All Clear (35 page)

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” he said, quailing from the pasteboard tombstone, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only?”

I don’t know
, Polly thought.

The war still seemed to be on track. Liverpool, Plymouth, and Manchester had been bombed, Victoria Station had been hit, and the British had counterattacked the Italian forces in North Africa, all on schedule.

But would they stay that way? Or would Marjorie—who’d sent Polly from Norwich, where she was doing her training, a card saying, “Wishing you anything but a Jerry Christmas!”—save the life of someone who would make a decisive error at El Alamein or on the HMS
Dorsetshire
?

“Spirit!” Sir Godfrey shouted. “Lady Mary! Viola! Kindly remember this is a holiday play, and you are the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, not Dark Unyielding Doom. I realize the thought of performing in Piccadilly Circus is grim, but if you look like that during the performance, you’ll terrify the children. This is a
comedy
, not a tragedy.”

I haven’t seen any proof of that
, Polly thought. But she attempted—both onstage and off—to put on a face more in keeping with the season. Like everyone else was doing in spite of their facing a future which was just as uncertain as hers and civilian casualties which were mounting daily. The contemps entered wholeheartedly into the Christmas spirit, pinning decorations to their blackout curtains and greeting one another gaily with “Happy Christmas!”

And preparing presents to give each other. “I went in to Miss Laburnum’s room just now to borrow her iron,” Eileen reported, “and caught her trying to cover up something on her writing table. I think she’s making us Christmas gifts.”

“Or she’s a German spy,” Polly said, “and you caught her writing messages in code.”

Eileen ignored that. “What if we’re still here on Christmas, and she gives us a gift and we haven’t one for her? We must get something for her and for Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming … oh dear, do you think Mrs. Rickett will expect a gift?”

“She won’t be here. I heard her tell Miss Hibbard she’s going to her sister’s in Surrey for the holidays.” Polly started to say she doubted any of them would expect gifts in light of all the government admonitions to
have a “frugal Christmas” to assist the war effort, and then thought better of it. Planning gifts might keep Eileen from fretting about Mike. “What about Theodore?” she said instead.

“Oh, yes, I must definitely get Theodore and his mother something,” Eileen said, making a list. “I know we can’t spend much money because we’ve got to save for our train fares to the drop, but I
should
send a gift to Alf and Binnie as well. Speaking of which, do you think you could steal some Christmas paper at work to wrap them in?”

“Gladly, if it will make us run through our supply sooner,” Polly said. “You’d best do your shopping soon, or the shops will be sold out.”

Which was true. Townsend Brothers’ shelves were becoming barer and barer, and Polly spent half her time bringing out ancient, dusty stock from the storeroom to sell in place of the stockings and gloves she was out of—old-fashioned garters and bed jackets and Victorian nightgowns. Customers snapped them up.

Both Townsend Brothers and Oxford Street were jammed with shoppers, parents bringing children to see Father Christmas, and elderly women soliciting donations for the Air-Raid Distress Fund, the Minesweepers Fund, and the Evacuated Children’s Fund. In front of bombed-out John Lewis’s, Victory bonds were being sold from the back of a lorry. Banners went up on government buildings proclaiming
Not a Merry Xmas but a Happy Xmas—Devoted to the Service of Our Country
, and Christmas trees went up in the shelters. Mistletoe hung from the tunnel arches, the canteen was swathed in fir branches, and WVS volunteers handed out sweets and toys and tickets to pantomimes.

One of them gave two tickets for
Rapunzel
to a mortally offended Sir Godfrey, “because you like plays and things.” He promptly gave them to Polly. She gave them to Eileen to pass along to Theodore and his mother.

“But they’re for Sunday the twenty-ninth, and she works Sundays,” Eileen said. “And I can’t take Theodore because we won’t be here. What do you think I should do? Give them to someone else?”

No
, Polly thought,
because if Mike’s still not here by the twenty-ninth, you’ll definitely need something to keep your mind off things
.

“Hang on to them for now,” she told Eileen. “Mike may have difficulty traveling this near the holidays. The trains and buses are jammed with soldiers coming home on leave. Did you find a gift for Miss Hibbard?”

“Yes. Did you manage to pinch the wrapping paper?”

