Lover

by Wilson, Laura

  None of us could think of a thing to say in reply, which wasn’t surprising, and after a few minutes of rather stunned silence, Dad said, ‘They’re late tonight. You’d best go upstairs and change your clothes.’

  We hadn’t heard the siren, but while I was putting on my slacks there was the most enormous crash, so loud that all the windows rattled and plaster came down from the ceiling and I lost my balance and almost put my foot through the trouser leg. I was trembling so much I had to sit down on the bed, and then there was another crash, and then the most almighty whomp! of something exploding. The entire house was shaking like a tree, and I could hear Mums shouting and then the guns opened up. I don’t think I’ve ever got downstairs so fast in my life—I was practically flying, and I shot straight into Dad’s arms and almost knocked him off his feet. When he’d got his breath back, he said, ‘Still in one piece?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘That’s the ticket.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Gas main, I should think. Good job we’ve eaten.’ Then he said, ‘I’d better get down to the post and see what I can do.’

  I watched him putting on his helmet and I suddenly thought, what a good person he is, for the way he puts up with Mums and is always so cheerful and calm and brave. I felt so full of gratitude and love that I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t want to be melodramatic and silly so I just said, ‘Be careful, Dad.’

  He smiled at me and I thought, perhaps he knew that wasn’t what I meant to say at all, and somehow that made it better than if I’d actually said it—can’t explain that properly, but it was something between us that was bigger than words. He said, ‘Don’t worry, Smiler. We’ll pull through. Look after your mother, she’s in a bad way. I told Minnie to fetch her some brandy.’

  I stood in the passage for a moment after he’d gone and I thought, whatever happens, I’ll always remember that. Then there was another huge bang, and I went haring into the kitchen and found Mums and Minnie under the table. Mums had her head in her hands, and was rocking and moaning, really wretched.

  Minnie whispered to me, ‘The brandy isn’t doing any good. I’m afraid she’ll go hysterical.’

  Mums kept saying, ‘Oh, Billy, Billy,’ over and over again.

  I put my arm round her shoulders and said, ‘Dad’s going to be fine. He’ll be careful. I made him promise.’

  ‘But he’s gone.’

  ‘Yes, but he’ll be back as soon as it’s over.’

  ‘He’s gone. He’s not supposed to be on duty, so why did he have to go?’

  ‘To help, Mums.’

  ‘I didn’t want him to go. I asked him not to.’

  ‘I know, but he had to.’

  Mums started to cry and Minnie put her arm round her, too, and we sat there in a row and listened to the bombs. It seemed to go on for ever—the nearest we’ve had yet—and every time there was a bang we all jumped. My heart must have missed more beats than it ticked. Minnie and I kept looking at each other over Mums’s head. ‘That sounded like Union Road,’ Minnie whispered.

  ‘At least we’ve still got our windows.’

  Mums jerked her head up. ‘Windows? Is the blackout—?’

  ‘It’s fine, Mums.’

  ‘Oh, Billy…’

  After a while there was a lull and we crawled out from under the table and across the passage to the cupboard under the stairs. I just had time to rush into the sitting room and grab the cushions from the sofa before it started again with that awful ripping sound like tearing a sheet, which means a high explosive, and I hurled the cushions into the cupboard and myself after them—right on top of poor Minnie—and we’d just about managed to get ourselves into some sort of order when there was another. The noise went on and on, and so did Mums’s whimpering, until I wanted to scream. I don’t know how she can stand it in this cupboard, night after night—it’s like being buried alive, and so airless I thought I was going to suffocate. For the first time, I felt furious that our family, or any human being, could be reduced to this, huddled like animals, quaking in a dark, squalid hole, robbed of sleep and comfort and unable to defend themselves, or even—which I badly wanted to do—spend a penny, but Mums had forgotten the pot.

