Blackout

by Connie Willis

  “I’ll be fine,” he insisted, but she still hesitated.

  “I don’t know. If you were to catch cold—”

  “I won’t. I’ll be fine.” Go.

  She went, after extracting a promise that he would “ring for Matron” if he felt the slightest chill, and he scrawled in the crossword answers he’d worked out the night before—4 across: divebomber, 28 down: cathedral, 31 across: escape—pushed the blankets aside, listened a moment to make sure she wasn’t coming back, and started his circuit.

  Bookcase, window—his foot had stiffened up over the last three days. He had to force himself to put his weight on it. Clock, potted palm, high-backed chair.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” a voice said from the depths of the chair. “I thought you were supposed to keep your weight off that foot, Davis.”

  There are no civilians.

  —ENGLISHWOMAN, ON BEING ASKED ABOUT CIVILIAN MORALE IN LONDON DURING THE BLITZ

  London—September 1940

  EILEEN REFUSED TO TAKE ALF BACK INTO THE HOUSE TO use the loo. “They’re dropping bombs out there,” she said. “You’ll simply have to wait till it’s over.” And when he predictably declared he couldn’t, she felt about in the water under the bunks to see if the Anderson shelter was provided with a chamber pot.

  It was, but Alf refused to use it. “In front of you ’n’ Binnie?” he said, at which point Binnie said she had to go, too, and Theodore said, his teeth chattering, that he was cold. Eileen was shivering, too, and her wet feet felt like ice.

  I was wrong, she thought. We won’t be blown to bits, we’ll freeze to death, and as soon as there was a lull in the bombing, darted back into the house with the children. She took the torch, but they didn’t need it. The garden was bright from the fires around them. Even inside the house there was more than enough light to find their way.

  How could Polly have wanted to observe this? Eileen wondered, rummaging for blankets and attempting to hurry the children along. “The bombers will be back soon,” she said, hustling them down the stairs, but the planes were already here. A bomb whistled down, shaking the house, as they hurried through the kitchen to the back door.

  “I’m scared,” Theodore said.

  So am I, Eileen thought, handing the blankets to Binnie and scooping Theodore up and running with him to the Anderson and into the shock of the icy water. “Binnie, hold the blankets up so they don’t get wet—where’s Alf?”

  “Outside.”

  Eileen dumped Theodore on the upper bunk and ran back outside. Alf was standing in the middle of the grass, gazing up at the red sky. “What are you doing?” she shouted over the drone of the bombers.

  “Tryin’ to see what sort of planes they are,” he said, and there was a shuddering boom up the street and a flickering red glow. “A fire!” he shouted and started to run toward it.

  Eileen grabbed him by the shirttail, shoved him through the door, and yanked it shut as another thunderous boom shook the shelter. “That’s it,” she said. “Now go to sleep,” and amazingly, they did.

  But not before Binnie complained about her blanket being scratchy and Alf argued, “It’s a spotter’s job to find out whether they’re Dorniers or Stukas.” But once they were wrapped in the dry blankets, they—and Eileen—slept till another siren went.

  This one had an even, high-pitched tone which she was afraid signaled a poison gas attack. She shook Binnie awake to ask her. “That’s the all clear,” Binnie said. “Don’t you know nuthin’?” and there was a loud, reverberating knock on the door.

  “I’ll wager it’s the warden, come to arrest you now the raid’s over,” Alf said, emerging from his blanket. “I told you you ain’t s’posed to shine a torch in the blackout.”

  But it wasn’t a warden. It was Theodore’s mother, overjoyed to see Theodore and oblivious to the water, though when they’d all trooped back inside, she insisted Eileen take off her wet stockings and put on a pair of her own slippers. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for bringing my dear boy all this way to me,” she said, making Horlick’s for all of them. “Do you live in London, then?”

  Eileen told her her cousin had just come to London to work in an Oxford Street department store. “But she didn’t say which one. I wrote to ask her, but her answer hadn’t arrived when we left, so I don’t know where she lives or works.”

