When the Lights Come on Again

by Maggie Craig

  She thought about Conor and Finn. She’d have given anything to see the two of them coming towards her. Liz had never been able to decide if Conor had copied his long loping stride from Finn, or if the dog had taken it from his master. Their mutual devotion seemed to make either possible.

  Liz rubbed her eyes. They were playing tricks on her. Small wonder. After all she had seen last night and this morning it would be odd if they weren’t. But she was confused all the same. She would ask Adam. He always had a sensible answer to everything.

  ‘Where’s Helen’s close gone, Adam? I can’t see it at all.’

  ‘Och, Liz,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He tried to take her in his arms again, but she side-stepped him. What was he on about? What was he so sorry about? All they had to do was find Helen’s close and then find out how she was - and Mr and Mrs Gallagher and the boys too, of course. Finn as well. They had to be all right They had to be.

  ‘Adam,’ she said. He was very pale. Poor soul, he must be exhausted. ‘You’ve got to help me find Helen’s close. The entrance has to be here somewhere.’

  ‘Och, Liz,’ he said again.

  Now she was getting angry. She began shouting. She ran towards what was left of the houses.

  ‘Liz! Come back!’

  She ignored him, but she was forced to stop when he caught up with her and grabbed her roughly by the arm. He swung her round to face him.

  ‘Helen!’ she shouted. ‘She’s in there somewhere! Let me go, Adam. Please! We’ve got to get her out. She’s pregnant! With Eddie’s baby. Don’t you know that?’

  Adam seized her other arm and held her fast ‘Yes, I know that - and there are people trying to get her out,’ he insisted. ‘People who know what they’re doing, who know the best way to go about it. We don’t.’ He saw from her face that she needed convincing.

  ‘You and I are both exhausted, too tired to make proper judgements. About anything very much. We might do something stupid - simply because we’re so desperate to get to Helen and her family. The buildings will be extremely unstable. Digging the wrong way could do more harm than good. It could bring more masonry down on everyone in there.’

  Privately, he had a horrible fear that there was no one left alive. He’d never seen such devastation. The human body could be very resilient, but not against the damage which had been done here.

  It was Liz he was concerned about now. She needed rest to enable her to cope with whatever was coming next.

  ‘Do you hear me, Liz?’ he asked, gripping her arms and forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

  He repeated his arguments, shaking her in an attempt to get the message across. They weren’t experts. Think of all the different things in a building: plaster, wood, heavy furniture. Moving something the wrong way could do more damage to the folk trapped in the buildings. She took it in eventually, slumping briefly against him before straightening up and looking around her.

  ‘Let’s see if we can help the people they bring out, anyway.’ He nodded. It was the best he was going to get. She really needed her bed. So did he, but he would go along with this for a while. A very little while. Then he would insist.

  They were still there at ten o’clock, when the rescue parties brought out a big man and a large grey dog. Finn was greyer than usual, himself and his master covered in plaster. Both he and Conor were quite dead.

  ‘Oh, no,’ whispered Adam. ‘Oh, God Almighty, no.’

  ‘This lad was lying over the dog,’ said one of the rescuers, scratching his head in puzzlement. ‘He had his arms around him, like he was shielding him. Can you believe that?’

  Numb with exhaustion and grief, Liz took the luggage labels out of her pocket and began writing the names: Conor Gallagher and Finn Gallagher. It was the last thing she could do for them.

  Her fingers didn’t seem to be functioning properly. She managed Conor’s label, her writing big and round as it had been when she had first learned her letters in primary school. On the second one, she got as far as Finn. Her fingers locked. She couldn’t seem to write any more.

  Adam leaned over Liz’s shoulder, plucked the labels and pencil out of her grasp and finished the job. He crouched down to attach the labels. Someone laughed.

  ‘We’ll not be needing to identify the dog, lad.’

  ‘Yes we do!’ Liz shouted. ‘Yes, we bloody well do! They were friends, these two. The best of friends! They’ve got to stay together! They’ve got to! Adam! Tell him they’ve got to stay together!’

