Connie Willis - All Clear

Sir Godfrey came up to her, his hat in his hand.

If he has some appropriately cheerful Shakespeare quote, like “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,” or “All will yet be well,” I’ll never forgive him, Polly thought.

“Viola,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “ ‘The rain it raineth every day.’ ”

I love you, she thought, tears stinging her eyes.

Miss Laburnum came up. “We must have faith at trying times like these,” she said, and turned to Sir Godfrey. “I have been thinking, we should do a dramatic reading from Mary Rose. There’s a heartbreaking scene where her son comes looking for his dead mother …”

She dragged Sir Godfrey off, and Polly went to look for Eileen. She couldn’t see her or the Hodbins anywhere, and she didn’t want her to have to listen to the rector’s or Mrs. Wyvern’s platitudes. She went out into the nave and toward the dome.

Eileen was looking at The Light of the World with Alf and Binnie. Or rather, Alf and Binnie were looking at it, and Eileen was staring at Alf and Binnie with the same blind, withdrawn look. Polly’d hoped the vicar’s words would aid Eileen in coming to terms with Mike’s death, but they didn’t seem to have helped.

And the Hodbins were certainly of no help. “Why’s ’e wearin’ a dress?” Alf asked, pointing at the painting. “And what’s ’e standin’ there for?”

“ ’E’s knockin’ up the people what live there, you dunderpate,” Binnie said.

“You’re the dunderpate,” Alf said. “Nobody lives there. Look at that door. It ain’t been opened in years. I’ll wager the people what lived there went off and didn’t tell ’im. Or else they’re dead. ’E can go on knockin’ forever, and nobody’ll come.”

That’s the last thing Eileen needs to hear, Polly thought, and said, “We should be going. We don’t want to be caught out when the sirens go.” But Eileen gave no indication that she heard her. She continued to stare blindly at Alf and Binnie.

Polly tried again. “Eileen, we need to go rescue the vicar. Mr. Humphreys took him to look at Faulknor’s memorial and—”

“Alf, Binnie, come with me,” Eileen said abruptly, and herded them back to the now-deserted chapel. She opened the gate.

“Why’re we goin’ back in ’ere?” Binnie asked as Eileen motioned them inside.

“We didn’t nick nothin’,” Alf said.

Oh, no, Polly thought. What did they steal now?

“We wasn’t even in ’ere,” Alf said. “We was lookin’ at that picture the whole time.”

Eileen shut and latched the gate and then turned to face them.

“We didn’t take nothin’,” Binnie said. “Honest.”

Eileen didn’t even seem to have heard that. “How long has your mother been dead?” she asked.

Dead?

“You’re daft,” Alf said. “Our mum ain’t dead.”

“She’s down at Piccadilly Circus this minute,” Binnie said, sidling toward the gate. “We’ll go fetch ’er.”

Eileen stepped firmly between them and the gate. “You’re not going anywhere.” She looked across at Polly. “Their mother was killed in a raid last autumn, and they’ve been covering it up ever since. They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.

“Haven’t you?” Eileen demanded, looking at the children. “How long has she been dead?”

“We told you,” Alf said, “she ain’t—”

“She died at St. Bart’s, didn’t she?” Eileen said. “That’s how you knew where the hospital was, isn’t it? And why you wanted to leave, because you were afraid a nurse would recognize you and tell me what happened.”

“No,” Alf said. “You said you needed to get to St. Paul’s. That’s why we was—”

“How long has she been dead, Binnie?”

“We told you—” Alf began.

“Since September,” Binnie said.

Alf turned on her furiously. “What’d you tell ’er that for? Now she’ll turn us in.”

Binnie ignored him. “We didn’t find out till October, though,” she said. “Sometimes Mum don’t come ’ome for two or three days, so we didn’t think nothin’ of it, but after a bit we got worried and went lookin’ for her, and one of Mum’s friends said she was in a pub what got ’it by a thousand-pounder.”

And there wasn’t a body left to identify, Polly thought. Like Mike. And the “friend” was either a fellow prostitute or one of Mrs. Hodbin’s clients, neither of whom would have wanted to have anything to do with the police, so her death hadn’t been reported to the authorities.

“She’d already been killed when I came to borrow the map, hadn’t she?” Eileen asked. “That was why you wouldn’t let me in and told me she was sleeping.”

Binnie nodded. “That’s what we told the landlady, too. Mum slept a lot when she was ’ome, you see, and we ’ad the ration books, so it was all right. Till we run out of money and couldn’t pay the rent.”

“And the landlady found out about Mrs. Bascombe,” Alf said.

“Their parrot,” Eileen explained to Polly.

“So we told ’er we was all goin’ to live with Mum’s sister in the country.”

“And you went to live in the shelters,” Eileen said.

“But what did you live on if you hadn’t any money?” Polly asked, and then thought, Picking pockets and stealing picnic baskets.

Mr. Humphreys and the vicar were coming back, Mr. Humphreys still talking of Captain Faulknor.

Binnie looked stricken. “You ain’t gonna tell the vicar, are you?”

“Promise you won’t tell nobody,” Alf said, “or we’ll ’afta go to a orphanage.”

“Ah, here you are,” Mr. Humphreys said.

The vicar looked at them, taking in the latched gate, Eileen’s sentrylike stance, the children’s expressions. “What’s going on here, Miss O’Reilly?” he asked.

Please, Binnie mouthed.

Eileen turned, unlatched the gate, and let them into the chapel. “Alf and Binnie were just telling me about their mother,” she said. “She was killed last autumn.

They’ve been living on their own in the shelters.”

Binnie looked utterly betrayed.

“What’d you do that for?” Alf wailed. “Now they’ll send us away, and you’re the only one what’s nice to us.”

“We don’t need no one to take care of us,” Binnie said belligerently. “Me ’n’ Alf can take care of ourselves.”

“I’ll take them in,” Eileen said.

“What?” Polly said. “You can’t—”

“Someone must. They obviously can’t go on living in the tube stations,” Eileen said. “Mr. Goode, can you arrange for me to be named their guardian?”

“Yes, of course, but …” He turned to Mr. Humphreys. “Would you mind terribly showing the children round the cathedral for a bit? We need to discuss—”

“Of course,” Mr. Humphreys said. “Poor things. Come along with me, children.”

“It’ll be all right,” Eileen said to Binnie.

“You swear?”

“I swear. Go on, go with Mr. Humphreys.”

They’ll bolt, just as they did the morning after the twenty-ninth, Polly thought, but they went docilely off with the verger.

“Come, I’ll show you The Light of the World,” Polly heard him say as they went up the aisle.

“We already seen it,” Alf said.

“Oh, but you’ll find that you see something different in it each time,” Mr. Humphreys replied.

I can imagine, Polly thought.

Their footsteps died away. “Are you quite certain you want to do this, Miss O’Reilly?” the vicar asked. “After all, the Hodbins are—”

“I know,” Eileen said.

“Mrs. Rickett will never allow it,” Polly said. “You know her rules.”

“And it would be better if they were safely out of London,” the vicar said. “The Evacuation Committee—”