  The neighbor, Mrs. Owens, came in then and said the Browns had been bombed out. “Was anyone hurt?” Mrs. Willett asked.

  “Only Mrs. Brown’s littlest, Emily. She was a bit cut up, but the house is a complete ruin,” she said, and Eileen shivered, remembering that irresponsible trip back to the house.

  “You’ve caught a chill,” Mrs. Willett said to her. “You must lie down. What a time of it you’ve had, your first night in London. You must stay and make up the sleep you lost.”

  “I can’t. I must take Alf and Binnie to their mother and then go find my cousin,” Eileen said. So I won’t have to spend another night in that Anderson. Or this century.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Willett said. “But you must at least stay to breakfast, and if you don’t find your cousin immediately, you must come back and stay with us. And if there’s anything either of us can do to help—”

  “If I could give this as an address where I can be reached, in case I need to leave my cousin a message—”

  “Of course. And I’m certain Mrs. Owens would let you give her telephone as a number where you can be reached.”

  Eileen thanked her, though she hoped she wouldn’t need either, or the offer to “stay as long as you like,” which she extended again as Eileen left. “I want to go with Eileen,” Theodore said.

  “Come along, Alf, Binnie,” Eileen said, anxious to be gone before Theodore asked her if she was coming back. “Let’s go find your mother.”

  “She won’t be there,” Alf predicted.

  She wasn’t, and the person who answered Eileen’s knock this time—a worn-out-looking woman with a squalling infant in her arms and two toddlers hanging on her skirts—wouldn’t even open the door all the way. When Eileen asked if Alf and Binnie could stay with her, she shook her head. “Not after what they done to my Mickey.”

  “Well, do you know when—?” Eileen began, but the woman had already shut the door and locked it. I am never going to get rid of these children. They’re going to be attached to me forever.

  “What now?” Alf asked.

  I have no idea, she thought, standing irresolutely on the pavement. She needed to find Polly. But even if she found her, she couldn’t go through the drop till she’d disposed of Alf and Binnie.

  But she could at least locate Polly and find out where the drop was and then, when Mrs. Hodbin finally made it home, she could go straight to it. “Come along,” she said. “We’re going shopping.”

  “With all this lot?” Binnie asked, holding up their bags.

  She was right. They could scarcely walk into a department store like this. “We’ll ask her if you can at least leave your things here,” she said, starting up to the door.

  “No! They’ll pinch our stuff,” Binnie said.

  “I know a place,” Alf said. He grabbed the bags, tore off up the street with them to the bombed house, clambered up onto the rubble, and behind a still-standing wall. He reappeared immediately, without their luggage, and jumped down off the rubble to the pavement. “Where are we goin’ shoppin’?” he asked.

  “Oxford Street,” she said. “Do you know how to get there?”

  They did, and she was almost glad they were along to navigate the tube station and find the right platform and get off at the right stop. They weren’t in the least intimidated by the size of Oxford Circus station or its network of tunnels and two-story-long escalators, or by the masses of people. Had people actually slept here during the raids? How did they manage to keep from being trampled?

  The pavement outside was just as crowded as the tube station had been, with automobiles and taxis and enormous double-decker buses roaring
past. I’m glad I only had to drive on country lanes, Eileen thought, standing on the corner, looking in vain for the stores Polly’d named. There were scores of shops and department stores in this block alone, and the line of them stretched as far as she could see in both directions. Thank goodness she knew which three Polly might be working in. If she could find them. She scanned the names above the doors—Goldsmiths, Frith and Co., Leighton’s—

  “What’re you lookin’ for?” Alf asked.

  “John Lewis,” she said, and then, so they wouldn’t think that was a person, “It’s a department store.”

  “We know,” Binnie said. “It’s this way,” and dragged Eileen down the street.

  They passed department store after department store—Bourne and Hollingsworth, Townsend Brothers, Mary Marsh—and all of them were enormous buildings with at least four floors. Selfridges, on the other side of the street, covered an entire block. Let’s hope Polly’s not working there, Eileen thought. It would take a fortnight to find her.

