by Alice Jolly
OK, right. Well, this is Greg Marsden and I need to talk about—
Where is he? Lara hears the suppressed scream in her voice.
The line makes a sound like someone kissing a microphone and then is silent. She remembers seeing Greg Marsden on television. A big man with a fleshy, sunburnt face, wearing combat clothes and loaded down by technology – cameras, headphones, a flak jacket. A rhinoceros-type man, loose in his leathery skin, with a thick neck and a large head. Dusty-looking with blank eyes, ready to charge. The phone line puckers again, the thread of sound snagging.
Where is he?
Well, here. Well, not right here. But downstairs in this hotel. But the point is that I’ve really tried to talk to him. He’s doing things which really aren’t helpful. There are agreements in place. You know about the Green Zone? And there are reasons of safety and security and I have tried to explain this.
Well, I—
A rustling and popping, overly intimate.
This is not an English tea party we’re having here. You understand that? It’s all very well, you meddling peace protesters with banners and what all. But your son should not be here and I don’t think you have any idea of the danger.
Yes, but—
Don’t get me wrong, Jay is a great young guy but this is no place for him.
Excuse me.
He’s behaving like an idiot. I can’t be held responsible and so you just need—
The phone crackles and Greg Marsden’s voice fades, stutters, speaks again, loudly. Ms Ravello, for God’s sake, your son is wearing pyjamas.
Mr Marsden, Lara says. I only want to know one thing – is your paper going to use the photographs he’s taken?
The phone clicks and buzzes and Lara is talking into silence. With a vibrating hand, she presses the button to ring back. The phone buzzes and an American voice says that the number is unavailable. Lara is crying tears of rage. She picks up the whisky plastic cup and drinks from it, splutters, begins to recount what Greg Marsden said although she knows that Spike heard it all.
How dare he? How dare he assume—
Of course, Greg Marsden is only saying what she was saying three weeks ago. But that was three weeks ago and now things are different. She looks over at Spike. He was never even in favour of the human shields, thinks that they were – and are – irrelevant. But still the look in his eyes is strangely yielding.
So do you want the money? she says. Shall I try and get it?
Can you?
Yes. No. Well, I don’t know. I can rent the flat out – or sell it. In the meantime, I can take out a loan. I think.
I don’t know. It’s up to you.
We can’t just let this happen. Can we?
You’re right. If there’s any way.
I don’t know. But we’ve got to fight.
Spike looks at her and suddenly his face lights with laughter.
OK. OK. You’re right. Let’s try. I’ll call the lawyer.
He stops with his hand on the receiver, his eyes questioning.
I won’t let anyone call my son an idiot, Lara says. That’s all.
She wants to say something more – or she wants Spike to speak – but they are both silent, unnerved to find themselves suddenly in agreement.
Right, Lara says. I better go. I’ve got work to do. Goodnight.
She heads up the basement stairs and into the hall of the Community Centre. The bingo or bridge is still in progress. Lara feels weightless, unstable. She stops to take a tissue from her bag, to wipe her eyes and nose, passes the door of the café. It’s closed now but Oliver is there, sitting on one of the canteen-style chairs, reading a book. She’s struck again by his stillness, his ability to command the scene around him with no visible effort. She pushes open the glass swing door, prepares to explode in explanation of the photographs, the injunction, Greg Marsden’s call, but something in Oliver’s eyes stops her.
The globe lights which drop from the café ceiling attack her eyes. She sits down at the table, pushes her head down onto her folded arms, blocks out the screaming lights. She draws breath into a throat like sandpaper. Oliver feels like a stone quay, dark and unmoving, in a mass of seething, storm-tossed water. She would like to put her hand out and touch him, just to steady herself. She keeps her head pressed against her arm for a long time – five minutes, ten? She has no idea. Finally she looks up, her eyes firing with tiny stars in the now unaccustomed light.
I need to go home, she says. Could I ask you – would you mind walking back with me? It’s only five minutes. Just coming in through the front door on my own, knowing he won’t be there. I find it hard – would you?
