THE H-BOMB GIRL

by Stephen Baxter

  “Shut it,” he said mildly. “So what are you losers doing sitting here?”

  “We’ve got a secret,” Bernadette said.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Laura glared at her, but Bernadette rummaged in her bag. “Oh, come on, it’s Nick. We can tell him. Look at this.”

  She put the phone gadget on the table. She had them all huddle close so nobody else could see. Then she opened up the lid, and the little numbered buttons glowed blue.

  “Wow,” Nick said, impressed. “What is it, a toy?”

  “We think it’s a kind of phone,” Joel said.

  “You think that,” Bernadette said.

  “There are radio phones,” Nick said. “Walkie-talkies, like the police have. But I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Joel pursed his lips. “I think we’ve got an idea about that.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s from the future.” And he ran Nick through their evidence that Miss Wells wasn’t just a lookalike or a long-lost auntie, but was, somehow, a version of Laura from the future. “How wacky is that?”

  Nick sat back and looked at Laura. “You keep surprising me, H-Bomb Girl. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or burst out in pimples.”

  “So you don’t believe it,” Laura said.

  “I didn’t say that. It’s wacky, but we live in a wacky world.” He pointed to a speaker. The record playing was a pacy instrumental, full of electronic noise. “That’s the current number one. ‘Telstar’, by the Tornadoes. A record with a made-up sound, about a satellite in space that is going to let us watch what’s going on in America or Japan, live on telly.” He touched the phone gadget. “This doesn’t seem so fantastic to me.”

  He was that bit older than Laura and the others. Somehow having him take this seriously reassured Laura.

  “But still,” Bernadette said. “Time travel?”

  Nick drummed on his teeth with his fingernails. “Have you ever thought why Miss Wells is called Miss Wells?”

  Bernadette said, “She couldn’t call herself ‘Miss Mann.’ Bit of a giveaway.”

  “But why Wells?” He looked at Joel, letting him work it out. “You’re the science fiction fan.”

  “My God. Herbert George Wells.”

  Bernadette asked, “Who?”

  “You know. H.G. Wells! He wrote The Time Machine, the most famous time-travel story ever written.”

  Bernadette said, “Isn’t that a bit obvious?”

  “It fooled you,” Joel shot back.

  “Miss Wells is arrogant,” Laura said. “She thinks she’s smarter than us. So she can play little games like this, thinking we won’t understand.”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “I know a lot of people like that. They tend to make mistakes. But, arrogant? You don’t like yourself very much, do you, H-Bomb Girl?”

  “No, I don’t,” Laura said, feeling grim.

  “Maybe she wanted us to figure it out,” Joel said. “The clue in her name. Have you thought of that? And maybe she wanted us to find this phone thing.”

  “Why?” Bernadette asked.

  Joel shrugged. “Because, like Laura says, she’s playing a game, and we’re all just pieces on the board.” Joel always seemed to think things through that bit further.

  “Well, that’s a jolly thought.” Nick pushed his chair back. “Come on. That waitress with the hairy arms is giving me funny looks. Let’s go down the Jive-O-Rama, I’m meeting the group there.”

  “Don’t even think about doing a runner,” the waitress said, hearing every word, though she was yards away.

  Chapter 11

  They shuffled down into the Jive-O-Rama. At the door, Nick had a mock boxing match with Little Jimmy.

  The club was as crowded as ever. Bernadette recognised the other Woodbines, who sat languidly around a table, their long legs stretched out. She walked over, with Joel in tow.

  Laura went to the counter to buy some coffees. Big Jimmy grinned at her as he took her order. “Oh—hey, Agatha,” he called to the back. “She’s in.” He clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “Forgot your name.”

  “Laura.”

  “The new girl. Laura’s in. There’s something Agatha wants to say to you,” he said with a wink.

  Agatha came out from the back, a tea towel in her hands. She took Jimmy’s scribbled slip and started to make up the order, for four espressos.

  Laura asked, “So?”

  Her back turned, Agatha said, “So what?”