  Every time there was a lull, I tried to get to the toilet, but Mums grabbed me and pulled me back again, and by the time we’d stopped arguing it would be too late because the next lot was coming over. The All-Clear went at four o’clock, by which time my bladder was ready to burst, my stomach was aching like anything and my legs were completely numb. I staggered off to the lav and then went to find a cigarette to steady myself. Minnie was in the kitchen, making tea on the spirit stove. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’re still here. Well done, House, for not falling down.’ It was a daft thing to say, but I knew exactly what she meant. Then she looked down and started laughing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your feet—look! You’ve got your tennis shoes the wrong way round.’ She was right. In all the commotion, I hadn’t even noticed. They looked so silly that I started to laugh, too—relief, I suppose—and the two of us just roared.

  When we’d pulled ourselves together, I said, ‘Don’t you want to go to bed?’

  ‘I’m not sleepy.’

  ‘Me neither. Fancy a game of dominoes?’

  ‘Why not? I’ll just take some tea to Mums, first.’

  We sat under the kitchen table, just in case. Neither of us said very much, and I could see from Minnie’s face that she was listening out for Dad, same as I was. After about an hour, we heard Mums snoring. Minnie went to look and came back with a half-empty brandy bottle. She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Did the trick in the end.’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘Be fair, Lucy, it was very close—and with Dad going out like that…’ she made a face. ‘I offered her some cotton wool to put in her ears when it started, and do you know what she said? “I won’t be able to hear what’s going on!” I said, “You don’t want to hear what’s going on,” and she said, “Yes, I do.” There’s no pleasing some people.’

  We talked about going upstairs again. I said Minnie ought to, and I’d wait up for Dad, but she wouldn’t, and then she said I should, and we were on the point of rowing about it when we heard, ‘Hello! Any more tea in the pot?’ and it was Dad, covered from head to foot in dust. He almost fell through the door and collapsed on one of the chairs.

  ‘What happened, Dad? You look exhausted.’

  ‘Let me get my breath, I’ll be all right in a minute.’

  Minnie said, ‘Let me take your helmet,’ but he shook his head.

  ‘Leave it.’

  We asked him to tell us what happened, but he didn’t say much, except to ask about Mums. I said, ‘Aren’t you going to drink your tea, Dad?’ because he hadn’t touched it, but he just said, ‘You two get some sleep. I’ll have to be off again in a minute.’ He sounded so tired and defeated, I knew he just wanted to be on his own. I turned back in the doorway and said goodnight, but he was staring straight ahead and seemed not to have heard me. With the white dust on him, and his eyes like craters in the shadow of his helmet, he looked like a ghost.

  We went upstairs in silence, and on the landing, Minnie said quietly, ‘He didn’t want to see us, did he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was trying to be Dad, when he came in—you know, be like he always is—but he couldn’t, could he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It must have been terrible.’

  I said, ‘Do you want to come in with me?’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’ Then she went into her room and closed the door.

  I wished she’d said yes. It’s frightening how much you rely on people to behave in a certain way, and how unsettling it is when they stop. But it’s not just Dad, it’s me, too. I looked in the mirror just before I got into bed, and was surprised to see anything there at all. I didn’t recognise the reflection behind the plaster dust. That must be what an animal sees when i
t looks into a mirror, a meaningless shape. I wiped the glass with my handkerchief, but it didn’t make any difference. I got into bed determined to pull myself together. It’s a bad thing to be too preoccupied with oneself, especially at the moment.

  Terribly tired, but it took for ever to drift off and then it was only a half sleep. Gave up at quarter to seven and went out into the back garden in my dressing gown to have a look round. It was light, but everything was grey and damp with drizzle. I could smell gas from the burst main. Not much in the way of damage, except windows blown out a few doors down. Ours look all right, though—must have been just far enough away. I concluded that most of the damage must have been in front of the house, not behind it, and was about to go and see, when I noticed a pair of bird’s wings, with soft, downy feathers, spread out in the middle of the lawn. They looked perfect, as if they’d been shed by a tiny angel, but I suppose they must have been torn off a carcass by a cat. Like a sign of some sort. I thought it would be bad luck just to leave them there, so I fetched a trowel and gave them a decent burial underneath a rosebush. They were so light when I picked them up, almost weightless. Strange to think of where they must have been, soaring across the sky—although when I looked up, that was hard to imagine because the sky seemed more like a great metal dustbin lid that had been slammed on top of the world to keep us down here with all this mess and misery, than something bright and clear and infinite. Extraordinary, though, to think that mankind has conquered it with machines. That made me think of what Mums said about aeroplanes. I suppose she’s right, in a way, because they are only machines—machines for killing. They only seem exciting and glamorous, when really they are no different from tanks or battleships. But we owe so much to those pilots…they must be the bravest men who ever lived.