  But Padgett’s was nearly as large, with even more grandiose Greek columns along its front. John Lewis, two streets down, had columns as well, plus unboarded-up display windows. Eileen corralled Alf and Binnie—who’d gone next door to Lyons Corner House to look at the pastries in the window—and tried to clean them up a bit. She tied Binnie’s sash and straightened her collar. “Pull up your socks,” she told them, rummaging in her handbag for a comb.

  “I’m ’ungry,” Binnie said. “Can we go in here?”

  “No,” Eileen said, yanking the comb through her tangles. “Tuck in your shirt, Alf.”

  “We ain’t ’ad nothin’ to eat in hours,” Alf complained. “Can’t we—?”

  “No,” she said, trying to hold him still so she could give him a quick spit bath with her handkerchief. “Come along.”

  She took their hands and led them over to the entrance. And stopped, stymied. There was no door, only a sort of glass-and-wood cage, divided into vertical sections. “Ain’t you never seen a revolving door?” Alf said, and darted into one of the sections, pushing on it to make it turn, followed by Binnie, giving a running commentary on how to do it. Eileen trusted neither it nor the Hodbins, but in spite of a momentary feeling of being trapped, she made it through and inside the store.

  And what a store! Hanging brass-and-glass lamps and carved wooden pillars and polished floors. The counters were of oak, and behind them rows of brass-handled drawers went all the way to the high ceilings. On each counter stood an elegant lamp and behind each one an equally elegant young woman.

  Oh, dear, Eileen thought. John Lewis was clearly too good for a housemaid and two slum children—and the problem wasn’t just that they stood out in their shabby clothes. Eileen had intended to pretend to look at merchandise till she’d located someone she could ask, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Except for several hats on a brass hat stand, and some folded scarves on one of the counters, no merchandise was on display. She was obviously supposed to ask to see things, and the salespeople just as obviously wouldn’t believe she could afford anything in the store.

  Her assessment was rapidly borne out by a middle-aged man in a frocked coat and striped pants bearing down on the three of them with an appalled expression. “May I assist you, madam?” he asked, sounding as appalled as he looked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m looking for someone who works here. Polly Sebastian?”

  “Works here? As part of the cleaning staff?”

  “No, as a shopgirl.”

  “I think you must have the wrong store, madam,” he said, his tone of voice clearly saying, “We would never hire anyone who knew the likes of you.”

  He won’t even check to see if she works here, Eileen thought, and he won’t let me look for myself either. In another minute he’d be escorting them to the revolving door, and there’d be no way he’d let them back in. I should never have brought Alf and Binnie with me, she thought, and had a sudden inspiration. “These children are evacuees,” she said. “They’re staying with Lady Caroline at Denewell Manor. I’m her maid. She sent me to London to have them outfitted with new clothes. I was told to ask for Miss Sebastian.”

  “Oh, of course,” he said, all smiles now. “You’ll want our children’s department. That’s on the third floor. This way, if you please,” he said, leading the way, and for a moment she was afraid he intended to go with them up to third, but he stopped outside a lift. A boy not much older than Binnie leaned out and asked, “Which floor, miss?”

  “Third,” Eileen said and stepped in with the children. The boy reached forward to shut the wooden door, pull the brass gate across, and push down on the lever. The lift started up.

  “Second floor, men’s wear and shoes,” the boy recited mechanically. “Third floor, children’s wear, books, toys.” He pulled the gate open, opened the door, and held it for them while they exited.

  Eileen had worried they’d immediately be confronted by another striped-pants person, but the one on this floor was assisting a woman and her daughter.

  Good, Eileen thought, taking Alf and Binnie by the hand and starting across the floor in the opposite direction, but Alf and Binnie dug in their heels and refused to move. “We’re ’ungry,” Binnie said.

  “I told you—”

  “So ’ungry we might say something we ain’t s’posed to,” Alf said.

  “Like Lady Caroline didn’t really send you.”

