So they settle in and wait, but nothing happens. They settle in and wait for the familiar, distant drone of engines, but none comes. And so it continues, hour upon hour and on until midnight. Nothing. And the unspoken sentiment on the rooftop is that it would be better to have something instead of the tension of waiting.
But the siren they heard when they stepped out onto the rooftop was a false alarm. No raid tonight. And the watchers have had nothing to do all evening. They don’t know it yet, but the Blitz is over. That raid the night before, any more of which might blow apart more than just buildings, houses and castles alike, was a last, ghastly farewell. They’ve come through, but they don’t know it. And the conversations in corridors about one more raid like that and we’ve had it will continue for some time yet.
For now the air is still. The square and the surrounding streets are silent. No motor cars, no vehicles, nobody about at this hour of the morning. The only light comes from the moon. No burning glow from the docks along the river. And they pass the time with idle chat and cigarettes: Iris, Mr Eliot and the two retired Indian Army officers.
Then one of the officers turns towards the river, in the direction of the Museum — not looking, but listening. There is a sound out there. Barely audible, but there. And as he turns the pace of the morning suddenly picks up. And soon they have all turned towards the distant sound. They form a frozen tableau: looking down, cigarettes in hands, listening, staring up at the sky or looking out over the horizon. Looking, but not seeing. Not really. All their concentration is given over to the sense of hearing. For this living tableau, at this moment, is all ears. There is a sound out there, coming from somewhere inside the thick bank of cloud gathered over the south of the city on the other side of the river. An approaching sound, getting nearer by the second. And soon, as it comes near enough to be defined, this sound acquires a name. It is a drone. Unmistakably so, all agree, without need of speech. Just a raised eyebrow, here and there, to indicate as much. And with the naming of the sound the situation clarifies itself. For it is the drone of a large engine — not a motor car or bus or even a fire truck. But an engine large enough to gradually fill the silent sky. An aeroplane is heading right for them. And, immediately, it is a disturbing sound. Foreboding. Almost biblical. A sky full of bombers, at this moment, might be less disturbing. But one plane is like a lone rider. A lone horseman on a white horse. In simply being alone it announces that it doesn’t need company. Or support. It is, this aloneness says, a force unto itself.
And as the sound nears it becomes all the more threatening. Not because it might be an enemy plane — lost or a lone raider about to randomly drop its load where it will. No, not because of any conventional threat, any known threat, but because of its mystery. And as the sound gathers, the tableau tenses. Tenses, but remains in formation. Frozen in gesture. Frozen to the spot, everyone exactly where they were a minute ago when the sound first announced itself.
And then, in a rush, it is upon them. Or so it seems. A scarcely audible, faint wave of sound one minute; reverberating, deafening waves of sound the next. One minute their world one of hushed houses settled down for the night; the next everything woken by the sound of this single engine. And the plane itself, locked in distant low cloud one minute, then bursting forth onto a stage-set city, floodlit by a full, chandelier moon.
For it is then that the sound becomes sight. That the dark shape of a bomber becomes visible just beyond the park opposite, somewhere above the Museum. And because over the last year these watchers, the regulars, have become expert at distinguishing one bomber from another, they know the name of this one. It is one of theirs. A Wellington. Become lost in the clouds and flying low. One engine glowing in the night. And it is at this moment, when sound becomes sight, that this living tableau breaks formation, that this tableau of watchers frozen in mid-gesture wakes, it seems, from mesmerised paralysis, and rushes to the railing. Everyone leaning forward. Eyes intent on the horizon and the oncoming plane, growing larger and louder by the second, just above the tree-tops as it crosses the square, one engine aflame. Heading straight towards them.
And as the watchers lean over the railing, straining towards the dark, flaming object in the sky, its mystery is not diminished but compounded. I am a moment, it says. One you will never forget. Of all the formations, the waves of bombers in the sky, that you have seen and will see from your rooftop, I am the one moment you will never forget. I am the lone bomber that broke from the low cloud and entered the still, moonlit night of your watch. Until now, an uneventful watch that craved something instead of hours of endless nothing. And I am that something.