  Laura felt deeply uncomfortable around this skinny, thin-haired, forty-year-old woman with a face like an older sister. “What do you want to say to me?”

  “They’ve been in. Searching.”

  “Who have?”

  Agatha shrugged. “Men in suits. Believe me, we don’t get too many men in suits in here. There was a black car outside.”

  Mort. It must have been.

  “They asked questions. They bribed the kids, with sweets, comics. A few ciggies. Copies of Health and Efficiency.” That was porn. Agatha sneered. “You’d think you kids had so much stuff you wouldn’t want any more. But there you go.”

  “Questions about what?”

  “You,” Agatha said. “Where you go, who you go around with, how often you come down here.”

  Laura felt cold, despite the sweaty fug of the cellar. Mort must have got frustrated digging around at home, and at school, and now he had followed her here. After all it wasn’t just the Key he would want but the codes she had memorised. “Did anybody talk?”

  “Well, that’s a stupid question. Of course they did. But nobody knew anything worth telling.”

  “Why would you help me? I don’t even know you.”

  Agatha looked at her. “But I know you.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t want to know. Four espressos. Two bob, please.” She wouldn’t say anything else.

  At the table, things were tense.

  Nick introduced Laura to the four Woodbines, the other members of his group. They were all about eighteen.

  “Bert Muldoon, rhythm guitar.” Berk in a sheepskin jacket and sunglasses.

  “Paul Gillespie, lead guitar.” Intense musician-type.

  “Mickey Poole, bass. He’s a Manc, but don’t hold it against him.” Shy, young. Laura knew “Manc” meant he was from Manchester.

  “And you know the famous Billy Waddle.” The drummer was the best-looking, his face set in a constant sulky sneer. He looked Laura up and down, sizing her up.

  Bernadette was sitting right next to Billy, arms folded, glaring as he ogled Laura. There was obviously something going on between them.

  “You’re never in when I call, Billy,” Bernadette said now.

  “Been out. Gigs, you know.”

  “Yeah,” sneered Mickey Poole. “That and overtime at the bottle factory in Bootle.”

  Nick’s expression was complicated. He tapped the tabletop with a fingernail, his glance darting from Bernadette to Billy and back. Laura didn’t understand how he fit into any relationship between Bernadette and the drummer.

  Billy sipped Coke from a wasp-waisted bottle. “Anyway I’m cool with things between us. Aren’t you?” Before Bernadette could have another go, he turned to Laura. “Haven’t I seen your face before?”

  The other boys rolled their eyes. It was an obvious line.

  Laura said, “Well, I was here on Sunday. At the club.”

  “I remember you now.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “She’s a rock and roll virgin,” Nick said.

  Billy leered. “Is there any other kind?”

  Without warning Bert Muldoon launched into an impromptu performance of a song. Laura worked out from the lyrics that it was called “Tutti Frutti.” In his sunglasses and moth-eaten coat, Bert was like a scruffy cartoon bear, who only came to life from time to time. The others joined in, slapping the tabletop for rhythm.

  There was ironic applause from the other tables in the crowded cellar.


  Laura looked around the walls, at the yellowing posters for concerts in town halls and schools and church fetes, and ice rinks and ballrooms like the Locarno and the Rialto, featuring local groups with names like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Derry and the Seniors, John Smith and the Common Men, Bob Tanner and the Threepenny Bits. The freshest poster announced that the Beatles would be playing at the Cavern on Monday night, supported by the Woodbines. It was the concert she had seen advertised in Mersey Beat.

  All these names, all these hopefuls. Would any of them be famous this time next year? Would any of them still be known in whatever year Miss Wells came from? But that didn’t matter. Their music was something completely new in the world, here and now. And she, just by chance, had found herself in the middle of it. It was exciting, despite the dark cloud of her problems.

  Agatha stood over them. Nobody had heard her approach. She looked straight at Laura. “They’re back. Big Jimmy is holding them up.”

  Turning, Laura saw shadows at the head of the stairwell, muscular, brisk.

  “Drug bust,” Bert said. Nobody contradicted him.

  Everybody stood up.

