Nick hooted. “Quite a log you left behind, brain-box. At least we won’t have any trouble finding our way back here again.”
Joel hadn’t done up his trousers. “Shut up. We’re in a survival situation. Umm, anybody got any un-scratchy paper?” They moved back through Agatha’s tunnel complex, away from the city centre.
They came up out of a dry old sewer, emerging in an empty workmen’s hut. They were just outside Queen’s Drive, the ring road that ran around the city centre, a short walk from Laura’s home in West Derby.
By now it was gone 8 a.m. Even inside the hut the light seemed dazzlingly bright. They hung back for a moment, unwilling to go outside. But they had been sleeping rough in a hole in the ground, and a bit of finger-combing and spit wasn’t going to make much difference.
They stumbled out. Nick staggered a bit in the daylight, and lifted his hand to his face. Bernadette took his arm.
It was a Thursday morning, Laura reminded herself. Thursday, 25th October. But it was nothing like a normal morning in Liverpool.
People hurried along the pavement, walking to work, looking anxious. Some clutched their identity cards, as if they expected to be challenged any moment. The shops were all closed up, with hand-lettered signs:
There was hardly any traffic about. No buses. A few lorries, some carrying troops or police. One petrol tanker, with squaddies riding shotgun on the back. There were a few private cars on the roads, but they were all heading out of the city, crammed with families, with baggage and furniture piled up on their roof racks.
“If you’ve got any petrol left,” Joel said, “you get out of the city.”
There was a phone box in the street, a red kiosk, standing empty. Laura stared at it. Joel said most private phones had probably been disconnected by now, but the public ones might still work.
She probably ought to make the call Dad had told her to make. To the Regional Director of Civil Defence, to tell him about the Key.
But were things bad enough yet? It would seem like giving up. She didn’t want to distract her dad, who surely had enough on his plate this morning. And besides, she had Mum to think about. She couldn’t just disappear down a hole and forget her.
“I can cope, Dad,” she said to the phone box.
Bernadette said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
They heard shouting. Laura saw people marching past a block away, hundreds of them, a river of people heading for the city centre. They had banners and placards. They were flanked by police and soldiers. All the police seemed to have guns. The shouts and whistles of the crowd sounded like the cries of seagulls.
Bernadette pointed up. “Look. A scally spotter.” A helicopter clattered overhead.
“Wouldn’t like to be in the middle of that mob when it all kicks off,” Nick said.
Laura asked, “What do you think it is?”
Joel shrugged. “A strike? An anti-war demonstration? A rationing riot? There are plenty of people who just get angry when their lives are turned upside down.”
Laura tried to stay in the shadows, and she kept an eye on the soldiers for any signs of blue uniforms, any signs of Mort or the Minuteman.
Joel said, “I wish we knew what was going on.” Even Joel, stuck down a hole in the ground, was out of touch with his CND networks now.
“Soon fix that,” Nick muttered.
He led them to an electrical store. It was shut up, but it still had stock in the window, fridges and electric irons. He took off his coat and wrapped it around his hand.
Joel saw what he was going to do. “Don’t. They’re probably shooting looters by now.”
Nick grinned. “Got to catch me first.” He slammed his arm through the window. The plate glass shattered and flew everywhere. They all had to jump back out of the way.
Nick scraped away the glass, and grabbed a transistor radio. It was a brick-shaped Bush model. He switched it on and there was a hiss of static. “Good,” he said, grinning. “Haven’t got to rob the batteries. Let’s leg it.”
“No,” Joel said. “Walk. Let’s not look shifty.”
Bernadette mocked him. “A real master criminal, you, aren’t you?”
But they all followed his advice.
As they walked, Nick turned the radio’s tuning knob. A glass panel was marked with the three BBC stations, the Light Service, Home Service and Third Programme. None of them had anything but a recorded message in a posh, plummy man’s voice. “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System. In case of a civil emergency, this system will bring you news, advice and government instructions. This is a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System…”
Nick twisted the dial, flitting past bands of static and a few scratchy foreign voices, French and German. Then he came to an American-sounding voice.