“I did. Not that it helped the situation. We appear to have an endless supply. And Miss Snelgrove told us we’re to use less string. Have you ever tried to tie a knot with an inch of string?”

“Give me the paper,” Eileen ordered. She vanished into the bathroom for several minutes and came back with a small, neatly wrapped parcel. “I’m giving you your Christmas present early,” she said, handing it to Polly.

“But I haven’t anything for—”

Eileen waved her objection away. “You need it now, and if Mike comes back tonight, you won’t have any use for it. Open it.”

Polly did. It was two rolls of cellophane tape.

“It was all I could find,” Eileen said. “I do hope it’s enough to get you through Christmas.” She looked anxiously at Polly, who was still staring down at the tape. “You like it, don’t you?”

“It’s the nicest Christmas present anyone’s ever given me,” Polly said, and, to her horror, burst into tears.

“Except for getting to go home, and we’ll get that soon. Don’t
cry
. You’re making the paper wet, and I need to use it again for Theodore’s gift.”

“We’ll wrap it this minute,” Polly said, and waited impatiently as Eileen ironed the paper out and fetched Theodore’s toy Spitfire from the bureau drawer.

The tape was wonderful. It held the ends of the paper beautifully. And now what was she going to get Eileen? And when? Christmas was only a few days off, Townsend Brothers was a zoo, and she’d promised Miss Laburnum, who was nearly hysterical about the prospect of their performing in other stations—“Leicester Square is in the
heart
of the West End, and who
knows
who might be in the audience?”—to help her with costumes and props. And she still hadn’t learned Belle’s lines. And tomorrow Dover would be shelled, and Mike still hadn’t phoned. Or written. Or sent another crossword puzzle.
Because he’s dead
, she thought.

You don’t know that
, she told herself.
You thought something had happened to him when you didn’t hear from him when he was in Bletchley, and he was perfectly all right. And there could be all sorts of reasons why you haven’t heard from him. The retrieval team’s drop site is in Northumberland or Yorkshire, and Mike’s having trouble getting there. Or Daphne’s gone off to visit relatives for the holidays, and Mike has to wait for her to come back. Or the shelling on the coast has taken out the telephone lines, and it takes longer for a letter to be delivered because of the Christmas rush
.

We’ll hear from him tomorrow
, she thought. But they didn’t.

MIKE STILL WASN’T BACK BY CHRISTMAS EVE
.

“Do you think he’ll come tonight?” Eileen asked Polly as they rode down the escalator to Piccadilly Station to perform
A Christmas Carol
.

The man behind them said, laughing, “Ain’t you a bit old to believe in Father Christmas, dearie?”

“You fool, she wasn’t talkin’ about Father Christmas,” his companion said. “She was talkin’ about ’Itler.” He nodded at Eileen. “I’ll give you six-to-one odds ’e’ll come tonight. It’d be just like ’im to try to ruin our Christmas, the little bastard.”

They had obviously both had more than a little Christmas cheer.

“That’s no way to talk in the presence of ladies, you bleedin’ sod,” the first man said belligerently, and Polly hoped they wouldn’t come to blows there on the escalator.

But the other man tipped his cap and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, misses. I shouldn’t ’ave called ’Itler a little bastard. ’E’s the biggest bastard what ever lived. And I’ll wager five bob ’e’s up to something. A nasty Christmas surprise. You watch. Them sirens’ll go any minute now.”

They wouldn’t, but it was obvious he wasn’t the only one who thought that. There were more people in the station than there had been in the last two weeks, all with their bedrolls and picnic baskets. The woman just below them on the escalator had a Harrods carrier bag full of
Christmas presents, and two toddlers had each brought a long brown stocking with them.

The two men weren’t the only ones who’d been drinking. There were periodic outbursts of too-loud laughter and unsteady choruses of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on the platforms. And during their performance, when Sir Godfrey as Scrooge launched into his “Bah, humbug!” speech, someone shouted from the audience, “What you need is a spot of rum, you auld sod!”

The troupe gave two performances, the first in the main hall and the second on a stage built out over the tracks on the westbound Piccadilly Line platform after the trains had stopped. Even with the stage, the platform was still too small to accommodate the crowd. “Do you see that crutch by the fireplace, tenderly preserved?” Sir Godfrey muttered to Polly. “That’s Tiny Tim’s. He was pushed onto the track by his adoring public and run over by a train.”

