But that didn’t help her dispel the sick fear she felt at the thought of Peter going to France. Let someone else go for you, she wanted to shout at him. Stay here and be safe and give me a reason for going on as I do. Let someone else go, not you. That was precisely what she couldn’t say, because that was precisely what he felt so strongly about; the fact that other people were going, taking risks that he was not. It was inevitable that she should feel so; people in general behaved so badly to apparently able-bodied men dressed in civilian clothes. There were girls who drew themselves aside with ostentatious disdain when such a man passed them in the street, other who spoke loudly and slightingly of ‘shirkers'; and yet others, so she had heard, who gave white feathers to civilian men, as a label of cowardice. In such a fever of patriotism and recruiting posters and swaggering solders home on leave filling the streets, only the most insensitive could fail to be made uneasy. And Peter was far from insensitive.
She leaned forwards now and after a moment put her hand on his, wanting to stop the unceasing movement of his fingers.
‘Peter. Please don’t do anything hasty, will you? I think I know what you mean. I don’t think you're right, but I know what you mean. Please take your time.’
‘That’s half my problem,’ he said. ‘I always do. I think everything through logically. It’s an appalling habit. Makes you quite useless. Waiter! The bill, please.’
It didn’t help that the waiter proved to be a middle aged woman, very neat and pleased with herself in frilly white cap and apron. More and more men’s jobs were being filled by women. She felt the woman’s slightly contemptuous stare at Peter as sharply as though the woman had actually spoken her thoughts aloud. Oh, God, please stop him from going, please God.
They came out into the street, pushing their way through the heavy blackout curtain and stood on the pavement trying to get used to the dark.
‘Close your eyes,’ he said. ‘Keep them shut for a minute and then open them again. Then you'll be able to see.’
She obeyed. When she opened her eyes he was standing beside her, his face just a glimmer in the night for the moon had not yet risen. Without thinking, she put her hand on his arm and said, ‘Peter, I do need you here so much, I know I'm selfish, but I do so not want you to go.’ She felt her face go hot in the darkness. Mercifully, he couldn’t see. He just said noncommittally, ‘I know. Look, there aren’t any taxis anywhere, as far as I can see. Can you walk as far as Oxford Circus with me? I think we might do better there.’ She fell into step beside him, biting her lips with rage at herself. These Monday concert visits would have to stop if she couldn’t trust her tongue better than this. It just wasn’t safe. And maybe they’d stop anyway, if he acted as he was threatening to act. Oh, God, please don’t let him, don’t let him.
When it started it sounded as though it came from inside her own head, it was so thin, so remote a ringing, and then it got louder and all at once there was a great rattle as a klaxon sounded nearby. She shrank back against the side of the building they were passing as footsteps went thundering by, seeming to come from all directions at once. ‘What is it?’ Peter was shouting, grabbing at someone as he ran by.
‘Don’t know, guv.’ the man said breathlessly, and ran on as the wailing sound became louder then louder still, and then, someone else passed them and shouted, ‘Zeppelin raid!
Come on, it’s them bleedin' great airships, droppin' bleedin' great bombs. Come on and take cover!’
44
The discovered fairly soon that there was no need to be frightened after all, not there at Oxford Circus They found a policeman who seemed slightly better informed than the passerby from whom Peter had tried to get some sort of coherent story, who told them that a Zeppelin had been seen at Stoke Newington and had dropped a fire bomb.
‘Just by the railway station it was, sir.’ the policeman said with relish, needing someone to whom to display his superior knowledge. ‘Come up from Wanstead way, seemingly - no one saw ‘er, seein' the moon aint' up , but they saw the fire right enough, and set off the alarms everywhere. ‘My sarge, ‘e says there’s no need for no one ‘round 'ere to get excited. He sounded a little regretful, peering up at the black sky. ‘'E says, it’s all over to the East that there Zeppelin’s going, and no one ‘ere in the Wet End'll come to an atom of trouble on its account.’
‘The East?’ Hannah said, alarmed. ‘Where in the East?’
