Connie Willis - All Clear

No, I wasn’t.

“I was convinced you must already have a girlfriend—”

I did.

“—or that you had some sort of tragic secret.” She pushed the curtain aside, and the light beyond spilled into the room where they were standing, revealing the chopped-off bonnet of a bus with shuttered headlamps. And Ann.

She was as pretty as ever, even though it had been nineteen years, but he couldn’t say that either.

“And I was determined to find out what your secret was—” She smiled up at him and then stopped, appalled, and jerked her hand away from his arm. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” she said, blushing. “I thought you were someone I knew. You must think me a complete fool.”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’ve done the same thing myself.”

“It’s only that you look exactly like …,” she said, frowning bewilderedly at him. “You’re certain you’re not Connor Cross? No, of course you’re not. Nineteen years ago you’d have been, what, six years old?”

“Eight,” he said. But it hadn’t been nineteen years ago. It had been five, and they’d both been twenty-two. He extended his hand. “Calvin Knight. I’m a reporter for Time Out. I’m here to write an article on the exhibit.”

“How do you do, Mr. Knight,” she said, turning pink again. “You haven’t a much older brother who looks just like you, have you? Or an uncle?”

“No, sorry.”

“Or a portrait of yourself stashed away somewhere, like Dorian Gray?”

“No. You designed this blackout exhibit?” he asked, to change the subject.

“Yes, the entire Blitz exhibition, actually,” and he was afraid she’d offer to give him a tour, but she said, “I’d show you round, but I have a meeting at the British Museum. I’m doing an intelligence-war exhibit for them in August, which you’d be interested in, about Fortitude South and the deception campaign—” She stopped, looking embarrassed all over again. “No, you wouldn’t. I am so sorry. I keep forgetting you’re not Connor. You look exactly like him.”

“I’m sure it will be a very interesting exhibit. I’ll certainly come,” he lied. He couldn’t run the risk of running into her again. Ann had been a very bright girl. He might not be able to fool her twice.

“You’re very kind,” she said. “I hope my idiotic behavior won’t influence your review of the Blitz exhibit.”

“It won’t.”

“Good. Again, I am sorry,” she apologized, and hurried off before he could say anything, which was probably just as well—though he wished there was some way he could thank her for having given him the clue he’d spent the five previous years looking for. And for producing this exhibit so he could, hopefully, find the next one.

Which he needed to get on with. But he stood there in the dark for several minutes, looking at nothing, remembering those long months spent in the reading room searching for some clue as to where Michael Davies and Merope were, for some hope that Polly wasn’t dead. Ann had talked to him, asked him about his research, commiserated with him over the clumsy microfilm readers and the faulty heaters. She’d brought him sandwiches and contraband cups of tea and cheered him up, especially after he’d found the notice of an unidentified man who’d been killed by an HE on September 10, the day Mr. Dunworthy had attempted to go through to.

That had been a black day, and Ann, seeing him sitting there, staring blindly at the microfilm screen, had insisted he come out with her for supper and “a stiff drink”

and then had held his head when he vomited in the pub’s loo. I couldn’t have done it without you, he called silently after her.

And you still haven’t done it, he thought. You still haven’t found Polly, or anyone who knew her, and it’s already half past ten. And Cynthia Camberley and the rest And you still haven’t done it, he thought. You still haven’t found Polly, or anyone who knew her, and it’s already half past ten. And Cynthia Camberley and the rest were probably already halfway through the exhibit by now.

He hurried into the next room. There were sandbags piled along the walls, a door with an air-raid shelter symbol on it, and next to it a mannequin in an ARP helmet and coveralls holding a stirrup pump. The muffled sounds of sirens and bombs came from inside the shut door. The other three walls of the room were lined with display cases. Camberley was looking at one filled with ration books and wartime recipes. “Do you remember those dreadful powdered eggs?” she was asking the woman in the flowered hat.

“Yes, and Spam. I haven’t been able to look at a tin since.”

He went over to them, pretending to look at the display. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a loaf of moldy-looking gray bread.

“Lord Woolton’s National Wheatmeal Bread,” Camberley said, making a face. “It tasted of ashes. It’s my personal opinion that Hitler was behind the recipe.”

“Can I quote you on that?” he asked, pulling out his notebook. He introduced himself, then asked them their impressions of the exhibit and what they’d done in the war.

“I drove an ambulance,” Camberley said.

It was difficult to imagine her being tall enough to see over the steering wheel. “In the Blitz?” he asked.

“No, during the V-rocket attacks. I was stationed at Dulwich.”

Dulwich. That was near Croydon, which meant she might have known Polly, but that was no help. He needed someone who’d known her later, or rather, earlier, after she went to the Blitz. “Did you drive an ambulance as well?” he asked Herbaceous Border, whose name tag read “Margaret Fortis.”

“No, nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. I spent the Blitz cutting sandwiches and pouring tea. I worked in a WVS canteen in one of the Underground shelters,” she explained. “They’re supposed to have a replica here.” She looked vaguely about.

“Which station?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. If it was the one Polly had used as a shelter, there was a chance she might have known her.

“Marble Arch,” she said.

Marble Arch had been hit, so that didn’t help.

“You’re interested in the Blitz?” Camberley asked.

“Yes, my grandmother was in London during the Blitz.” Forgive me, Polly, he thought. “And I was hoping to find someone who knew her.”

“What did she do?”

“I don’t know. She died before I was born. I know she worked at Townsend Brothers during the first part of the Blitz and then did some sort of war work, and an uncle of mine said he thought she might have driven an ambulance.”

“Oh, then Talbot might know her.”

“Talbot?”

“Yes. Talbot—I mean, Mrs. Vernon. During the war we got in the habit of calling one another by our last names, and we still do it, even though most of us have married and those aren’t our names any longer. Mrs. Vernon was at Dulwich with me. She drove an ambulance in the East End during the Blitz.”

If Polly’d known Mrs. Vernon, or rather, Talbot, during the rocket attacks, she’d have taken care to keep out of her way during the Blitz, but he went with Camberley to find her in case she knew of other ambulance drivers he could contact.

Talbot, a formidable woman three times Camberley’s size, was listening to a BBC recording with headphones on. Camberley had to tap her on the back to get her to turn around. “This is Mr. Knight. He’s looking for someone who knew his grandmother. She was an ambulance driver.”

“What was her name?” Talbot asked.

“Polly. Polly Sebastian.”

“Sebastian…,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I don’t remember anyone by that name in the FANYs. But I know whom you should ask. Goody. Mrs. Lambert,”

she explained. “She’s our group’s historian, and she knows everyone who worked in the Blitz.”