“This is Radio Free Luxembourg. Here on Lucky Luxie we’re going to continue to bring you all the hits from the toppermost of the poppermost. But we’re also bringing you all the news and views they don’t want you to hear. I’m Tony Dixie. Here are the headlines at 8.30 a.m.…”
“I know him,” Nick said. “The DJ. Met him in Hamburg.”
“Shut up,” Joel said.
“That Yank accent is a total fake. Comes from a council estate in Rotherham.”
“Shut up,” Laura said.
Kennedy’s “quarantine” of Cuba had started yesterday, Wednesday 24th. Some Russian ships had turned back peacefully enough. Today the Americans were going to raise the crisis at the United Nations. Maybe there could be some more diplomacy there. Nobody had got shot yet. But the tension was still rising.
“They’re talking with the ships,” Joel said. “That’s what they’re really doing. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Testing each other out. The ships are like chips on a poker table.”
“I hope the soldiers and sailors understand that,” Nick said.
That was it for the news. The DJ said, “Time for Tricky Dixie to spin another platter.” It was “Wonderful Land” by the Shadows.
Nick threw the radio against the wall. It broke open and fell silent.
Joel was shocked. “What did you do that for?”
Nick shrugged. “I hate the Shadows.”
They neared Laura’s home. Nobody could see any scuffers or squaddies about. That wasn’t to say they weren’t peering out of neighbours’ windows.
“We can’t just go in the front door,” Laura said. “We might be seen. And Mort might be sitting there waiting for me.”
“Can we get in that way?” Bernadette pointed. It was a narrow alley between Laura’s house and the one next door. “There’s a window.”
“That’s our kitchen window,” Laura said.
“Windows are there to be broken,” Nick said.
Bernadette said, “If we sneak in we might make it without this Mort spotting us, even if he’s there.”
They looked at each other. Joel shrugged. “Worth a try.”
Nick had a tougher time than with the electrical store’s plate glass, because this was a small window of thick frosted glass. When it was broken he pulled the jagged bits out of the wooden frame.
Then Joel wriggled through, followed by Laura. Bernadette came next, moving stiffly. When he tried to climb through, Nick was like a little old man, very fragile, and he complained in a whisper as they helped him through.
Agatha just slid through head first, pulled through her legs, and dropped to the kitchen floor. If she had grown up in tunnels and caves and cellars, Laura thought, she would be used to tight squeezes like that.
Laura led the way to the parlour.
Mum was sitting in an armchair, staring at the blank screen of a turned-off telly. She had her arms folded before her, and she was rocking backwards and forwards.
“Mum.”
“I know what you want.” Her voice was shrill. “Looters. Mr Churchill warned us about you. Take what you want. Just get out.”
“Mum, it’s me. Laura.”
Mum stood and whirled around. �
�Laura? Oh, God.” She ran to Laura and grabbed her. “Where have you been?”
“Is Mort here?”
Mum ran her fingers through Laura’s hair. “You’re such a mess. I thought you were dead!”
“Mum—Mort—”
“He hasn’t been home. I tried to phone the police but the phone is off. Then the police came anyway, and said you were breaking the curfew, and I’d be breaking the law too if I tried to protect you. I don’t think they believed me when I said I didn’t know where you were. And then—”
“Mum. It’s OK.”
Mum looked at the others. Joel and Bernadette, two scruffy schoolkids. Nick, a battered wreck in a Teddy Boy jacket. Weird Agatha, hanging at the back. “And who,” she snapped, “are this lot?”
“They’re friends, Mum.”
“Friends?”
“We came to get you. You’ll be safer with us. You have to come, right now.”
“She’s right.” Agatha came forward and stood beside Laura.
Mum stared at her, and at Laura, at their similar faces—two faces like her own.
