by Clare Harvey
Mrs Hoyden disappeared back into the kitchen. George put down his mug. The candle flame flickered as Zelah walked round, pulled him into the space between the dining tables and the counter and put her arms round him. They moved closer together – his lips on her cheek, the softness of her skin, the scent of her hair. ‘I never dance,’ he said, swaying in sync with her, feeling her soft curves pressing through the layers of cloth between them as they moved to the music.
‘But you must have the first dance with your bride at the wedding breakfast,’ she said.
‘I suppose I could get used to being manhandled by you,’ he muttered, his lips finding hers. He ran his hand down her spine and pulled her closer towards him. And Vera Lynn sang: ‘Our homeward step was just as light as the tap dancing feet of Fred Astaire . . .’
A sudden crash of strings. Beethoven’s Fifth slamming violently into the airwaves. She pulled away from him. ‘Was a raid drill part of the wedding breakfast plan?’
‘It’s not a drill,’ he said, loosening his arms from around her. ‘You need to get down to the shelter.’
‘And you?’
‘I can’t. I can’t have young Alfie Perkins up on the roof on his own, not if it’s the real thing. I’m sorry.’
She nodded and pulled away, but he caught her hand and they walked through the canteen doors together. Mrs Hoyden and the canteen staff were already clattering down the corridor.
At the stairwell they paused for a final kiss. ‘You will go straight to the shelter, won’t you?’ She didn’t answer. Beethoven’s Fifth was still sawing violently out through the wall speakers. ‘Promise me, Zelah?’
He saw her open her mouth to reply, but didn’t hear her response because just then there was a tearing thud and all the lights went out.
Violet
In the still night air the whistle was suddenly overcome by the sound of sirens. And she realised that the humming drone she’d thought of as the sound of the distant gun factory when she crossed the railway lines was increasing in volume – not machine chatter at all, but the thrum of approaching bombers.
She hesitated on the street corner, as the siren sounds reached their aching crescendo. To go to a public shelter in this state – with no knickers on – was unthinkable. But how long would it take to get to the hostel from here? The sirens keened. A dog began to howl in a nearby backyard, underlaid by the incessant buzz of the incoming planes. If she ran to the factory now she could pull on her overalls before going down to the shelter.
Vi put a palm up against the rough brickwork of the wall beside her, below an empty hanging basket, still hesitating, even though the dark-noise was everywhere now. What to do?
Then the tear-sheet noise of the first bomb falling, the burst of light in the distance, the sound of shouting, running feet, fire watchers’ whistles. They fell in a line, the incendiaries: one-two-three, like the bad fairy casting her curses at the royal baby’s christening.
The sirens had stopped now the raid had started, and Violet stood transfixed, listening to the crackling-twig sound of distant machine gunfire, the boom of the ack-ack guns and the patter of shell splinters like fine rain.
And for a moment Violet was back in time, in the Blitz-months of ’41, when she was still sweet-sixteen-and-never-been-kissed and lived at home and helped Ma with the washing and the little ones. She’d been hungry and tired and scared all the time. But it had been better than this: up the duff, in the pudding club, miles from home.
Another crash, closer this time. The hanging basket jerked backwards and forwards above her and the ground shuddered. She turned, then, down Rupert Street, half-blinded by the flashing incendiaries, hearing the fire engine bells’ and ambulance bells’ jarring melody as the first wave of bombers zoom-droned away. But she could hear another wave already coming in. If she ran, she might make it to the factory shelter before they hit.
Her panting breath was sand-scratchy in her throat as she took the factory steps at a sprint. Her eyeballs still burnt from the on-off of bright light and darkness as the bombs fell. The security guard wasn’t at his post and the lights were all off inside the building. She zigzagged along the empty blackness of the corridor, and straight to the cloakroom, ripping off her coat, slinging it on the floor, feeling her way, and pulling her overall off the peg. She struggled into the grimy cloth and pushed through the door, along the corridor and onto the shop floor. The shelter was down at the far end of Bay Three. They’d all be inside, now. The equipment was a mass of shadows in the gloomy space. She had to stop running or she’d trip, bash into something. Jesus, but those planes were loud now, even from inside the factory building, like a swarm of hornets, everywhere.
