Handford.’ He looked at her face as he said it, watched her eyes widen, lips lift into a smile at the two plates of fried Spam sandwiches and two mugs of tea on the table. A lit candle in an empty beer bottle stood in between. The rest of the canteen was empty as a desert. He held her chair back and helped her into her seat. ‘I thought you might be hungry, as we skipped supper.’

  ‘Ravenous.’ She took a huge bite of sandwich. He sat opposite and felt her feet slide in between his. There were two mugs and two chairs and two people with one pulse as they sat together, wolfing the food, feet in an unseen embrace beneath the table.

  They hadn’t told anyone about the wedding, yet. The secret lay delicious as a stolen kiss between them. But after the night shift she could come back to his bed. He’d sort out the rota, find a way of getting them away on honeymoon, take her up to Northumbria to meet his family. A fresh start. Life was suddenly no longer what it was.

  From behind the distant counter came the smell of braising offal and
the clatter of saucepans. The radio waltz spouted out of the trumpet-shaped speakers in the corners of the canteen like water from a rock.

  ‘A table for two. However did you manage it?’

  ‘I had a word with the boss.’ He winked.

  ‘I hear he’s a one. All he cares about are production targets. Bit of a brute, by all accounts.’ Her teasing eyes as she looked across at him. Her tongue flicked out to catch a crumb from her lip. And he couldn’t help thinking of her mouth, her kiss and the sweet, sweet taste of her when they’d been together, just a few hours ago.

  ‘I heard that too. Apparently the man’s a good-for-nothing swanker.’ He grinned, took a gulp of tea, watched her lick her fingers one by one.

  The candle flickered between them, making the space glow. He had a strange sensation of being neither up nor down. And he knew he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life.

  ‘Will there be speeches at this wedding reception?’ she asked, tilting her head, breaking his reverie.

  ‘Naturally.’ He stood up. ‘I’d like to raise a glass to my wife, Zelah, whom I love more than I can say.’ He looked at her, there, with her dark, sharp eyes, arched brows and curving mouth. ‘I neither wanted, nor felt I deserved, a second chance. But then you came along, and changed everything. I love you, Zelah.’

  ‘I love you too, George.’ She stood up, then, her eyes almost on a level with his, and they stayed still, as the clock forgot them. Time was away and she was here.

  ‘Aren’t you gonna toast ’is Majesty?’ A voice from the far end of the room – Mrs Hoyden, rattling out from the kitchen with the cutlery trolley.

  The spell was broken. They grinned at each other. ‘The King,’ they said in unison, picking up their half-drunk tea mugs and chinking them.

  He noticed then that the music had changed, from the waltz to something else. It was Vera Lynn’s voice: ‘There were angels dining at the Ritz . . .’