Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

There’d been drills at school in the summer term and Dad had been talking the whole thing up at night, telling them over and over about the times he’d gone down to Kent as a boy, hop-picking with his family: the sunny days, the campfire songs in the evening, how beautiful the countryside was, how green and sweet and endless. But although Meredith had enjoyed his stories, she’d also thrown a glance or two Mum’s way, and that had got the lump of foreboding roiling in her stomach. Mum had been hunched over the sink, all sharp hips and knees and elbows, exercising the same fierce attention to scrubbing pans spotless that always presaged grim times ahead.

Sure enough, a few nights after the stories started, Meredith heard the first argument. Mum saying they were a family and they ought to stay together and take their chances as one, that a family broken apart could never be put back together quite the same. Dad had spoken then, calmer, telling her it was like the posters said, that kids had a better chance out of the city, that it wouldn’t last for long and then they’d all be back together. Things had gone quiet for a moment after that, and Meredith had strained to hear, then Mum had laughed, but not happily. She hadn’t come down in the last shower, she said; if there was one thing she knew it was that governments and men in fancy suits couldn’t be trusted, that once the kids were taken God only knew when they’d get them back and in what sort of condition they’d be, and she’d shouted some of the words Rita got regular swipes for using, and said that if he loved her he wouldn’t send her children away, and Dad had shushed her and there’d been sobbing and no more talking and Meredith had put her pillow over her head, as much to drown out Rita’s snoring as anything else.

There’d been no more talk of evacuation after that, not for days, until one afternoon Rita came running home to tell them that the public swimming baths were closed and there were big new notices out front. ‘There’s one on each side,’ she’d said, eyes widened by the press of portentous news: ‘The first says “Women Contaminated”, the second says “Men Contaminated”.’ And Mum had knotted her hands and Dad had said only, ‘Gas,’ and that was that. Next day Mum pulled down the only suitcase they owned and any pillowcases she could spare and started filling them with things on the list from school – just in case: a change of knickers, a comb, handkerchiefs, and a brand-new nightdress each for Rita and Meredith, the necessity of which Dad had gently queried and Mum had justified with a fierce scowl. ‘You think I’m letting my children go with threadbare clothing into the homes of strangers?’ Dad had stayed quiet after that and even though Meredith knew her parents would be paying for the new items until Christmas, she couldn’t help taking guilty delight in the nightie, which was crisp and white and the first she’d ever owned that hadn’t been Rita’s first…

And now they were being sent away and Meredith would have done anything to take back her wish. Meredith wasn’t brave, not like Ed, and she wasn’t loud and confident like Rita. She was shy and awkward, and utterly different from everyone else in her family. She shifted in her seat, lined her feet up together on her suitcase and considered the gleam of her shoes, then blinked away the image of Dad polishing them the night before, setting them down when he’d finished only to wander the room a few idle minutes, hands in pockets, before starting the whole process again. As if by applying polish, driving it deep into the leather and buffing until it shone, he could somehow ward off the untold dangers that lay ahead.

‘Mu-mmy, Mu-mmy!’

The shriek came from across the carriage and Meredith glanced up to see a little boy, not much more than a baby, clinging to his sister and pawing the glass. Tears had snaked down his dirty cheeks and the skin beneath his nose was shiny. ‘I want to stay with you, Mummy,’ he cried. ‘I want to get killed with you!’

Meredith concentrated on her knees, rubbed at the red marks her gas-mask box had made as it banged against her legs on the walk from school. Then she looked again through the train’s window, she couldn’t help herself; peered up at the railing above the station where the adults were crowded together. He was still there, still watching them, the stranger’s smile still twisting up his normal Dad-face, and Meredith found it difficult suddenly to breathe and her spectacles were starting to fog, and even as she wished the earth would open up and swallow her so it would all be over, a small part of her mind remained detached, wondering which words she’d use, if asked to describe the way fear was making her lungs constrict. As Rita squealed with laughter at something her friend Carol had whispered in her ear, Meredith closed her eyes.

It had begun at precisely eleven fifteen the previous morning. She’d been sitting at the front of the house, legs stretched out along the top step, taking notes as she watched Rita across the road making eyes at that ghastly Luke Watson with his big yellow teeth. The announcement had come in distant strains from the wireless next door, Neville Chamberlain talking in that slow, solemn voice of his, telling them there’d been no response to the ultimatum and that they were now at war with Germany. Then had come the national anthem, after which Mrs Paul appeared on the neighbouring doorstep, spoon still dripping with Yorkshire pudding batter, with Mum close behind her, and householders all the way along the street doing the same. Everyone stood where they were, looking one to the other, bewilderment, fear and uncertainty written loud on their faces, as mutterings of ‘It’s happened’ began to pass along the street in a great disbelieving wave.

Eight minutes later, the air-raid siren clattered and all hell broke loose. Old Mrs Nicholson ran up and down the street in hysterics alternating the Lord’s Prayer with panicked declarations of their impending doom; Moira Seymour, who was the local ARP warden, got excited and started twirling the heavy rattle signalling a gas attack and people scattered in the hunt for their masks; and Inspector Whitely wove his bicycle through the mayhem wearing a cardboard placard over his body that read ‘Take Cover’.

Meredith had watched, wide-eyed, drinking in the mayhem, then stared up at the sky, waiting for the enemy planes, wondering how they’d look, how their appearance might make her feel, whether she was able to write fast enough to jot it all down as it was happening, when all of a sudden Mum had clutched her arm and dragged her and Rita down the street towards the trench shelter in the park. Meredith’s notebook had dropped in the rush and been trampled and she’d wrenched her arm free and stopped to pick it up, and Mum had shouted that there wasn’t time and her face had been white, almost angry-looking, and Meredith had known she’d get a tongue-lashing later, if not worse, but she’d had no choice. There’d been no question of leaving it behind. She’d run back, ducked beneath the crowd of frightened neighbours, seized her notebook – worse for wear, but still intact – and returned to her furious mother, face no longer white but red as Heinz tomato ketchup. By the time they got to the shelter and realized they’d forgotten their gas masks, the All Clear had sounded, Meredith had earned a smack across the legs, and Mum had resolved to evacuate them the next day.

‘Hey there, kiddo.’

Meredith opened moist eyes to see Mr Cavill standing in the aisle. Her cheeks warmed instantly and she smiled, cursing the image that came to mind of Rita leering at Luke Watson.

‘Mind if I take a look at your name tag?’

She wiped beneath her specs, and leaned closer so he could read the cardboard tag around her neck. There were people everywhere, laughing, crying, shouting, swirling round and round, but for a moment she and Mr Cavill were alone in the middle of it all. Meredith held her breath, conscious of the way her heart had started to hammer, watching his lips as he mouthed the words written there, her very own name, his smile when he’d verified they were all correct.