She just had to make her way across the shop floor to the shelter and she’d be safe. What was that? A figure, up ahead, near the capstan lathes? ‘Hey,’ Violet called out. ‘Hey, you! Shouldn’t you be under cover?’ And the shadowy figure seemed to turn, but then there was a sudden blast of light.
A thunderclap roar and the sense of fast-moving air. Black, then bright light, then darkness again – the ripping crash of it, then silence.
She groped, unseeing, until her fingers connected with something soft. ‘I’ve got you,’ she said, tugging at the cloth, but there was no answer from the lumpen mass of overall-covered limbs.
Her eyes were streaming; the smoke hot-acrid in her nostrils. Coughs razored up her parched throat.
The site of the fire was further in. Through squinted lashes she could make out the orange glow at ground level. If the flames reached the gas cylinders they’d be done for, but the flames hadn’t reached the cylinders – not yet – and there was still a chance she could pull the woman to safety.
She wedged her clog against the edge of a lathe base for leverage, and heaved at the sleeve cuff she held. The body shifted an inch or two, but didn’t pull free. She yanked, harder this time, but the body was heavy as a wet sandbag, caught on something. If only she could see – but the smoke was hot-thick. She slid down onto the concrete floor. She’d have to feel her way. She could hear sirens, and shouts calling her away, but the sounds were muffled as birdsong beyond a window pane, as she focused on her task.
She crouched low, feeling her way down the length of the overalls: strap, waist button, side pocket, trouser leg – nudging and shoving at the inert form as she went – all the way down. Here it was: a foot caught up in one of the twirling gas hoses.
Her fingers twisted the looping rubber, unhooking it from the woman’s foot, tugging her leg free. At last.
The boiling air was quicksand, pooling and sucking and swallowing them up. She had to get them both out, fast. She had to get them down to the shelter, in case the fire spread and the whole thing blew.
She shuffled back, following the line of the overalls with her fingertips. She grabbed at the shoulder straps, and pushed her foot again against the lathe. She strained and wrenched, the cloth cutting into her palms.
This time the body moved, and she followed the momentum, jerking and tugging and pulling it out, along the factory floor, away from the flames. Her breath came in grunting gasps, painful, as the heat seared her lungs. There was sweat and tears in her eyes, and a metallic taste in her mouth. The woman’s head jolted awkwardly over the concrete floor, but there was no time to take care. There was no time.
Suddenly there were hands at her shoulders, shouting voices, and the woman’s body was pulled away, backwards, towards the shelter door: We’ve got her, now get inside, for God’s sake.
No, wait.
She saw the easel, the canvas pale against the orange-grey glow of the growing fire. The painting was so close to completion: those butter-smooth faces that had taken weeks to create. She broke free of the hands that grabbed her.
It will only take a second to get the painting.
She turned and ran back towards the flames.
Chapter 21
Laura
The air tasted clean on her tongue. It reminded her of Cornwall, and she t
urned to say so to Harold, catching the sleeve of his tweed jacket, the wool warm in the spring sunshine.
‘It’s nothing like Cornwall; we’re nowhere near the sea,’ he said, wheezing a little after the steep climb from the hotel.
‘But it feels like a cliff top, don’t you think?’ Laura looked at the Malvern Hills, snaking into the distance like a sleeping sea serpent, and the cloud-dappled fields below, undulating like lapping waves on a calm day. ‘Don’t you think, Harold?’
‘Mmm,’ he said, which could have meant anything. She let go of his sleeve.
‘So long since our Cornwall days,’ Laura continued as they gazed down at the flat farmland stretched over three counties. ‘Do you ever think of them?’ She turned her head so that she could see his expression as he responded, noting the strong line of his profile, his aristocratic nose – could she be mistaken about Zelah?
‘Not really,’ Harold said, leaning on his walking stick. ‘Half a lifetime ago.’
