Blackout (33 page)

“Oh, my, yes.”

“But Mr. Dorming isn’t here,” Polly said. “You two go on ahead, and I’ll fetch him—”

“He’s already gone,” Miss Hibbard said. “He left the moment he heard what supper was. Come along,” and there was nothing for it but to
go with them. She would have to wait till they reached St. George’s and then say she’d forgot something and needed to go back. If the raids hadn’t begun by then.

How could she have got the time wrong? she wondered, half listening to Miss Laburnum prattle on about how wonderful Sir Godfrey was, “Though actually I prefer Barrie’s plays to Shakespeare’s, so much more refined.” The raids had begun at 8:45 on the eighteenth. But Hyde Park’s siren was going, too, and as they crossed the street, Kensington Gardens’ started up. Colin must have mixed the dates.

They were nearly to the church. “Oh, dear,” Polly said. “I forgot my cardigan. I must go back.”

“I have a shawl you can borrow,” Miss Hibbard said, and before Polly could think of a response, Lila and Viv had come running up to tell her about John Lewis having been hit.

“Thank goodness I only found out about that job yesterday,” Lila said breathlessly. “I’d never have forgiven myself if you’d got it and been working there when it was hit.”

“Oh, dear,” Miss Hibbard said, “I believe I hear planes,” and hustled them all down the steps and into the shelter.

Polly debated making a break for it, but she would never make it. Mrs. Brightford, the little girls, Mr. Simms, and his dog were all coming down the stairs, followed by the rector, who did a quick head count and bolted the door.

And now what was she supposed to do about a black skirt? And learning to wrap? She might be able to tell Miss Snelgrove she’d been caught by the sirens and hadn’t been able to go home
—which is true
, she thought wryly—but what excuse could she give for producing such mangled packages?
I’ll simply have to practice here
, she thought, checking her pocket to make certain she still had the length of string. She did. When Sir Godfrey offered her his
Times
(with no trace of the magnificence of the night before—he’d reverted completely to his role of elderly gentleman) she took it, and after everyone had gone to sleep—the bombing hadn’t started till 8:47 after all, in spite of the sirens—she tiptoed over to the bookcase for a hymnal and attempted to wrap it in a sheet of the newspaper.

It was much easier to fold than the store’s heavy brown paper, and she didn’t have the pressure of a customer—or Miss Snelgrove—watching her, but she still made a botch of it. She tried again, holding the folded end against her middle to keep it from lapping open as she wrapped the string. That worked better, but the newsprint left a long black streak on her blouse.

“I expect neatness in your appearance,” Miss Snelgrove had said, which meant she’d have to wash out her blouse and iron it dry after the all clear. The raids were supposed to be over by four, but as she’d learned tonight, that didn’t mean the all clear would sound then.

She took a new sheet of the
Times
and tried again. And again, cursing the uncooperative string and wondering why Townsend Brothers couldn’t use cellophane tape instead. She knew it had been invented. She’d used it when—

A bomb exploded nearby with a sudden cellar-shaking crash, and Nelson leaped up, barking wildly. Polly jumped, and the newsprint tore across.

“What was that?” Miss Laburnum demanded sleepily.

“Stray five-hundred-pounder,” Mr. Simms said, stroking his dog’s head.

Mr. Dorming listened and then nodded. “They’re on their way home,” he said and lay back down, but after a few minutes of silence, the raids abruptly started up again, the anti-aircraft guns beginning to pound, the planes roaring overhead.

Mr. Dorming sat up again, and then the rector and Lila, who said disgustedly, “Oh, not
again!”
The others, one by one, were waking up and staring nervously at the ceiling. Polly kept wrapping, determined to nail the skill down before morning. There was a clatter, like hail hitting the street above them.

“Incendiaries,” Mr. Simms said.

A crump, and then a long, screaming whoosh, and a pair of explosions. It wasn’t as deafening as it had been the night before, but the rector walked over to Sir Godfrey, who was reading a letter, and said quietly, “The raids seem to be bad again tonight. Would you mind terribly, Sir Godfrey, gracing us with another performance?”

“I should be honored,” Sir Godfrey said, folding up his letter, putting it in his coat pocket, and standing up. “What will you have?
Much Ado?
Or one of the tragedies?”

