by Pat Barker
Rachel and Elinor passed round plates of sandwiches. Tim said: “Shall I be Mother?” and poured the tea. Wasps kept up their priggish, bad-tempered whine around the jam and sugar bowls. One settled on Rachel’s shoulder, causing a huge commotion until Tim picked up a napkin and flicked it away.
Elinor took another napkin and spread it over the gooseberry tart. “Trouble is they get sleepy. It’s nearly always autumn when people get stung.”
Rachel looked surprised. “It’s not autumn.”
“It’s September,” Paul said.
For a moment, Rachel looked completely bewildered, and they understood how, for her, the whole summer had been swallowed up in her mother’s dying. And immediately the shadows creeping towards them over the grass seemed longer and darker.
“Gooseberry tart,” Rachel said. “Elinor, could you help Mrs. Murchison with the plates?”
The gooseberry tart, cut into huge slabs and drizzled with cream, was amazing: Mrs. Murchison had surpassed herself. The wasps certainly thought so. Paul was waiting for somebody to suggest they do the obvious common-sense thing and move indoors; he might have suggested it himself, only at that moment he heard a different kind of buzzing, and, almost simultaneously, the sirens set up their disconsolate wail.
Even then, the little group on the lawn was reluctant to move. Lethargy, caused by the emotional upheaval of the past few days, and the need, shared by everybody this summer, to make the most of every last glimmer of sunshine, kept them pinned to their chairs. Only Paul, who still, so many years after the last war, reacted rather differently from most people, jumped to his feet. Splaying his fingers, he peered through them at the sky. “My God, look at them.”
A formation of bombers was coming towards them, fighter planes circling around them like gnats. Enemy fighter planes, there to protect the bombers from attack. Nobody moved; reluctant, even now, to take shelter from a threat they only half believed in. There’d been several raids in the last few months, but most of those on the coast; one or two on the outskirts of London. “Nuisance raids,” the papers were calling them, though presumably they were more than a nuisance to the relatives of those who’d been killed.
Elinor was on her feet too now, shielding her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many.”
“They’ll be heading for London,” Tim said. “For the docks. I suppose I ought to think about getting back.”
Rachel turned on him. “Why? What on earth can you do about it?”
It seemed impossible the planes should keep on coming, but come on they did. Kenny became tremendously excited and ran round and round the lawn pretending to be a Spitfire, which did rather underline the fact that there were no actual Spitfires in the air.
“Not much resistance, is there?” Elinor said.
“They’re waiting.” Tim didn’t sound at all confident. “Being held in reserve.”
“For what?”
Everybody knew something out of the ordinary was happening, but at the same time it seemed unreal, less threatening than the solitary plane that had flown low over the garden only five days ago.
“They’ll split up, won’t they?” Rachel asked.
Tim shook his head. “I don’t think so, I think this is it.”
Paul looked at Elinor. “I ought to go back.”
“I doubt you’ll be able to,” Rachel said.
“He might,” Tim said. “All the traffic’s going to be coming the other way.”
“What, refugees?” Rachel sounded alarmed.
“Why not? Civilians under fire, there’s always the possibility of panic.”
“Well, as long as they don’t land on us.”
“Not very patriotic,” Elinor said.
“I’ve done my bit.”
It was so obvious what Rachel meant that they all looked round for Kenny, but he’d seized the opportunity to take the last two slices of gooseberry tart and was nowhere to be seen.
“I wouldn’t have thought there’s much point going back tonight.” Tim was looking at Paul. “It’ll be over by the time you get there.”
It was easy, once the drone of bombers had receded, to accept what he said, settle back and enjoy the last of the sun. The shadows now had swallowed more than half the lawn. A single star clung to the topmost branches of the fir tree, and the sky above the distant hill, where the stricken German plane had gone down, was fading to a pale translucent green.
“This is perfect,” Elinor said.
But then, a short time later, a plague of midges descended on bare arms and legs and they were glad to pick up their plates and cups and run for the shelter of the house. Only then, surrounded by the familiar walls and furniture, did the reality of the war reassert itself.
“I wonder if there’s any news,” Tim said.
They all gathered round the wireless, while Tim fiddled with the knobs, producing a great buzzing and crackling interspersed with short bursts of music. After a while, he gave up and tried to telephone several people in London, but it was impossible to get through. He was starting to look uneasy. “I’ll drive up in the morning, see what’s going on.”
As if that was going to make a difference, they all silently thought. They went through into the drawing room, where they decided the sun had definitely fallen over the yardarm and it was high time they had a drink.
Two glasses of whisky later, Rachel was already slightly slewed. She squinted at Elinor, as if a sea fret had suddenly blown into the drawing room. “You’re not really going to drive an ambulance, are you?”
“Ye-es.”
“But, Elinor, you can’t drive.”
“I can, actually.”
“She’s rather good,” Paul said. Well, decisive, anyway.
“I simply can’t imagine it.”
“They wouldn’t let her do it if she wasn’t competent.”
Poor Elinor. When he’d first met her family, Paul had been inclined to think her complaints about them were unjustified, but over the years, he’d seen how consistently her mother and sister undermined her, though he didn’t quite know why she was singled out for criticism in this way.