‘Last I heard, it was over to Hoxton way, Shoreditch like … ’
‘The factory,’ Hannah said, and took a deep breath. ‘Peter the factory, there’s no one there. No night watchman to put fires out, and we had a huge delivery on Friday, remember? I’ve got thousands of yards there.’
He stood in the darkness beside her, very still. She looked at his profile and thought confusedly of what a stupid waste it would be if he took himself to France to be buried in mud, and what a waste it would be if the Zeppelin fired her factory with the cloth that Peter’s office had sent to her, and what a waste it was to love someone else’s husband as much as she loved Peter. It all boiled up together inside her to make her suddenly angry, and she took his arm and shook it an cried, ‘Peter, don’t just stand there like an idiot. Do something! Come to the factory. If they drop a fire bomb on it it'll be … Peter!’
He looked down at her and said nothing, and then turned away to the kerb. Traffic had started to move again now that the panicky sirens and klaxons had stopped their din. After a moment he lifted his hand and waved, and out of the blackness a taxi cab with its flag up moved to his side.
‘Come on,’ he said shortly. She climbed in, shaky now and ashamed of herself. There had been no need to be so hateful to him, but she had been frightened, and so much in need of reassurance. She turned her head to look at him in the dimness of the taxi and moved her hand to touch him but there was something very unapproachable about him now as he sat in his corner staring out of the window. She put her hand in her coat pocket and turned to stare out of her own window, as the taxi crawled through the darkness of London, up New Oxford Street to Holborn, and then on over the viaduct past St Pauls and through the City to London Wall and Liverpool Street.
She became more tense as the journey dragged on, listening to the chug of the taxi’s noisy engine and peering upwards, trying to see signs of the dreaded Zeppelin, expecting at any moment to see the fat silvery maggot come creeping out from behind a cloud. But there was no sign of anything, only the newly risen moon, round and full just over the horizon.
When they reached Artillery Lane and she stepped out onto the street she could smell it, and her chest constricted with sudden fear at the scene of charring timber and paint and something more sinister and chemical that she could not put a name to. She pulled her coat about her and without waiting for Peter, who was paying the cabman, ran down to the factory half way along the street.
He came after her, running along the pavement with loud echoing footsteps as the taxi’s engine throb revved and faded away in the distance, and stood beside her in the empty street.
'Looks all right,’ he said. ‘Though there’s been - I can smell it.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And it’s so quiet here, no one about at all. There are people living here, there ought to be some sound.’
Almost as thought it were on cue, a ringing began far away and then more loudly. Peter said almost casually,’ Fire engines.’ They stood and listened as the noise drew a little closer and then sheered away north and east of them. ‘Not all that close, after all.’
‘Where is everybody?’ she said, almost fretfully. ‘Surely there ought to be someone about.’
‘Sheltering, probably. Hiding under stairs. Shall we go in?’
She stood hesitantly on the pavement, feeling rather foolish. It was clear now that there had been no need to come at all, that she had panicked and been childishly rude to Peter all for nothing. She said awkwardly. ‘No point now, I suppose. There’s nothing happening.
There was a sound of footst
eps running from the Bishopsgate end of the street and someone came rushing up towards them. Peter whirled and shouted, but the man didn’t stop, calling back over his shoulder as he went, ‘Fire in Fashion Street, ‘nother in Princelet Street and Pear Street, and the bugger’s still at it.’ And he was gone, still running full tilt.
‘We’d better go inside,’ Peter said then, and took her elbow. ‘We can go up to the roof, see what’s going on. Then we'll know if there’s any need to worry about a fire here. You’ve got the keys?’
She fumbled in her bag. ‘Yes, I came straight to the Langham from here tonight. Here they are.’
He led the way in, and she was glad to defer to this authority. Even though this was her factory, her business, it seemed right, somehow, to let him take charge. She followed him through the heavy door, and waited just inside as he swept his hand along the wall, looking for the light switch. The single naked bulb sprang into life above the stair well, and she looked about her at the familiar shabby green and cream carpet, the flaking lino on the stairs and the cobwebbed corners and took a deep breath of the smell of machine oil and new cloth and dust.. It was shabby and ugly and it had all the comfort of home, as much as Paultons Square with its fresh white paint and light curtain and familiar furniture.
