Connie Willis - All Clear

Nothing happened on the eighteenth either. On the nineteenth, Eileen said, “Tomorrow I want you to show me the drop in Hampstead Heath. If the sixteenth was a divergence point, it might be far enough outside London to not be affected.” She pulled on her coat. “I’ll meet you at the theater. I need to walk Mr. Dunworthy to St.

Paul’s—he’s on duty tonight. Tell Mrs. Wyvern I hid the magic wands and the bramblebush branches on top of the costume cupboard so the children can’t get at them.”

“Are Alf and Binnie going with you?”

“No,” Eileen said, but they set up such a clamor that she gave in and took them along.

Polly was relieved, even though it would make them late for rehearsal and bring Sir Godfrey’s wrath down on her. But so long as they were with Eileen, they’d be safe—or at any rate, safer than with her. And Mr. Dunworthy would be safe in St. Paul’s. The cathedral hadn’t been hit again after the sixteenth.

Which meant he would be killed on the way back from there, or at home. It seemed possible that she would be killed at the same time, but she hoped not. She would like to be able to do the pantomime for Sir Godfrey.

She loved doing it in spite of Sir Godfrey’s loathing of pantomime, perhaps because it was the last thing she would ever do. And inside the theater she forgot the days remorselessly ticking down, forgot the war and parting and death, and thought only of lines and costumes and attempting to keep Alf and Binnie from destroying everything they touched.

The two of them had managed not only to wreak havoc backstage every night since they joined the cast but to corrupt every other child in the pantomime.

Especially Trot. After a week of being with the Hodbins, her hair ribbons were untied, her rosy cheeks were streaked and dirty, and when Polly arrived at the Regent, she was shouting, “I ain’t a dunderhead!” and whaling away at her sisters with her magic wand while Nelson barked wildly.

“I gave the wand to her,” an unhappy Miss Laburnum admitted, “so she could become used to using it, but perhaps that wasn’t a good idea.”

She had also given Mrs. Brightford (the Queen) her royal robes for the same reason and had forced Sir Godfrey (the Bad Fairy) to put on his Hitler-style mustache

“in case it shows a tendency to fall off.”

“Madam, I have had over fifty years of experience putting on false mustaches with spirit gum! I have never had one fall off!” he was shouting, and didn’t even note Alf and Binnie’s absence.

Half an hour later, Polly saw them come in through the doorway at the back of the house. They were alone. “Where’s Eileen?” Polly called to them, squinting out across the footlights. “Didn’t she come back with you?”

“Hunh-unh,” Alf said, slouching down the center aisle.

“Why not?”

“She said she had to do something,” Binnie said, “and for us to come ’ere so we wouldn’t be late.”

“And not to follow ’er,” Alf put in.

“And did you?”

“No,” Alf said with his best outraged-innocence air.

“We tried,” Binnie said, “but she was too quick for us, so we come ’ere.”

She’s gone to my drop again, Polly thought, wishing Eileen hadn’t. The sirens had gone while Polly was on her way here, and she could hear the drone of planes and the thud of distant bombs. Logic told her nothing could happen to Eileen, that she’d survived all the way to VE-Day, but she couldn’t help listening anxiously to the buzzing planes, trying to gauge whether they were over Kensington.

They seemed to be over the East End thus far. Polly went backstage, where Miss Laburnum gave her her principal-boy costume, belt, and scabbard, “so you can They seemed to be over the East End thus far. Polly went backstage, where Miss Laburnum gave her her principal-boy costume, belt, and scabbard, “so you can become used to wearing your sword.”

And when Polly protested that she needed to get onstage, she said, “There’s more than enough time. The fire-safety curtain’s stuck. They’ve been attempting to get it up for half an hour. Sir Godfrey’s absolutely livid.”

He was. When Polly came onstage in her doublet and hose, he was yelling at the rector—a scene made worse by the fact that Miss Laburnum had insisted Sir Godfrey try on his costume. In his Führer’s uniform and Hitler mustache, he looked positively dangerous.

“Vivien Leigh will be here at ten o’clock tonight to rehearse her scenes, and not only will they not be ready, but she will not even be able to get onstage!” he shouted. “Alf and Binnie had better not be behind this.”

“They only just got here,” Polly said, though that was hardly proof of their innocence. They could easily have booby-trapped the fire-safety curtain last night.

They’re a force for good, she told herself. They saved Captain Westbrook’s life. And Eileen’s. They won the war. But she had difficulty persuading herself of it, particularly when she found them dueling backstage with her sword and one of Mr. Dorming’s wet paintbrushes.

The rector and Mr. Dorming finally got the fire-safety curtain to work, but when they tried to raise the painted scrim with the forest and the castle on it for the transformation scene, it stuck. “Perhaps we should send for a carpenter,” Miss Laburnum suggested timidly.

“And where exactly will we find one this time of night, and in the middle of a raid?” Sir Godfrey said, gesturing with his riding crop at the ceiling. “We might just as well send for the walrus!” His mustache quivered. “Or the March Hare, who would be entirely appropriate in this madhouse.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said to the cowering Miss Laburnum. “ ‘Go and catch a falling star! Get with child a mandrake root!’ ”

Miss Laburnum scurried off to find a carpenter, and Sir Godfrey turned to Polly. “I knew I should never have agreed to do pantomime, Viola.”

“I think we should’ve done Rapunzel,” Trot piped up. “It’s got a tower.”

Sir Godfrey, his Hitler mustache quivering, raised his riding crop threateningly.

“And a witch,” Trot said.

“Trot, go fetch the other children, there’s a good girl,” Polly said, shooing her out of Sir Godfrey’s reach. And to him, “We can do the prologue and most of the first act in front of the scrim, and then, when the carpenter comes, we can do the transformation scene.”

“Very well. Prologue!” he called. “Places, every—”

There was a terrific clatter of metal from the wings. “Alf!” Sir Godfrey roared.

Alf came onstage, holding one of the prop swords, slightly bent. “I didn’t touch nothin’. They just fell over. I swear.”

They won the war, Polly repeated silently. They won the war.

“If any of you foul fiends touch anything else, anything,” Sir Godfrey said, looking apoplectic, “I will cut off your head and nail it to the theater door as a warning to all other children!” and even Alf looked impressed. “Give me that sword and go sit down out front. Close the curtain! Places!”

Polly stepped out in front of the curtain and delivered her prologue to the audience, which consisted of Alf, Binnie, a skeptical Trot with her arms folded belligerently across her little chest, and Nelson in the front row. Polly welcomed them to the pantomime, telling them they were about to see miraculous things, and assuring them that, in spite of appearances, it would have a happy ending. “ ‘His evil will not triumph. In the end,’ ” she said, “ ‘it is the Führer who’ll be round the bend.’ ”

The audience clapped and cheered, except for Trot, who apparently was still annoyed they weren’t doing Rapunzel.

“ ‘And now, to our tale,’ ” Polly said, sweeping her arm out toward the curtain. “ ‘Its beginning lies in a royal castle, with a King, a Queen, and their infant daughter.’ ”