  Why, you wretched little blackmailers. But she didn’t have time to argue with them. Striped Pants was coming this way. “Very well, I’ll take you to Lyons for lunch,” she whispered. “After I finish here.”

  “Lunch and a sweet,” Binnie said.

  “Lunch and a sweet. If you help me find my cousin.”

  “We will,” Alf said, and they were as good as their word. When Striped Pants asked Eileen if he could assist her, Alf said promptly, “We’re Lady Caroline’s evacuees,” and looked appropriately pathetic.

  “You’ll want our children’s department then,” Striped Pants said. “This way.”

  And what do I do when I get there? Eileen wondered, half sorry she’d invented the evacuee story. Now she couldn’t ask the shopgirls if Polly worked here, and what excuse could she give for not buying anything when they reached Children’s Wear?

  But Alf came through for her. “Eileen, I feel like I’m gonna be sick,” he said, clutching his stomach, and Striped Pants led them hastily to the ladies’ lounge instead.

  Once inside, Alf said, “I know a better way to go up and down without no floorwalker seein’ us.”

  A floorwalker, that was what Striped Pants was.

  “Come on,” Alf said, and led her—with Binnie acting as lookout—over to a door marked Stairs and through it into a stairwell. Eileen followed them, trying not to think about why he and Binnie were both so familiar with department stores and revolving doors and lifts. Blackmail and shoplifting.

  But she had to admit using the stairs was a stroke of genius. It was possible to stand inside their windowed doors and survey the entire floor before emerging. If Polly had been there, Eileen would have seen her.

  But she wasn’t. Eileen searched all six floors, including the basement, part of which had been fitted up as a shelter, but there was no sign of her. “Can we have our lunch now?” Binnie begged.

  “And a sweet,” Alf added.

  “Yes,” Eileen said, steering them out of the store and next door to Lyons. “You’ve earned it,” though when she saw the prices she regretted agreeing to the sweet. “No, you may not have the four-course meal,” she told Alf, who had found the most expensive thing on the menu. “I said lunch.”

  “But it’s already past three,” Binnie said. “We should get lunch and tea.”

  “Past three?” Eileen said, looking over at the clock, but Binnie was right. It had taken the better part of the afternoon to search John Lewis. She’d planned on doing Padgett’s after the children ate, but it was even larger than John Lewis, and she had to deli
ver Alf and Binnie or be stuck with them for another night. And by the time she got them to Whitechapel and came back, the raids would be starting.

  She hurried them through their lunch and pudding, out of Lyons, and back up the street toward Oxford Circus. “Marble Arch is nearer,” Binnie said, pointing in the other direction.

  She was right. Marble Arch station was only a short distance from Lyons and an even shorter one from Padgett’s. Eileen made a mental note to use Marble Arch when she came back.

  If she had time to come back. What if their mother’s still not there and I have to take them back to Theodore’s with me? Eileen thought, waiting on the platform for their train. But when they reached Gargery Lane, she was—a blowsy woman in a frayed silk kimono who’d clearly been awakened by Eileen’s knocking. Her blond pompadour was mussed and her makeup smeared.

  “What’re you two doing here?” she demanded when she saw Alf and Binnie carrying the luggage Alf had just retrieved from the bombed house. “Threw you out, did they?”

  Eileen explained about the manor being taken over, but Mrs. Hodbin wasn’t interested. “Have you got their ration books?”

  “Yes,” Eileen said, handing them over. “They both had the measles this summer, and Binnie was very ill.”

  But Mrs. Hodbin wasn’t interested in that either. She snatched the ration books, ordered Alf and Binnie inside, and banged the door shut.

  Eileen stood there a moment, feeling oddly… what? Cheated, because Mrs. Hodbin hadn’t let her say goodbye to them? That was ridiculous. She’d been trying for the last three days to rid herself of them. And now you’re free to go find Polly and her drop and go home, she told herself, hurrying down the stairs and up the street, past the bombed-out tenement. I hope they’ll be all right.