“Sleeping Beauty,” Trot, on her mother’s lap, said.

“Sleeping
Beauty?”
he roared. “Out of the question. I am Sir Godfrey Kingsman. I do
not
do pantomime,” which should have reduced Trot to tears, but didn’t.

“Do the one about the thunder again,” she said.

“The Tempest,”
he said. “A far better choice,” and Trot beamed.

He truly is wonderful
, Polly thought, wishing she had time to watch him instead of having to practice wrapping.

“Oh, no, do
Macbeth
, Sir Godfrey,” Miss Laburnum said. “I’ve always longed to see you in—”

Sir Godfrey had drawn himself up to his full height. “Do you not know calling the Scottish play by its name brings bad luck?” he boomed at her, then looked up at the ceiling and listened for a moment to the crashing and thud of bombs as if he expected one to come down on them in retribution. “No, dear lady,” he said more calmly. “We have had enough this fortnight of overreaching ambition and violence. There are fog and filthy air enough abroad tonight.”

He bowed sweepingly to Trot. “‘The thunder one’ it shall be, ‘full of sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.’ But if I am to be Prospero, I must have a Miranda.” He strode over to Polly and extended his hand to her. “As forfeit for having mutilated my
Times,”
he said, looking down at the torn newspaper, “Miss…?”

“Sebastian,” she said, “and I’m sorry I—”

“No matter,” he said absently. He was looking at her thoughtfully. “Not Sebastian, but his twin Viola.”

“I thought you said her name was Miranda,” Trot said.

“It is,” he said, and under his breath, “We shall do
Twelfth Night
another time.”

He pulled her to standing. “‘Come, daughter, attend, and I shall relate how we came unto this island beset by strange winds.’” He produced his book from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Page eight,” he whispered. “Scene two. ‘If by your art, dearest father—’”

She knew the speech, but a shopgirl in 1940 wouldn’t, so she took the book and pretended to read her line. “‘If by your art, dearest father, you have put the wild waters in this roar,’” she read, “‘allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch—’”

“‘Can’st thou remember a time before we came unto this cell?’” he asked.

“‘’Tis far off,’” she said, thinking of Oxford, “‘and rather like a dream than an assurance that my remembrance warrants—’”

“‘What seest thou else,’” he said, looking into her eyes, “‘in the dark backward and abysm of time?’”

Why, he knows I’m from the future
, she thought, and then,
He’s only speaking his lines, he can’t possibly know
, and completely missed her cue. “‘What foul play… ’” he prompted.

She had no idea what part of the page they were on. “‘What foul play had we that we came from thence?’” she said. “‘Or blessed was’t we did?’”

“‘Both, both, my girl! By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heav’d thence, but blessedly holp hither,’” he said, taking hold of her hands, which still held the book, and launched into Prospero’s explanation of how they’d come to the island and then, without even a pause, into his charge to Ariel.

She forgot the book, forgot the role of 1940s shopgirl she was supposed to be playing, forgot the people watching them and the planes droning overhead—forgot everything except for his hands holding hers captive. And his voice. She stood there facing him enrapt—“spell-stopp’d,” as if he truly were a sorcerer—and wished he would go on forever.

When he came to “‘I’ll break my staff,’” he let go of her hands, raised his own above his head, and brought them down sharply, pantomiming the snapping of an imaginary staff, and the audience, who faced attack and annihilation nightly with equanimity, flinched at the action. The three little girls shrank against their mother, mouths open, eyes wide.

“‘I’ll drown my book,’” he said, his voice rich with power and love and regret, “‘These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into thin air.’”

Oh, don’t
, Polly thought, though what came next was Prospero’s most beautiful speech. But it was about palaces and towers and “the great globe itself” being destroyed, and he must have sensed her silent plea because he said instead, “‘We, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind,’” and Polly felt her eyes fill with tears.

“‘You do look as if you were dismayed,’” Sir Godfrey said gently, taking her hands again. “‘Be cheerful, child. Our revels now are ended,’” and the all clear sounded.

Everyone immediately looked up at the ceiling, and Mrs. Rickett stood up and began putting on her coat. “The curtain has rung down,” Sir Godfrey muttered to Polly with a grimace and moved to release her hands.

