Connie Willis - All Clear

Mr. Dunworthy into letting her go to VE-Day later.”

“It could still mean that,” Mike said. “The coat’s obviously the correct period. Wardrobe could have had one just like it. They could have had that coat, for that matter. Or it could have been someone else you saw. You said yourself you were too far away to be sure it was Eileen. She could have left it behind when we went back through, and it ended up at the Assistance Board again, and they gave it to someone else.”

Or it might have found its way to an applecart upset, Polly thought, wishing she could believe that was what had happened.

“And if she was there at VE-Day because we didn’t get out,” Mike said, “I’d have been there, too.”

Unless you’d been killed, Polly thought.

“If something had happened to us, she’d hardly have been there celebrating.”

“That’s not true. Everyone there that night knew someone who’d died in the war. And you and I could both have been killed a long time before—”

“Or we could all have been pulled out, and she was back to do the assignment she’d always wanted to do. Or maybe she decided not to go back after our drops opened. You know how she’s always wanted to see VE-Day—”

“So she stayed on through four more years of air raids and National Service and rationing to see one day of people waving flags and singing, ‘Rule, Britannia’?”

Polly asked incredulously. “She hates it here. And she’s terrified of the bombs. Do you honestly believe she’d be willing to go through an entire year of V-1s and V-2s for any reason?”

“Okay, okay. I agree that’s not very likely. I’m just saying there are all kinds of explanations for why she—or her coat—was there besides our not getting out. We missed contacting Bartholomew, but it’s not like we’re out of options. There’s still the St. John’s Wood drop, and Dunworthy will be here in May, right? And there are bound to have been historians who were here in 1942 and 1943. And if we can’t find them, we’ve still got Denys Atherton.”

Denys Atherton.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. The shock of seeing the coat just unnerved me for a moment.” She started quickly down the steps. “Eileen will wonder what’s become of us, and I’m starving, too. Mrs. Rickett outdid herself tonight. She made a sort of dishwater soup—”

He grabbed her arms and pulled her around to face him. “No. You’re not going anywhere till you’ve told me the truth. It isn’t just the coat. It’s something else.

What?”

“Nothing,” she said, flailing about for some excuse. “It’s only that I’m worried that Denys’s drop might not open. Gerald’s didn’t, and the buildup to D-Day may be a divergence point. It was terribly important that Hitler not find out when and where they were invading, and—”

“You’re lying,” he said. “When did you come through?”

“When did I … The fourteenth of September. I was supposed to come through on the tenth, but there was slippage, and I ended up coming through—”

“Not to the Blitz. To your V-1 assignment.”

You can still do this, Polly thought. You can still pull it out. “I told you, the V-1s began on June thirteenth.”

“That isn’t what I asked you.”

“I didn’t make it to Dulwich till after the first rockets hit. I’d intended to be there on the eleventh, and I’d started for Dulwich from Oxford on the eighth of June, two days after D-Day,” she chattered, “but it took me forever to get there. The invasion made travel simply imposs—”

“That isn’t what I asked you either. I asked you what day you came through the net. And don’t tell me June eighth.” He looked at her, waiting, and it was no use.

He’d worked it out on his own.

She took a deep breath. “December twenty-ninth, 1943.”

Mike closed his eyes, and his hands tightened on her arms, gripping them so hard he hurt her.

“I couldn’t just show up at Dulwich,” she said, trying to make him understand. “I had to arrange to be transferred there, and that meant spending time in a unit in Oxford first. Major Denewell knew virtually everyone in the FANYs. I’d never have got away with lying about my experience.”

“Like you’ve gotten away with lying to me all these weeks?” he said angrily. “You’ve known all along that Denys Atherton came through after your deadline. That even if we found him, it wouldn’t be in time to do any good.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wanted—”

“Wanted to what?” He shook her. “To spare me?”

Yes. I didn’t want to put you through what I’ve been going through since the night we found each other and I realized your drops wouldn’t open either. I didn’t want you to look the way you’re looking now, the way I felt when I found out, like someone who’s just heard a death sentence pronounced.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated helplessly.

“What else are you sparing me from?” he said furiously. “How many other assignments were you here on that you haven’t told me about? Were you here in 1942, too? Or the summer of ’41? Or next week maybe?” He gripped her arms so hard she cried out with the pain. “Was I there in Trafalgar Square with Eileen?”

“No. I told you—”

“Was I? Missing an arm or a leg, and you decided you wanted to spare me that, too?”

“No,” Polly said tearfully. “I only saw Eileen.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“Hullo!” Eileen called up from below. “Mike? Polly?”

Polly clutched at Mike’s arm. “Don’t tell her,” she whispered. “Please. She’ll … please, don’t tell her.”

“What happened to you two?” Eileen said, running up the stairs to them. She was carrying a sandwich and a bottle of orange squash. “I thought you said you were coming.”

Mike looked at Polly, then said, “We were talking.”

“About the raids,” Polly said quickly. “We’re trying to fill in the gaps in the list we made. You said Trafalgar Square was hit sometime during the winter. Do you know which month?”

“No,” Eileen said, sitting down on the steps and unwrapping her sandwich. “Do either of you want a bite?”

“No,” Eileen said, sitting down on the steps and unwrapping her sandwich. “Do either of you want a bite?”

Mike didn’t answer, but Eileen didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong. She was preoccupied with the subject of Alf and Binnie. “I do hope they got home all right the other day.”

“I thought you said they could take care of themselves,” Polly said, trying to make her tone light.

“They can. But I couldn’t shake them all night, and then, when I said I was going to take them home, they vanished, and I’ve been wondering why.”

“Because they were afraid you’d discover the thermometers and stethoscopes they’d stolen from St. Bart’s,” Mike suggested.

Eileen didn’t even hear him. “They were both so grubby,” she said thoughtfully.

Polly wondered what that had to do with Alf and Binnie’s running wild in Blackfriars, but whatever the connection was, she was grateful Eileen’s mind was on that and not on them, or she’d have surely noticed how shaken Mike looked.

I shouldn’t have told him, she thought, even if he had already guessed the truth. I should have lied and said I went through in May or April.

He looked so desperate, so … driven. And on their way home after the all clear, he pulled Polly aside to say, “I’ll think of some way to get you out of here before your deadline. Both of you. I promise.”

The next night he met her outside Townsend Brothers after work. “Tell me about the buildup to D-Day,” he said.

“The buildup? But—”

“We don’t know for sure that Denys Atherton came through in March. Mr. Dunworthy may have rescheduled his drop.”