When It's Over

by Barbara Ridley

  Shivering at these thoughts, she put the kettle on for tea. She stood at the window, gazing out at the street. The blackout had officially ended two months earlier, and she could see a few isolated streetlights at the end of the road. It was queer to have no blackout screens. Lotti had no curtains to replace them, so Lena stared at the unfamiliar sight of her reflection in the glass. She felt oddly exposed and stepped away.

  Lotti’s flat was on the ground floor, so it lacked the view over the rooftops that Lena enjoyed from her own place. But it did have an extra bedroom—small, yet it would suffice. Could she be happy here? Peter had asked her earlier in the evening if she would move in with Lotti now that he was going overseas. It was no secret that her marriage to Otto was essentially over. Yet she stayed on at Done-gal Street. She liked her flat. She kept hoping Otto would leave. He was gone most of the time, out with his friends from the factory, or often, she suspected, with Eva. By an unspoken agreement, when he did come home, he slept on the sofa.

  “Tell him to leave, why don’t you?” Sheila had said on more than one occasion.

  “I can’t do that. Where would he go?”

  He wouldn’t find anything else. As if to illustrate the point, the next day, Sheila’s cousins in Croydon were bombed out, their house completely flattened by a Doodlebug. They moved in with Sheila and her mother and sister, squeezing a family of five into the tiny house.

  “Move in with Prince Charming,” Sheila also suggested.

  Lena laughed. She enjoyed Sheila’s gentle teasing. But Milton hadn’t suggested that, and Lena wasn’t ready to live with him. The following week, Milton’s windows were blown out and the bathroom obliterated in a rocket attack, and he retreated to Sussex. Lena hadn’t seen him for almost three weeks. Two weeks, five days, and nine and a half hours, to be precise.

  The sirens wailed into action again, off to the east, toward Shoreditch, perhaps. No one paid them any attention anymore. What was the point? The buzz bombs came willy-nilly, at any time of day or night. There was nothing you could do about it.

  The water boiled, and she made the tea—and then froze. Something—a prickling sensation, perhaps, at the back of her neck, as if all the tiny hairs were standing at attention, or a vague buzzing in her ears—something made her drop the cup on the table, spilling hot tea onto her wrist, and hurl herself toward the crib to grab the baby. Then there was an almighty flash of white light outside and a deafening roar, followed by a boom like an afterthought, an echo in the void. The whole building seemed to vibrate in anger. She heard screams coming from upstairs, the sound of crashing glass, the loud thud of a slamming door.

  She landed on the floor, across the room, curled up in a ball, with Charles swaddled in her arms. He started to cry. Moving into a seated position, leaning against the wall, she separated the blankets to take a peek. He appeared unharmed. She rocked him gently, with her knees propped in front of her, trying to soothe him. She hummed a lullaby, to calm him, yes—but also to gain control of her teeth; the top row hammered against the bottom, and she could not make them stop. Her heart pounded in her chest. Across the room, two of the windows had fractured. In the crib, ten feet from where she sat, a huge shard of glass was propped vertically, like a spear.

  Lena sat on the floor, stunned. Time passed. Two minutes? Twenty? She became aware of shouts, noisy footsteps, crunched glass. The door flew open. Peter and Lotti stood before her. Lotti saw the broken glass in the crib and screamed. Peter took the baby from Lena’s arms and helped her to her feet. She was still shaking.

  “What the hell was that?” Lena said.

  “An explosion of some sort.”

  “There was no warning, nothing.”

  “I know. We were in the pub,” Peter said. “It wasn’t a Doodle-bug. There was no engine noise. It came out of the blue.”

  “It has to be a flying rocket or something.” Lena rubbed her arms, as if she needed to check that she was still in one piece.

  “Oh my God,” Lotti said, sobbing.

  Peter pulled her in close. Charles started to cry in earnest now, his toothless gums circling a desperate wail.

  “When on earth are they going to tell us what’s going on?” Lena said. “All the rumors and ridiculous stories about gas explosions . . .”

  “They were just talking about that in the pub,” Peter said. “‘Flying gas mains’ was how the barman put it. Having quite a joke about it, they were.”

