Connie Willis - All Clear

I should never have underestimated her and her mystery novels, Polly thought.

All those weeks Polly’d been trying to protect her from the truth, Eileen had been patiently collecting clues and piecing them together. But she can’t know when—

“I don’t understand,” Mike said. “When I asked you if you’d been to Bletchley Park, you said no.”

“Not Bletchley Park,” Eileen said. “VE-Day.”

“VE-Day?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, her face stony. She turned to confront Polly. “That’s why when I saw you in Oxford, you asked me if that was where I was coming back from.

And why, when we asked you who’d gone to VE-Day, you changed the subject. You saw me there, didn’t you?”

As long as VE-Day was all Eileen knew about, it would be all right. She could tell them.

“Is what she’s saying true?” Mike asked. “Were you at VE-Day, Polly?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

“And you saw me there,” Eileen said.

Polly hesitated so it would sound like she was reluctantly admitting to it. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mike asked.

“I … at first, in Oxford, I didn’t want Eileen to be angry with me. I hadn’t known Mr. Dunworthy wasn’t going to let her go to VE-Day. I didn’t want her to think I’d stolen the assignment from her. And then when we found out the drops weren’t working, we were already in so much trouble, and you were both so distraught, I didn’t want to add to your worries.”

“But if we’d known—” Mike began.

“If you’d known, what? There wasn’t anything either of you could do about it,” Polly said angrily, hoping the show of anger would stop them from asking any more questions. “And you already had more than enough to deal with.”

“You say you saw Eileen,” Mike said. “Are you certain it was her? Did you talk to her?”

“No. I saw her from a distance. In the crowd in Trafalgar Square the night before VE-Day. She was standing next to one of the lions. The one whose nose had been knocked off in the Blitz.”

“You were in Trafalgar Square on VE-Day,” Mike said. “When did you come through?”

Polly thought rapidly. They’d never believe she’d only been there for the two days of the victory celebration. “April eighth,” she said. “I was there to observe the winding down of the war during its last few weeks. I posed as a Wren working as a typist in the War Office.”

“A typist,” Eileen said.

“Yes.”

“April eighth,” Mike said. “That gives us four years—”

“Four years and five months,” Eileen said.

“Right,” Mike said. “Nearly four and a half years. And when I was talking about increased slippage, I meant a few months, not years. We’ll be out of here long before your deadline, Polly.”

“Which is what?” Eileen asked.

Mike looked at Eileen in surprise. “She just told us. She said she came through April eighth—”

“She’s lying. That isn’t her deadline.”

There was a silence, and then Mike said, “Is she right, Polly? Are you lying?”

“Yes,” Eileen answered for her. “When I told her about one of the historian’s drops to the Reign of Terror and the storming of the Bastille being switched, she went absolutely white, and they were only four years and two months apart.”

And I’m obviously not as good an actress as Sir Godfrey’s always telling me I am, Polly thought, cursing herself for not having said she’d gone through earlier than April. “It was Pearl Harbor I was worried about, not—”

“Wait. Stop,” Mike said. “Pearl Harbor? The storming of the Bastille? I have no idea what either of you are talking about. Explain.”

Polly said, “After you and I talked about an increase in slippage possibly being the problem, it occurred to me that Mr. Dunworthy might have been putting all the assignments in chronological order.”

“Chronological? You’re right. He did put all mine in chronological order. That’s why you asked me about the order of my drops when you called.”

“Yes.” Polly explained about Eileen’s notes and her concluding that the increase might be much longer than a couple of months. “And I was frightened. Some of the worst raids of the Blitz will be after the first of the year, and we don’t even know when and where they are. And I’m not even certain our boardinghouses are safe from January on.” Which had the advantage of being true.

And let’s hope it convinces them, Polly thought.

“That isn’t the only reason,” Eileen said grimly. “Ask her why, if she was a typist in the War Office, she knows all about driving an ambulance. When I told her I had to learn to drive that day we talked to you in Oxford, Mike, she offered to teach me. On a Daimler, because that was what all the ambulances were.”

“I’d learned that from my prep for the Blitz,” Polly said. “I studied the Civil Defence—”

“And ask her why she turned and ran from a group of FANYs we saw on the platform in Holborn. She knew them from her assignment, that’s why. She never tried to avoid walking past Wrens.”

And all the time I was afraid she was fretting over Mike, she was actually playing detective like a character in one of her Agatha Christies, Polly thought. I And all the time I was afraid she was fretting over Mike, she was actually playing detective like a character in one of her Agatha Christies, Polly thought. I underestimated her. But she can’t have figured it all out.

“And ask her where she went when she said she was going to St. Paul’s to meet the retrieval team.” She turned on Polly. “When I got to the National Gallery, it was pouring rain and the concert wasn’t till one, so I thought I’d come to St. Paul’s and meet you. But you weren’t there.”

“Yes, I was. We must just have missed each other. St. Paul’s is huge, and there are so many chapels and bays—”

“I saw you come in. I saw you buy that guidebook and spill pennies all over the floor. She was drenched,” Eileen said to Mike, “like she’d been out in the rain all morning. And don’t bother pretending you were up in the Whispering Gallery, Polly. It’s closed. And the sermon wasn’t ‘Seek and Ye Shall Find.’ It was ‘The Lost Sheep.’ You must have picked up an order of service for the early mass by mistake. Where were you?”

At least this was a question she could answer. “I was at Hampstead Heath. That was where my drop for VE-Day was.” She looked at Mike. “When you sent that message from Bletchley about older drops, I went to see if they might have opened mine to use for an emergency exit. And I couldn’t tell you, Eileen, because I didn’t want you to find out I’d been here before.”

“Is that the truth?” Eileen said.

“Yes.” And please, please, let that be all you know.

“You swear?” Eileen said.

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you know about the bomb at St. Paul’s, but you knew all about V-1s and V-2s?” She turned back to Mike. “She knew the exact date the V-1

attacks began. Don’t you see? She was the historian who did the rocket assignment. She drove an ambulance in Bethnal Green. Didn’t you, Polly? That’s why you were so upset when I told you we had to go there to get me a new identity card. Because you were afraid someone in Bethnal Green would recognize you. You were attached to the ambulance unit there, weren’t you?”

“No,” Polly said. “To the ambulance unit in Dulwich.”

Wars are not won by evacuations.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL,

SPEAKING OF DUNKIRK

Oxford—April 2060

THE SHIMMER FLARED. “COLIN’S NOT TO COME THROUGH AFTER me,” Dunworthy said again, though the shimmer was too bright—Badri would never be able to hear him. But he tried nonetheless. “He’s not to come. No matter what excuse he gives you.”