  The man who’d brought Conor and Finn out shot a warning glance at his mates and put a hand on Liz’s shoulder.

  ‘Aye, lass. We need to know who they both were. You’re right enough.’

  She crouched down beside the bodies, laying a hand first on Conor’s hair, brushing the grey dust off to reveal the burnished copper underneath. His face was unmarked. Then she laid a hand on Finn’s head.

  ‘Well, my boy, you’ll not be stealing any more gingerbread.’

  The man who had told her to go ahead with the labels was looking down at her, compassion written all over his face. His cheeks and forehead were streaked with dust and blood.

  ‘I’ll make sure they stay together, lass. You can trust me.’

  Liz looked up at him. She was like a little child.

  ‘Where you found them... is there anybody else in there? Alive?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know, lass, but we’re going to keep digging until we find out.’

  As the morning wore on, the rescue parties were joined by a group of miners from East Lothian. They had made their way over to the west as soon as they’d heard the news early that morning.

  ‘Of course it only said a Clydeside town on the wireless,’ Liz overheard one of them saying in his sing-song east-coast accent, ‘but we knew where it would be.’

  They quickly changed the thrust of the rescue process. Instead of clearing away masonry and wooden beams from the top of the rubble, they tunnelled in from the sides - and began hearing cries for help. The knowledge that there were people still alive under the debris gave everybody fresh hope and fresh heart.

  ‘It’s no’ going to be a quick job to get any o’ them oot, mind,’ warned one of the miners. ‘We’ll be taking this real slow.’ He spoke to Adam. ‘I’d take the lassie home, son. Yourself too. Away and get some rest.’ His eyes swept over Liz’s blood-stained uniform, Adam’s filthy white coat. ‘I hear the two o’ you had a bit of a busy night’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Adam drily. He wrote something on one of the luggage labels which he’d slipped into his own pocket and handed it to the man.

  ‘Can you try to get a message to us at this address? If you find anyone by the name of Gallagher or MacMillan? Particularly a heavily pregnant young woman.’

  He turned to Liz. ‘Gome on, you,’ he said gently. ‘I’m taking you to your mother’s.’

  Liz thought her mother was never going to stop hugging her.

  ‘Och, Lizzie, I was that worried about you.’ She let her daughter go at last, standing back to look at her with tears in her eyes. ‘What about Eddie’s lassie?’ she asked anxiously.

  Adam explained the situation. ‘So if Liz could have a wash and a rest here? Maybe something to eat?’

  Sadie squared her shoulders. ‘And where else would she go to do that, I might ask? You’ll stay too, Dr Buchanan.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Adam smiled. ‘Thanks very much, Mrs MacMillan - but I’m not a doctor yet, you know.’

  Sadie MacMillan fixed him with a look, taking in the blood which streaked his face and his white coat. The coat which had been white last night ‘You’re a doctor, son. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now,’ she said briskly, ‘let’s have that coat and I’ll get it washed. Your uniform too, Lizzie.’

  It was six o’clock that evening before a boy on a bicycle pushed open the gate at Queen Victoria Row. They’d got Helen out, but she was in a bad way. She’d
been taken straight to Rottenrow, the maternity hospital up in Glasgow. With all forms of public transport disrupted, and Morag abandoned up near the Boulevard, it took Liz and Adam over two hours to get there.

  By the time they did, Helen was in theatre having an emergency Caesarean. They were left to wait in the corridor outside. About half an hour after they arrived at the hospital, the air-raid sirens went off.

  The first bombs fell on Drumchapel shortly before nine. Ten minutes later a punishing bombardment of Radnor Park, Kilbowie and Dalmuir started. The second raid wasn’t unexpected. It had been the pattern in other places.

  With thousands of others, Liz’s parents and her grandfather had left the town for the night, taking advantage of the buses laid on to take people to temporary rest centres outside the danger zone. There had been no news about the rest of the Gallagher family.