Agatha swallowed. “Come with us. Grandma.”
Mum gave a little cry. Then she collapsed into Laura’s arms, in a dead faint. Agatha helped lower her to the floor.
Joel turned to Agatha. “Grandma?”
“Long story,” Agatha said. She grinned at him unexpectedly. “But you’re in it, Uncle Joel.”
He just stared.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Agatha said. “Laura, go pack her a bag. Bring sensible clothes. Slacks, shoes.”
Laura ran off to Mum’s room. The others went to grab food from the kitchen.
Chapter 20
They returned to the hole in the ground. To Mum’s credit, she didn’t complain about the dirt or the damp or the cold.
They had stolen a little camping stove and were able to brew mugs of tea. Joel and Bernadette tended to Nick, who was having a headache so bad, he said, he couldn’t even see.
Laura, Mum and Agatha sat together, blankets over their shoulders, cradling their mugs. Laura thought how strange they must look, the three of them, their similar faces in the candlelight.
“Dad phoned once since you left,” Mum said. “Yesterday. He asked for you.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s safe. He still hopes the crisis is going to end peacefully. Something about a deal they’re cooking up. The Americans have got a missile base in Turkey, near Russia. If the Russians give up their missiles on Cuba, America will give up Turkey in return. But it’s all hush hush.” She shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it either way, I suppose.”
Laura said, “Mum. I think we’ve got some talking to do.”
“All right,” Mum said.
“What’s Mort doing in our home?”
“He’s an old friend. I knew him in the war. I told you.”
“Yes. But, I mean, how did you know him, Mum?” She’d never had a conversation like this with Mum before.
Mum faced her. Her eyes were wide, her make-up bold and girlish, the lines around her mouth drawn tight. “I’m not ashamed of it,” she said. “Not even in front of you. Why should I be? It was wartime. We were adults. And we were in love.”
“Mum, you weren’t an adult. You were, what, fourteen when you met him? My age!”
“But I looked older,” she said. “I was always mature, you know. More than you. You had to be, in those days. There was a war on. You grew up fast.” Her eyes softened. “He took me dancing. He didn’t know how old I was, when we met. When he found out, he saw my identity card one day, he said he didn’t mind, although we had to keep it hush hush. He called me his little bobbysoxer.” She giggled.
“Grandma and granddad never knew.”
“They were two hundred miles away.”
“You were living with Cousin Peggy—”
“Oh, that frumpy old bat. She tried to ground me in her flat, but she didn’t have a clue… We danced away the whole war, it felt like. But then after VE Day he was assigned to a post back in the States. He said he’d send for me.”
“But he never did.”
Mum didn’t try to deny that.
“And then you met Dad.”
Dad had flown Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. After the war he stayed in the air force, gradually working his way up the command ladder. In 1946 he was a hero, still young, and lonely. And, in London, just a year after the end of the war, he met Veronica Lynch.
“I was only seventeen, and gorgeous,” Mum said. “He was terribly shy, but when he plucked up the courage to ask me to go dancing, we got on fine. Next thing you know, we’d fallen in love. A year later we got married, and a year after that—” She patted Laura’s cheek. “You! Nothing but trouble.”
“What about Mort?”
“We always kept in touch, Christmas cards, you know.”
“You forgave him for not sending for you to go to America.”
“Oh, yes. You’ve met him. You can’t be mad at a man like that for long! Then, just a few weeks ago, he phoned and said he was to be stationed for a bit at Burtonwood, you know, the big RAF base on the road to Manchester. And when he heard I was coming back to Liverpool he asked to visit. Well, I said, why just visit? We would have room for him to stay. He said it would be a help; the barracks at Burtonwood are full.”
“Does Dad know about you and Mort? What you got up to in the war?”
“Oh, of course he does, he’s not a fool.”
“And he doesn’t mind Mort moving in?”