You won’t forget me, it says, like beauty momentarily glimpsed before disappearing into the crowd. For there is now a terrifying beauty to the plane as it passes directly in front of them, no more than a few hundred feet above the rooftop. The watchers, straining at the railing, transfixed by the spectacle. The flames flickering over and about the engine casing. The crew just visible from this distance, the pilot concentrating on the road ahead, oblivious, it seems, of the watchers below. And there, on the side of the plane, painted onto the fuselage, bold and distinct in the clear moonlight, its emblem. A white dove. A white dove, just ascending or descending. It almost feels close enough to touch. Within the grasp of an outstretched hand. To the point that nobody needs their binoculars. All eyes are fixed on the plane.
And, it seems to Iris, no one is more mesmerised by the spectacle than Mr Eliot himself. His eyes are wide, his face almost glowing as the bomber passes. Only moments before everyone had the worn-out, drained, ghostly look that watchers take on in the early morning hours of an all-night shift. Now they are transfixed by the spectacle before them. Mr Eliot’s face is animated. His whole being enlivened. As if he were … what? Iris toys with this ‘what’. Afraid? Excited? Awed? No, no, no … what? Then it comes to her. As if he were — and this is all read in a glance — a fox, suddenly shaking himself into life, shivering into action. Lifting his animal nose to the sky. A fox in the night, come across its prey. Even surprised by it. Yes, and Iris’s eyes turn back quickly to the passing spectacle of the flaming bomber. Yes, she tells herself, as if he were … inspired. For this is the stuff of inspiration. And at that moment her eyes too must be as bright as that flaming object up there. Are they foxes together? For she is certain it is not a bomber that Mr Eliot sees, but inspiration bursting from the low cloud on a night of dull, routine duty. Yes, it is inspiration that animates him. He is enlivened; they all are. Mesmerised by the sheer improbability of what is in front of them.
And then it is gone. Passed from view into the streets behind the square. Sight becomes sound again. The spectacle vanishes, the drone of the plane’s one functioning engine, frantically defying gravity and holding the thing up, fading into the still night. And as it passes she watches Mr Eliot return to his everyday human form, a three-piece-suited former bank employee, who, when passed in the street with briefcase and black umbrella, could be just anybody.
As soon as it is gone the watchers turn to one another. Everyone speaking at once. Everyone simultaneously bursting into babble. And all the same babble. The sheer improbability of it. Only a war, surely only a war, could throw such things up. And the talk continues, the excitement gradually leaving their voices, the babble slowly giving way to measured comment. But all the time returning to the same sentiment — the terrifying, improbable wonder of the thing.
After five, possibly ten, minutes, when the talk is quiet and their faces have begun to re-assume their drained ghostly look, there is a sudden, distant explosion. The group falls silent. Each staring inquiringly at the others. And the question, unspoken but there to be read in each of their faces, is the same. Was that it? Did they just hear it? Was that death, announcing itself somewhere out there in the dark streets beyond the square or in some quiet, familiar park?
The explosion, it is eventually suggested by one of the retired officers, may have been some stray bomb with a time delay. Let
’s hope. It happens. Not all bombs go off immediately. Some lie in wait in the rubble for their moment. And that, this officer suggests, was just such a moment. But he eyes the horizon and that part of the city from which the explosion came with a look that says he hasn’t convinced himself, let alone anyone else.
They gradually return to their talk. To the small talk that fills in the hours and gets everybody through a long night. But from time to time the heavy-coated figure of Mr Eliot, defying and possibly oblivious of the vertigo that afflicts him and leaves him trembling even at such modest heights, approaches the railing overlooking the square and, Iris imagines, watching him, sees it all again. You won’t forget me. You won’t forget.