  Found myself hoping, idiotically, that my dead bird could stand in place of an airman—its life in exchange for a human life. Said a short prayer to that effect over the rosebush, feeling very foolish, and hurried back indoors to get dressed.

  Dad was back at breakfast, but he didn’t say much. Minnie looked exhausted, and Mums was grumbling about the gas. I told her about the first aid lecture, and she said, ‘You won’t be too late, will you?’ I said I didn’t know and not to worry. It felt rotten. I hate lying. I suppose I could have come nearer the truth—said it was a date with Frank, but she’d only fuss and say it was irresponsible, and I really can’t stand all that at the moment. Perhaps it is irresponsible, but another night under the stairs would just about finish me, and besides, if I was fire-watching at the office I’d have to stay in London, wouldn’t I? Along with B, of course—but then it would be quite in order. They haven’t asked the women yet, but if they do I shall put my name down as a volunteer. I ought to do something, anyway. It’s not as if I’m any use to anyone sitting at home night after night, and Minnie’s far better at looking after Mums than I am.

  It was raining when I went to the station. I passed the end of Union Road: three houses down, and all that was left was an enormous crater with two great mounds of rubble on either side, bricks and plaster mixed up with bits of floorboards, linoleum, curtains, crocks—all the things that make a home. The rescue men had planks up the side of one of the heaps, and they were passing baskets of debris back down, I suppose to clear the way for a shaft through the top. There was an ambulance backed up, waiting. I tried not to think about who might be at the bottom of the rubble and, worse, what they might look like.

  I saw a warden cross the road with a woman’s handbag in one hand and a frying pan in the other. I couldn’t think where he was taking them. Curiosity got the better of me, and when I went to see, I realised that they were putting belongings from the bombed houses into one of the front gardens opposite. China plates with not a chip on them, a milk jug, saucepans, a man’s hat turned upside down…all laid out in rows on the muddy grass as if children were playing at a jumble sale. There was an old man standing beside them, looking dazed. When the warden showed him the handbag, I heard him say, ‘I don’t care about that. Where’s Peggy?’

  The warden said, ‘They’re still digging.’

  ‘What about Peggy?’

  The warden put down the things he’d been carrying and picked up the hat. ‘Is it yours?’ he asked. The old man looked at it as if he’d never seen a hat before.

  ‘Put it on,’ said the warden. ‘Keep the rain off your head,’ he explained, gently. ‘You’ll feel better.’

  The old man said nothing, but took the hat and put it on his head, and the warden left. The man stood staring straight ahead, and he suddenly said, ‘Thank you,’ to no one in particular. It was loud and forceful. ‘Thank you.’

  About ten minutes later I suddenly thought, if that pilot had dropped his stick of bombs a few seconds earlier—or later, depending on which way he was flying—our house would have looked like that and I wouldn’t be sitting in this train, I’d be part of the rubble, and so would Mums and Minnie, and it would be Dad standing in a neighbour’s garden with the warden telling him to put on his hat. But instead, the pilot dropped it over Union Road, so I was able to walk out into the garden this morning and find a pair of bird’s wings and bury them under a rosebush. It is all just chance, and we are so helpless.