He led the way up the stairs and unlocked the inner doors and switched on the single overhead light. The factory stretched there in front of her, the four banks of sewing machines shadowed and silent, the big pressing tables looming menacingly behind them.
‘How can we get to the roof?’ His voice sounded loud in the echoing space ad she jumped a little.
‘There’s a fire escape out towards the back.’ She led the way now, walking up an aisle between the machines. Ahead of her there was a rustle as mice scuttled away, but because he was there behind her she didn’t mind. The fire escape door was bolted and had twisted a little, but it swung open after a moment’s struggle and then they were out on the narrow iron stairway that led up to the roof and down to the yard below.
The roof had a small area bounded by a low brick parapet, and it looked eastwards towards the flats of the Lea river. She stood beside the parapet with her hands thrust deep in her pockets against the night air, which was chill even though it was now early summer, and stared out. He moved to stand behind her looking over her head.
The sky was very thick against the light of the moon, now lifting itself well over the horizon, and the rooftops beneath looked stark in the contrasts thrown by the shadows, gun metal grey and hard edged on the tiles. There were a few clouds, moving slowly away towards the west, and the air smelled both cold and sour, for the chemical odour of the fires was thicker here.
'Look,’ Peter said quietly. ‘Over there.’ He pointed, his arm coming over her shoulder so that his had brushed her cheek. ‘Can you see?’
There was a glow where he was pointing, flickering a little against the dark sky. As her eyes became more accustomed to the light, she could see the drifts of smoke that were rising above it, curving elegantly against the light breeze.
‘That must be on the other side of Commercial Street,’ he said, trying to ignore the way her face held the memory of his touch. This was crazy, and getting crazier. ‘Or further, maybe Brick Lane?’
‘And there’s another,’ he said. Again she followed his pointing finger and saw, further away beyond the tangle of chimneys, another glow, leaping higher this time and licking the sky with yellow fingers of flame. ‘That must be beyond Aldgate East Station. It looks as though they're moving away from here.’
'Yes,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s safe here after all. We can go.’ But she didn’t move and neither did he.
‘They might curve back, of course,’ he said after a moment. Isn’t that what happened when they bombed Yarmouth? Went over the town and then came back and dropped more bombs after everyone thought they’d gone. I think we better wait and see. We're here now, after all.’
‘What’s the time?’ she asked and he peered at his watch.
‘Getting on for twelve.’
‘So late? You'll be exhausted in the morning. You need your sleep,’ she said, and turned to look at him. ‘You work too hard to do without rest. We'll take the chance and go. It looks as though the excitement’s over for tonight.’
Below them the sound started again, the frenetic shrieking of fire bells as an engine raced from Bishopsgate going east. He shook his head at her.
‘No. Not quite. And what was it that man said, Fashion Street and Princelet Street? That’s quite near here.’
‘Just across the other side of Commercial Street.’ She turned her head to try to peer northwards, on the other side of the chimney stack that lay to their left. Though she could see nothing there because of the bulk of the buildings in the way, the smell still came in gusts as the night breezes lifted and strengthened.
'The way the wind’s blowing it could spread this way. Flying sparks. We’d better sit tight. Just a little longer, now we're here. Where’s the fabric stock?’
‘On the far side of the factory.’ She shivered a little as she indicated the fire escape steps going down into the darkness below. ‘It’s filled the corner beyond my office, you know where I mean? It’s the only space I have, but it’s not a good place. Right near the door that leads to the stairs. If it ever went up, it’d block the way out.’
‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘We might as well use the time we’ve got, and it’s cold out here. Come on.’ He led he way down the fire escape, moving slowly so that she could follow him safely. Inside, the factory felt warm and stuffy in comparison with the air on the roof, but after a moment she felt cold again, and in spite of herself shivered again. The cloth bay loomed ahead of them beyond the little glass enclosed office and she went to switch on the light in there, but he shook his head.