Mrs. Murchison appeared in the doorway. “I’m off now, madam.”
“Oh, yes, thank you. Where’s Kenny? Is he in bed?”
“I don’t know, madam. I thought he was in here with you.”
“I expect he’s still in the garden. Elinor…?”
“He won’t be out there now,” Elinor said. “It’s dark.”
Rachel waved a hand vaguely at the blacked-out window. “He catches moths.”
“God, yes, and he uses a lamp.” Tim made an unconvincing show of getting out of his armchair. “We’ll have the air-raid warden down on us like a ton of bricks.”
Rachel said, “Frightful little man, always looking for something he can tell me off about, he just can’t wait.”
Paul put his glass down. Elinor said, “No, look, you stay here, I’ll go.”
—
IT WAS A relief to get out of the house. Rachel had been starting to needle her, as she always did when she’d had a few drinks.
The moonlight and the blacked-out windows behind her made the garden seem a wild, even dangerous, place. She could see the attraction being out here at night would have for a child. At Kenny’s age, she and Toby had been great bug hunters: soaking sheets of purple paper in sugar water then arranging them around an oil lamp under the trees. Moths had been Toby’s speciality. She remembered herself as a girl in a white dress with moths fluttering all around her, a blizzard of moths, and Toby saying: “Keep still.” She froze, instantly, and he pointed to a huge dark moth that was clinging to her chest. He bent to look more closely, his pupils in the lamplight tiny pinpricks of black. “Do you know, I think it’s a Death’s Head.” “I don’t care what it is, get it off me.” Jigging up and down, afraid to touch the moth that clung and clung and rubbed its things together. “No, keep still, they’re rare.” So she kept still, while he came closer and closer until sh
e could feel his breath on her neck, almost as if he were the moth and she the flame…
But it wasn’t fair. Middle-aged, now, searching through a moonlit garden for a child who wasn’t hers, she wanted to protest: he was older than me. Two years older. How could I possibly have known? Decades too late for that. Forget, she told herself. Some things can only be forgotten.
“Kenny?”
No reply. She walked round the side of the house to the gate and looked up and down the lane. The moon was bright enough for her to see the black squares of gun emplacements on the river banks. No guns fired tonight, though; no fighter planes in the sky.
Paul came out of the house. “Any luck?”
“No, he might just have gone to bed.”
“No, I’ve checked.” He joined her by the gate. “I hope the little bugger hasn’t run off. Bet he has.”
“No, I don’t think—”
“There was too much talk at teatime about the East End being bombed. His mother’s there, for God’s sake.”
Rachel had come to the door. “No sign?”
“No.” Elinor was trying not to sound worried.
“He’ll have gone to the station,” Paul said.
“Well, he’ll be out of luck, then.” Tim, peering over Rachel’s shoulder. “There’ll be no trains running tonight.”
“Would he have any money?” Elinor asked.
“Oh, yes,” Rachel said.
Tim explained: “He steals.”
“When did we last see him?” Elinor asked.
On the lawn at teatime, that was the general opinion. Nobody could be more precise than that.
“So he’s been gone for hours,” Paul said.
Elinor chafed her bare arms as if the night had suddenly grown colder. “I think he’s still here. He’s probably up there now, laughing at us.”
“I’ll just check the station,” Paul said.
“Hang on, I’ll come with you.”
“No, you stay with Rachel.” He lowered his voice. “And for God’s sake, try to get her to lay off the booze, she’s half-cut already.”
“You won’t be long?”
“No, you go on in, I’ll be all right.”
Reluctantly, she let go of his arm and went back into the house.
—
DRIVING DOWN THE long tunnel of trees with only the thin beams of blackout headlights to guide him, Paul felt a small sense of relief at getting away from the house and the empty bedroom upstairs. To have something concrete to do—find the little bugger and bring him back—helped enormously. He told himself he wasn’t seriously worried: a boy that age couldn’t have got far. On the other hand, Kenny wasn’t most boys.
At the station, Paul parked in a great spray of gravel and ran on to the platform. Despite Tim’s certainty, there might still be some local trains running and if he’d got on one of those he could be anywhere by now. The platform was deserted. Standing on the edge, Paul looked up the line towards London, where an ominous red glow was lighting the underbelly of the clouds. His fear, now—because his fears kept shifting—was that Kenny had come to the station, realized there were no trains, and had simply jumped down on to the track and started walking. That would solve one problem: finding his way. Walk along that line and, yes, you would reach London, in the end. He could be miles away by now. Or—let’s be optimistic—he might have decided to wait till morning.
Finding the door of the waiting room unlocked, Paul went in and flashed the dim needlepoint of his blackout torch around the walls. Posters advertising day trips to the seaside: children building sandcastles on beaches, buckets, spades, swings, roundabouts: all as innocent and far away as childhood itself. Only one poster, newer than the rest, warned of the dangers of careless talk. No Kenny. It was beginning to look as if he had set off to walk. Paul closed the door and went to the end of the platform. The more he thought about it the more obvious it seemed: Kenny would simply follow the lines.