  It was awfully nice to go out in the evening again. I suddenly realised, sitting in the restaurant, that I haven’t really been anywhere for several weeks. I’d said goodnight to all the girls in the office then rushed away to the National Gallery to meet B, who hustled me into a taxi straight away, which was rather exciting, like being a spy or something. We said our ‘hellos’ in the back, and he took me to a restaurant in Charlotte Street where we spent the next two hours getting tight on red wine and laughing a great deal. We heard the siren but nobody moved. I asked B if he didn’t think it odd to be eating in an Italian restaurant when our countries are at war with each other, but he said that none of them are fifth columnists, or they’d have been interned by now. And two of the owner’s sons were serving in the army—he’s put a notice about it on the wall—so I suppose it must be all right. Then he added, ‘Besides, they’re Italians,’ which made us both giggle, and then I said, ‘We shouldn’t really be laughing. I mean, that business over Somaliland made us look pretty silly, giving it up like that after everyone had said what a shame for Hitler having the Italians as allies and how lucky they weren’t on our side.’

  B said, ‘Well, at least they’ve got plenty of sand.’ We were laughing again, when he suddenly stopped. ‘Oh, Lord.’ His face had gone white.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Chap we know. Down there. Just stood up.’ He jerked his head towards the back of the restaurant. ‘Don’t look, you fool!’

  ‘What shall—’

  ‘Get out! Just go. I’ll settle the bill and come after you. Meet round the corner.’ He stood up, jerked my hat and coat off the stand, and almost threw them at me.

  Thirty seconds later I found myself standing on the pavement in the dark, shivering and feeling as if I’d just had a bucket of cold water flung in my face. In the restaurant, it had felt so warm and happy and right, and then to be pulled up short like that… Chap we know, he’d said. Meaning him and his wife. The wife whose existence I’d conveniently forgotten. I’ve no idea what she looks like, but suddenly I could imagine her, a real, flesh-and-blood woman, sitting in a chair in their house, listening to the wireless and thinking that her husband was out fire-watching. It all seemed so sordid, standing on the street corner in the middle of a raid, putting myself in danger and causing worry to others through my own selfishness, that I suddenly found myself wishing I was back under the stairs with Mums and Minnie.

  Then I heard footsteps, and as they grew closer I saw that it was B. As I started towards him I saw him make a quick shooing movement with his hand, then he crossed over to the other side of the road. I didn’t understand immediately, and was about to call out to him when I heard another set of footsteps, hurrying towards us. I shrank back into a doorway just as wh
oever it was must have caught up, because I heard a man’s voice say, ‘Bridges! I thought it was you. Which way are you going?’ I didn’t catch B’s reply, but they moved off together down the street, and I was left on my own, feeling very cheap and rather frightened. I suddenly thought of the warden this morning, handing the old man his hat, and it made me want to cry. Not because I wanted somebody to hand me a hat—I was wearing one—but the small kindness of it, wishing it for myself. It seemed such a terrible contrast with what had just happened in the restaurant, such a little action from a simple desire to help another human being without thought of gain or favour. It made me feel like the worst person in the world, an outcast from the rest of humanity, and I remembered the bird’s wings in the garden and thought, where’s my angel? If I had my own angel, everything would be all right. Not that I deserve one.

  The noise of the guns bucked me up, and I thought I’d better stop feeling sorry for myself and concentrate on getting home before it got any worse. I thought B and his friend must be heading for Tottenham Court Road, and I didn’t want to follow in case we met up at the station, so I turned and walked the other way. It was very dark, and pretty soon I was dashing around in a panic, with no idea which way to go. I could hear machine guns and aircraft, far off at first, then nearer, and when I looked up there were flares like exploding chandeliers, breaking up and dropping downwards, and then the sky was lit up in red and orange, turning the pavement pink and making the buildings flicker and glow in a sort of half light, rosy and magical. It was the most extraordinary sight, and for a moment I forgot that I was afraid, because it seemed as if the whole world had turned into a vast display of light, and I was at the centre of it—the strangest feeling, no awareness of danger, or even of myself, just wonder. Like being at the very heart of the universe.