‘No need to unlock the office just to put the light on,’ he said. And you’d need to put up blackout shutters I can see well enough. It’s not ideal to keep cloth here, I suppose, but I'm not sure you can put it anywhere else.’
He moved away from her, walking all round the factory, down one aisle and then another. She watched him in the thin light of the moon, at the way his narrow shoulders moved and his back held its erectness and thought, he’s walking like a soldier already. Please don’t let him go. I don’t want him to be anywhere but where I can be near him and then she turned away deliberately, forbidding herself to look at him, sitting down on a bolt of cloth and leaning back against the bulwark of piled bolts that lay behind it.
'Nowhere else you could put it,’ he said as he came back. ‘Hannah? of, there you are. You look like a frightened child in a haystack. Hiding.’
She shook her head, ‘It’s just somewhere to sit, she said, ‘I'm not hiding.’
‘But you are frightened, aren’t you?’ He said down beside her, and she pulled herself into as small a space as she could, tightening her muscles against him.
‘Frightened? No, of course not. What have I got to be frightened of?’ How could he not frighten her, she asked herself, screaming inside her own head. All I'm frightened of is that he might go away.
‘I am,’ he said. ‘Air raids, even small ones, are very frightening indeed. Thinking of a man, just an ordinary man like me, sitting in an airship over my head where the moon and the clouds are and deliberately aiming explosives and firebombs at me. I find that very frightening indeed.’
She blinked and then shook her head at herself. She had actually, just for a moment, quite forgotten why they were here. An air raid. It seemed somehow unimportant now that she had seen how far from her factory the fires were. Now that she was sitting here in a cocoon of bolts of cloth with his body warm and close beside her.
‘I suppose so. War is frightening. Ever bit of it,’ she said and then felt the words dragged out of her, much as she wanted to keep them back. People one cares about going away to fight. Casualty lists in the papers.’
‘I haven' gone yet,’ he said. ‘That’s my problem. I
haven’t gone yet. Though there’s that man sitting up there over my head throwing bombs at me. Mad, isn’t it? There he is and here I am, and there are men I know in France - quite mad.’
She couldn’t help it, then. The threat seemed too big for her to contain her own need for him another moment, and his face was so close to hers in the thin light. ‘Peter … please, Peter. Don’t go.’ Her eyes were filling with tears and she couldn’t stop them. ‘Please, my dear. I do need you so.’
‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Oh, God.’ He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth feeling cold on hers, and she stopped thinking at all, stopped being angry with herself for her own lack of control over her thoughts, and let go completely. There was just now, and his closeness, and her own body screaming its need into her mind. She clung to him, feeling her curved fingers digging into the cloth of his coat.
For almost five years it had been corked down, that sensuousness that Daniel had first unstoppered, and far from dwindling in those lonely arid years it had flowered and come to a richness that, once released, could not be contained. She did not know what his feeling was, what his needs might be, and didn’t even stop to consider them. She cared only for herself and just held onto to him, and threw herself into their kisses and let time flow past her.
The cold didn’t seem to matter as it struck her skin. Her coat and then her dress were there crumpled on the floor at her feet, and she could feel the roughness of the bolts of cloth against her bare shoulders and then was tugging at his clothes, feeling his skin warm under her fingers, his thighs and knees hard and bony against her softness, and they were together with one sudden urgent movement that came simultaneously from both of them, as far as she could tell. Yet even as she felt the excitement rising even higher, felt her own hunger driving her further and further to satisfaction, she was watching herself, seeing herself on a blue green counterpane in a blue green hotel room, rolling and crying and hurting, but that was Daniel and this was Peter, and at last the climax of her excitement came, hurling her breathlessly over the peak, she cried aloud, ‘Peter!’ And the image of Daniel shattered and glittered inside her head and died in the glow that burned behind her eyes as she lay, panting, his weight on top of her.
The Running Years Page 46