  “I don’t see what’s funny.” Lotti glared at him and took Charles into her arms. “Look at that.” She tilted her chin at the broken glass in the crib as she sat and unbuttoned her blouse to nurse.

  Peter inspected the shattered windows. “I’ll put up the blackout screens for now,” he said. “In the morning, before I leave, I’ll try to find some plywood.” He stuck his neck out into the darkness. “I think it was a dud,” he added. “It looks as though it exploded in midair, just before impact. They say the ones that hit the ground create a massive crater and wipe out the whole street.”

  “If that’s a dud, I’d hate to see the real thing,” Lotti said.

  “Perhaps it was an act of sabotage,” Lena said. “By a Polish slave laborer.”

  Peter extracted a glass remnant from the frame. “Whatever the reason, I think it saved us.”

  “You saved Charles,” Lotti said to Lena. She rocked back and forth as she clutched him to her breast. “Thank goodness you were here. And that you were holding him.”

  “I don’t . . . I really don’t know how that happened.”

  “You have to move in here,” Peter said. “I don’t want Lotti living on her own with these things flying about.”

  Lena swept up the glass fragments. “It was quite by chance. . . . I can’t explain. Something made me run and pick him up.”

  “A premonition,” Lotti said.

  “Except I don’t believe in such things.”

  “Pure luck, then. Whatever it is, it makes me want you to stay.”

  “I know it’s irrational,” Peter said. “But I would feel better knowing you’re here.”

  “Besides,” Lotti said. “I feel guilty having the extra room when so many people are overcrowded. I would far rather have you live here than with some stranger.”

  “I suppose. But what about . . .” She wanted to ask something about Milton’s staying over. Would Lotti approve?

  “Budeš tu jako doma,” Lotti said. “It would be your home. You would be free to do as you please.” She looked Lena directly in the eye. “I mean that. I just want you to be happy.”

  Lena nodded in gratitude. “I could move in at the end of the week.”

  She walked the short distance back to her own flat, gingerly feeling her way around broken glass. The new streetlights at the end of the road had been shattered by the blast of the latest mysterious Vergeltungswaffe in Hitler’s arsenal of revenge.

  But Lena felt a flutter of excitement. She would have her own room at Lotti’s: a new place to call home. Without having to tiptoe around Otto’s moods. And, she thought to herself with a huge smile, a place to be with Milton when he was in town.

  Five days later, Churchill officially announced that Britain had been under rocket attack for the past several weeks.

  “Honest to God, I was beginning to think we were all crazy,” Sheila said. “It’s better now we know.”

  “Still not a word in the papers about where they’re falling or nothing,” Gladys said. They were gathered around the table in the lunchroom. “We heard them explosions yesterday evening, south of the river, great plumes of smoke.”

  “Poor buggers,” Sheila said.

  Gladys drew a sharp in-breath and pursed her lips in disapproval.

  “Oops, sorry, Gladys. ’Scuse my French.”

  Gladys no longer insisted on being addressed as Mrs. Wood-ruff, but there were some standards she felt obliged to uphold.

  “These rockets are beastly,” Lena said. “They come out of nowhere.”

  “Better than the D
oodlebugs, if you ask me. Ah Jesus—that waiting, holding your breath, seeing if it’s going to cut out, then running to find somewhere to hide. The worrying on it is enough to kill you.”

  “I don’t know,” Lena said. “I’d rather get some warning.”

  “Not me,” Sheila said.

  “But that one last week”—Lena shuddered at the memory—“came out of the blue. I still don’t know how I managed to grab Lotti’s baby.”

  “I’d rather not know if it’s going to hit me. Better to go quick.” Sheila gave a little laugh.

  A surreal conversation, Lena thought. “Anyway, it can’t go on for much longer,” she said. “The Allies have to get to the launching sites soon.”

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I hope so.” Sheila crossed herself. “I pray to the Lord Almighty that He’ll keep us safe.”

  Lena wanted to say, If the Lord was that Almighty, surely he could stop the damn things altogether. But she didn’t.