‘Remember Sennen?’ Was it her imagination, or did his expression shift? ‘So beautiful. I was utterly bereft when I had to leave in ’16.’ The air was butterscotch-scented with gorse blossom. She waited a moment, to give Harold a chance to respond, but he continued leaning on his stick, looking away. ‘I missed you so dreadfully when I was at Witley Camp. It was the first time we’d been apart for any length of time. I felt utterly cut adrift and alone.’
‘You had plenty of boisterous young Canadian soldiers for company, as I recall.’
‘Were you jealous?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Why not?’
‘I trusted you. What is a marriage, without trust?’
What indeed, Laura thought. A crow cut the sky in front of them like a plummeting exclamation mark.
‘Were you lonely?’
‘I remember Ella swinging by to check up on me. Look here, I don’t really want to rake up old coals, Laura.’ He shifted, banging his stick down into the soft, mossy grass.
‘Was it Ella who dismissed the girl?’
‘What girl?’
‘The girl I’d employed to look after you – Sarah, wasn’t it?’
‘I really can’t recall.’
‘Why did Ella dismiss Sarah? What had she done?’
‘Nothing – I think she left of her own volition.’ So he did remember Sarah. He remembered and yet he’d affected forgetfulness. ‘I don’t remember Ella giving her the sack. Why would she? In any case, Laura, you’re talking about things that took place twenty-five years ago—’
‘Twenty-seven years ago,’ Laura interrupted. ‘It was twenty-seven years ago that Sarah left you in Sennen.’
Harold made an impatient gesture. ‘Twenty-seven, then. I really don’t understand why this is so important just now, Laura. Can’t we enjoy the view in peace?’
Despite the sunshine, the wind was cool on Laura’s cheeks. She noted how he dug his stick further into the earth, how his brow jutted where he was frowning. ‘If we’d had children they’d be grown up by now,’ Laura said. ‘And they’d be off doing war work of some sort. If we’d had a girl she might even be working in a factory.’ She saw his fist tighten on the top of his stick, but he didn’t say anything. She sighed, waited: nothing. ‘Well, I think I’ll head on up to the top. Are you coming?’
Harold shook his head.
Laura walked on up the path, her sturdy brogues squashing angular pebbles into the mud as she went. Onwards and upwards, Laura, just keep going on. Her chest felt tight and her breath came in bursts. Her cheeks were hot with the effort of it.
At the top, the ancient earthworks spiralled under the blue dome of sky. It was quiet, nothing but birdsong and the faint ringing in her ears, an echo of the factory machines. Here in the open air she felt alive, and free. She looked down the incline to where Harold still stood, a nub of charcoal against the sage hillside. Below him were the grey curling roads and slate rooftops of the British Camp Hotel. They looked so insignificant from up here: her husband and her wartime home. Harold was nothing more than a small and definite focal point in the green-blue vista. He seemed so far away. But hadn’t he always seemed far away? Or had she herself put the distance between them?
Laura heard laughter and looked in the direction it came from. There was a couple, some five hundred yards away on the ridge line, holding hands, the woman’s white skirt swirling, their mirth carried effortlessly on the blue hilltop wind. And then, from far below, church bells began to peal. Of course: it had said on the wireless that the bells were allowed to be rung for Easter Sunday. It sounded like a wedding. She looked back down at Harold, and suddenly she was certain. But she had to ask him, get it all out in the open air. Because if it were true, well, that changed everything, didn’t it?
Laura saw Harold turn his back and begin to make his way down to the hotel. ‘Harold, wait!’ she started, stumbling down the steep path.
He turned his head, called back: ‘I was getting cold waiting for you,’ the wind carried his words up the hill to her – she could only just hear them above the jangling church bells.
Did Sarah keep you warm, Harold? Did Sarah keep you warm on those cold cliff-top nights in Sennen whilst I was away in Witley? Did Sarah make sure you didn’t get cold waiting for me? Her feet slip-thudded on the muddy path. It was too steep to run. She couldn’t catch up. She couldn’t catch up with Harold. She’d never been able to catch up with him – he’d never let her.