Paul jumped down on to the track and started to walk, his footsteps loud on the gravel. Moonlight sliding along the rails beside him made him feel as if he were wading through water. He was treading on the heels of his own faint shadow. At the bend in the line, he stopped, the tracks stretching out ahead of him into the far distance. It was pointless to go on, when he didn’t even know whether Kenny had chosen this route or not.
He turned and started to go back, but then a movement in the buddleia bushes by the side of the track caught his eye. There was no wind to account for the movement, but it could be an animal, a fox out hunting, though something in the waiting silence felt human. Quickly, he darted up the bank and dragged out a struggling Kenny, a little, yelping, spitting ball of fury who kicked at his shins and, finally, bit his hand. “Ouch, you little sod.”
Kenny went still. “I’m not going back.”
“What are you going to do, then? Stay here?”
“Getting the train.”
“Not tonight you’re not.”
“There’ll be one in the morning.”
“All right, then, but what’s the point of staying here tonight? When you could be sleeping in your own bed?” A mulish silence. “Look, why don’t we talk about it in the morning? Just let’s get you home and—”
The boy wrenched himself free. “That’s home.” He jabbed his finger at the red glare in the sky.
It was Paul’s turn to be silenced. At that moment, he knew he had to take Kenny to see his mother. Not necessarily to stay with her, but at least to see her. “She’ll be all right, you know.”
“No, she won’t, she’s only got a shelter in the backyard and she won’t even go in it.”
“Why won’t she?”
“She says she can’t breathe, she just—” He shook his head, on the verge of tears.
“Tell you what, come back now and—”
“No.”
“Listen. I’ll take you to see her.”
“Now?”
“No, in the morning, it’s too—”
“She could be dead by then.”
Deep breath. “Kenny, you can’t go tonight.”
Kenny heaved a great sigh of resignation, his shoulders dropped and he started to trudge back towards the station.
Paul relaxed. “There’s a good lad.”
Then, without warning, Kenny dodged round him and raced away along the track. Oh for God’s sake. Paul set off after him, lurching from side to side, gritting his teeth against the pain in his knee—running on gravel was almost impossible. Mad, he thought. And dangerous. Local trains might still be running and like everything else these days they operated with dimmed lights. If there was one on the other side of the bend, it could be on you before you knew it. And Kenny was already well ahead.
“Kenny, all right!”
The boy looked over his shoulder, tripped and fell. But he was up on his feet again in a minute, brushing gravel from his knees, by the time Paul came panting up.
“You stupid little bugger, if a train had come round that bend you wouldn’t’ve stood a chance.”
“Thought you said there weren’t any.”
“Local trains.”
“Well, why can’t I get on one of them, then, and walk the rest of the way?”
“Because it’s miles.”
He realized Kenny had no idea where he was, or London was, or—supposing he ever got to London—where the docks were…Nothing. Not a bloody thing. And yet, if Paul forced him back to the house, he’d just wait for the first opportunity and run away again. He needed to see his mother.
“Look, all right, we’ll go tonight, but you’ve got to go back and tell everybody, do it properly. Right?”
Kenny nodded. “You promise, though?”
“I promise.”
“All right.”
—
THEY FOUND THE family still in the drawing room, slumped in armchairs with the dazed, disorientated look of the recently bereaved and the totally pissed.
“I’m taking him home,” Paul said.
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Elinor looked up. “You mean, to our house?”
“No. Well, yes, that first. Then his.”
She shook her head. “You can’t do that.”
“He wants to go.”
“And that’s a reason? Paul, it’s mad. Oh, all right, if he wants to see his mother, fair enough…But surely it can wait till morning?”
Paul felt the boy’s eyes on him. “No, it’s got to be tonight. I promised.”
“Then you shouldn’t have done!”
Rachel stood up. “I’ll just pack a few things.”
Holding on to the backs of chairs, she made it to the door. She was making no effort to postpone their departure, nor even to assert her right to take the decision. The truth was, she was as keen to get rid of Kenny as he was to go. And Tim said nothing. It was all rather disgraceful, but it did at least confirm Paul’s view that the boy would be better off with his own family. While Rachel moved around upstairs, Paul and Elinor stood a few feet away from each other, Elinor with her bare arms clasped across her chest, Paul smoking furiously.
“You will ring when you get there?” she asked.
“If I can get through.”
A few minutes later, Rachel came down with a small battered suitcase, the same one Kenny had arrived with a year ago, though the clothes inside were all new. She’d given him a few Boy’s Own annuals and the toy soldiers. Kenny’s eyes widened when he opened the paper bag and saw them.
“What do you say?” Elinor asked.
“Thank you.”
He was hugging them to his chest as if they might be taken back at any moment.
“Come on, then,” Paul said.
Kenny went round the circle, shaking hands. “Thank you for having me.”
It was an oddly stilted performance, heartbreaking in a way. It brought tears to Paul’s eyes. Perhaps Kenny had, after all, grown fond of this family who’d taken him in so reluctantly?
But he didn’t look back or wave as they drove away.
EIGHT
As they were leaving the village, Paul glanced sideways at Kenny. “I’d try to get some sleep if I were you. It’s a long way.”