“But at least he wasn’t doing panto when he died,” Polly whispered back.

“Or, God forbid,
Peter Pan
,” Sir Godfrey said, and made his entrance.

Scrooge bahhed, humbugged, saw the ghost of Marley (Mr. Simms), traveled to the past and back to the future, learned the error of his ways, made amends, and prevented Tiny Tim from dying, in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd, which Polly and Eileen both scanned for Mike.

But he didn’t come. He wasn’t waiting for them outside Notting Hill Gate or at Mrs. Leary’s either. And all that was waiting for them at their boardinghouse was the news that Mrs. Rickett had taken the Christmas goose and plum pudding—purchased with her boarders’ ration points—with her when she went to her sister’s and left them turnip soup for their Christmas dinner.

“No matter,” Miss Laburnum said. “My nephew in Canada sent me a Christmas box and the convoy got safely through.” She brought down a tin of biscuits, a packet of tea, and a bag of walnuts. Eileen and Polly chipped in their emergency stash of tinned beef, marmalade, and chocolate, and Mr. Dorming produced a tin of condensed milk and one of peaches.

“In
syrup
,” Miss Laburnum said, as if it were ambrosia, and insisted on serving it separately in Mrs. Rickett’s sherry glasses.

They put everything else in the center of the table, “just like a picnic,” as Miss Hibbard said.

“This is a far better dinner than we would have had had Mrs. Rickett been here,” Miss Laburnum said. “Goose or no goose.”

“There is no need to call Mrs. Rickett names,” Mr. Dorming said, and they all collapsed in giggles.

After dinner, they listened to the King’s speech on the wireless. “This time we are all in the front line and the danger together,” he said in his stammering voice. “The future will be hard, but our feet are planted on the path of victory.”

I fervently hope so
, Polly thought.

After the speech, they drank the King’s health—in tea, the peach syrup having all been consumed—and then exchanged gifts. Miss Laburnum presented Polly and Eileen each with a homemade lavender sachet, and Miss Hibbard gave them knitted scarves.

“I made them for the soldiers, but after I’d finished them, I was afraid they were perhaps too bright and might endanger them.” They might indeed. They were a bright pumpkin orange, which would stand out like a target to the enemy.

Polly gave Eileen tattered secondhand paperbacks of
Murder at the Vicarage, Three Act Tragedy
, and
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
, which Eileen clutched rapturously to her breast. Eileen and Polly gave Mr. Dorming a packet of tobacco, Miss Hibbard a box of soaps with a picture of the King and Queen on it, and Miss Laburnum a secondhand copy of
The Tempest
, all wrapped in smuggled-out Townsend Brothers Christmas paper.

“Look at the frontispiece of your book,” Polly told Miss Laburnum. “Sir Godfrey signed it to you.”

“ ‘To my fellow player and costumer extraordinaire,’ ” Miss Laburnum read aloud, “ ‘the best of Christmases from your fellow thespian, Sir Godfrey Kingsman,’ ” and burst into tears. “It
is
the best of Christmases,” she said. “I don’t know how I should get through this war without all of you.”

And I don’t know how we’d have got through today—and these months—without you
, Polly thought, grateful that Townsend Brothers would be open on Boxing Day.

But even post-Christmas exchanges and taking down decorations and preparing for the New Year’s sales weren’t enough to take Polly’s mind off Mike, and she and Eileen raced home after work to see if he’d phoned.

He hadn’t, and he didn’t come on the twenty-seventh, or the twenty-eighth.
What if he’s dead
? Polly thought, taking down paper bells.
What if he was killed when they shelled Dover? Or on the day he left for Saltram-on-Sea, and he’s been dead all this time? Like Mr. Dunworthy. And Colin
. Or what if the retrieval team was in Plymouth or Liverpool, both of which had been bombed, and he’d gone there to find them?

There was a photo of Manchester’s ruined railway station in the
Daily Mirror. I should have told him about Manchester before he left
, she thought.
I should have told him about the raids tonight. And about the ones on Sunday night
.

On Sunday morning Eileen said, “I’m to take Theodore to the pantomime this afternoon, but perhaps I’d better not. If Mike comes—”