“It’s nothing to do with him, is it? We’re separated.”
Laura had another hard question. “Mum—is Mort your lover now?”
“No!” That was another angry word. Then she said, more quietly, “No. Oh, maybe in the back of my mind I wondered if, you know… But I don’t think we ever will, not again. He doesn’t want me, you see. He wants the little girl he met in the war. But she’s gone. Might as well be dead.” She sounded as if she was going to cry. “We did have some fun, though. Just like the old days. But it got worse after that awful man came.”
“What man?”
“You remember. In the wheelchair. The Minuteman. Some kind of senior officer with new orders for Mort. Well, Mort changed, I can tell you. Oh, he was attentive enough to me. But suddenly he was fascinated by you, after that. For something you have, I think. Or something you could tell him. I don’t know. I didn’t care, either.”
Laura said tensely, “You’re my mum. I felt threatened by Mort. You brought him into the home. You should have protected me.”
She gave a soggy smile. “Oh, Laura, dear, look at me. When have I ever been able to protect anybody from anything?”
Suddenly Agatha put her arms around Mum. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. That’s true, isn’t it, Laura?”
Laura stared at her. Then she said, “Yes, that’s right.”
Mum seemed as surprised as Laura was to be embraced by Agatha. But she softened into Agatha’s hug. It seemed to feel right, to her.
Later Mum tried to nap under her overcoat.
Laura faced Agatha, in the corner of the cellar. “Now we need to talk.”
“I suppose so.”
“You called me ‘Mum.’ You called her ‘Grandma.’”
“I know.”
“What’s going on, Agatha? How can you be—” She could barely say the word. “How can you be my daughter? You must be twice my age.”
“More. But it’s true even so.”
“Where did you come from? How did you get here?” She frowned. “Never mind that. What do you want?”
Agatha dug into the pocket of her ratty overcoat, and pulled out a diary. Laura’s diary. Battered and scorched and stained.
Laura dug her own diary out of her blazer pocket. Except for the wear and tear, they were the same. Leather-bound, gold-edged pages. And she could see from the way the pages were dog-eared that Agatha’s copy had been filled in, long past where she had got to.
This was a copy of her diary, from the future.
Agatha said, “All the answers you want are in here.”
Laura looked up. “There’s something you want in return, isn’t there?”
“Your Key.”
Laura felt oddly disappointed. “You too? That’s why you’ve been helping me, and Mum? Just to get your hands on my Key, just like Miss Wells?”
Agatha’s cold face showed a flicker of shame. “If I get the Key, if I use it properly, it will help everybody.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“I trust you,” Agatha said.
Laura thought it over. “All right. Here’s the deal. Give me the diary first. When I’ve read it, I’ll decide about giving you the Key.”
Agatha hesitated. Then she nodded, and gave Laura the diary.
Laura held the two copies together, one on top of the other. They were a perfect match, one from her own bedroom, the other from some unimaginable future.
Bernadette called, “You two. Giz a hand. I think he’s having a fit.”
Laura could see Nick’s long legs in their drainpipe trousers twitching and drumming on the floor. Laura and Agatha hurried over to help.
It was only later, when things had calmed down and Nick had fallen into a post-drugged sleep, and Mum was dozing too, that Laura opened the diary again.
A smell of soot came off the pages as she turned them. Soot and ash.
Chapter 21
Saturday 27th October 1962.
9 a.m. So, Black Saturday.
Will it be as black as everybody’s fearing?
It was utterly weird to see these words, in her own handwriting, but to have absolutely no memory of writing them.
And to see them written down under a date which was still two days in the future.
Noon. News on another transistor radio. Nicked by Nick, ha ha.
Radio Luxembourg says they’ve started fighting in Cuba. American ships blowing up Russian freighters, Russian subs blowing up the Americans. Then the Americans started dropping bombs on Cuba, and the Cubans and Russians started shooting down planes.
THE H-BOMB GIRL Page 14