She shook her head. “‘It was the nightingale. It is not yet near day.’”

He gave her a look of awe, and then smiled and shook his head. “‘It was the lark,’” he said regretfully. “Or worse, the chimes at midnight,” and let go of her hands.

“Oh, my, Sir Godfrey, you were
so
affecting,” Miss Laburnum said, crowding up to him with Miss Hibbard and Mrs. Wyvern.

“We are but poor players,” he said, gesturing to include Polly, but they ignored her.

“You were
really
good, Sir Godfrey,” Lila said.

“Even better than Leslie Howard,” Viv put in.

“Simply mesmerizing,” Mrs. Wyvern said.

Mesmerizing is right
, Polly thought, putting on her coat and gathering up her bag and the newspaper-covered hymnal.
He made me forget all about practicing my wrapping
. She glanced at her watch, hoping the all clear had gone early, but it was half past six.
It
is
the lark
, she thought, feeling like Cinderella,
and I’ve got to go home and wash out my blouse
.

“I do hope you’ll grace us with another performance tomorrow night, Sir Godfrey,” Miss Laburnum was saying.

“Miss Sebastian!” Sir Godfrey extricated himself from his admiring crowd and hurried over to her. “I wished to thank you for knowing your lines—something my leading ladies scarcely ever do. Tell me, have you ever considered a career in the theater?”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m only a shopgirl.”

“Hardly,” he said. “‘Thou art the goddess on whom these airs attend, a paragon, a wonder.’”

“‘No wonder, sir, but certainly a maid,’” she quoted, and he shook his head ruefully.

“A maid, indeed, and were I forty years younger, I would be your leading man,” he said, leaning toward her, “and
you
would not be safe.”

I don’t doubt that for a moment
, she thought.
He must have been truly dangerous when he was thirty
, and thought suddenly of Colin, saying, “I can shoot for any age you like. I mean, not seventy, but I’m willing to do thirty.”

“Oh, Sir Godfrey,” Miss Laburnum said, coming up. “Next time could you do something from one of Sir James Barrie’s plays?”

“Barrie?
” he said in a tone of loathing. “Peter
Pan
?”

Polly suppressed a smile. She opened the door and started up the steps.

“Viola, wait!” Sir Godfrey called. He caught up to her halfway up the steps. She thought he was going to take her hands again, but he didn’t. He simply looked at her for a long, breath-catching moment.

Thirty, nothing
, she thought.
He’s dangerous
now.

“Sir Godfrey!” Miss Laburnum called from inside the door.

He glanced behind him, and then back at Polly. “‘We are too late met,’” he said. “‘The time is out of joint,’” and went back down the stairs.

MIKE STARED DAZEDLY AT THE SCENE BEFORE HIM. THE
town of Dunkirk lay burning no more than a mile to the east of them, orange-red flames and clouds of acrid black smoke from the oil tanks billowing out over the docks. There were fires on the docks and on the beaches, and in the water. A cruiser lay off to the right, its stern angled out of the water. A tugboat stood alongside, taking soldiers off. South of it stood a destroyer and beyond it a Channel packet. It was on fire, too.

Flashes of light—from artillery guns?—played along the horizon, and the destroyers’ guns answered with a deafening roar. There was an explosion on shore, and a billowing puff of flame—a gas tank exploding—and the far-off rattle of machine-gun fire. “I can’t believe it!” Jonathan shouted over the din, his voice bubbling over with excitement. “We’re actually here!”

Mike stared at the fire-lit harbor paralyzed, afraid to let go of the railing, afraid to even move. Anything he did—or said—could have a catastrophic effect on events. “This is great!” Jonathan said. “Do you think we’ll get to see any Germans?”

“I hope not,” Mike said, glancing up at the sky and then at the horizon, peering through the drifting smoke, trying to see if dawn was approaching. The harbor at Dunkirk had been an obstacle course of half-submerged wrecks, and they didn’t have a hope of getting through it if they couldn’t see. But they were more likely to be attacked by Stukas in daylight. And, oh, Christ, on the twenty-ninth the weather had cleared, and an offshore breeze had blown the smoke inland, away from the harbor,
leaving the boats trying to load the soldiers sitting ducks. There was no breeze yet. But for how long?