Connie Willis - All Clear

Miss Snelgrove was eyeing them disapprovingly from Doreen’s counter. “You can tell me when I get home,” Polly said. She gave them the coats, her latchkey, and Mrs. Leary’s address. “I may be late,” she added.

“Should we go to the tube station if the raids begin before you come home?” Eileen asked nervously.

“No. Mrs. Rickett’s is perfectly safe,” Polly whispered. “Now go. I don’t want to lose my job. It’s the only one we’ve got.”

She watched them depart, hoping they’d be too busy settling in to their new accommodations to discuss Padgett’s or daytime raids with anyone. She’d planned to go to the hospital tomorrow to try to find out if there really had been five fatalities, but if the deaths were in the newspapers, it couldn’t wait. She’d have to go tonight, and poor Eileen would have to face her first supper at Mrs. Rickett’s alone.

But she might as well have gone straight home. She couldn’t get in to see Marjorie or find out anything from the stern admitting nurse, and when she reached the boardinghouse, Eileen was sitting in the parlor with her bag, even though Polly could hear the others in the dining room. “Why aren’t you in there eating supper?”

Polly asked.

“Mrs. Rickett said I had to give her my ration book, and when I told her about Padgett’s, she said I couldn’t begin boarding till I got a new one, and Mike wasn’t here—”

“Where is he? At Mrs. Leary’s?”

“No. He arranged things with her and then went to check a travel shop in Regent Street and then fetch his clothes from his old rooms, but he said he’d be late and not to wait for him, to go ahead to Notting Hill Gate and meet him there. When do the raids begin tonight?” she asked nervously.

“Shh,” Polly whispered. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Come up to the room.”

“I can’t. Mrs. Rickett said I wasn’t allowed to till I’d paid her.”

“Paid her? Didn’t you tell her you were moving in with me?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, “but she said not till I’d given her ten and six.”

“I’ll speak to her,” Polly said grimly, picking up Eileen’s bag. She took her up to the room, left her there, and went down to the kitchen to confront Mrs. Rickett.

“When I moved in, you said I had to pay the full rate for a double,” Polly argued. “It shouldn’t be extra for—”

“There’s plenty as wants the room if you don’t,” Mrs. Rickett said. “I had three Army nurses here today looking for a room to let.”

And I suppose you plan to charge them three times the rate for a double, Polly almost snapped, but she couldn’t risk getting them evicted. Eileen would already have given Theodore’s mother this address, and Mrs. Rickett wasn’t the type to tell a retrieval team where they’d gone if they did show up. Polly paid the additional ten and six and went back upstairs.

Miss Laburnum was just coming out of her room, carrying a bag full of coconut shells and an empty glass bottle. “For Ernest’s message in a bottle,” she explained.

“Sir Godfrey said to get a whiskey bottle, but with Mrs. Brightford’s little girls there, I thought perhaps orange squash would be more suitable—”

Polly cut her off. “Would you tell Sir Godfrey I may not be at rehearsal tonight? I must help my cousin get settled in.”

“Oh, yes, poor thing,” Miss Laburnum said. “Did she know any of the five who were killed?”

Oh, no, Miss Laburnum knew about the deaths, too. Now she’d have to keep Mike and Eileen away from the troupe as well.

“Were they shop assistants?” Miss Laburnum asked.

“No,” Polly said, “but the incident’s left her badly shaken, so I’d rather you didn’t say anything to her about it.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Miss Laburnum assured Polly. “We wouldn’t want to upset her.” Polly was certain she meant it, but she or someone else at the boardinghouse was bound to slip. She had to find a way to get in to see Marjorie tomorrow.

“It’s dreadful,” Miss Laburnum was saying, “so many killed, and who knows how it will all end?”

“Yes,” Polly said, and was grateful when the sirens went. “I’d appreciate it if you told Sir Godfrey why I can’t come.”

“Oh, but you can’t be thinking of staying here with a raid on? Can she, Miss Hibbard?” she asked their fellow boarder as she came hurrying out of her room carrying a black umbrella and her knitting.

“Oh, my, no,” Miss Hibbard said. “It’s far too dangerous. Mr. Dorming, tell Miss Sebastian she and her cousin must come with us.”

And in a moment Eileen would open the door to see what was going on. “We’ll come to the shelter as soon as I’ve shown her where things are,” Polly promised, to get rid of them. She escorted them downstairs.

“Don’t be too late,” Miss Laburnum said at the door. “Sir Godfrey said he wished to rehearse the scene between Crichton and Lady Mary.”

“I may not be able to rehearse with you with my cousin—”

“You can bring her with you,” Miss Laburnum said.

Polly shook her head. “She’ll need rest and quiet.” And to be kept away from people who know there were five killed. “Tell Sir Godfrey I’ll be there tomorrow night, I promise,” she said, and ran back upstairs.

She waited to make certain Mrs. Rickett went with them and then ran back down to the kitchen. She put the kettle on, piled bread, oleomargarine, cheese, and cutlery on a tray, made tea, and brought it up to Eileen.

“Mrs. Rickett said we weren’t allowed to have food in the room,” Eileen said.

“Then she should have let you begin boarding immediately.” Polly set the tray on the bed. “Though, actually, it was a blessing she didn’t. This is much better than supper would have been.”

“But the siren,” Eileen said anxiously. “Shouldn’t we—”

“The raids won’t start till eight forty-six.” Polly buttered a slice of bread and handed it to Eileen. “And I told you, we’re safe here. Mr. Dunworthy himself approved this address.”

She poured Eileen a cup of tea. “I found out some more names of airfields today,” she said, and read them to her, but Eileen shook her head at each one.

“Could it have been Hendon?” Polly asked,

“No, I’m so sorry. I know I’d recognize it if I saw it. If only we had a map.”

“Did you get to the shop in Charing Cross Road?”

“Yes, but the owner demanded to know what we wanted with a map and asked us all sorts of questions. He even asked Mike what sort of accent it was he had. I thought he was going to have us arrested. Mike said he suspected us of being German spies.”

“He may have,” Polly said. “I should have thought of that. There’ve been all sorts of posters up warning people to be on the lookout for anyone behaving suspiciously—snapping photographs of factories or asking questions about our defenses—and trying to buy a map would obviously fall into that category.”

“But then how are we to get hold of one?”

“I don’t know. I’ll check Townsend Brothers’ book department to see if they have an atlas or something.”

“Would they have an ABC?” Eileen asked.

“Yes, I looked up the trains to Backbury in it,” Polly said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of using a railway guide. It listed the stations alphabetically. They’d be able to find Gerald’s airfield under D. Or T. Or P. “Did you use an ABC when you brought the children to London?”

“No, they used an ABC in one of Agatha Christie’s novels to solve the mystery,” Eileen said. “And we can use it to solve ours.”

If only it were that simple, Polly thought.

Eileen looked up at the ceiling. “Is that sound bombers?”