Yes, he says. Of course.
She stands up and walks ahead of him, placing one foot in front of the other with care. He follows her out and she shudders suddenly in the night air. They do not speak but walk on together towards the road, Monmouth Street. Lara thinks briefly of Greg Marsden. She’ll have to email and apologise, she can’t afford to argue with him. Oliver’s feet sound on the pavement beside her and she looks at him briefly. As they reach her front door, she rummages for the keys in her bag. Someone has parked a bike in the hallway, which isn’t allowed but what does it matter now? Oliver follows her up the blue-carpeted stairs.
Together they enter the flat that she’s decided to give up. The thought leaves her reduced but strengthened. For years this was all she wanted – a flat with spacious Georgian rooms, wrought-iron balconies, high ceilings with cornices. And she’s made it just how she wants, everything white and clean and organised. She knows every inch of it, remembers each decision, where each light switch should be placed, how each bulb should be angled. And now she’s going to sell it. Renting it will not bring in enough money. No more worries about the difficult neighbours, the glass of red wine tipping over onto the white sitting-room rug.
Oliver stands near the door, like a servant waiting to be dismissed.
I don’t suppose you want a drink, do you? she says.
He looks at her as though she’s speaking Chinese.
I mean, like – a normal drink, she says.
It’s kind of you – but no.
You don’t really do normal, do you?
He nearly laughs but won’t allow himself that.
Ah well, Lara says. Maybe another time.
They stand on the pale oak boards, under the five-armed crystal light that she brought back from Italy years ago, insisting that she take it as hand luggage, much to the airline’s annoyance. What will she do with that light now? Oliver knows nothing of the light, is not a part of that story. No point in telling him. They continue to linger, unable to speak or to part. Finally she turns away from him, leaves her bag on the hall table – bought in a Brighton antique shop, always just a little too big for the space. He moves to go.
Thank you, she says. You know I owe you a great deal.
He nods, raises his hand to acknowledge her thanks.
My war now, she says, nods, feels tears forming. She moves towards him, raises her arms, holds him briefly, stiff and unyielding in her arms.
I’m glad you’re safe, he says. And then he’s gone, his feet noiseless on the stairs.
28
BEFORE
Rose – Coventry, April 1941
Rose kneels by the unlit fire in the sitting room, folding washing. When Mrs Bostock got pneumonia for the second time, Mr Bostock took her away to stay with family in the Lake District and so the house is empty now. Rose is wearing three cardigans but still she shivers. Her hands are chapped, the skin raw and cracked so that it catches in the fluff of the material as she folds. Every few minutes she stops and does nothing, just stays where she is, staring at the wall above the sideboard. Beside her Mollie sits on a tartan rug, banging a spoon on a tin bucket. Rose folds one of Mollie’s vests, laying it out flat on its front, turning the sleeves back, folding the vest in half from top to bottom.
If her hand slips, she might lose her nerve.
Mollie is standin
g up now and has pushed the empty metal bucket over. She bashes the metal spoon against it. The clattering noise vibrates inside Rose’s aching head. She starts to fold another vest – lay it out flat, turn the sleeves back, fold it in half from top to bottom. Mollie is rolling the bucket across the dark red and blue patterned carpet but her tiny hand catches in the metal handle and she yells. Rose moves to pull the bucket away, takes a deep breath and pushes her own screams away inside her.
For a moment she looks up towards the sitting-room window. It should be spring by now but it isn’t. Everywhere is strangely silent. So few people are left in the city now. She thinks of Frank, thin and shadowed standing in the hall, trying to smile. The last time he was home – lifting Mollie up, swinging her around. She wishes so much that she had been kind to him. It’s blackout time and she hears a voice calling from the street. Stand up, switch off the hall light, put the blackout blinds in place, draw the curtains. Arthur’s bags are stacked by the window but he stays over at Division B First Aid most of the time now.
Shelter. Shelter. Mollie waves her spoon, indicating the sound of the siren. They have to go to the shelter now. The shed in Broad Street where the bus was stored was blown up a month ago.