  Liz and Adam stood by a window looking in the direction of Clydebank. Last night they’d been in the thick of it. It was strange to be watching it from a distance like this. A sister passed them and told them off for being so stupid as to stand by a window while there was bombing going on.

  Adam apologized sheepishly for both of them and they moved away to sit on a bench in the corridor outside the operating theatre. Liz was glad he was with her. He was a tower of strength and she told him so.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Nae bother,’ he said. ‘Nae bother, hen.’

  The baby - a fit and healthy girl - had been safely delivered. The midwife brought her out to them and Liz forced back the tears. She wanted to look at her niece. She was perfect. She had blue eyes like Helen’s and a shock of thick hair as dark as her father’s had been.

  ‘Poor wee mite,’ said the woman. ‘An orphan of the Blitz.’

  ‘She’s not an orphan,’ shouted Liz, clutching the precious bundle to her. ‘She’s got a mother! Her mother’s in there!’ Holding the baby tight, she slid round on the wooden bench, turning her body in the direction of the operating theatre.

  ‘Nurse,’ said the midwife sternly, ‘there’s no need for that. Really.’

  It was Adam’s words which calmed her down. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her and the baby into him. ‘Wheesht,’ he said. ‘You don’t want Helen to hear you, do you? What is it Sister MacLean always says?’

  Liz turned to him, her eyes glittering like emeralds in a face as white as paper.

  ‘The patients come first.’

  ‘Exactly. Hang on to that, and hang on to the baby. They’ll let us see Helen as soon as they can.’

  They sat with the baby and waited. They were like proud parents themselves, admiring the perfect little creature. Then the surgeon who’d operated on her mother asked to speak to them both. A midwife took the baby from Liz and she and Adam followed the man into his office.

  ‘Sit down, please. A drink?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. Chunky whisky tumblers were pressed into their hands.

  ‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘You’re going to need it. What is your relationship to the patient?’

  ‘She’s my sister-in-law,’ said Liz. ‘The baby’s my niece.’

  ‘Your brother’s wife? Where is he right now? Drink some whisky,’ he added.

  Liz did, spluttering as the fiery liquid went down her throat.

  ‘He was killed in action. North Africa.*

  ‘The patient’s parents?’

  ‘Missing since last night, sir,’ said Adam. ‘In the bombing. The whole family, it appears. Apart from her younger brother.’

  The surgeon shook his distinguished head.

  ‘I’m sorry, lass,’ he said to Liz, suddenly sounding much less exalted and much more down-to-earth. ‘She hasn’t got long. Maybe an hour. Maybe less.’

  Adam held her while she wept, the surgeon looking sadly on. Then she pulled herself out of Adam’s embrace. Straightening up, she wiped her eyes.

  ‘I’m a nurse. Helen’s a patient, and the patients come first. Come hell or high water.’ She looked across at the surgeon. ‘Is there somewhere I can wash my face before we see her?’

  Just before they were shown into the room, Liz’s courage almost failed her. ‘Adam, I don’t know if I can do this!’

  He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a shake, but his voice was as gentle as she’d ever heard it.

  ‘Come on, Liz. You can do it. If I can.’ He raised his fair brows in the gesture she knew so well. ‘I’m only an effete member of the middle classes, after all. You’re a Red Clydesider. Tough as old boots. Tempered in steel. Forged in the fire.’

  ‘Oh, Adam! The Clyde’s red in another way now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said carefully. ‘But it’ll run clear again. Come on, now. Helen needs you. You can’t fail her at the last.’

  She looked very small. Tucked into the hospital bed, sheet and blanket folded back neatly over her chest, her soot-blackened hair was just visible beneath a white cap into which it had presumably been tucked while she had undergone the Caesarean. She smiled when she saw them and tried to reach out a hand. Choking back the tears, Liz approached the bed. She had to bend down to hear the words properly.

  ‘Ma and Daddy? The boys? Finn?’

  “They’re fine,’ said Liz, rushing in before Adam could speak. He brought forward an upright chair from a corner of the room and Liz sank down on to it, grinning in sheer relief that Helen could still speak. People who were about to die couldn’t speak coherently and ask sensible questions, could they?