  Bernadette asked, “Is there a back way out?”

  Agatha said, “This way.” She walked off.

  Joel glared at Laura. “Do you trust that woman?”

  “No. But what choice do we have?”

  Nick looked at her. “More dodgy stuff, H-Bomb Girl? Well, come ‘ead.”

  They moved, Laura and Nick following Agatha, then Bernadette and Joel.

  All the Woodbines came after them. “I’m not missing this,” said Bert Muldoon.

  Agatha led them around the counter, to the small kitchen area at the back of the cellar. Lit up by a single fluorescent strip, there was a sink, a fridge, a chopping board with white-bread sandwiches stacked up.

  And at the back, Agatha pulled away a piece of stained hardboard to reveal a hole in the brick wall.

  Bernadette stared into darkness. “You had this prepared.”

  Agatha said, “Where I come from, you always need an escape route. They’re coming. Let’s go.”

  Bernadette led the way. The others followed, Laura and Joel tense, the group members giggling and joking.

  Bernadette’s stomach seemed to be hurting. She worked her way through the hole with one hand on her belly.

  They were in the cellar of the house next door to Big Jimmy’s. It was disused, blocked off. It had been easy for Agatha to pull away the stones in the dividing wall, as the mortar was old and rotten.

  Agatha left a chink of light while they found places to sit, all nine of them, on dirty old boxes and heaps of stone from the wall. Then Agatha put the bit of hardboard back in place, and they were sealed in darkness.

  Laura helped Bernadette to sit, but Bernadette waved her away. “Just cramps.”

  They huddled together, their knees touching.

  Bert Muldoon asked, “Can I have a ciggie?”

  “Don’t be a div,” Mickey Poole said.

  “I smell damp,” Paul Gillespie said.

  Nick said, “That’s Bert’s coat.”

  The group members giggled explosively.

  Bernadette snapped, “Shut up or bog off.”

  Laura, Bernadette, Joel and Nick put their heads together, a little away from the others.

  Nick said seriously, “Tell me what’s going on, H-Bomb Girl.”

  He already knew about Miss Wells, Laura from the future. Now Laura told him as much as she could, that she was apparently being pursued by Miss Wells and the American military. Bernadette and Joel listened intently, knowing some of this.

  Nick laughed. “H-Bomb Girl, you’re more trouble than a camel in a sweetshop.”

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Laura said. She was genuinely scared now, here in this dark hole; she felt panic brush her mind.

  “Well, you can’t go around hiding like this for ever.”

  “It’s the Key they want,” Joel said. “The V-bomber Key.”

  “Maybe we should hide it,” Bernadette said. “We could bury it down here. Or take it somewhere else.”

  “No,” Laura hissed immediately. “I can’t take it off.”

  “Why not?”

  “My dad made me promise not to.”

  There was a silence.

  Nick said, “There’s still a lot you’re not telling us, isn’t there, H-Bomb Girl?”

  There was a hand on Laura’s knee, in the dark. It felt like a hot, muscular spider. It slid up her thigh and under her skirt.

  She grabbed a little finger and yanked it back. Somebody yelped and the hand pulled back.

  Nick snapped, “Who was that?”

  Laura hissed, “The letch with his hand on my leg.”

  Somebody sniggered. “It was worth the pain, sweet cheeks.”

  Bernadette poured all her anger into a hot, tearful whisper. “Billy Waddle. You sod. Oh, you lousy faithless sod. I’m sitting right here and you do that—”

  Laura heard a scuffle, the soft sound of blows landing, muffled ouches. The others piled in to separate the fighters.

  When they were calm again, Laura said carefully, “Are you crying, Bern?”

  “No. Bog off.”

  Laura hunted for a tissue and held it out. “Come on. I’ve never heard you cry before.”

  “And nor,” Nick said, “have I, and I’ve known her a long time. Heart of stone, our Bern.”

  “She’s pregnant.” That was Agatha’s flat voice.

  There was a stunned silence.

  Then Nick said, “Wow. This is turning out to be quite a day.”

  “Bog off,” Bernadette said.