A knock sounds. Rose puts the light out, goes to the front door.
Miss Mayeford?
Rose would like to tell him that she’s really Mrs Fainwell. But she never changed her name, never even put Frank’s name on Mollie’s birth certificate. She regrets that petty rebellion now, would at least like to hold onto his name. Well, at least at the end of all this your conscience will be clear. How could she have said that to him?
Sorry, she says. The blind must have slipped. I’ll go and fix it.
Do you want a hand, love?
The warden follows her into the house. His eyes range over the bedding on the sofa, the unwashed plates, the cold grate. He goes to the window and adjusts the blind. Time to get to the shelter, he says. Come on love. I’ll give you a hand. Have you got your mask? And a coat for the child?
No, Rose says. No. I’m not going.
I can’t be responsible.
We’ll be all right here, Rose says. I can’t go.
Come on, love. You know the situation. It’s not the bombs, it’s the fires, the incendiaries. If the water goes off.
It doesn’t matter, Rose says.
The siren starts to wail and the warden shakes his head, hurries away, shutting the door after him. Rose takes the torch from the table, catches hold of Mollie’s hand, picks up Bobby the toy dog and heads to the cupboard under the stairs. Since the letter came, she hasn’t inhabited her own skin. She still doesn’t understand – the letter came from Portsmouth and Frank was in Stepney. She’d been sure there was some mistake but Fainwell isn’t a common name. And the letter was signed by Edwin Harris, Secretary of the Portsmouth Peace Pledge Union. A man like that wouldn’t make a mistake. Rose thinks of the neat, cramped handwriting. Contracted pneumonia and despite the best of medical attention was taken from us.
But no one dies of pneumonia, not with all these bombs coming down. Frank should at least have been allowed to die in an explosion or a burning building. When the letter came, Mr Bostock had gone to the post office to call for her because Rose wasn’t sure she would be able to speak properly on the phone, even if she could get to the post office. It took four hours for Mr Bostock to get through to Portsmouth and, when he did, the contents of the letter were confirmed.
But Rose is still waiting for Frank to come home.
Now she tells Mollie they aren’t going to the shelter and Mollie doesn’t understand, but neither does she protest. Rose moves a mattress from behind the sofa, pushes it into the cupboard and then lays damp blankets on top of it. The kettle on the range in the kitchen has boiled now and she makes a hot-water bottle and a cup of tea. She tries to remember when the letter came – a week ago or two weeks? It’s in her pocket and sometimes she hears the crackle of the paper as she moves.
It may be that she and Mollie have been dead for some time themselves but have failed to notice. Rose is glad to feel herself relieved of the responsibility of life. She guides Mollie into the cupboard and they lie down to sleep. She should read Mollie a story or play a game but she doesn’t want to waste the battery of the torch. So she pulls the child to her, puts the hot-water bottle next to them and arranges the blankets. In the darkness, she can hear Mollie sucking on Bobby’s ear. She has to keep her knees up because the cupboard is only four foot long. The darkness is absolute. The paper of the letter crinkles in her pocket.
She understands that Frank’s death was her fault. If only she’d continued to believe in him, then he would still be alive. She remembers the feel of him. His thighs, the rise of his buttocks under her hands. They had thought, the two of them, that they could outwit the likes of Violet, that they could take their own road. They’d been children, they hadn’t understood.
The bombs start, first a low crash, far away, then an explosion far closer. The force drives Rose’s eardrums towards the centre of her head. She claps her hands over Mollie’s ears. The floor of the cupboard shakes as another bomb comes down. Usually a few bombs come, and then there’s quiet for a while before the next wave of planes come over, but tonight there seems to be no break. Rose remembers the big November raid – the night the cathedral went. The bombs went on all through that night. Rose can identify the different kinds of bombs from the sounds they make but the most dangerous are the ones that make no noise as they fall. The anti-aircraft guns, stationed around the city, provide an alto line, a dim rattle. Everyone knows that they only fire the guns to raise people’s morale. They never actually hit a plane – in fact, the lights from the guns show the Germans where to bomb.