And, once again, she is convinced it is inspiration that lures him to the railing. He is silent and stands perfectly still, staring out over the park, the Museum and the low cloud in the distance. Not so much memorising it as reliving it. The experience animating him all over again. Its mystery calling him back. And when he turns from the railing and back to the group it is with the same bright eyes and animated face she saw before: that of the fox turning its muzzle to the night sky, to the white dove, clear in the moonlight, wrapped in flames. And as he turns back to the group he greets her stare with a puzzled nod. What did you see, he could almost be asking. To which she replies, I saw the fox shiver into life. I saw its eyes light up under the moon. I saw its nose lift to the night sky. I’m on to your little game.
In that hazy time before dawn, with the all clear sounded, they will each go their separate ways and walk home. Their steps heavy after a long, uneventful night — except for this one moment, the duration of which is now uncertain because the moment, Iris imagines, looking back on it, did not take place in ordinary time. And in time — familiar, measured time — they may even come to doubt that they ever saw what they surely did. So fantastic and improbable was the vision that passed in front of them.
Iris trudges through the quiet, deserted streets. It is late at night, or early in the morning. However you want to look at it. That time when the moon and the sun, like shift workers about to clock off and clock on, position themselves for the new day. There are sounds of motors somewhere in the distance. The sky will be blue today. She turns into a small street off Bedford Square. All the houses, hotels and offices intact. No gaps in the row, for fate decided not to fall here tonight. It is a normal street. Her legs are heavy and she makes her way to St James’s Park like a sleepwalker, or as if she’s been to an all-night party and still has the prospect of a full day’s work in front of her.
In her flat, between resting and washing and going to work, and while her flatmate, Pip, sleeps, she picks up her notebook and writes it all down. The sheer, fantastic improbability of it all. And part of her writes it down for that very reason, as a testament, a proof, that it really did happen, and that, in the months and years in the future when she remembers the events of the night, she won’t doubt her memory and won’t tell herself that she’s making it all up because, well … and she nods to herself, pen in hand as she closes her notebook, you couldn’t.
PART THREE
September 1942
4.
A STATUE IN THE PARK
Iris has come to the park to eat her sandwiches. She could take the tube to Russell Square for her nights on the rooftop looking for firecrackers (and there have been none since she started over a year ago, which comes as a relief to her, though not without a certain disappointment), but she chooses to walk from her work at Westminster. And it’s a good walk. One that builds up the appetite. Especially if you’re twenty-two, which Iris turned a month ago. And her reward is her picnic in the tranquil park. It is the most pleasurable part of the day, that part to which she looks forward.
She has just finished reading a letter from Frank, the young man who gave her the ring that she said she’d wear when he returned and whom she thinks of as her fiancé — and, at the same time, doesn’t. For they’re not engaged, are they? It’s only a sort of possibility. Something that might happen, and might not — because she wasn’t sure then and she’s not sure now. Which is why she never put the ring on. It’s stowed away in her drawer and she looks at it occasionally and wonders what it means. Some days, rare ones, she likes the look of it and can see it on her finger; others she wishes it wasn’t there at all. Some days she wishes it would magically vanish. Frank writes to her, just as he said he would. And she’s here to receive the letters, someone to think of and to write back, just as she was meant to be. He’s somewhere in the Middle East, and while most of his letters mention sitting round in cafes talking to Russians and Poles, this latest is a short one saying he has a new job, that he may be out of contact for a while, and she doesn’t much like the sound of that although she can’t say why. She folds the letter, contemplating the question, and looks around the square.
She normally has a park bench to herself and she can sit and eat her sandwiches and watch the late September shadows lengthen across the square. There is, she muses, a sort of cathedral glow to the park. And it is this place, this place that transports her, that she looks forward to as much as her picnic meal. For the peace that she finds here at this particular time of day, that rogue hour between the end of work and the beginning of her duties, is such that it makes it almost impossible to conceive of bombs falling and people dying. This place that transports her brings with it the illusion that there is no war; that she will soon rise and walk through the city to her station, contemplating a long, autumn evening with cider and cake, perhaps. But as much as she looks forward to and enjoys this time of day and this place and the peace that transports her, today she is distracted. And not just by the letter.
