Connie Willis - Fire Watch

“Is it the end of the world?” Megan asked. “Losing your cup, I mean?” Finney had come up to the Reverend Mr. Davidson’s study to see if he might have left it there and found Megan at her father’s desk, pasting bits of cotton wool to a sheet of blue paper.

“No, of course not,” Finney said. “Its only annoying. It’s the third time this week I’ve lost it.” He pulled the desk drawers open one by one. The top two were empty. The bottom was full of construction paper. He limped around the desk to a chair and dropped down onto it.

He watched Megan. The top two buttons of her blouse were unbuttoned, and she was leaning forward over the paper, so Finney had a nice view of her bosom, though she was unaware of it. She was making a botch of the pasting, daubing the brown glue onto the cotton instead of the paper. The glue leaked through the cotton wool when she pounded it down with the flat of her hand, and sticky bits of it clung to her palm. The face of an angel and the body of a woman and she could not paste as well as her nursery church school class. It was her father the Reverend Mr. Davidson’s voice one heard when she spoke, his learned speech patterns and quotations of scripture, but the effect was strong enough that one forgot she recited them without understanding. Finney constantly had to remind himself that she was only a child, even if she was eighteen, that her words were children’s words with children’s meanings, inspired though they might sound.

“Why did you ask if it were the end of the world?” Finney said.

“Because then you might find your cup. 'Of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.’ When is Daddy coming home?”

Finney’s foot began to throb. “When he’s finished with his business.”

“I hope he comes soon,” Megan said. “There are only the three of us till he comes.”

“Yes,” Finney said, thinking of the other teacher, Mrs. Andover. A fine threesome to hold down the fort: a middle-aged spinster, an eighteen-year-old child, and a thirty-year-old… what? Church school teacher, he told himself firmly. His foot began to ache worse than ever. Lame church school teacher.

“I hope he comes soon,” Megan said again.

“So do I. What are you making?”

“Sheep,” Megan said. She held up the paper. White bits of the cotton wool were stuck randomly to the blue paper. They looked like clouds in a blue sky. “My class is going to make them after tea.”

“Where are your children then?” Finney said, trying to keep his voice casual.

She looked at him with round blue eyes. “We were playing a game outside before. About sheep. So I came in to make some.”

St. John’s at End sat on a round island in the middle of the River End. The river on both sides was so shallow one could walk across it, but it was possible to drown in only a foot of water, wasn’t it? Finney nearly had.

“I’ll find them,” he said.

“The lost shall be found,” Megan said, and patted a bit of wool with her hand.

He collided with Mrs. Andover on the stairs. “Megan’s let her class out with no one to watch them,” he said rapidly. “She’s in there pasting and the children are God knows where. My boys are out, but they won’t think to watch out for them.”

Mrs. Andover turned and walked slowly down the stairs ahead of him, as if she were purposely impeding his progress. “The children are perfectly all right,” she said calmly. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and faced Finney, her arms folded across her matronly bosom. “I set one of the older girls to watch them,” she said. “She has been spying for me all week, seeing that nothing happens to them.”

Finney was a little taken aback. Mrs. Andover was so much the Oxford tour guide, prim blue skirt and sturdy walking shoes. He would have thought a word like “spying” beneath her.

“You needn’t worry,” she said, mistaking Finney’s surprise for concern. “I’m paying her. Two pounds the week. Money’s the root of all loyalty, isn’t it, then?”

“Sometimes,” Finney said, even more surprised. “At any rate I think I’ll go make sure of them.”

Mrs. Andover lifted an eyebrow and said, “Whatever you think best.” She turned at the landing and went into the sanctuary, Finney started out the side door and then stopped, wondering what Mrs. Andover could possibly be doing in there. She had not had a pocket torch with her, and the sanctuary was nearly pitch-black. He hesitated, then turned painfully around, using the stone lintel for support, and followed her into the sanctuary.

At first he could not see her. The spaces where the stained glass windows had been were boarded up with sheets of plywood. Only the little arch at the top was left: open to let in light. The windows had been the first to go, of course, even before the government had decided that a state church should by definition help support the state. The windows had been sold because the cults could afford to buy them and the churches needed the money. The government had seen at once that the churches could be a source of income as well as grace, and the systematic sacking had begun. The great cathedrals, like Ely and Salisbury, were long since stripped bare, and it would not be long before the looting reached St. John’s.

St. John’s will becrammed with spies, Finney thought. The Reverend Mr. Davidson, Mrs. Andover’s girl, the government spies, and myself, all working undercover in one way or another. We shall have to sell the pews to make room for everyone. He stood perfectly still, balancing on his good foot. He let his eyes adjust, waiting to get his bearings from the marble angel that always shone dimly near the doors. The little curved triangles of sky were thick with gray clouds that absorbed the light like Megan’s cotton wool absorbed the brown glue.

He caught a glimpse of white to the left, but it was not the angel. It was Mrs. Andover’s white blouse. She was bending over one of the pews. “I say,” he called out cheerfully, “this would make a good hiding place, wouldn’t it?”

She straightened abruptly.

“What are you looking for?” Finney said, making his way toward her with the pew backs for awkward crutches.

“Your cup,” Mrs. Andover said nervously “I heard you tell Megan you’d lost it again. I thought one of the children might have hidden it.”

Mrs. Andover was full of surprises today. Finney did not really know her at all, had not really thought about her presence though she had come after he did. Finney had ticketed her from the start as a schoolmistress spinster and not thought any more about her. Now he was not certain he should have dismissed her so easily “What are you doing here?” he said aloud.

“I was not aware the sanctuary was off-limits,” she snapped. Finney was amazed. She looked as properly guilty as one of his upper form boys.

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” he said. “I was only wondering how you came to be here at St. John’s.”

She looked even guiltier, which was ridiculous. What had she been doing in here?

“One might wonder the same thing about you, Mr. Finney.” She looked coldly at his stub of a foot. “You apparently came here through violent means.”

Very good, thought Finney. “A shark bit it off,” he said. “In the River End. I was wading.”

“It is no wonder you are so concerned about the children then. Perhaps you’d better go see to them.” She started past him. He put out his hand to stop her, not even sure what he wanted to say. She stopped stock-still. “I shouldn’t question other people’s fitness to teach, Mr. Finney,” she said. “A lame man and a half-witted girl. The Reverend Mr. Davidson is apparently not in a position to pick and choose who represents his church.”