  “When’s you-know-who coming back, then?” Sheila said, after Gladys left the room. Lena’s love life remained their little secret in the office.

  “Tomorrow.” Lena smiled. All that talk about rockets had shoved her excitement aside for a few minutes, but she longed to see Milton.

  “Where’s he going to stay, then?”

  “He’s bringing a workman up from the country to do repairs on his flat. I’m going to ask him to help me move into Lotti’s.”

  “She doesn’t mind, then, your friend? About him, I mean.”

  “No,” Lena said. “She doesn’t mind. She’s getting used to the idea.”

  Sheila wiped the crumbs off the table. “And have you told Mister that you’re moving out?”

  “Not exactly. I’m going to tell him tonight.”

  Sheila gave her a skeptical look.

  “I know. I will. I will.”

  Lena saw him at the top of the Tube steps as she emerged at Leicester Square. Milton wore a tartan scarf around his neck, his hands buried in his coat pockets, a rolled-up newspaper tucked under one arm. He unfurled as she approached and pulled her into a tight embrace. She inhaled the warmth of him, felt his freshly shaven cheek against hers.

  “It’s so good to be back,” he said. He kissed her on the lips.

  People jostled past. A large shopping bag bumped into her, buckling her right knee. Milton pulled away an inch and steered them over to the side, out of the flow of traffic, and then kissed her again, long and soft and moist.

  “We should move from here, I suppose,” he said a few minutes later. “Would you like to go to the theater? Blithe Spirit is still playing at the Duchess. Have you seen it?”

  “No. I’ve heard it’s very good.” But it was not what she most wanted to do at that moment.

  He pulled her close again, his hand in the small of her back. Their bodies pressed together. He groaned softly. “Oh my God. I wish my flat weren’t in shambles.”

  “I suppose we could go . . .” She couldn’t believe she was suggesting this. “Otto’s working late all week. He won’t be home until after ten.”

  They ran down the steps into the Underground and held hands all the way to King’s Cross, sharing half a bar of chocolate that Milton found in his coat pocket, giggling like schoolchildren.

  When they arrived at Donegal Street, Lena was relieved to see that the top floor was indeed dark. They crept up the stairs to avoid attracting attention from Mavis. She fumbled with the key, Milton kissing the back of her neck. Lena still half expected to see Otto lying in wait, but the flat was empty. She pulled Milton toward the bed, closing the bedroom door behind them, to provide a modicum of separation from the living room, the space that had become Otto’s.

  She reached for Milton hungrily, the brazen pleasure of it intensified by the tinge of danger.

  When Otto returned much later, Milton was gone. He was staying the night at Alistair’s club in the West End. Lena had washed herself at the sink but still feared that the smell of him lingered on her body. When she heard Otto come in, she emerged from the bedroom and stood in the doorway in her dressing gown, arms tight across her chest. Otto sat on the sofa, reading the evening paper, which Milton had left behind.

  “I’m going to move out tomorrow,” she said, without preamble.

  He looked at her fleetingly and then turned back to the newspaper. “Moving in with Lover Boy?”

  “No, I told you, Milton’s place was bombed. Lotti’s asked me to move into her flat. To be with her and the baby. Now that Peter’s leaving.”

  Otto said nothing. He leafed through the pages.

  “It will be better for both of us this way.”

  He did not respond. But she’d said what needed to be said. Sheila would be proud of her.

  CHAPTER 43

  LONDON, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1944

  But on Monday morning, Sheila didn’t show up for work. “She’s been fighting off a cold,” Gladys said.

  “Her mum’s been sick,” Mildred said.

  “Her hands have been playing up something awful.”

  “That’ll be it, then.”

  Except that Sheila never took a day off, not even if her arthritis flared in anger. She couldn’t afford to have her pay docked. And if she really couldn’t make it, she would have sent a message; she would have sent someone to the pub or used the telephone box at the Tube station.

  Lena couldn’t stop worrying. Every half hour she gave herself an excuse to walk by Sheila’s desk in the hope that she would have somehow slipped in. But her chair remained empty. Her mug rested next to the inkwell, her small wooden shamrock propped in the corner. Her thick navy cardigan, which she kept for chilly days, was draped over the chair. But no Sheila.