There is a young man sitting on a bench not far from her. He was there when she first arrived, and he’s still there. Not that she particularly noticed him when she first arrived. No, she gradually became aware of him. He sits alone on the bench and nobody approaches him or tries to sit on the bench with him. It is clearly his bench. And people, when they sit, choose to sit elsewhere. It is not that his behaviour is threatening or erratic. Nor does he shoot discouraging stares at anyone. She doubts he would notice if anybody sat next to him. No, it is none of that. It is, rather, an intensity. And she thinks about it as she slowly munches her sandwich. It is, yes, the sheer intensity of his presence that alerts everybody around him to keep their distance. You can almost see it, Iris muses, coming off him in waves. An impression accentuated by his stillness. He is statuesque. No, he is a statue. And this is the fascinating thing. She has watched him now for the last fifteen or twenty minutes and he has not moved. Not once. He is staring straight ahead, it seems, to the exclusion of the world. He holds a paper bag of something, possibly a snack, but has made no attempt to open it. Has, more than likely, forgotten all about it. His feet are planted on the path. He is a statue. And has he blinked? She can’t tell from this distance, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t. Of course, it’s impossible. Nobody can not blink for twenty minutes. Nobody can stay that still. But if anybody is capable of such a feat, she imagines this young man is.
And it is only as she finishes her sandwich, after contemplating the stillness of his bearing all this time (and she feels she could study him as she would a statue; he doesn’t notice anybody and his eyes don’t shift), that she finds herself suddenly following his line of vision. For he is looking at something and he hasn’t taken his eyes from it the whole time he’s been there. But what? She follows what she imagines to be his line of vision: over the lawns, the kiosk (shut up, has been for months), over the tree-tops to the buildings opposite. His unblinking eyes, she is convinced, are focused on the corner building. And not just the building, but the rooftop. And this comes as quite a shock, for this is her rooftop. The rooftop from which, with the others, she will look out for firecrackers again this evening. But, apart from being convenient and affording a good view all around, it is an unremarkable rooftop. So why should this young man be staring at it, and with s
uch intensity, for so long?
A plane flies overhead and everybody in the park suddenly looks up, eyes squinting in an effort to identify the thing, but it is far up and after a moment’s distraction the park returns to its former state of affairs.
And it is then, as Iris’s eyes drift back to the young man on the bench and as she returns the paper bag that held her sandwiches to her pocket, that the statue moves. Ever so slightly. But the movement is all the more dramatic for being minute. So slight a movement that nobody would notice unless they were watching. And Iris has been watching, and she has noticed. The shoulders at first. A suggestion of a heave. Only faint, but there. His hands tightening around the paper bag he holds and whatever it contains. And his eyes, yes, his eyes closing. You had to be watching to notice and Iris was. The statue has moved.
As she pieces the movements together — the shoulders, the hands, the eyes — she realises what they signal. The statue has not only moved. The statue, she realises with astonishment, is crying.
She was about to leave. But she can’t now. Not while the statue is crying. Absurd as it may seem, she feels implicated. Responsible in some way. She has been watching him, studying him, all this time. Fascinated by the immobility, the stillness of the young man, and drawn to the waves of intensity radiating from him. Almost willing him to break. And now that he has broken she can’t go. Bronze and marble have melted into life.
So she waits. But the sobs, released into the world with a minimum of fuss so as not to draw attention to themselves, do not stop. And show no sign of stopping. With the time when she must depart approaching, concluding that she cannot leave the young man like this (for he seems now to have entered the realm of her care), she rises from her bench and approaches him. Even when she stands in front of him, he doesn’t seem to notice. And she wonders if she is intruding and should just leave the poor man be, but decides against it. He must surely have seen her. She can’t go now. So, certain that he will not respond (but telling herself that she will, at least, have done something), she speaks.
A World of Other People Page 3