She finally reached him at the road junction in front of the hotel: too close. People could see and hear them from here, and she didn’t want to cause a scene. No, she wasn’t one for airing her dirty linen in public, no matter what anyone said. They crossed the road together. The bells were still ringing as they entered the hotel reception. The hall was crowded with suitcases and Kipper yapped, tried to bite Harold’s walking stick. Upstairs, she thought. When we are in the privacy of our own top-floor room, with its thick walls, that’s when I’ll ask.
As they passed the reception desk, the telephone jangled and Mr Peterson answered. ‘Yes, she’s just here, as a matter of fact, so you can tell her yourself.’ He motioned at Laura. ‘Call for you, Mrs Knight.’
Laura took the receiver and held it to her ear. There was a hiss-crackle; the line was very bad and she could hardly hear. ‘Laura Knight speaking,’ she said, watching Harold being swallowed up by the gloomy hotel corridor, sucked up the dark wooden staircase, out of sight. She didn’t want to take this call. She wanted to talk to Harold, to find out the truth. For heaven’s sake, what could be so very important that it necessitated a phone call on Easter Sunday?
‘Is that Mrs Knight?’ the voice sounded metallic and far away.
‘Yes, yes. What is it?’
‘I’m afraid there’s been a terrible incident at the gun factory.’
George
Fatigue fell across his mind as he roboted his way through the street of gutted houses. There was no rain, but the fogged air seeped damp and the sky was a mucky pink wound above the snaggled rooftops. A grey-faced fireman was slumped half-asleep on a pile of rubble. A fat man in a Homburg and a brown suit was heaving along the crumbled paving slabs towards him. George paused in front of the fireman, jowls wobbling as he began to talk and gesticulate. He saw the fireman nodding, opening his mouth to speak, and realised he couldn’t hear the man – couldn’t hear either of them – even though he couldn’t have been more than a few yards away. His ears were full of a kind of muted clang, and the world was a silent film.
An old woman tottered out from the remains of a side street: black coat and the crumpled cardboard expression of someone too tired to speak. She joined the fireman and the fat man, nodding and looking at where they pointed. Then the three of them suddenly all turned at once, heads swivelling like ball bearings on a production line. George followed their gaze and saw a half-destroyed wall finally fall, with a clumsy slither and a puff of dust. But he heard nothing. He saw heads rotate in the opposite direction, felt a rush of wind at his back,
and turned to see an ambulance speed past. But the ringing of the ambulance bell was silent in the morning air, drowned out by the sound inside his head.
And there was a girl running down the street, in the same direction the fat man had come from, ankles turning inwards on high heels, orange turban coming loose, one end flapping against her cheek as she ran, exposing a patch of dark hair. For a moment, just a moment, he thought it might be her – by some glorious divine sleight of hand – but of course it wasn’t.
He watched as she joined the little group: the fireman, the old lady and the fat man. ‘They got the gun factory?’ He saw her mouth it, even though he couldn’t hear. The others nodded and he watched as her hands slapped up to her face, covering her eyes, as if by not seeing the darkness of the smoking pile it would cease to exist.
He walked on then, trudging in the wake of the long-gone ambulance. Police were patrolling the streets, stern-faced, their navy-blue uniforms with shiny buttons looking like patches of the night sky, ripped off and left behind by the planes that had torn through in the night. The early morning fog mingled with the remains of the smoky air, drenching his face smutty-wet as he went. Even this early, cheap Union Jack flags were already appearing in the windows of half-bombed houses, and women were sweeping glass into gutters. Small shopkeepers hammered boards across broken windows. An angry robin eyed him from a cracked gatepost.
There was less bomb damage across the canal. Buses trundled and cycles wheeled as usual. He saw the puffed cheeks of a man whistling as he carried a ladder across the street, but heard nothing but the endless muffled ringing in his ears.
He followed the road round the underbelly of the castle, through the alley and into the Park Estate. By the old stables he saw the woman with the terrier. She put a hand on his sleeve and he winced at her touch. Her lips rubber-banded empty words, as she gesticulated – up at the sky, over in the direction of the Meadows, down at the ground. Her dog snuffled at the kerb. George lifted his hat and walked away, leaving her chattering dumbly to herself.