  Just before lunchtime, Mrs. Manson emerged from her office, ashen-faced. “Mrs. Eisenberg, could you come in here, please?”

  She closed the door behind her and stood at her desk, gripping the edge to steady herself.

  “That was Miss O’Neill’s cousin on the telephone. I’m afraid it’s not good news.” She collapsed into the seat with a thud. “Apparently, Lambeth was hit by a rocket attack early this morning. The young lady was hysterical, and I could barely understand her. She spoke in a thick Irish brogue. But I believe she said the entire street was demolished. They’re still searching for survivors.”

  Lena reeled backward, scraping her ankle on the corner of the cabinet. She clasped her hands to her chest. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to breathe.

  “No . . .”

  “I don’t know how on earth I’m going to tell the girls,” Mrs. Manson said. “I know some of them were awfully fond of her. She was somewhat uncouth, of course, but she was a good worker.”

  “Oh, my God.” Not Sheila. No. Please.

  “And we’re so far behind with the butchers’ accounts as it is.”

  Lena had to leave the room. “Excuse me.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Eisenberg. I would be most grateful if you could tell the others for me.”

  Mrs. Manson sequestered herself in her office. Mildred fainted when she heard the news and had to be sent home. Gladys, red-eyed, kept the fort going up front. The afternoon passed in a blur. Lena kept thinking that Sheila would appear, bedraggled, perhaps, but joking about her lucky escape.

  But she did not.

  When Milton met Lena after work, she collapsed into his arms and sobbed. “Do you want to go down there and . . . look for her?” he said.

  It was better than doing nothing. Better than imagining the worst.

  She didn’t know exactly where Sheila lived. Close to Lambeth North Tube station was all she knew. They emerged at a large crossroads and were pulled as if by a magnet toward Lambeth Road. They soon saw the commotion three hundred yards ahead: emergency vehicles; heaps of rubble; people with hollow expressions moving in slow motion; the WVS van dispensing cups of tea; crews loading stretchers into ambulances. The light was fading, but Lena thought she saw a row of bodies, covered in dark blankets, lined up on the ground.

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nbsp; They pushed through the crowd to the opposite corner and stopped in shock. A huge crater, fifteen feet deep and a hundred wide, had swallowed up the whole terrace of houses. It was ringed by a chaotic jumble of bricks and lumber and broken glass. Rescue workers clambered over a pile of rubble to the right. Water from burst pipes spewed into morose puddles, ignored in favor of more pressing priorities. The air was thick with dust. Lena drew her coat collar up over her nose. Her eyes began to burn.

  Milton turned to a young boy, about fourteen years old. “Do you know where the O’Neills live?”

  “O’Neills? Can’t say I do, sir.”

  “You looking for the O’Neills?” This from another boy, older than the first, standing astride a bicycle, cigarette hanging from his lip. “Moira O’Neill?”

  “I just know Sheila,” Lena said. Her voice was hoarse. “It’s a large family. . . .”

  “Moira’s over there, having tea.” He pointed to the WVS van on the main road. A dozen women perched on a pile of rubble off to the side, teacups in hand.

  After a few inquiries, Milton and Lena were face-to-face with a younger version of Sheila: the same blue eyes and auburn curls, same petite frame. She appeared to be about eighteen, hunched over, coat drawn tight across her chest. A streak of grime covered her right cheek. She looked up, and her silent eyes met Lena’s. An older woman sat next to her, a protective arm around her shoulders.

  “She’s still looking for her family, love,” this woman said, drawing on a cigarette. Two large curlers protruded from a paisley headscarf tied in a knot above her forehead.

  “What happened?” Lena asked. A stupid question, perhaps, but she felt a compelling need for details.

  “One of them V2s. Hit us at eight o’clock this morning. There was this blinding flash of light and a terrible roaring noise. Moira here had just left for work. She starts early, see. She was almost at the Tube but turned back when she heard the explosion. They just pulled out the lady what lived next door to her.” She nodded over to the pile of corpses. “She didn’t make it.”