  Laura said, “The stomach cramps. The throwing up.”

  Bernadette hissed, “All right. I’m in the club. Happy now?”

  Billy laughed softly.

  Laura asked, “How long, Bern?”

  “Don’t know. About a month, I think.”

  “Agatha—how did you know?”

  “I have an instinct for these things.”

  “How come? Have you got kids of your own?”

  “No.”

  Nick said bleakly, “And the proud father, I suppose, is the drummer who’s head I’ve just been sitting on.”

  “Got it in one,” Bernadette said.

  “Rang the bell, did you, Billy?”

  Billy said, “Could be me. Could be somebody else. Have to see if he’s got my rhythm when he comes out.”

  “Don’t you joke, Billy Waddle,” Bernadette said. “I lost my virginity to you, you sod. It could only be you. And as soon as you got a sniff of a baby you bogged off, didn’t you?”

  Laura reached out in the dark until she found Bernadette’s hand. “How did it happen? Didn’t you use anything?”

  Bernadette whispered, “When we started, Billy said we’d be OK, we could take a chance.”

  “I got off at Edge Hill,” Billy said. “Usually works.”

  “I didn’t know any better. How stupid I was.”

  Laura wouldn’t have known much more herself. All she knew about sex and contraceptives and pregnancy she’d learned from whispers and rumour, from classmates, people her own age.

  “Not my problem,” Billy said. “Up to the judy to stop a kid.”

  Nick said, “You really are a piece of work, Billy.” The hurt in his voice surprised Laura, as if he’d been betrayed himself.

  “I think that’s why they’ve been searching my stuff at school,” Bernadette said. “They can smell a bun in the oven a mile off.”

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “For what? A lecture?”

  “What will you do?”

  The options were bleak. Abortions were illegal. You could always find somebody to do it, some struck-off doctor maybe. But it was dangerous, even lethal. And if you had the kid, it might be taken away for adoption.

  Bernadette blew her nose. “You think you’ve got problems, H-Bomb Girl.”

  “Yes,” Laura said. All she ha
d to worry about was meddling from the future, and the end of the world. Somehow all that paled compared to this.

  “We’ll help you,” Nick whispered.

  “Yes,” Joel said. “You’re not alone, Bern.”

  Bernadette was silent. Then she said, “Thanks.”

  “But I’m alone.”

  That was Agatha. In the dark she had come to sit next to Laura, moving silently again. Laura felt her cold, thin frame next to her body. A hand pressed against Laura’s arm.

  Laura took it, feeling a bit frightened. “Agatha? Are you OK?”

  “You asked me if I have kids. I can’t have kids. Bernadette doesn’t want her kid, and I can’t have them. Funny that.”

  Laura didn’t know what to say to this forty-year-old woman, holding her hand like a little girl. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be happy in this age,” Agatha whispered to Laura. “This year. All of you. You have so much, your health, all the stuff. This time you’ve been given. It’s different after the war.”

  Nick asked, “You mean Hitler’s war?”

  “No,” said Agatha, “the Sunday War. The war to come.”

  There was a long silence.

  Bert Muldoon said, “Am I the only one who’s confused here?”

  Somebody tapped on the hardboard cover over the hole. Big Jimmy called, “They’ve gone. Come on out.”

  “Good,” Bert said. “I’m dying for a burst.”

  They all started to move, with relief.

  Agatha held Laura’s hand for one second longer. She whispered, “I’m sorry, Mum.”

  Then she climbed out through the hole.

  Laura sat watching her, stunned.

  Chapter 12

  Monday 22nd October. 7:45 a.m.

  No phone call from Dad this morning.

  Stayed in yesterday. All that stuff on Saturday was just too strange.

  Especially Agatha. I don’t want to think about her.

  Bert was sort of right on Saturday, when he guessed it was a drugs bust. The official story was that the raid on the Jive-O-Rama was a drugs raid by plain-clothes scuffers.

  I think they want the Key, and I suppose the code numbers in my head. But they have to sneak around to get it, rather than just take it. Why, I don’t know. For now it’s helping me.