She should have gone to the shelter. This is November all over again, even though everyone had been sure it could never be that bad again. She weighs up in her mind what to do. The shelters are crowded out on a normal night. Probably the best bet would be the cellar under the college in Butt Street. That’s only three streets away. It’s dirty in that cellar and there will be nowhere to lie down but it might be safer. Is that smoke? Sitting up, she sniffs the air, then she leans over and pushes the door of the cupboard open.
Smoke. Definitely. Her stomach has turned to water. She opens the cupboard door, scrambles out, her legs stiff and numb. She feels for her shoes, pulls them on, fumbling with the laces. Then she reaches into the cupboard, wraps Mollie in a blanket and drags her out, propping the child’s drowsy head on her shoulder.
Bobby, Bobby.
Rose kneels down again, shines the torch into the cupboard, pulls the toy dog from the blankets. As she stands up, the front door opens, a flash of light blooms in the hall, a voice shouts.
The warden gathers Mollie in his arms and carries her to the front door. He stretches out his hand and Rose takes hold of it. Outside it’s light as the middle of day. The sky is littered with sparking balls of fire, and above the rooftops burns red. The street is alight with incendiary bombs which burn like Roman candles, flickering and hissing, throwing showers of sparks. Shadow men stand in the street with stirrup pumps, shovels, buckets of water. A parachute bomb, like a vast iron coffin, is suspended between the gable ends of two houses. Rose runs down the flame-dancing street.
Don’t look back, the warden says.
The pub on the corner is alight and a crater has been punched into the road. At least she hears the bomb. You never hear the one with your name on it. The warden pulls her down an alleyway between two houses and into the entry at the back of Shackleton Street. Looking up at the sky, they see a ball of light ahead of them. The warden shoves Rose into the back gate of a house and forces her down onto the ground. Mollie is underneath him, wailing. They feel the bomb hit, the ground buckles, a flash of light breaks on their closed eyes.
God spare us, the warden says.
He gathers Mollie up and they head on towards Butt Street. At the gate to the college, the warden hands Mollie to Rose
and sets off down the street towards the place where the bomb fell. Rose runs through the college gardens to the cellar entrance. When she gets there, they tell her that there is no room but they don’t try to turn her away. In the darkness, Rose and Mollie are pushed into a mass of bodies, of beating hearts, of people struggling to draw breath in the black heat. Somewhere at the side of shelter a man is singing in a reedy voice. Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be.
Because Rose has a child, she’s pushed towards the back. Pallets are propped on bricks and covered with mattresses, and children sleep, piled on top of each other like kittens. When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Rose lays Mollie down on the edge of a pallet, pushing her up next to a sleeping boy. She puts Bobby the stuffed dog into her pocket to make sure he doesn’t get lost. A man stands aside so that Rose can position herself near Mollie. Rose steadies herself against a tiled wall that’s running with condensation. Occasionally the light of a torch flashes in an arc across the low ceiling.
Rose is sweating but she’s packed in so close that it’d be hard for her to get her coat off. She hasn’t the energy anyway. The air around her buzzes. She tries not to think, not to feel. Don’t look back. An echo sounds – like someone far away tapping on a pipe, a secret message, a coded warning. People in the shelters usually stand in silence but now a woman starts to talk, and then another. Their voices rise to a shrill pitch. And then one of the women is screaming.
Stop it. Stop it now. Rose hears the sound of a slap, then sobbing. Time has ceased to pass. Morning must be ahead of them somewhere but it never seems to come and Rose stops believing in it. She feels that she has been in that cellar all of her life, even before her life began. And they will all of them remain in this cellar for all the centuries to come. Rose stares down at Mollie, as she shivers fitfully on the edge of the wooden pallet. She’s wondered sometimes if she should kill Mollie, if that might be the bravest course of action. That’s what the Japanese do, they kill themselves and their families rather than be captured.