  She swallowed. Sensible they might be. Easy to answer they weren’t. She told Helen about Dominic. Then the lies started spilling out of her mouth.

  ‘Well, Finn’s pretty scared of course and the rest of them are not exactly fine. Cuts and bruises. That sort of thing. You’ll see them soon.’ Was she gabbling?

  A faint smile touched Helen’s mouth. There was a bruise at one side of it.

  ‘Aye... that I will.’ She turned her head on the white pillow and fixed Liz with one of those clear blue looks of hers, her voice all at once clear and strong. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Elizabeth MacMillan. You’re no good at it at all.’

  Liz could think of nothing to say to that.

  ‘I’ve thought of trying a prayer to St Jude,’ Helen went on conversationally, ‘but I don’t think he can help me. There’s a limit even to his powers.’ With agonizing slowness, she raised her eyes to Adam, standing behind Liz’s chair.

  ‘Hello, Adam. I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Hello, Helen.’ His voice sounded very deep in the quiet of the room. ‘How are we feeling?’

  That raised another smile. ‘The doctor’s question. I think we both know the answer to that one, don’t we?’ A look passed between the two of them. ‘I’d like to see someone. Do you think there’s any chance?’

  ‘You want a priest of your own faith?’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘I’ll get you one,’ he said decisively. His hand squeezed Liz’s shoulder briefly before he swept out of the room. Turning her head to follow his departure, Liz looked back to the bed to find Helen’s candid gaze once more fixed on her. She took her friend’s hand gently in her own and Helen’s lids flickered closed.

  ‘I’m not hurting your hand, am I?’

  Helen replied without opening her eyes.

  ‘No, it feels nice.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Liz, doing her best to adopt the brisk and no-nonsense voice. ‘I don’t know how the hell he’ll do it in all this, but he’ll get you a priest. Adam never lets anybody down.’

  She had thought - hoped perhaps - that Helen was drifting off to sleep, but her eyes flickered open again.

  ‘You know his worth, then?’

  ‘I know his worth.’

  Helen seemed to be about to say something else, but then her eyes clouded and lost their focus. She managed a few more words.

  ‘You’ll not leave me, Liz?’

  ‘You don’t get rid of me that easily, Helen MacMillan,’ Liz assured h
er.

  A smile touched the bruised mouth. ‘Even if it was only the registry office,’ Helen murmured, ‘I’m still a respectable married woman.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ said Liz. ‘My sister-in-law. My very dear sister-in-law.’

  She could barely make out the reply, but she smiled when she did.

  ‘Don’t go all soppy on me, MacMillan.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ said Liz.

  Adam was back within ten minutes. The hospital’s Roman Catholic chaplain had been on the premises. He showed the clergyman in, then gently ushered Liz up from her chair.

  ‘We’ll sit over here in the corner,’ he said. ‘Then Father Fitzgerald can do what he has to.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we leave the room?’

  The priest looked kind. ‘Not necessary, my child. Mr Buchanan advises me that there probably isn’t time for me to hear her confession.’

  Liz glanced at the still figure lying in the bed. Helen’s eyes were closed, but she could have sworn she’d muttered three little words. Just as well.

  What the priest did next had no meaning for Liz, but she could see that Helen welcomed it When it was over, she once more took up her position by the bedside. It wouldn’t be long now. She’d seen that look too many times, so she was surprised when Helen’s voice rang out.

  ‘I want to see the baby.’

  The look of tenderness on Helen’s face when the small white bundle was placed in her arms was almost too much to bear. She held her daughter for a few short minutes. Then the nurse came forward, murmuring something about all the babies being down in the basement tonight for safety during the raid. Would she maybe take the wee one now?

  Helen pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead and allowed the midwife to lift her gently out of her arms. Her eyes followed them as they left the room. She murmured something, but her strength was fading fast. Adam leaned over, straining to catch the words. He looked up in surprise.